Forum: Is America In Decline? Why Or Why Not?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the The Watchers Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question: Is America In Decline? Why Or Why Not?

Wolf Howling: It is beyond question that our nation is in decline. We stand mired in historic levels of debt, yet massive deficit spending by Congress continues unabated. Regulations are being pumped out by unelected bureaucrats at record pace, working fundamental changes to our nation that could never pass Congress. Yet Congress sits by and the odd Congress critter only occasionally complains in speeches. Medicare and Social Security threaten to bankrupt our nation in the foreseeable future unless reformed, yet Congress does not just nothing, but manages to compound the problems with Obamacare. We have a tyrannical President who unconstitutionally threatens our country’s make up by unilaterally legislating the legalization of millions of illegal aliens, while an utterly supine Congress with the sole Constitutional authority to legislate is allowing this to happen. It appears that elections for either party no longer matter to change our national trajectory. Our Supreme Court today sits as a sort of unelected Politburo deciding that the Constitution means whatever five of them want it to mean based on their whim of the day. What was supposed to be the least dangerous of our co-equal branches of government is now arguably the most dangerous. The left is using our military as a laboratory for insane social experiments, the worst being to allow women into front line combat units, something that can only be accomplished in any number by lowering the physical standards. And that does not even begin to consider the impact on unit cohesion. Space exploration as well as virtually everything to do with space is without doubt of incredible importance to our future. Moreover, it is vital that we continue to develop space defense technology to protect our many satellites upon which modern life is dependent. Space technology is an area where we have still a distinct advantage, yet Obama has killed our nation’s space program. Lastly, our national security posture hasn’t been this bad since the 1930’s.

I think it would be fair to say we are not merely in decline, but rapidly approaching key tests during our descent that will determine our future. It is hard to say which will be the first key test, whether it will come in the form of severe economic stress as the interest rates rise on our outrageous national debt, or whether it will come in the choking of our economy by ever more far reaching regulations by the EPA and FCC, or whether it will come from foreign countries energized by our growing weakness. The only sure lesson of history is that the tests will come.

Our nation has proven resilient in the past, but in the past, we’ve been much better positioned to respond to challenges. In the past hundred years, we’ve faced the Depression and come through. But that was at a time when our massive excess industrial capacity sat untapped and we started from a point with no major deficits. We faced WWII and came through. But that was at a time when the other allied nations had strong militaries of their own, not the empty shells that they now have. We faced down the Soviet Union, but that was at a time when our military was at the pinnacle of its strength, not now when Obama has starved our military for funding, going so far as to change our national security posture from being able to fight two simultaneous wars to one. That was a change not based on any threat assessment, but rather a desire to divert the savings to his various welfare programs. And he has likewise overseen the devolution of our nuclear capacity — something that has maintained the peace in Europe for 75 years — because of his insane, utopian vision of a world without nuclear weapons. Somebody, please inform the North Koreans, the Iranians, and the other Middle Eastern nations now initiating their own nuclear weapons programs.

It is hard for me to believe that America will retain a dominant position in the world beyond another decade or so. Perhaps this would not matter if America was intrinsically evil as the left seems to think, or those who would replace us would be benign. The reality is that no nation is strong enough to take our place at the moment, and those who will vie for influence do not have a history of rule by law or democracy. Nor do I believe there is any leader we could elect in 2016 that could restore the Constitutional systems that have allowed us to flourish for much of the past two centuries.

That said, perhaps in response to the key tests and trials foreseeable on our national horizon, things might change. My pessimism is moderated by the reality that history has few straight lines, and great nations have rarely gone gentle into that good night. But my pessimism is made worse by the knowledge that, with key tests and trials come great costs in gold and in blood. The question is not whether America is in decline, but how low we must fall before we even begin to recover, and at what cost?

Bookworm Room Guest blogger Wolf Howling was kind enough to give me a preview of his response to this week’s forum question. I don’t want to repeat what he said; I will just add to it:

I agree with him. Indeed, it’s part of why, even though my real-world work has slackened off, I’ve still been too demoralized to blog. The one thing I’d add to Wolf Howling’s list of reasons why we are not positioned to withstand tests as we once were is that we are not the same people we once were. Our immigrants once came for the freedom to seek wealth. Our immigrants now come for handouts that they then wire to the tyrannies back home. Our young people once thought that we brought freedom to the world. After fifty years of academic indoctrination, our young people now believe that we are evil.

It’s that last point that explains why I’m so deeply pessimistic. When a nation’s young people think that they and their country are unworthy, the ink is on the suicide pact. And when they’ve also been trained to think of themselves as fragile victims, you can bet that the first drop of blood spilled will seal that pact.

Oh, and of course there’s president Obama. First, read Michael Goodwin’s article about Obama, what he’s done to America and her allies, and what his goals are for Israel. Once you’ve read that article, then proceed to my last paragraph, immediately below:

Those who think Obama is a bad, incompetent president are completely wrong. He has proven himself to be incredibly smart and amazingly competent. We just misunderstood his goals.

The Right Planet: The first thing that comes to my mind: what is meant by “decline?” If we’re talking economically, I would have to say, how can anyone come to the conclusion we are not in a serious and precipitous decline? It is projected by the end of Barack Obama’s second term the national debt will have climbed to around $20 trillion. This is an utterly astonishing number! This represents a literal doubling of the national debt, which was around $10 trillion when he took office–more federal spending than all previous presidents combined. And, as far as I can see, the president and his ardent supporters could care less. Why? Such a crushing debt will fall on future generations, regardless of their political affiliations. I find that utterly unconscionable.

If I look at the current state of our military, which has been engaged in continuous combat operations for years, I see a purge of top-brass, officers and senior NCOs. Our Navy is at pre-WWI levels. The US Army has been slashed back to a mere 60,000 troops. And yet there are very serious threats looming on the horizon–such as ISIS, and Russia and China rattling their sabres. As Trevor Loudon, author of the book Barack Obama and the Enemies Within, has pointed out on numerous occasions our “allies are freaking out.” They wonder what has happened to America, and whether or not the United States will be in their corner should things on the world stage take an ugly turn.

And then there’s the culture. Instead of a “post-racial” America, which Barack Obama promised to bring about if he were elected president, I see a disturbing increase in racial animus, often times exacerbated by the president and the DOJ. Instead of attempting to deescalate tensions, more gas is poured on the proverbial fire. Why? To whose benefit? I also see a very disturbing trend in education–a literal dumbing down. I was unable to come to any other conclusion after having spent several months researching the Common Core curriculum. Learning is now being replaced with training. No longer is the primary function of public education to assist students to become independent thinkers, but rather compliant “workers” taught to dutifully follow along in the footsteps of the collective. Emotion trumps logic now. The goal is to replace learning with changing attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors. C.S. Lewis once said (paraphrase), when education is supplanted by training, civilization dies. Unfortunately, I could probably write a book on the topic of America’s “decline.” But I never give up on all of the American people. I know too many Americans who are doing everything they can to push back against the decline. I should also state that I don’t pin all blame on Barack Obama. These disturbing patterns and trends go way back.

Sadly, I believe the decline is purposeful–a “managed decline” fostered and encouraged by nefarious forces. Once again, I must ask, to whose benefit?

Cui bono?

Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason : If you do not believe America is in decline, you must be one of the millions of illegal immigrants receiving free housing, clothes, schooling for your children, and medical care thanks to the benevolence of President Barack Hussein Obama. You know to whom I am referring… Those who left the hell hole of whatever failed socialist or communist country of their birth because their government could no longer provide even the most meager items needed to survive. They find the promise of abundance in America to be worth every sacrifice, knowing just being able to cross our border undetected is all they need to do to reap benefits truly needy American citizens can only dream about.

Yes, America is in decline. There is going to have to be a massive shift in the American population and their understanding of what is really going on if we are to have any hope of reversing the fundamental transformation of America. There has been ongoing and relentless indoctrination of our youth into believing all of the evils of the world are a result of the policies and actions of America. Education, particularly American History, has been perverted to fixate on the negative events as if isolated from the rest of the world and human civilization.

When I returned to college, a professor in one of my classes, The Cold War and After, explained that what is holding us back is nationalism. A proud self-proclaimed socialist, the class was taught by her along with a visiting professor from Moscow University.

It was interesting to hear them proclaim that American nationalism was standing in the way of achieving a global communist government. Historically, nationalism and nationalist propaganda were used to instill pride of one’s nationality and country, a “fatherland” if you will, in order to expand a country’s power. Today however, nationalism of any kind presents a challenge to those intent on establishing global governance. One nation cannot be favored over another and cultural, religious, and ethnically diverse populations must all learn to coexist in peace and harmony. Moral ambivalence is key to achieving this utopia.

The progressive left, along with a complicit media, engage in public humiliation and vilification of those who understand the exceptionalism of America and our Constitution. This is why the Tea Party is attacked. They are standing in the way of those intent on destroying the one truly free Republic in the world, the “last best hope of man on earth,” as President Reagan so eloquently affirmed. Public humiliation is a useful tool in the early stages of methodically planned coercion and destruction. It worked very well for Hitler until his power was established, at which point no one dare speak out against him under threat of imprisonment or death.

Americans who truly value saving our country from destruction must heed the admonition of Roman philosopher, politician, and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero: “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

Americans must realize we have traitors and enemies residing in the highest levels of government undermining the very foundation of our republic if we are to have any hope of saving our country.

The Glittering Eye: I think the answer to the question depends somewhat on the context. If military power is meant, the answer is obviously that we are not in decline. Not only does the United States have the greatest ability to project force of any country on the planet, our military is the most tested and experienced. There is no other country in the world that can even match our military power in any real way.

I believe that those who think that our military power is in decline want to accomplish chores that can’t be achieved with military power. Our military can obliterate any enemy. It can’t ensure that we have no enemies.

If what is meant is more along the lines of is the United States changing in the right ways, on the right track, I’m afraid the answer is that it isn’t but that depends on the track you think we should be on. I would much rather see a confident, optimistic United States in which most people believe their lives will be better than those of their parents but that doesn’t seem to be how most of us feel.

Ask Marion: America is absolutely in decline! And we are definite a long way from being the country our Founding Fathers had envisioned and left us the tools to build.

In 2012 The Economic Collapse pointed to 34 signs that America is in decline… most of which have worsened since then!

#1 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001. That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011. That is not just a decline – that is a freefall. Just check out the chart in this article.

#2 According to The Economist, the United States was the best place in the world to be born into back in 1988. Today, the United States is only tied for 16th place.

#3 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#4 According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders, half of them plan to reduce capital expenditures in coming months.

#5 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#6 America once had the greatest manufacturing cities on the face of the earth. Now many of our formerly great manufacturing cities have degenerated into festering hellholes. For example, the city of Detroit is on the verge of financial collapse, and one state lawmaker is now saying that “dissolving Detroit” should be looked at as an option.

#7 In 2007, the unemployment rate for the 20 to 29 age bracket was about 6.5 percent. Today, the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.

#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#9 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#10 Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#11 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#12 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 28 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#13 Incredibly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001. During 2010, manufacturing facilities were shutting down at the rate of 23 per day. How can anyone say that “things are getting better” when our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted?

#14 Back in early 2005, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was less than 2 dollars a gallon. During 2012, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has been $3.63.

#15 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#16 As I have written about previously, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971 according to the Pew Research Center. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are “middle income”.

#17 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#18 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children living in the United States is about 22 percent.

#19 Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.

#20 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#21 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#22 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#23 According to one survey, 29 percent of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are still living with their parents.

#24 Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple. Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.

#25 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government. Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.

#26 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.

#27 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 47.1 million Americans are on food stamps.

#28 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#29 According to one calculation the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#30 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#31 In 2001, the U.S. national debt was less than 6 trillion dollars. Today, it is over 16 trillion dollars and it is increasing by more than 100 million dollars every single hour.

#32 The U.S. national debt in 2012 more than 23 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president… and it keeps growing

#33 According to a PBS report in 2012, U.S. households that make $13,000 or less per year spend 9 percent of their incomes on lottery tickets. Could that possibly be accurate? Are people really that foolish?

#34 As the U.S. economy has declined, the American people have been downing more antidepressants and other prescription drugs than ever before. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.

Read or listen to almost every economic expert and they warn America is virtually moments from falling over the edge… They advise investing overseas; buying gold and silver; storing food, water, and ammunition; taking off the blinders and getting involved; and praying!

#35 America has now become a laughing stock around the world and considered weak.

#36 In 2013 a health study report showed the U.S. is:

· The highest rate of death by violence, by a stunning margin

· The highest rate of death by car accident, also dramatically so

· The highest chance that a child will die before age 5

· The second-highest rate of death by coronary heart disease

· The second-highest rate of death by lung disease

· The highest teen pregnancy rate

· The highest rate of women dying due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth

And this will certainly not get better under ObamaCare in the Nanny State we now live in!!

Well, there you have it!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

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God Rest Ye Merry Merchants – Christmas: An American Holiday and Tradition to Love and Preserve – WoC 2013

Christmas: An American Holiday to Love and Preserve…

The War on Christmas verses the Spirit of Christmas Series by Marion Algier - AskMarion – 4

Once upon a time not all that long ago – in fact, anyone over 50 will easily remember it – the word “Christmas” was everywhere during the month of December. Everywhere you looked – in stores, in town squares, in cities, in offices, and, of course, in private homes — there were Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, Christmas cards, Christmas gifts, Christmas parties, and Christmas vacations. Even Jews got into the act… Hanukkah Bushes, Christmas lights in blue and white and an embracement of all the festivities. Just ask Ben Stein.

Christmas was arguably the most beloved of American holidays. Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving were important too; but Christmas was something more. It gave rise to a whole “Christmas season” during which people got into the “Christmas spirit.” The first words of a popular song, recorded by Johnny Mathis as a platinum hit, summed it up perfectly: “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas / Everywhere you go…”

Then something strange began to happen. The very thing that made the “season” special started to disappear from the public arena. Stores no longer held “Christmas sales.” Businesses, and soon after, individuals, ceased to hold “Christmas parties.” And on and on. “Christmas” became a dirty word, and was replaced by “holiday.” The War on Christmas had begun.

We’ve grown so accustomed to the change that we’ve lost sight of just how significant it is. “Christmas” is loaded with meaning and rich in spirit. It imparts rich feelings unlike anything else. “Holiday,” by contrast, is a bland word that can signify anything from Independence Day to Labor Day to “Sweetest Day.” At most, it means a day that you might get off from work if you’re lucky. And nothing else. Saying “holiday” and meaning Christmas is like saying “a long dead politician” (Kindle) and meaning Abraham Lincoln (Kindle). Technically, it’s not wrong. But the whole significance is lost.

Of course, this didn’t happen by accident. Ask most people how it happened, and they’ll just shrug and say, “political correctness.” And in fact, “PC” is a cruel master, uncaring about what it destroys, and swift to punish those who violate it. So most choose to bow and submit.

But not here. We are part of the The Battle for Christmas. We hope to reclaim the richness and beauty of Christmas. But it’s more. Christmas is a treasure and and part of our heritage that we all should be actively working to preserve our traditional American culture in any and all forms. Because that culture is worth keeping. It’s part of what holds us together and makes us American… including those of us who are not Christians.

So let’s fight back in the war on Christmas. And to all who feel the same we do… happy holidays and Merry Christmas!: Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday (Kindle).

God Rest Ye Merry Merchants

“The Celebration of Christmas in America is not Just a Christian Holiday, but a Celebration of our National Past and Our Collective Wishes and Psyche as a Nation!”

In his mawkish 1942 hit "White Christmas," Bing Crosby yearned for a holiday "just like the one I used to know." The extraordinary popularity of Crosby’s nostalgic longing (the all-time top-selling single until it was eclipsed by "Candle in the Wind 1997," Elton John’s mawkish tribute to Princess Diana) suggests the holiday’s tremendous power to revive memories–perhaps only imaginary, idealized memories–of childhood and Christmases past. According to Karal Ann Marling, "Christmas is the universal memory" for contemporary Americans (whether they’re Christian or not), an event in which "virtually everybody has played a part." By telling the story of Americans’ celebration of Christmas, she promises to uncover a surprisingly neglected piece of not only our national past, but our collective wishes and psyche.

Marling, a prolific and inventive cultural historian at the University of Minnesota who has written books on topics ranging from George Washington (George Washington Slept Here: Colonial Revivals and American Culture, 1876-1986) and Norman Rockwell to Disneyland (Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance) and Graceland (Graceland: Going Home with Elvis) and As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s, now turns her attention to the history of America’s most lavishly celebrated holiday. Marling has a keen eye for offbeat topics, arresting detail and original interpretations, and refuses "to plug the contents of the national Christmas stocking into the socket of orthodox historical discourse" (certainly that sounds unadvisable). She insists instead that her goal is to unwrap the hidden meaning of quotidian, but telling objects and practices to reveal the holiday’s deeper significance.

Myriad "scraps of Christmas detritus"–and Christmas generates loads of detritus–supply Marling with ample material: Shortly after Halloween, America’s shopping malls and stores are festooned with red and green and stocked from floor to ceiling with Christmas gifts. In the days after Christmas, discarded trees, still dangling tinsel, lie amid trash bags stuffed with discarded wrapping paper and packaging on curbs across the nation. Somewhere in between the shopping bags and the trash bags, millions of Americans attend their annual office party, endure children’s pageants, spend billions of dollars buying presents, cook traditional feasts, and gather with family and friends to exchange gifts and celebrate the nation’s most extravagant holiday. Wrapping paper, lights, ornaments, store window displays, trees, cards, Santas and cookies fill the thematic chapters of Merry Christmas! The history of Christmas, as Marling observes promisingly, is in the details.

Americans commonly assume that Christmas endured for centuries as a solemn religious holiday, before being corrupted by consumer capitalism. As early as the 1870s, critics of Christmas were engaging in "breast-beating over soulless American materialism." In 1949, opponents of the holiday’s excess launched a crusade to "restore" its "original" character. Billboards, posters and bumper stickers urging Americans to "Put Christ Back into Christmas" were a common sight during the holiday season throughout the 1950s. Like many tales of decline, this Christmas story proves a fable. In colonial America, Christmas was either not celebrated at all (it was actually illegal to celebrate the holiday in many Puritan communities), or an occasion for boisterous, drunken revelry.

In fact nearly all of Americans’ Christmas rituals and icons are 19th-century inventions, created to venerate home and family, not the birth of Jesus. Christmas trees, artfully bedecked with ornaments, became the focal point of Americans’ Christmas celebrations in the 1850s. Santa Claus became an icon in the 1860s and 1870s, springing from the pen of cartoonist Thomas Nast. Gift-giving became commonplace in the 1870s and 1880s, as more Americans adopted the practice of purchasing inexpensive, factory-made trinkets–"gewgaws" and "gimcracks"–and wrapping the presents to produce surprise. By century’s end, Christmas had become a legal holiday in every state, and the year’s most eagerly anticipated holiday for millions. In the 1920s, advertisers transformed Santa into a jovial salesman, whose girth and cheerfulness embodied consumer abundance: According to Marling, St. Nick, not that gangly, gaunt Uncle Sam, best personifies America.

As Marling observes, Americans’ celebration of Christmas grew along with material abundance and consumer culture, and the department store window, not the Nativity scene, has always furnished the holiday’s central icon. "Christmas," she writes, "is all about stores and shopping." Conversely, stores and shopping rely heavily on Christmas. Last year, Americans spent a record $184 billion during the Christmas shopping season (officially, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas), and many retailers depend on Christmas sales for one quarter of their annual revenue.

But Marling is most interesting when she discusses the holiday’s paradoxes, which mingle materialism and generosity. Retailers and advertisers deliberately have exploited holidays to encourage consumption, but they have by no means stripped these "holy days" of their deeper meaning altogether. Marling notes that our most materialistic holiday is also ironically "the primary occasion for considering the harsh realities of the world, and those who have no trees and puddings."

As a result, charitable giving to the poor has accompanied the holiday since the 19th century. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Kindle), which has ranked among Americans’ most beloved Christmas stories since its publication in 1843, offers a largely secular plea on behalf of the less fortunate. Funding charity dinners for the poor at Christmas time became an annual ritual of penance for the well-to-do in American cities in the late 19th century. Wealthy benefactors congratulated themselves for bestowing feasts and presents on their less fortunate neighbors, but could not have failed to recognize the troubling gulf, let alone the connection, between their abundance and others’ privation. Christmas’ mixture of materialism and charity remains paradoxical to our own day: Each December, as it has since 1912, the New York Times juxtaposes full-page advertisements for luxury gifts with small-font reminders urging readers to "Remember the Neediest."

If Christmas provides a "universal memory" for Americans, it is in large part because advertising and celebrating the holiday are so ubiquitous; even Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, railing against the evils on modern technology in his Montana cabin, took time to write Christmas cards to his neighbors each December. Christmas is so omnipresent that many nonbelievers celebrate the holiday, and even members of other faiths cannot altogether ignore it, try as they might. Stephen Nissenbaum, for example, prefaces his own history of the holiday, The Battle for Christmas (Kindle), with a touching reminiscence of his boyhood memories of Christmas as an outsider growing up in an Orthodox Jewish household.

But surely different groups of Americans have distinct recollections of the holiday. Protestants and Catholics, rich and poor, white, Asian, black and Latino–all have celebrated on December 25, but they have not celebrated alike. Marling’s attempt to delineate the diversity of Christmas traditions, a grab-bag chapter on "Somebody Else’s Christmas," lumps together Christmas in warm climes, white Northerners’ sentimental but patronizing fascination with black Southerners’ humble Christmas celebrations in the 19th century, immigrants’ Christmas traditions, even Kwanzaa. A more systematic discussion would fulfill Marling’s ambition of recasting our understanding of the holiday. And yet, though Merry Christmas! does not completely transform our view of the Christmas we "used to know," it does detail the little gestures and objects that supply the stuff of which Christmases are made.

Chris Rasmussen teaches American history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. During this holiday season, he urges Americans of all faiths to "Put the Christ Back into Christmas."It is part of American heritage and tradition! (Originally Posted in December 2009)

By Karal Ann Marling – Author of Merry Christmas! : Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday (Kindle)

On Glenn Beck’s 2010 Post-Thanksgiving Review Program Rabbi Daniel Lapin (who founded the American Alliance of Christians and Jews) said: Although I am Jewish and do not celebrate Christmas I respect the traditions and the holiday and like the holiday for two good reasons: It helps the economy and it makes people better… (95% of the money spent at Christmastime is for others… rather than for ourselves).

Lapin has spoken against the secularization of Christmas, saying that "We see obsequious regard for faiths like Judaism and even Islam, while Christianity is treated with contempt". He is opposed to replacing the "Merry Christmas" greeting with "Happy Holidays", saying instead "Let us all go out of our way to wish our many wonderful Christian friends a very merry Christmas… Nationwide, Christmas Nativity Scenes are banned from city halls and shopping malls but Chanukah/Hannukah menorahs are permitted.  One of the latest incidents: School Administrators Reportedly Instruct Teachers to Remove Christmas Cards From Hallways.

Merry Christmas!: Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday (Kindle)

A great book on Losing Our Religion(Kindle) by atheist S. E. Cupp, who says she is he perfect person for this book because she has no dog in the hunt, takes on the all too often avoided question and discussion of religion in America…

The Battle for Christmas (Kindle)

Related:

Where Does the War on Christmas Come From? A Worthwhile Read – WoC 2013

The War on Christmas verses the Spirit of Christmas Series 2013 at AskMarion – WoC 2013

ANOTHER FAILED IDEA: Woman gets laughed at after bringing up Obamacare at Thanksgiving…

The Twelve Days of ObamaCare

Disney scores big with biblical values

Advent – The Season of Anticipation and Hope – WoC 2013

The Thanksgiving Illusion

Obama Thanksgiving and Christmas Disgrace

Keeping Pets Safe for the Holidays: The “Not So Safe” or No-No Pet Food List

Sarah Palin on Politics and Religion • 11/10/13 With Susan Page

The Cross – Billy Graham’s Message To America

Best Holiday Movie Classics – A Merry Christmas From Hollywood

Two great new books for the holidays: ‘Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas’ (Kindle) and The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes & Favorite Traditions (Kindle)

Reality

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House Republicans  -  See our plan for jobs and economic growth: http://jobs.GOP.gov

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IRS apologizes for targeting tea party groups

FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2012 file photo, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Douglas Shulman testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the House Oversight Committee. The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Friday, May, 10, 2013. Carney responded on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, calling on top-to-bottom review of the Obama administration after the IRS admitted that it had targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

By: STEPHEN OHLEMACHER (AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

The agency — led at the time by a Bush administration appointee — blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware. But that wasn't good enough for Republicans in Congress, who are conducting several investigations and asked for more.

"I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not under way at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declared it was indeed inappropriate for the IRS to target tea party groups. But he brushed aside questions about whether the White House itself would investigate.

Instead, Carney said the administration expects a thorough investigation by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration. The inspector general has been looking into the issue since last summer, and his report is expected to come out next week, the IG's office said Friday.

Carney said he did not know when the White House first learned that tea party groups were being targeted.

Lerner acknowledged it was wrong for the agency to target groups based on political affiliation.

"That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. The statement did not specify when officials found out.

About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.

The IRS is an independent agency within the Treasury Department that enforces the nation's tax laws. Revelations that the agency was targeting political groups because they were affiliated with a movement that is critical of President Barack Obama could become a new headache for the White House.

"The admission by the Obama administration that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political opponents echoes some of the most shameful abuses of government power in 20th century American history," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Many conservative groups complained during the campaign that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups have made available, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on politics.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

The IRS said senior leaders were not aware that specific groups were being targeted at the time of the hearing.

"While we acknowledged centralization of these applications last year, the IRS did not acknowledge the use of names as part of the process earlier because the details were not initially known to senior leadership and (the inspector general) has been reviewing the situation," the IRS said in a statement. "Their work is now far enough along that it was appropriate to address the issue when it came up during (Friday's) tax conference."

Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a successor. The agency is now being run by acting Commissioner Steven Miller.

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, requested a trove of documents from the IRS on Friday, including all communications containing the words "tea party" and "patriot."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said Friday he will hold a hearing on the matter has not yet set a date.

"The IRS absolutely must be non-partisan in its enforcement of our tax laws," Camp said. "We will hold the IRS accountable for its actions."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have also promised investigations.

Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley said the department will support the inspector general's investigation.

"The Treasury Department expects all individuals and organizations to be treated fairly by the IRS. Anything less is inappropriate and unacceptable."

There has been a surge of politically active groups claiming tax-exempt status in recent elections — conservative and liberal. Among the highest profile are Republican Karl Rove's group, Crossroads GPS, and the liberal Moveon.org.

These groups claim tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code, which is for social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities but their primary activity must be social welfare.

That determination is up to the IRS.

Lerner said the number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.

Lerner said this was done to develop expertise among staffers and consistency in their reviews. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity.

As part of this process, agents in Cincinnati came up with a list of things to look for in an application. As part of the list, they included the words, "tea party" and "patriot," Lerner said.

"It's the line people that did it without talking to managers," Lerner told The AP. "They're IRS workers, they're revenue agents."

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

The IRS statement said that once applications were chosen for review, they all "received the same, even-handed treatment."

Lerner said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.

"Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale," the IRS said in a statement. "We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system."

"I don't think there's any question we were unfairly targeted," said Tom Zawistowski, who until recently was president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, an alliance of tea party groups in the state.

Zawistowski's group was among many conservative organizations that battled the IRS over what they saw as discriminatory treatment. The group first applied for nonprofit status in June 2009, and it was finally granted on Dec. 7, 2012, he said — one month after Election Day.

"It is suspicious that the activity of these 'low-level workers' was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred," said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, which describes itself as the nation's largest tea party organization. "President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grass-roots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again."

___

Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Steve Peoples in Boston contributed to this report. – h/t to MJ

Technorati Tags: IRS,watch the other hand,Big Brother,Big Brother tactics,White House,Jay Carney,AP,harassment,Election 2012,Obamaland,tea party,patriot,revenue workers,IRS workers,grassroots

Insider: Obama Plans to 'Kill' U.S. Dollar

Video:  Insider: Obama Plans to 'Kill' U.S. Dollar

Related:

ALERT: YOUR BANK DEPOSITORS RIGHTS HAVE BEEN STOLEN AWAY LEGALLY BY A SIMPLE WORD CHANGE  -  Please check this out and get it public. People need to know, their money is no longer safe in any way shape or form! -  http://www.fdic.gov/about/srac/2012/gsifi.pdf

Video:  Santelli to Liesman: 'Let's Put the Sickle on It!'

AMERICA’S FUTURE… WHERE DO WE GO NOW… HOW TO WIN THE BATTLE… AND WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING

The goal is a world currency by 2018. The currency probably will be called "The Phoenix"

Thanks, World Reserve Currency, But No Thanks: Australia And China To Enable Direct Currency Convertibility – Without US Dollar intermediation

Video: New World Order Gun Grabbing Hypocrites

George Soros: Japanese Policy Dangerous, Yen Could Collapse 

George Soros was on CNBC tonight for a rare interview. George Soros mostly spoke about Japan and the BOJ’s new aggressive pro inflation policy. The interview took place at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in Hong Kong. He thinks Japan should have acted long ago to fight deflation while Europe is now making many of the mistakes Japan made 20-25 years ago. Some key points:

What Japan is doing is a sensation. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe broke some of the rules of monetary policy. its a very daring undertaking

European austerity program is actually leading the eurozone into exactly same policy Japan is now trying to escape after 25 years

George Soros noted that the total amount of quantitative easing  underway in the Japan is the same as America. However, Japan is only one third the size of the USA. Therefore, the QE in Japan is three times as large as the Fed’s QE in the US.

What Japan is doing is actually quite dangerous…They may not be able to stop it. “If the Japanese yen starts to fall in value and the people of Japan lose faith and don’t want to invest their money in the Yen, they may put their money abroad, which could cause the Yen’s fall to become an avalanche.

When asked about reports that Soros has made a billion by shorting the Japanese Yen, Soros responded ”I think the Bank of Japan is eager to have people do that.”

George Soros says Myanmar is on the right track. It’s a good investment and they need it.

Regarding China, Soros thinks the country probably has the most dynamic market in the world. However, the country has to change it’s growth model, deflate its property bubble.

Related Reading:

Fabian Socialist H. G. Wells wrote the book The New World Order (1939)

New World Order: The Rise of Techno-Feudalism

The Road To Socialism and The New World Order

Technorati Tags: U.S. Dollar,dollar,convertability,World Reserve Currencny,manipulation of the public,world currency,global currency,NWO,New Economic World Order,the plan,banksters,Jeb Bush,smoke and mirrors,George Soros,International bankers,global elites,wake-up America,stand-up America,China,Austrialia,ruling elite,sheeple. destroying America,fundamental transformation of America,economic collapse,you be the judge,crisis,chaos.

Sequestration Sacrifices Are Obviously Only For Us and Our Kids

Amazing how there are funds for Sasha and Malia to head to Idaho, the Bahamas (and Mexico  last year) with Secret Service in tow for Spring Break, but no funds for the rest of America’s kids to visit the White House (the People’s House) or have an Easter Egg Roll on the White House Lawn… finally reinstated after an uproar from the public; Obama even played the Jesus card in his Easter message…  no doubt hoping to appease “We the Sheeple” and to take the focus off the first daughters’ trip(s)?

Idaho Station Removes First Daughters Ski Trip Report on White House Request

Breitbart.com: A local news affiliate in Idaho reported that the first daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, are on a Spring Break ski trip in Sun Valley, Idaho. The story quickly spread across the Internet when picked up by the highly trafficked Drudge Report website.

But hours later, the story disappeared from the KMVT website without an update or correction.

Video:  Obama Daughters Hit Slopes

In March of last year, the White House requested media outlets to remove accurate reports that Malia Obama was on a trip in Mexico with over two dozen Secret Service agents.

Earlier this week, Breitbart News broke the story that the Obama daughters spent part of Spring Break at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

***

UPDATE: The White House has confirmed the report was removed on their request. From Kristina Schake, Communications Director to the First Lady:

From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest. We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.

Earlier this week, Breitbart News broke the news that the First Daughters were on a spring break trip in the Bahamas, with Secret Service protection in tow, despite staff shortages that the White House cited in closing tours to the public.

The cross-continental trip for the First Daughters represents an epic tour. The KMTV news report cited photo evidence that the First Daughters were on the ski slopes, but noted that it was "unclear" whether First Lady Michelle Obama had accompanied them.

Separately, Breitbart News received a tip Friday morning from a parent whose daughter encountered the First Daughters in Sun Valley: "My daughter found herself in the middle of the entourage as she exited a local shop."

Meanwhile, the White House remains closed to thousands of students traveling to Washington, D.C. over Spring Break.

President Obama canceled the public, self-guided tours in a bid to trim $2 million from the Secret Service budget. The full cost of the First Daughters' 2013 spring break travel and necessary security detail are unknown at this time. Presumably, the Secret Service costs could have covered at least a few weeks of public White House tours.

Most people, if they have a spring break vacation, have to choose between the beach or the slopes. The Obamas, however, are not most people.

Let us remember that the Feds, per the Obama administration, want the public to feel the pain of Sequestration to make the Republicans look bad.

It is, apparently, good to be King.

*Beware people… this will be our world, the have and have-nots, if we don’t snap out of our daze quickly. Just like in most of the rest of the world, we the masses, the sheeple, the lowly taxpayers will not be taking the trips… it will be the ruling elite, and most of the time, you won’t even get to see the pictures!

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The ObamaCare Document Stack Photo: Obamacare’s Regulations in One Giant Stack - 20,000 Pages Already

Any Question as to why we need to support the Paul Ryan Plan and Repeal or Defund ObamaCare?

Senator Mitch McConnell tweeted: #ObamaCare regulations - 828 pages in one day. Overall, there are nearly 20,000 pages – with many more to come… along with the photo of the document stack.

Yes, ObamaCare regulators added more than 800 -pages to an ever-growing document that will govern your healthcare. The bureaucrats’ work product now prints out to 20,000 pages — nearly eight times the length of the infamous original bill:

HotAir: That tower is already taller than Kobe Bryant, and much of the law hasn’t even gone into effect yet. According to the Government Accountability Office, Obamacare is projected to add $6.2 trillion to the nation’s long-term deficits, despite presidential assurances that it wouldn’t add a “single dime” to our red ink:

“This legislation is fully paid for, and will not add one single dime to our deficit.”

We’re also seeing more evidence that the healthcare law is killing jobs, as predicted by the Congressional Budget Office and Obamacare opponents alike:

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released an edition of its so-called “beige book,” that said the 2010 healthcare law is being cited as a reason for layoffs and a slowdown in hiring. ”Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff,” said the March 6 beige book, which examines economic conditions across various Federal Reserve districts across the country.

A former Obama adviser is now admitting that the law was never intended to be “a jobs program.” Funny, that’s not what Democrats told us while they were jamming it down our throats. I’ll leave you with Nancy Pelosi explaining how Obamacare is really all about creating millions of jobs and, er, reducing the deficit:

Video: Pelosi – “The Biggest Growth in Jobs” This Year…

Time for some common sense!!

Video: Paul Ryan: Our budget repeals Obamacare and the Medicaid ‘expansion’

Tax Prof: ObamaCare Tax Increases Are Double Original Estimate:

The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in ObamaCare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment, according to the Tax Prof Blog. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010.

Related:

Will ObamaCare Affect Your Pet’s Vet Bills?

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Sessions: Independent Gov’t Auditor Reveals Obamacare Will Add $6.2T To Long-Term Debt

Video: Sessions: Independent Gov’t Auditor Reveals Obamacare Will Add $6.2T To Long-Term Debt

Related:

Senator Rand Paul Speaks Out Against Senators Voting without Reading the Bills

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Is Obama Creating a Civil War in the House to Demonize Republicans… and the Simple Solution

Video:  Charles Krauthammer The President Wants to Create a “Civil War” in the House

The GOP's not-so-secret weapon on fiscal cliff

'We are facing 4 years of unpleasantness for Obama'

WND by Jerome R. Corsi:

WASHINGTON – The only way to prevent the Obama administration from blaming Republicans in the fiscal cliff debate is to demand transparency by bringing in television cameras, says noted tax activist Grover Norquist.

What advice would Norquist give House Speaker John Boehner?

“Bring in C-SPAN and televise the negotiations,” Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform told WND in an exclusive interview. “It’s the best way to expose the White House plan to build public pressure on Republicans to force House Speaker John Boehner to cave into at the eleventh hour to raise income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.

Norquist advised that Congressional Republicans should use the fiscal cliff crisis as an opportunity to make a vocal demand that President Obama must live up to his often repeated promise to make government transparent by opening up administration tax debates with Congress to C-SPAN cameras.

“The fiscal cliff is not a one-time crisis,” Norquist warned. “If Republicans in Congress play their cards right, we are facing four years of unpleasantness for Obama.

Norquist explained that immediately following the fiscal cliff argument over raising federal income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, there will be a renewed debate in Congress over raising the federal debt-ceiling level.

Then in March and April, the White House will have to return to Congress for continuing resolutions to keep the government functioning.

Without an annual budget, there is no way the Obama administration can keep the federal government operating unless Congress passes continuing resolutions.

“The continuing resolution battle is every bit as exciting a leverage point to control federal spending as is the debate over the federal debt ceiling,” Norquist argued.

“Two years ago, the Republicans in Congress passed continuing resolutions for two or three weeks at a time and made Obama pay for every continuing resolution with a small savings. Obama couldn’t shut the federal government down over $3 or $4 billion over a cut he already agreed to make, and the Republicans were moving down the field three yards at a time, and there’s nothing wrong with winning slowly.”

The strategy of passing a series of short-term continuing resolutions would allow the Republicans to negotiate in exchange a series of spending cuts that would provide victories for the GOP in Congress.

“If the Obama administration would implement a Simpson-Bowles reform that retiring federal employees should not get replaced by hiring a new employee, that would result in a quantifiable savings in federal spending that the Republicans in Congress,” Norquist pointed out.

“Forcing upon the administration reform measures that Obama has opposed in the past, the Republicans can get credit by claiming Republicans in Congress imposed by their will spending the president otherwise never would have made.”

WND has previously reported Norquist’s concern that the White House push to utilize the fiscal cliff crisis as an opportunity to force the Republicans to raise income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans would be followed by Democratic efforts to pass a massive energy tax, as well as a value-added tax, or VAT, on the U.S. economy.

Norquist predicted Obama would push the fiscal cliff down to the wire.

“There is every reason to believe that Obama as a deliberate strategy wants to push the crisis over the fiscal cliff,” he speculated.

“Obama would like to be able to blame Republicans for the lousy economy that is already baked into the cake because of Obama administration regulations and tax increases the Obama administration has already passed through measures like Obamacare.”

But Norquist insisted the pressure on Boehner to cave only mounts if Obama manages to convince the American public that it’s the Republicans’ fault.

“That’s why I’m an advocate of putting the tax negotiations on C-SPAN,” Norquist insisted. “Otherwise the Obama administration and their friends in the mainstream media will work together in secret to write the narrative of the fiscal cliff debate that says the Republicans deserve the blame for a bad economy.”

Related:

The Marxist Plan to Bankrupt the United States: Is History Repeating Itself?

Technorati Tags: transparency,C-SPAN,Groger Norquist,fiscal cliff,Speaker Boehner,real transparency,Charles Krauthammer,Congress,Republicans,GOP,Obamaland,Media bias

Watcher’s Forum: The Fiscal Cliff – Let It Happen Or Grand Bargain?

JoshuaPundit:

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day. This week’s question: The Fiscal Cliff: Let it happen or Grand Bargain?

For those of you whom may not be aware, ‘the Fiscal cliff’ refers to automatic and draconian spending cuts and the end of the Bush-era tax cuts and a general hike in taxes as many Americans now exempt form the Alternative Minimum Tax become subject paying it. This was agreed to the last time by both parties as part of a deal to raise President Obama’s credit card limit ( AKA the debt ceiling) last year. It goes into effect January 1st, 2013 if there’s no agreement between President Obama and the House Republicans on taxes, the debt limit and spending. The president wants to raise taxes on ‘the rich’, another binge of stimulus spending, an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling and sole authority to raise the debt ceiling as he sees fit. The Republicans say they’re open to some tax increases but want significant cuts in spending as part of any deal and are not willing to see another stimulus or give the president the authority he wants to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally.

The Razor: Republicans have put themselves in a position where “heads you win tails I lose.” Given this option we have to look at what concerns the GOP House, the ones who must actually make this bargain.

These members, many elected with Tea Party support in 2010, are ideological and concerned about their reelections. Any compromise the Democrats will offer at this point will be ideologically repugnant. The Democrats and their propaganda wing in the mainstream media have fabricated this November’s election into a progressive landslide even when in reality it was anything but. They will not compromise enough to help these members of the GOP at all, and are on a “mission from g-d” or whatever the equivalent is for fired up atheistic liberals.

So the choice is whether to accept a package of tax increases with minimal if any entitlements cuts IF the Democrats offer such a thing, or allow the country to go off the cliff. That’s a big IF at this point, whether the Democrats will offer anything; I half expect them to keep demagoging the issue in the Press to beat up the Republicans through December while failing to negotiate in good faith. The other choice is to stick to their beliefs, fully aware that the Democrats are likely not serious about negotiations. These members will be pilloried by the Press in January, but they are going to be attacked by the MSM no matter what. At least when the primaries come around in a year they will won’t face Tea Party challengers who claim they sold out to the Dems on the tax issue.

Given such a Hobbesian choice, if I were a conservative member of Congress I would publicize the fact the Democrats have not negotiated seriously because they believe the election was a landslide. I would point out that it wasn’t, and as a consequence cannot offer any compromise on my part because it takes two to reach a deal. Every time I was in front of a microphone I would repeat this mantra. I full expect John Boehner to wobble on this issue and I would resist his calls for my vote. After January I would actively work to unseat him.

The Democrats believe the GOP will take the hit if we go off the cliff, but managed properly, I believe it is still possible to portray the Democrats as overreaching. Besides, by the time these members are up for re-election the country will be more receptive to fiscal conservatism than it is today. In the meantime, unfortunately, the half of the voting public that re-elected Obama needs to be taught that elections have consequences and that handing Democrats money is like giving heroin to a junkie.

The Independent Sentinel: President Obama wants to go over the fiscal cliff. It’s a win-win for him. He gets automatic cuts (he wants the military cuts), higher taxes. and he can blame the Republicans, eliminating them once-and-for-all.

In an interview with The Des Moines Register before the election, which he immediately after asked the paper not to print, he spoke about sequestration and the end of the Bush tax cuts ( Clinton tax hikes) as if they were a done deal.

He always makes the political decision over what is right for Americans. His ideology trumps all.

The deal he offered to Republicans yesterday not only didn’t cut anything, it increased spending and it even has a new stimulus. It caused Mitch McConnell to burst out laughing when he saw it. It was more an insult than a joke however. The Republicans can’t even use it as a starting point.

We did vote for revenge as Obama asked.

We should plan to go over the cliff unless Obama extends the artificial deadline until March.

I think he has made it perfectly clear – no compromises!

JoshuaPundit: In politics, perception is always more important than reality. So let’s start with a little bit of reality. The $1.2 trillion of deficit reduction we’re taking about as the Fiscal Cliff works out to $153 billion over ten years. The federal government borrows that every month.

That said, it’s important to remember that there’s no incentive for President Obama to make any compromises. He wants to raise taxes anyway, many of the mandated cuts will come out of our military budget and best of all, he feels he can blame Republicans for it. This makes absolutely no common sense but the way the president sees it, it makes political sense and he sees it as a win-win situation: either they’ll knuckle under and give him what he wants, or they won’t, and he’ll make political capital out of while getting some things he wants anyway.

I hold no particular allegiance for the Republican Party except as (in some respects) an alternative to what I see as ruinous policies. So my main concern now is the coming midterms and 2016, which means the GOP needs to take steps to make sure their fingerprints aren’t on the coming debacle, especially since the non FOX media will side with the president in pushing his narrative.

If I were John Boehner, I’d go on national TV (or have someone who’s a much better speaker do it) and tell the American people in plain terms exactly what’s going on, and why the GOP can no longer support this irresponsible and childish behavior. And I would directly point the finger at the president, in no uncertain terms, including his failure to present any kind of meaningful compromise.

Finally, I would draw a line in the sand and offer Simpson-Bowles, (the plan of the president’s own bi-partisan commission that he later rejected) as the Republican’s final offer. And walk away.

As an even more extreme alternative, I might even tell the American people that if the president failed to come up with a reasonable offer to get our financial house in order, every Republican legislator was going to vote ‘present’ on President Obama’s proposals, in protest. I would tell the American people that Republicans have no intention of allowing this president to blame his failures on others again.

Make him own the Obama economy.

The Noisy Room: In response to this week’s question: ‘The Fiscal Cliff: Let it happen or grand bargain?’ I wholeheartedly say to the Republicans, jump off the cliff! When this whole monstrous mess started, I predicted it would come to this. I don’t know how anyone can be surprised at the outcome. The two choices are now bend over and take massive tax hikes with no meaningful spending cuts, or go off the cliff. I say take the plunge. It’s the only sane choice at this point.

If the Republicans agree to raise taxes, they will lose what little support they have with conservatives and will go the way of the Whigs. And those spending cuts, well… Reagan never saw the ones he was promised when he raised taxes and the Republicans have just about as much chance of seeing these newly promised ones as North Korea has of verifying their unicorn lair. We are sick to death of the Charlie Brown Party. Read my lips: Progressives lie.

Either way, the Left and the media will make the Republicans out to be the bad guys. So, in the face of that, just do the right thing. Stick by conservative principles, close your eyes and jump. I hear the water is fine. It will give the Republicans time to find their moral bearings, grow a spine and start righting the USS Titanic. Make the message about cutting spending which is the real problem anyway. There is no way to tax your way out of this hole.

Do real financial reform… Cut the hell out of government spending, cut taxes and bring America back to greatness. It will create jobs and prosperity. It will create confidence and freedom. It will free us from the shadow of Marxism. It’s an easy choice; it’s the right choice – the question is, does anyone up there have ‘tener cojones’ to do the right thing anymore? They will if they care more about Americans and the Constitution than their crappy political careers.

To do what Obama and the Liberals want is madness. Raise taxes while increasing spending will speed up America’s death spiral. Want massive growth? Go over the fiscal cliff, do away with the IRS and go to a flat sales tax, let small businesses do their own thing and watch America catapult once again into the strongest nation on earth. Or, compromise and push millions into poverty, slavery and violence. I say, let the cliff diving begin!

The Right Planet:It looks to me like the Republicans are faced with a no-win scenario. This became abundantly clear to me when I saw Robert Reich state on Twitter that the Republicans want to “hold the middle class hostage” by denying 98% of Americans a tax cut. Obama is trumpeting a similar theme. (Funny how all of a sudden the progressives are for Bush-era “tax cuts.”) If I understand correctly, the Obama Administration is proposing freezing the tax rate for 98% of Americans for one year if the Republicans agree to raising taxes on the top two tax rates. A number of conservative pundits, like Rush Limbaugh and Charles Krauthammer, are urging the Republicans to just “walk away” from the deal. The problem I have with this approach is it gives Obama everything he wants. It even lets the president raise the debt limit at will, thereby taking away more power from Congress to control the purse strings.

So, if the Republicans walk away from the deal, the liberal media and the Obama Administration will accuse the GOP of raising taxes on the middle class in order to protect “the rich.” But if the Republicans agree to raising taxes on the wealthy, while agreeing to freeze tax rates for the middle class, then they will be accused of selling out. The only reason I believe the Obama Administration is offering to freeze the tax rate on the middle class right now is simply for political expediency; it serves their agenda and backs the GOP into a corner. Looks like Obama and ilk are holding the Republicans hostage.

What’s particularly odious about the maneuvers by the White House et al. is the fact the Obama Administration has not passed a budget in the entire time it has been in office. Obama has offered no serious proposal to reduce any federal spending. As a matter of fact, he wants another stimulus out of the deal. The fact is taxes are going up, period. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Republicans get all the blame.

The Glittering Eye: I’ve posted on this very subject several times this week. I find both the White House’s and Congressional Republicans’ positions on this subject very frustrating. Both sides are taking positions that appear purely political to me. They appear to be taking an unnecessarily zero-sum view of the negotiations.

Since I opposed the “Bush tax cuts” in 2002-2003, opposed their renewal in 2010, and am still opposed to them as being the wrong taxes to cut, I have no particular fondness for renewing them now. However, I find the notion that raising taxes on just the highest income earners will do much about income inequality, balancing the budget, or much of anything else for that matter pretty far-fetched.

I’d like to see good faith negotiations from both sides. I have no real hope that’s going to happen. I’d also like to see a pro-growth agenda but I have no greater hope that will happen, either.

I don’t think that any nation in the history of the world has either taxed or cost-reduced its way to greatness or prosperity.

Bookworm Room: The Republicans, who still control the house, have three choices: (1) Give Obama everything he wants; (2) Give Obama nothing; and (3) Compromise. Believe it or not, I prefer option (1).

To begin with, compromise is out. Any type of compromise will work to Obama’s benefit. Obama understands this, which is why he presented the Democrats with a laughable compromise offer, one that gives fiscal conservatives absolutely nothing. If the Republicans actually try to negotiate and he slides a little in their direction, he still wins. Obama knows that, with an utterly compliant press, he will take credit for any slight upticks in the economy, while lambasting the Republicans for the economy’s continued slide.

Giving Obama nothing is no better. The Republicans in the House can hark back to the Reagan era and “just say ‘No.’” The problem with that course of action is that it will result in a stalemate. Unfortunately, this stalemate has ticking bombs in it — sequestration and tax increases. Once these happen, the compliant media will again blame the Republicans, while Obama walks away spotless.

The only approach that offers some hope for long-term American stability and fiscally-sound, constitutional capitalism is the most painful one: The Republicans should give Obama everything he wants. They should turn to the American people and say “By re-electing Obama and keeping the Senate majority Democrat, this is what you asked for, so this is what you’ll get. We wash our hands of it. This is truly Obama’s economy now.” Things will happen quickly (and badly) under this scenario, but the Republicans will have kept their noses clean and will have spelled out very clearly for Americans the differences between socialism and constitutional capitalism.

In the short term, these are all Hobson’s choices, since they are all awful. However, it’s only Option (1) — saying to Obama “you own the economy” — that will provide a short, sharp shock sufficiently horrific to scare people away from a Fabian slide into perpetual socialism.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

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