As more information is revealed about the victims of Friday's horrendous incident in Newtown, Connecticut, anebbandflow would like to prayerfully remember those eternal smiles on this Rose Sunday...
(Top row from left) Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Ana Marquez-Green. (Middle row from left) Dylan Hockley, Catherine Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, James Mattioli. (Bottom row from left) Grace McDonnel, Emilie Parker, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos
On Saturday night, police released the names of all the victims. They are as follows:
Adults
Rachel Davino, 29, school staff Dawn Hochsprung, 46, teacher Anne Marie Murphy, 52, school staff Mary Sherlach, 56, psychologist Victoria Soto, 27, teacher Lauren Russeau, 30, teacher Nancy Lanza, 52, gunman's mother
Children
Charlotte Bacon, six Daniel Barden, seven Olivia Engel, six Josephine Gay, seven Ana Marquez-Green, six Dylan Hockley, six Madeleine Hsu, six Catherine Hubbard, six Chase Kowalski, seven Jesse Lewis, six James Mattiolo, six Grace McDonnel, seven Emilie Parker, six Jack Pinto, six Noah Pozner, six Caroline Previdi, six Jessica Rekos, six Avielle Richman, six Benjamin Wheeler, six Allison Wyatt, six
O MERCIFUL Father, whose face the angels of thy little ones do always behold in heaven; Grant us steadfastly to believe that these thy children hath been taken into the safe keeping of thine eternal love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
ALMIGHTY and merciful Father, who dost grant to children an abundant entrance into thy kingdom; Grant us grace so to conform our lives to their innocency and perfect faith, that at length, united with them, we may stand in thy presence in fullness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
O GOD, whose most dear Son did take little children into his arms and bless them; Give us grace, we beseech thee, to entrust the souls of these children to thy neverfailing care and love, and bring us all to thy heavenly kingdom; through the same thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, Father of mercies and giver of all comfort; Deal graciously, we pray thee, with all those who mourn, that, casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I shouldn't even have to write about this repulsively predictable behavior...
Keep in mind while you listen to and read these immediate reactions, that these people never consider history or context. Guns and weapons of all sorts have been around since this country's founding. However, we used to not have monthly massacres occurring in our country. So, what's changed? A breakdown in the moral fabric of our society? An inability to effectively detect mental darkness? Evil running rampant? These are never initial considerations...it's always 'ban guns' in hopes of deterring crazy. It is preposterous to attempt to control an effect while never acknowledging a realistic cause; but instead, opting to blame a scapegoat...
WeaselZippers: The bodies are still warm and the left is already calling for Democrats to use this for political gain. Disgusting.
Mediate: Hours after what appears to have been a massacre at a local elementary school in Connecticut, and with the number of victims or their identities yet known, MSNBC host Alex Wagner opined that this shooting must yield policy makers in Washington some “political capital” to introduce reform American gun ownership laws.
“It is, hopefully – we say this every, single time we cover one of these things – a line in the sand,” Wagner said. “There has got to be some kind of measurable change, some kind of reaction.”
“One would hope that there will be some political capital to reform the way in which we handle gun and gun violence in this country,” Wagner concluded.
Inevitably, the rest of the fanatics pour in to exploit this terrible event...
...some even mocking the innocent children slain...
...Democrat politicians are also joining in...
Never let a crisis go to waste? Disgustingly, they don't.
If I might, perhaps it's much more appropriate to offer a moment of prayer at this time...
O GOD, whose most dear Son did take little children into his arms and bless them; Give us grace, we beseech thee, to entrust the souls of these children to thy neverfailing care and love, and bring us all to thy heavenly kingdom; through the same thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever and ever. Amen.
ADDENDUM: More of the usual suspects join the fray. Michael Bloomberg says, "Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough," while Boston Mayor Menino echoes the sentiment, "Now is the time for a national policy on guns..." Unfortunately, you can even hear it in Obama's brief statement today as well...
So, what exactly happened yesterday on so-called fiscal cliff negotiations? It's really rather clear: Boehner suggested that if they're willing to concede on tax hikes, we should also cut spending. And Obama, through his spokeshole, Carney, said 'Screw that! You've got to confess that no cuts have ever worked.'
Boehner held a press conference about the fiscal cliff Thursday morning, and he used this chart to illustrate how much spending the government does versus how much tax revenue Washington takes in. You see, our taxes are simply not enough to keep up with their spending. Here's how Boehner addressed it, though...
BOEHNER: Republicans want to solve this problem by getting the spending line down. The president wants to pretend the spending isn't the problem. That's why we don't have an agreement. The chart depicts what I've been saying for a long time now. Washington has a spending problem. That can't be fixed with tax increases alone.
Alone? Just when you think he's getting somewhere, a concession is made...
RUSH: Now, let me parse that, because there are two things in that statement. You might have heard only one. You might have heard Boehner say, "We have spending problem," and about that he's correct. But then he said, and his last words in this bite were, "Washington has a spending problem. That can't be fixed with tax increases ALONE." Thereby accepting the premise that there will be tax increases.
He's accepting the proposition -- the premise, the idea, the notion, the fact. We can't fix the problem "with tax increases ALONE." There are going to have to be spending cuts. What we need are spending cuts and tax cuts, folks. If we really want to fix this -- if we really want more money to the Treasury, if we want to generate more economic growth and more jobs -- you cut spending and you cut taxes.
But that's not what Obama is about.
There's no desire to cut governed government. There's no desire to cut spending or entitlements. There's none of that. So there's no common ground here.
And that's so, because for Obama, this is not simply about winning a fight. No, it's about forcing Boehner and Republicans to confess, to concede, that what we know to be economically true -- that tax cuts (genuine economic stimulus) combined with spending cuts (minimized government) is the only thing that can get us out of this mess -- is what the Democrats want them to say caused all of our current economic problems. Yep, it's still Bush's fault...and Reagan's too for that matter. Never mind Obama's last four years of economic stagnation and ruin. We need to go back to the bogus Clinton surpluses, because tax cuts (and spending cuts) don't work. Ludicrous, ain't it? Well, Obama's spokes-idiot confirmed it...
RUSH: There you have it, folks. They're just now admitting it. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, that's why we're in this mess, and it's Boehner's fault. He has to admit it. His record is "abysmal." He predicted those tax cuts would lead to economic growth and high employment, and it didn't happen. But it did. It did! These guys are purposely, and everybody else is purposely, forgetting what they lived through.
Just like everybody apparently has forgotten the absolute most robust economic recovery in the history of the world, which took place in the eighties. That economic recovery lasted 25 years, the Reagan recovery. It was an expansion of the US economy which nobody had never been seen before.
But now the revisionists want Republicans to admit that none of that ever worked. That's what's going on, friends.
Gallup: U.S. small-business owners' net capital spending intentions for the next 12 months plunged to -14 in November, the lowest level in more than two years, according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index. This is down from net capital spending intentions of -1 in July and suggests the nation's small-business owners are likely to pull back on their business investments even more, given their negative expectations for the next 12 months.
The Wells Fargo/Gallup quarterly survey, conducted Nov. 12-16, 2012, with a random sample of 607 U.S. small-business owners, found them the most pessimistic they have been since the third quarter of 2010. Capital spending is one of six components in the Future Expectations component of the index, all of which declined compared with the third quarter of 2012.
Pessimistic? Following the reelection of our Statist-in-Chief? Naaa, there couldn't be a connection. We've only heard about mass layoffs and downsizing ever since (hint: notice the date on this survey).
Rush: In 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, this index -- the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index on Capital Spending Intentions -- was at anywhere from plus 28 to plus 16. Its low was minus 23 in 2009. Now it is minus 14. We've had, therefore, a net drop-off of 30 points. When you see it on the graph, it makes a little bit more sense. But as recently as 2008, small business net capital expenditure expansion spending was big, it was huge, and now it's at minus 14 for the next 12 months.
So it means no economic growth.
It means small business, which does most of the hiring, isn't gonna be doing any.
And as was predicted well before its passage, that was always the intent of this legal plunder: the federal government drives the private health insurance industry under and transitions the entire system to government-run single-payer.
But check out this compounding ripeness...
Since this fundamental transformation is obviously not gonna happen overnight, and will indiscriminately burden constituents through severe financial and medical strains, Senate Democrats are already undermining their own law and asking for ObamaCare waivers!
Breitbart: Many powerful Democrats, even some of the most liberal among them, are supporting what amounts to a dismantling of President Obama’s signature health care law.
Using “Republican” language to make their case, these Democrats are attempting to repeal some of the funding mechanisms as well as the cost-containment measures that were purportedly inherent in the law.
With some of their most influential constituent groups facing onerous tax increases that are slated to help fund the law’s mandates and regulations, Senators like Al Franken (D-MN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and others -- all of whom voted in favor of the law -- are aiming to delay or outright repeal parts of ObamaCare.
Not surprisingly, as Senate Democrats have gotten a look at what exactly is in ObamaCare, the parts of the law that were intended to control costs have gradually been stripped from the legislation.
Democrats first repealed the CLASS Act, the long-term care insurance provision of the law, which they realized would work against its intended goal of reducing the deficit. Similarly, they repealed another supposed “deficit reducer,” the “1099 provision,” that would have forced burdensome paperwork upon small businesses for the sake of discovering more “taxable” transactions.
Now, Minnesota’s two Democrat Senators, Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, are using “Republican” terminology to delay the 2.3% medical device tax scheduled to take effect on January 1st. For these Senators, the tax, which is supposed to raise $28 billion over the next decade to fund the law, is now a “job-killing tax” that will not only cost jobs but make it more difficult for American medical device manufacturers to be competitive and innovative.
So there's at least 16 powerful Democrats Senators who are trying to defund and outright repeal this part of the ObamaCare law, not because it's bad legislation, but because it's gonna devastate their constituents, which in turn harms some of their reelection chances and makes all of them look bad. Oops. The hypocrisy of the Left knows no bounds.
"A political party is not a fraternal order."~ Former Governor Ronald Reagan to the New York Times, December 15, 1976
While conservative growth appears to be blossoming at the state level in many instances, nearly the opposite could be said of Washington's movement. And at the center of that dysfunction lies not only the Democratic stronghold of statists and other assorted reprobates, but also the feckless, enabling Republican leadership that's in dire need of replacing. Both Peter Ferrara yesterday and Jeffrey Lord today make compelling comments on the topic...
I'd not be quite so generous in characterizing Boehner (or McConnell) in the praiseworthy manner that Peter Ferrara's piece exudes (it's a little much); however, when he cuts to the reason why both must go, I'm in complete agreement. First, Boehner:
Boehner is no match for Obama on the national stage. He cannot press the economic arguments articulately. He does not have a compelling personality. Obama is running circles around Boehner with outrageous falsehoods, and Boehner cannot raise a peep to challenge him. Boehner has managed to allow Obama to turn the Bush middle class tax cuts, passed by a Republican majority Congress over 10 years ago, into the Obama middle class tax cuts, supposedly opposed by the House majority Republicans.
Reagan-era Democrat Speaker Tip O'Neill used to say Reagan's budgets were dead on arrival. He used to counter Reagan proposals by saying they just could not get through the House. After the Reagan landslide reelection of 1984, O'Neill responded that the people had elected a Democrat House majority too, and they had as much right to pursue their policies in the House as Reagan had to pursue his policies as President. And O'Neill had a personality that was easily dismissive of questioners.
But from Boehner, nothing like any of that.
And of McConnell:
New blood is needed as Senate Republican Minority Leader as well. Mitch McConnell is also a good man with a conservative record. He is supposed to be a wicked good parliamentarian. I haven't seen anything come of that.
The problem is he has the personality and appearance of an undertaker. Alfred Hitchcock would be more compelling. While the Senate Minority Leader has to be one of the 45 remaining Senate Republicans, we have much better options there. How about Marco Rubio? How about Rand Paul? Senate Republicans can make history by choosing highly articulate freshman Ted Cruz. These gentlemen cantalk, they have rock star personalities and demeanor. They are all in the ring to win the fight.
Of course, Ferrara recognizes an additional problem that plagues the GOP leadership: "a national news media that voluntarily behaves in serving the ruling Democrat regime like the old Soviet media was forced to under compulsion."
The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, these are shamefully dishonest institutions. They are not remotely practicing journalism. They are political activists posing as journalists. And this is no longer a contention over which reasonable people can differ.
However, he recognizes that once upon a time, a stronger Speaker, Newt Gingrich, had the ability to dominate the narrative and get his message through. Boehner lacks that completely.
But Ferrara says the biggest reason Boehner must be replaced as Speaker is found in the Constitution:
As Jeff Lord reminded us a month ago, the Speaker of the House does not have to be an elected member of the House. Anyone can serve as Speaker!!!
Think about the possibilities and the opportunities that creates. Republicans can pick the most articulate, knowledgeable, lucid leader possible to fire volleys back at Obama and the Democrats.
That is what is needed now most of all. An articulate Republican who can take on Obama and his dishonest, false narratives. About the rich, the budget, spending, taxes and debt. About energy and the environment. About the Obama record, and the longest trail of broken promises in world history.
Steve Forbes could be named Speaker of the House. Or Larry Kudlow. Or Steve Moore. Or Paul Gigot. Or Grover Norquist. Or Rush Limbaugh. Or Sean Hannity. Or Mark Levin. Someone who can talk, explain, tutor, and at last who knows what he is talking about. How about R. Emmett Tyrrell? Hell, they could even bring Gingrich back.
Ferrara concludes his piece with a strategy for tackling an Obama-controlled Big Government if the GOP could muster the courage to replace the current leadership:
Thus newly led into battle, our new leaders can inform President Obama that his idea of granting him authority to raise the debt limit as he pleases is dead on arrival, and not to be discussed anymore. They can emphasize that last point to the Marxist infiltrator Washington press corps too, through the haze of the bong smoke any time those hippies in suits gather.
The House can then pass a bill making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, and send everyone home subject to recall when the Senate acts. The new leaders then go on national tour to explain to a very retrogressive nation today that the next step according to the law books, as can be read in the civics books for those who can still read, is for the Democrat Senate to act on the House passed bill, and then for the differences to be ironed out in Conference. President Obama, we will call you when we are ready for you, to sign the bill that the Congress of the United States has passed.
Yes, I bolded and purposefully increased the font size on that last sentence! Onto Lord's comments...
Jeffrey Lord's tact is a bit more brutally honest than Ferrara's (similar to my own characterizations of the Speaker). He begins by taking us down a comparative examination of Boehner's relatively short, but jagged path to a familiar road the party's traveled before...
Here we go again. The pattern is uncanny.
First comes the pledge. Then the breaking of the pledge. Then retribution against those who protest the breaking of the pledge and refuse to go along. Followed inevitably by the political symmetry of a conservative base, tsumami-like backlash that politically drowns the original pledge-breakers. Leaving behind a massive Hurricane Sandy-style wreckage of once-promising political careers. All of this coupled with a complete lack of strategic planning.
The last time this happened -- when President George H.W. Bush famously broke his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge -- Bush wound up not only targeting fellow Republicans for lack of personal loyalty, his decision to break principle also did in Republican House candidates in the 1990 elections. Two years later Bush himself managed to go from a president with a 90% popularity rating after the Gulf War to winning an appalling 37% of the vote in his disastrous 1992 re-election campaign, losing to Bill Clinton.
Has Speaker Boehner learned anything from this? Apparently not.
Moving through this expansive piece, in which similarly disastrous events of the party's 1990 experience are detailed, Lord concludes that there is hope...but only with new leadership...
By changing course, having a well thought-out strategy -- and replacing Speaker Boehner with someone knowledgeable in both conservative principle as well as how to articulate that principle -- disaster is avoidable. And yes, an outsider as Speaker could not help but electrify a party whose energy seems to have drained since the November election.
The impending Boehner-led GOP disaster of today is as avoidable now as was the disaster that was the Bush 41 era. The Bush 41 presidency imploded -- and severely damaged the House GOP as well -- because of stubbornness. Because what Ronald Reagan once called the Party of the Fraternal Order -- the GOP Establishment -- defiantly refused to stick to conservative principle, much less articulate it. Then -- as now -- the issue at hand was the economy. And, just as with John Boehner today, President Bush 41 was as nice a guy as one could imagine. But both Bush and Boehner share the fatal error of mistaking loyalty to a person -- themselves as President and Speaker -- for loyalty to principle.
Just as targets of the Bush White House became their own team -- Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp, Ed Rollins and other Reaganites -- so too now the Boehner House leadership is targeting dissenting conservatives like GOP House members Tim Huelskamp, Justin Amash, Walter Jones, and David Schweikert.
What is unspooling in front of the nation's eyes this Christmas holiday season is nothing less than what in the world of movies is called a "remake."
The Bush 41 presidency moves to the House of Representatives. Starring House Speaker George H. W. Bush.
Are there 16 House Republicans who have the political will to save the House GOP from its own Speaker? Who have the courage to make sure a bad moment in the nation and the GOP's history is not repeated? We shall see.
PowerLine: I’ve been meaning to bring up the following New York Times graphic since it was published last month, as it shows that Republicans are at their highest level of control of state governments in 60 years. Not bad for a party supposedly in deep trouble and on death’s door. (Notice, by the way, that Republicans controlled exactly zero states after the 1976 election.)
So while all eyes are on Washington and the fiscal cliff, outside of Washington a determined counterattack against liberalism is under way, and looks to have some good chances of success.
Perhaps Republicans have figured out an old tip: all politics IS local.
Where there's a will, there's a way...to GUT ObamaCare!
theRightScoop: Mark Levin explains how the states, run by Republican governors and in coordination with the Republican House, can gut a big part of Obamacare during Obama’s second term. And this isn’t some pipe dream he’s talking about, but a real possibility, perhaps even likely:
"If enough governors say ‘no’ to expanding Medicaid in these state exchanges because they know eventually it will break their banks at the state level…and the House of Representatives controlled by the Republicans say ‘no, we’re not going to spend hundreds of billions more for these federal exchanges to massively expand Medicaid which already takes up almost 50% of the redistribution of wealth, that is all federal transfers…then a big part of Obamacare will have been gutted."
You see, the ObamaCare legislation provides for the states to decide whether they'll create state-run health insurance exchanges...or not. At least 24 states have refused to set up these exchanges thus far, with more leaning in that direction. Here's what a few of the governors from those states have said concerning their decisions not to pursue these exchanges:
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley:
“The Affordable Care Act is neither affordable nor does it actually improve health care. Congress and the President have said they want to work together to solve the fiscal crisis facing this country, and I suggest they start with this health care bill.”
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal:
“I would support a free market-based approach that could serve as a useful tool for Georgia’s small businesses, but federal guidelines forbid that.”
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback:
“My administration will not partner with the federal government to create a state-federal partnership insurance exchange because we will not benefit from it and implementing it could cost Kansas taxpayers millions of dollars.”
Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman:
“A state exchange is nothing more than the state administering the Affordable Care Act with all the important and critical decisions made by the federal government… It is simply too expensive to do a state insurance exchange.”
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin:
“It does not benefit Oklahoma taxpayers to actively support and fund a new government program that will ultimately be under the control of the federal government, that is opposed by a clear majority of Oklahomans and that will further the implementation of a law that threatens to erode both the quality of American health care and the fiscal stability of the nation.”
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley:
“You are asking us to commit to restrictions that we aren’t even aware of yet.”
Texas Governor Rick Perry:
“As long as the federal government has the ability to force unknown mandates and costs upon our citizens, while retaining the sole power in approving what an exchange looks like, the notion of a state exchange is merely an illusion.”
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:
“It’s like saying you’re going to get a house, the federal government’s going to design the interior, all the amenities, the furniture, everything else, and the only thing left is they ask you if you want blinds or curtains. And you’re co-signing the mortgage. So you really don’t have a decision about what’s going on, but you are putting your taxpayers at risk.”
A premonition for Boehner, the GOP leadership, and inevitably, the Republican Party...
RUSH: What's going on in the fiscal cliff argument is very simple. Barack Obama wants the Republican Party to essentially destroy itself. Of all things, when you think of the Republican Party, what do you think of in terms of what it stands for? Tax cuts for everybody. The Republican Party stands for you keeping more of what you earn. The Republican Party stands for -- well, at least it used to, but the image of the Republican Party's tax cuts. Certainly not tax increases.
What Obama is attempting, in the fiscal cliff deal, is to get John Boehner and therefore all Republicans to confess. If he can get the Republicans to raise taxes on the rich, then Obama feels he is helping the Republicans destroy their brand, destroy how it is that they're known and understood. And in the process, what are we talking about? The fiscal cliff, what's that? We're trying to save the country. What Obama wants is for the Republicans to agree that tax cuts, from Reagan forward to Bush, created the current climate.
The recession is because the rich didn't pay their fair share. In fact, the entire situation of economic inequality is because the rich haven't paid their fair share. They want the Republicans, by agreeing to raise taxes on the rich, to essentially confess that it's been tax cuts, low taxes on the rich that explain the economic calamity. Not liberalism. Not wanton federal spending. Not socialism. Not Obama. Not the Democrats. Not entitlements. Not spending. No, none of that's to blame. Those are all the fixes, you see. All the Democrat policies are how we save America from what the Republicans believe in: tax cuts for the rich.
"Tax cuts for the rich are why we have such income inequality! Tax cuts for the rich are the reason for everything that's wrong economically!" That's what Obama wants. This is politics. It's about destroying the Republican Party. You look at the Obama's modus operandi. From the time he was in the Senate in Illinois all the way forward, the way he runs is to clear the playing field. This talk about leveling the playing field?
He doesn't want any opposition, and that's what the fiscal cliff is about: Eliminating any credible opposition. So if Obama succeeds at this... Let's play it out. If Obama succeeds and ends up getting a confession from Republicans that tax cuts are the problem, tax cuts are the cause, what happens to the next Republican who campaigns on tax cuts? The guy doesn't have a prayer.
It's difficult to see otherwise when more Americans seem willing to give up more of their liberties, particularly when it's the liberties of fellow citizen's and not their own, in a self-indulgent effort to seek more perceived security. We've been warned of this so many times before, folks...
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." ~ Somerset Maugham
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
"For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise." ~ Harry Browne
"The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both." ~ Christopher Hitchens
"If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us." ~ Thomas Sowell
Opposition in the face of despotism IS LIBERTY! Don't give it up so easily, Republicans.
