Category Archives: Bush

UPDATED: Crazy Like A Fox (Bush & Laissez-Faire Capitalism)

Barack Obama, Bush, Capitalism, Conservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda

The following is taken from my new column, “Crazy Like A Fox,” now on WND.COM:

“From Cleveland, Ohio, Obama issued forth this week with renewed vigor. Media plaudits notwithstanding, the president’s words were either inane or simply insane.

An instance of “insane” was Obama’s professed fealty to a “lean and efficient government.” The trillion-dollar deficit man declared: “I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others.”

On the sly side was the president’s confession that he was propelled to run for president because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work … The idea was that if we just had blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everyone else to fend for themselves that America would grow and America would prosper.

Evidently, Oprah’s backing and naked ambition had nothing to do with Barack Obama’s selfless ride to the nation’s rescue; it was the philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism, RIP.

Not for nothing did Ayn Rand call capitalism “the unknown ideal.” This ideal has not been practiced in the US for a very long time; it is a fable that George W. Bush was an unfettered capitalist.” …

Read the complete column, “Crazy Like A Fox,” now on WND.COM.

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATED: Bush & Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Bush gave the economy its first stimulus, or “shot in the arm,” as he called it, in 2002. Like Obama, Bush believed with all his brutal little heart that consumption undergirds the American way of life and that any slack in consumption must be filled by government spending.

Bush gave us the Sarbanes-Oxley Act by which Bush federalized corporate law, and ensured that the SEC’s politically voracious prosecutors were able to pursue any business executive as long as a lay jury could be convinced the unfortunate chap intended to mislead or stiff shareholders. The same “capitalism” saw the detestable Decider pass an enormous prescription drug entitlement program, Medicare Part D, and “No Child Left Behind,” which further federalized education and increased the reach and size of the federal government. Let us not forget the “Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)” of 2008, which showed the way for Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009.

Goose-Stepping Stupid

Bush, Debt, Economy, Labor, Media

My favorite analogy in describing the random, rudderless veering of the political and economic “minds” that bedevil us on the idiot’s lantern is Brownian motion—microscopic particles (the minds in question) in motion, suspended in gas. Peter Schiff likens the flurry to a “flock of pigeons that stays in tight formation, flies feverishly, while refusing to stick to any particular direction for very long”:

“Today’s weak GDP numbers have finally caused the mass of economists to revise downward their formerly optimistic recovery forecasts, with many finally entertaining the possibility of a ‘double dip’ recession. It should be obvious by now that these economists only have the capacity to describe where the economy is moving in the short-term…they have no ability to explain the reasons behind the macro trends or make predictions that go beyond the next data release. But economics is not dart throwing. It can be understood and properly forecast.

The major mental block is that most economists believe that an economy grows as a result of spending. Any policy that encourages spending and discourages savings and investment is considered beneficial. Unfortunately, these policies, which only succeed in growing debt and government, act more as an economic sedative than a stimulant.”

[SNIP]

What do you know, the geese described above have news: it’s all good. TIME magazine wants you to know: Rising unemployment is good.

The Department of Labor reported August job numbers on Friday, and the numbers appeared to be another bad sign for the recovery. The economy lost 54,000 positions in the last full month of summer. Worse, the unemployment rate rose for the first time in four months to 9.6%, from a rate of 9.5% the month before.
So is this jobs report the latest sign that we are headed for a double dip? Probably not. Actually it’s the opposite. Despite what it looks like, today’s jobs numbers are good news for the economy. Mark Zandi, a closely watched economist, had this to say on CNBC when the job report was announced, “It solidifies the idea the economic recovery is going to remain intact.”

For a moment I was worried (actually, I began to worry—and warned of hyperinflation—in 2003, when “W” began the deficit spending in earnest).

The fig leaf of a “jobless recovery” is being used a bit less, but substitutes are coming fast and furious.

Big-Government Gerson

Bush, Conservatism, Constitution, Natural Law, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy

BUSH’S Bastardized Conservatism is also Michael Gerson’s. As a committed ideologue, formerly of the Bush administration, Michael Gerson is a completely consistent, dangerous statist. He imagines that the General Welfare Clause gave our overlords, and the Little Lord Fauntleroys who serve them (the female version: Dana Perino), authority to enact the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, federal civil rights law; direct what Gerson terms “economic growth,” and pursue the national greatness agenda.

To oppose “Alexander Hamilton and a number of Supreme Court rulings” that affirm such overreach is “morally irresponsible and politically disastrous,” says Gerson.

Today, Laura Ingraham referred to Gerson, affectionately, as being part of that wonderful big tent that makes the GOP so inclusive. Yet Gerson, whom BAB celebrity Myron Pauli long ago identified as the most dangerous kind of (crunchy) conservative, holds that the welfare clause, “and Congress will have the power…to provide for the general welfare”—Article I, Section 8—implies that government can pick The People’s pocketbooks for any possible project, even though the general clause is followed by a detailed enumeration of the limited powers so delegated.

Asks historian Thomas E. Woods Jr.: “What point would there be in specifically listing the federal government’s powers if the general welfare clause had already provided the government with an essentially boundless authority to enact whatever it thought would contribute to people’s well-being?” Woods evokes no less an authority than the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison: “Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.”

You’d think Madison knew one or two things more than Michael about this document.

I once wrote that “sometimes the law of the State coincides with the natural law. More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.” When Gerson and company (you’ll find that Rove, Perino, and the rest, currently masquerading as conservatives, are no different) reject “a consistent constitutionalism,” namely a critique of the current promiscuous applications of the 14th, the “General Welfare” clause, and so on, and embrace the concept of the Constitution as a “living, breathing” document—they rely for their case on layers of that rubble.

Having shoveled the muck of lawmaking aside, constitutionalists base their case on the natural justice and the founders’ original intent.

Gerson is the enemy of liberty. But even more so, because so deceptive, are the Ingrahams of the world. Ms. Ingraham wanted to know how Gerson could bad mouth the tea part, yet still call himself a Bush conservative. Ms. Ingraham has set up a dichotomy where there is only congruity and consistency on the part of Gerson: now that is dangerous.

UPDATED: Obama And Bush: Partners In Government Giganticism

Barack Obama, Bush, Economy, Fascism, Foreign Policy, Government, IMMIGRATION, Justice, Law, Political Economy, Regulation, Republicans, States' Rights

The following is from “Obama And Bush: Partners In Government Giganticism,” now on WND.Com:

“Sean Hannity wants to know how Arlen Specter could go from ‘supporting George Bush, in some years 80-90 percent of the time, to supporting Barack Obama 96 percent of the time, considering the two men’s principles – their core values, their belief system – are in diametrical opposition.’

They are? How so? …

Bush pursued wars that have contributed to the bankrupting of this country and the death of thousands of innocents. Obama has sustained the same momentum in those far-flung occupied lands. The gabbers on television who coo and kvetch nostalgic about Bush’s virtues should console themselves thus: Yes, The Decider was the originator; Obama nothing but a second-hander. But give Barack a break. The 44th president may not be as blessed with killer core values as the 43rd. But he’s doing his best. Has he not expanded the one theatre (Afghanistan) to compensate for drawing down in the other (Iraq)? …

Moocher Obama has pulled ahead of Looter Bush with respect to deficits and debt. The Bush budget for 2009 was a trivial $3 trillion, while Obama’s 2010 budget was a respectable $3.5 trillion. According to “Bankrupting America,” “Bush doubled the debt to almost $6 trillion and Obama’s plans would leave us with an IOU of an additional $8.5 trillion by 2020.”

C’mon. Six trillion; 8 trillion: the act of racking up such financial liabilities exists on a continuum of criminality ? it does not constitute a difference in kind (or in “core values”).” …

Barack’s tidal wave of regulation is hard to beat … But a second-best to BHO The Regulator is not to be sneezed at. The Decider is still in the running for America’s Best Enforcer (a very bad thing indeed). …”

The complete column is “Obama And Bush: Partners In Government Giganticism.

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATE (Aug. 6): DICK’S DOCTOR. I mentioned Dick Cheney in the column:

“Barack’s tidal wave of regulation is hard to beat – in particular the financial-reform bill, which goes beyond Dick Cheney’s wildest dreams in increasing the overweening powers of the executive branch. (Barack will be able to seize a firm he designates as systemically risky.)”

Even Dick’s doctor is a mini-dictator. My ears perked up. I heard someone talk about federal law preempting state law. No, this was not a discussion of Arizona’s SB 1070. There was more muttering about compelling drug stores, at the pains of punishment (for that is what a new law means) to carry defibrillators. I was, in fact, listening to a snippet from an interview cardiac surgeon to Mr. Cheney was giving to Liz, daughter to the dictator. In case Dick dropped while shopping in their aisles, the good doctor wanted the feds to compel certain outlets (not sure which) to carry the life-saving defibrillator.

Liz nodded.