In closing, special thanks to all of our Armed Forces (prayers to all the families who lost loved ones at FT. Hood), the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!), Jeanette (I love you, miss you and play your songs everyday) and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.

In closing, special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!) Jeanette and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.

In closing, special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!) Jeanette (this one’s for you) and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.
References
Festinger (1957), Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)

It’s looking like this socialist, clusterf*ck of a healthcare reform bill will face its final committee vote on Tuesday according to top Senate Democrat Harry Reid.

The bill that the Finance Committee will be voting on is a 10-year, $829 billion proposal that supposedly covers 94 percent of eligible Americans while (allegedly) reducing the federal budget.

As you may already know, Reid and other Senate Democrats who happen to be in support of this misguided attempt at healthcare reform have been busy lately characterizing GOP leaders as “partisan protesters” and “divisive”. But the fact is, Senate Dems have purposely mischaracterized or blatantly left out several key details about this bill that many Americans are still not aware of.

It’s only so long that Democrat PAC ads featuring elderly citizens and children and puppies and pretty background music can fool the American people. As much more facts come out about this bill, I’ve noticed the tide starting to shift against this Democratic version of healthcare reform.

For one, this legislation is filled with tax hikes. It starts by taxing those who earn over $10,831 per year and don’t buy health insurance-a tax that increases to $3,800 as income rises. Health Insurance, health care devices and prescription drugs are also taxed, adding to the cost of health care, and decreasing the amount of competition amongst health care related businesses.

The bill also cuts $500 billion in Medicare spending, which includes over $130 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage and almost $120 billion in Medicare cuts for hospitals and facilities that care for seniors (remember the adorable elderly people featured in their TV ads?). The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) says they expect the Medicare Advantage plans to lose around 2.7. million enrollees over the next ten years as a result of this bill being passed, while also stating that “premiums in the new insurance exchanges would tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law individual market…”

In other words, the cost of insurance will increase, as opposed to the claims being made by the Obama administration otherwise. But wait…it gets a lot worse.

This current bill includes what’s being called an “individual mandate”, which in essence would force all Americans to purchase health insurance. Subsidies will be given to those who earn up to three times the federal poverty level, while those who don’t qualify for the subsidies will be taxed up to $3,800 if they don’t buy insurance. So basically, if you can’t afford to buy insurance then you’ll be taxed almost $4,000. Does that make any sense to anyone? Leaving people caught in between being unable to afford insurance and having to pay this nonsensical tax? Ask yourself: If someone living at or below the poverty line had $4,000 to spend in discretionary income-don’t you think they would buy their own insurance as opposed to being taxed for not having it? And where would the tax money come from? If someone’s in what’s considered to be a lower class tax bracket, chances are they don’t pay income taxes anyway and actually get a tax refund every year.

Again, this is just the type of absurdity that can be expected when Democrats get elected to any form of office.

I can go on and on about how forcing all the uninsured into insurance could bring as much as $200 billion a year in new premiums to insurance companies (including $465 billion in subsidies over the next ten years), allowing law enforcement agencies unobstructed access to medical records (do you want that?), how this bill does nothing to add lawsuit reform to help curb frivolous lawsuits…you get the picture.

As Garet Garrett famously stated, “social gains that cost more than society can afford, especially those that are founded on the doctrine of dividing what there is instead of producing more, are bound in a little time to annul themselves.”

Socializing health care will not solve the problem. Raising taxes will not solve the problem. Government intervention will not solve the problem (bailouts anyone?) Punishing those who can’t afford health care will not solve the problem.

The only feasible solution is to elect the party in 2010 and 2012 that’s committed to cutting waste, lowering taxes, lessening bureaucracy, strengthening our country and providing economic growth and opportunities to all Americans; that party is the Republican Party. Vote GOP!

In closing, I’d like to give a special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, Freedom Works, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!), the best assistant/god sister/too many things to name aka Jeanette (your aura…get it?), Missy (I just do like Just had said) and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.
Links: http://freedomworks.org

http://grandoldparty2011.blogspot.com

Have you ever encountered someone in a bar that happened to be so blatantly ignorant about politics that you just wanted to grab them and choke them? Someone who’s’ never bothered to research the history, agenda or voting record of any person they’ve ever voted for but who complains when their taxes go up? Someone who’s’ never came to the realization that who you put into any office (local, state, federal) directly affects what legislation is or isn’t passed and how those decisions directly affect their life?

Unfortunately (or fortunately for us in 2012), I see this type of destructive, self-deprecating behavior on a daily basis. It’s almost like most democrats are suffering from abusive spouse syndrome.

This week, in yet another example of Democrat Party lunacy, House leaders are proposing adding a tax on insurers in their bizarre attempt to reduce the price of their misguided (socialist) health care bill. Read more:

By Deirdre Walsh
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that an excise tax on high-end insurance plans, similar to the one included in the Senate Finance Committee’s health care overhaul legislation, was “under consideration.”
But Pelosi added that leaders are looking at other proposals to offset the costs of the bill.
“We have to see how much money we need, and if we’re taking the bill down in costs, there are other provisions in the Senate bill that bend the curve that might be more palatable. We’ll see,” she added.
House Democratic leaders and key committee chairmen met Friday to try to come up with a final version of the House health care bill. Much of the discussion centered on how to cut about $200 billion in costs from the measure.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the House bill costs $1.1 trillion over 10 years, but President Obama told Congress he wants a bill that costs $900 billion.
The House Democrats’ health care plan includes a surtax on wealthy Americans. The graduated tax would apply to families making more than $350,000 a year, with the rate increasing as income levels go up. But a number of freshmen Democrats argued that the initial income level should be raised so the tax doesn’t unfairly burden small businesses.
Leaders have now agreed to apply the surtax on those making more than $1 million a year. But losing some revenue from the surtax is forcing Democratic leaders to look for other sources of funding.
Democratic leadership aides say that if the House moves ahead with a tax on insurers, it would probably modify the Senate Finance Committee version, because many Democrats are worried the Senate plan would hit middle-class families.
See what happens when you put democrats in office? In closing, special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!) and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.

What values, what understanding of political phenomena, and what grasp of public policy alternatives actually influence decision making? How adequate is the machinery available to decision makers? What are the consequences of our public policy decisions? How is power wielded, and how are political conflicts resolved?
To answer these questions we present the following models: (1) the rational actor, (2) the political actor, (3) the organizational actor, (4) the elitist actor, and (5) the idiosyncratic actor. While these models are not mutually exclusive, they emphasize different factors in, and different approaches to, decision making.
In the rational actor model of decision making, decision makers seek to accomplish four tasks: accurately identify the problem that confronts them; take into account the key factors that bear on the problem; critically examine alternative courses of action; and make a choice that will wisely maximize benefits and minimize costs.
In the political actor model, decision making is not essentially rational deliberation. Rather, it is characterized by decision makers involved in a struggle for power, and decisions emerge from that struggle. This kind of decision making necessitates bargaining, accommodation, and consensus, as well as controversy, conflict, bluff, threat, and even deceit. The bottom line is that key decisions are most often the result of bargaining among diverse political interests.
The organizational actor model affirms the organization’s crucial role in decision making, and it stresses the importance of the organization’s vital interests, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and capabilities. It emphasizes how the organization sees problems, obtains information, shapes alternatives, assesses costs and benefits, and makes choices.
The elitist actor model of decision making asserts that very powerful individuals or limited groups of influential people, known as elites, make the really significant decisions in politics, and they do so to protect their own self-interest and power.
Finally, the idiosyncratic actor model of decision making recognizes the role of personality in politics. Factors such as the personal intuition, communication skills, charisma, compassion, demagoguery, ruthlessness, or dogmatism of a leader become important to understanding his or her decisions. A decision maker’s role may be destructive, as in the case of leaders like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein, or it may be creative, as in the case of Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

In closing, special thanks again to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News, my personal assistant /gf #2 Jeanette (partners in crime), Missy (don’t make me take this to twitter-say yes already), Kevin (you’ll get this…share it with your co-workers), Joe Wilson (thank you), and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (He’s lying), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (you know he’s lying), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (seriously; you know he’s lying. Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! And if John doesn’t get his truck back there’s gonna be an issue. Do Remember to follow STL_Politics on Twitter.

Once again in yet another example of the dems blaming Republicans for everything, Barack Obama has called for an “honest debate” on his train wreck of a healthcare reform plan.

“This is an issue of vital concern to every American, and I’m glad that so many are engaged, but it should also be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortion, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly how they are,” Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address.

If I’m not mistaken, that sounds to me that anyone who speaks out against his idea of socialized healthcare is being dishonest. Realistically, anyone who’s studied his vague, confusing plan can easily see that there’s a few fundamental problems that exist within it.

Even Obama backtracked this week on his own plan, angering his liberal base by saying that he would be ok with a plan that lacked a government run-health care option. I thought that was the core basis of this nonsense in the first place?

“This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace,” Obama said. “Let me repeat: It would just be one option: those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan.”

Wait a minute: this sounds like the typical liberal flip flop and yet another example of democrats confusing the will of the American people for some mysterious Republican conspiracy to block their (socialist) goals.

I can tell honestly tell you that most of the people I’ve talked to who’ve attended any town hall meetings were genuinely concerned about the proposed changes to their healthcare. Yes, there were some individuals who attended meetings just to be disruptive or bring attention to whatever cause they’re trying to promote at the moment, but that was from both sides.

So this ridiculous notion that Republicans are somehow turning the public against this (socialized) healthcare plan is utterly laughable.

I think it has more to do with the fact that most Americans can see thru the cloudy haze of the democrats’ attempt to socialize healthcare in this country (among other things). It’s inefficient, limits choices and hemorrhages taxpayer money. I’m just guessing that people other than Republicans can see that.

Two weeks ago, the Post Office was called a “high risk” federal agency by the Government Accountability Office and the USPS is expected to have a loss of 7 billion dollars this year. And even Obama has said that Fed Ex and UPS offer more efficient service!

So what does this tell us? Maybe that the private sector is much more capable of running a profitable business than the government will ever be. This country was built on the hard work, innovation and determination of individuals; not on bureaucracy. Don’t believe me? When’s the last time you’ve been to the DMV? Do you really want the government running your healthcare?

So with that being said, I’d like to give a special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News, my personal assistant /gf #2 Jeanette (you’re f*cking with my education), Missy (stop it already), DeAngelo (hey jealousy), Kevin (stop the lottery people), Corey (you’re about to be a millionaire), and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (They’re really giving 2012 to us on a silver platter), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (what’s next?), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Cash for clunkers anyone? That’s what happens when you put democrats in office. Follow STL_Politics on Twitter

To those of you who’ve booked a flight today, you may have noticed that you were asked two questions that were totally unrelated to your travel plans: (1) your birth date and (2) your gender. What this information has to do with purchasing a plane ticket is completely beyond me.

Starting today, many air travelers will be asked for their birth date and gender when making airline reservations.

In the latest bizarre manifestation of the so-called “Secure Flight” program, which switches the responsibility of checking passenger’s identities from a particular airline to the government (socialism), the TSA has said that it has made this decision to create more “public visibility”.

Previously, airlines checked passenger identities against a list of known or suspected terrorists. But to anyone who remembers, the 9/11 commission decided that the government would be better suited to handle this responsibility since they’re the ones who compile the “terror watch lists”.

According to the TSA, government control increases security and reduces the number of people who’re mistaken for terrorists. That part I agree with. But the thought of being required to provide my birth date and gender to a ticket agent over the phone or to an airline’s website just begs the question: what information do they have to check it against?

Since most reservations are made over the phone or online, theoretically they already have my name and my credit card information. So what exactly does my age or my gender have to do with booking a flight? It’s not like its going be printed on my boarding pass. Are we really in the age of big brother?

Hypothetically, if I were to tell the agent that I’m 29 when I’m really 30; does he or she have any way to find out if I’m being honest? If someone named Pat, who’s really a woman, were to say she that she’s a man; would there be any way for the TSA to find out? This is just yet another example of the socialization of the United States, yet another example of the increased bureaucracy we’ve seen from the Obama administration and so on and so on and so on.

To those of you who voted for change: congratulations. The change we received is higher taxes, an attempt at socialized healthcare and now this TSA nonsense. Where does it end? Allow me to tell you: when the new Republican Party takes this country back in 2010 and 2012. I’m all in favor of screening passengers against a list of suspected terrorists; I’d love not to be on a plane with one, but it’s just starting to seem to me that since we’ve had a this administration, our country is starting to look more and more like…well…you know what I was going to say.

Can we please stop this socialism, stop the development of this big brother state, stop the transfer of money from the rich to the not so rich (capital gains taxes anyone?), stop electing people who’ll censor anyone who’s critical of them (how’s your blog doing?), and remember that at the end of the day…we’re all Americans.

Please people- remember that this is 2009. We have very wonderful things (I’m about to get sarcastic) such as the internet, tv, talk radio, newspapers, ect, ect, ect. You have no excuse for not being informed about the agenda of the people that you elect to office. Wake up! You can’t complain if you don’t vote. And you definitely can’t complain if you vote for a democrat.

But in closing, special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News, my personal assistant /gf #2 Jeanette, Missy (is this thing on?), Joy (no really- is this thing on?), Kevin (move to the right), all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (They’re really giving 2012 to us on a silver platter), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (booked a flight today?), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (we’ll be at your town halls!), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! And to all my Illinois residents who enjoy having a spirit every once and a while: how do you like the tax on beer, wine and liquor going up 90% on September 1st? This is what happens when you put democrats in office. Follow STL_Politics on twitter!

Washington Park is a small community in southern Illinois with a population of less than 6000 residents, which also happens to be adjacent to East. St. Louis and directly across the Mississippi river from St. Louis. The median income is less than $50,000 a year, the unemployment rate is stunning and there’s (apparently) no economic stimulus, in so far as new business and development; and no one seems to be willing to fix this situation. But this municipality has one unique factor: strip clubs.

So it’s totally astonishing to me, that earlier this month, the city has declared bankruptcy. As anyone knows (lets be honest), on any given day the average strip club makes at least $50,000 a day in profit. So how can a city with such a small population, that also happens to be home to several strip clubs, be in debt? That’s your tax base!

Allow me to explain to you the details of this situation: facing mounting debts owed to trash collectors, pension funds and even (yes) one of its strip clubs, the municipality has filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in a decade. I’m just guessing that just like their previous chapter 9 filing in 2004, this will also be dismissed in bankruptcy court. Now how did they get to this point? I’m assuming that it stems from the city’s long history of electing democrats- but I’ll address that later.

This debt, driven in part by lawsuits against the city and the subsequent legal bills, became so unmanageable that its democratic board decided that it would be in its best interest to declare bankruptcy. As democratic Mayor John Thornton said “every time I turn around, they’re hitting us with lawsuits and on top of the lawyers; we got people stealing from us and the feds raiding.”

The reference to the city being stolen from refers to Dorothy Triplett, the city’s former payroll clerk, who in March pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $144,000 in public funds over two years, mostly from the police and fire pension fund. Also, in May, former assistant to Mayor Thornton, Linda Conner admitted in federal court to embezzling more than $300,000 in city money. But wait…it gets better.

In 2006, a federal judge ruled that the city’s strip club licensing practices were unconstitutional. Eric Joelner, owner of Fish Inc., won a court claim that ruled he was unfairly denied a license to open a topless club in the city. Now, bizarrely, the city owes him $80,000 in attorney fees. How does a city of less than 6000 residents owe $80,000 to a strip club owner? I’m going to once again assume that it has something to do with voting democrats into office. But wait…it gets even better!

The city’s two largest creditors are the Illinois Department of Employment Security, owed $448,793, and former public safety director John Matt, who’s owed $300,000 respectively. This lack of responsible governing is nothing new to Washington Park.
In the late 90’s former Mayor Sylvester Jackson was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for taking bribes in exchange for protecting gambling operations. Do you see this pattern people? This is what happens when you put democrats in office. For some strange reason, the residents of Washington Park have been asking for this pain for decades as evidenced by their continual election of democrats. But fortunately, there is good news after all.

I have a solution to end all of your self-inflicted pain very easily: VOTE REPUBLICAN. I know you’ve been trained all your life to vote for democrats; but what has that ever gained you? A bunch of empty promises, corruption, increased bureaucracy, more unemployment, higher taxes, ect, ect, ect.

So to all my friends in Illinois: stop it. It’s only so long that you can keep doing the same thing (voting for democrats) and expecting different results. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the textbook definition of insanity. 2010 is just months away. Make a change you can believe in and vote Republican.

In closing, I have to give a special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News, my personal assistant /gf #2 Jeanette, Chas (learn your history), Ms. Cook (let’s get this website started already), all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (They’re giving 2012 to us on a silver platter), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (like your tax hikes?), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (you’re making it way too easy), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Twitter me @ STL_Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) – The black scholar and the white police sergeant who arrested him agreed to disagree and promised to talk again, a gracious conclusion to the first round of an eye-opening dialogue on race that allows President Barack Obama to get back to selling his health care plan to skeptical Americans.
After accepting Obama’s invitation to discuss the July 16 incident over a beer Thursday evening at the White House, both Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. Joseph Crowley thanked Obama for the cold ones served on a patio near the Rose Garden. Neither they nor the president offered apologies for their roles in the affair.
Obama became embroiled in the debate over whether Crowley was justified in arresting Gates at his Cambridge home when the president told a news conference last week that police had “acted stupidly.” He quickly backtracked in the face of police complaints, acknowledged he should have used different language to express his concerns, and invited the two men to join him for a beer.
“I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart,” Obama said after the highly anticipated, 40-minute conversation. “I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.”
White House officials were content to let Obama’s involvement in the incident end right there. Gates and Crowley said they were eager to get back to work, although both pledged future talks aimed at better understanding.
Gates said he hoped the entire experience would prove to be an “occasion for education, not recrimination,” adding that the burden now rests with him and Crowley to use the opportunity to foster wider awareness of the dangers facing police officers and the fears that some blacks have about racial profiling.
In a nod to all that’s facing Obama, his friend, Gates added, “It turns out that the president just might have a few other things on his plate as well.”
“We agreed to move forward,” Crowley said later when asked whether anything had been solved. “I think what you had today was two gentlemen agreeing to disagree on a particular issue. I don’t think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future.”
That’s precisely where the White House wants the public to be looking. Although Obama had invited Crowley and Gates as part of what he called a “teachable moment,” it was barely seen by the masses. The permitted news coverage allowed the public to get the we’ve-come-together photos and video footage that the White House wanted, while keeping the discussion private among the men.
“I noticed this has been called the ‘Beer Summit.’ It’s a clever term, but this is not a summit, guys,” Obama told reporters in the Oval Office before the meeting, trying to lower expectations. “This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day, and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other. And that’s really all it is. This is not a university seminar.”
The incident that brought them together was well known by the time the three men met, joined by Vice President Joe Biden: Crowley had investigated a potential burglary at Gates’ house and ended up arresting the protesting professor for disorderly conduct. The matter mushroomed into a debate on racial profiling, fueled by Obama’s “acted stupidly” remark.
Vesla Weaver, a political scientist who studies race and criminal justice at the University of Virginia, said she doesn’t fault Obama, the nation’s first black president, for not pushing the conversation to a broader discussion of racial injustice. “He’s in a bit of a difficult spot,” she said, given the nation’s extremely sensitive reactions to matters of race.
Crowley told reporters that Obama served merely as a facilitator.
“He provided the beer. He contributed in a small part,” Crowley said. “He really wanted to bring two people together to try to solve not only a local issue in Cambridge but also what has become a national issue.”
So much of a national issue that Obama’s popularity took a hit, especially among white voters, according to a poll released Thursday.
The survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama’s handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. Among whites in general, more disapprove than approve of his comments by a 2-1 margin.

WASHINGTON – Dissension within Democratic ranks over President Barack Obama’s health care initiative all but paralyzed the House Friday, typifying just how many political land mines are littering the path to enactment.
The Obama White House figured on some pushback from congressional Republicans, but leaders of his own Democratic Party struggled to get things moving. A powerful House committee chairman threatened to force a floor vote to break the impasse within Democratic ranks — a drastic step that could roil the House.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said negotiations with fiscally conservative Democrats on his panel cannot continue indefinitely. But a floor vote would put fellow Democrats in an exposed position, having to cast a vote on a $544-billion upper-income tax increase that the Senate is unlikely to embrace to help pay for covering the millions of uninsured Americans.
The problems on the House side of the Capitol come a day after Senate Democratic leaders announced they would not go ahead as planned with a floor vote before Congress departs for its August recess. Senate Democrats are also divided. While some are negotiating with Republicans, others want to plow ahead on their own.
“We’re going to have to look at perhaps bypassing the (Energy and Commerce) committee because we’ve got to get moving on this legislation,” Waxman said. “I hope we don’t come to that conclusion.”
Two House panels have already passed legislation. Waxman is stymied because seven conservatives on his committee — part of a group called the Blue Dog Democrats — are sticking together.
Negotiations are continuing, but Waxman said he’s running out of patience.
“We’re not going to let them empower the Republicans to control the committee,” he said.
“This can’t be an interminable discussion,” Waxman added. He’s agreed to a study to address why Medicare rates are lower in rural areas in hopes of mollifying the Blue Dogs, many of whom represent small town constituencies. Billions of dollars are potentially at stake. Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he hoped the talks would end on a positive note and the bill could proceed through Waxman’s committee.
As lawmakers continued to haggle, the White House said Obama will keep working on health care in August even if Congress goes home.
“Nobody in planning meetings decided we should just take August off,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “For a long time we planned to continue the discussion on the issues that are important, be it the economy, health care … education. That had always in many ways been priced into the scenario.”
Obama envisions legislation that would, for the first time, require all Americans to be insured. A new government insurance program would compete with private insurers, and insurance companies would be barred from excluding people with pre-existing conditions. The goals are to hold down costs and extend coverage to most of the 50 million uninsured. The price tag: $1 trillion-plus over a decade.
Obama met Friday morning at the White House with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. Reid said Thursday that the panel will push to complete a bill before the Senate breaks Aug. 7. Baucus has been negotiating with the panel’s Republicans in hopes of producing a bipartisan bill.
Finance Committee negotiators are looking at a bill that probably won’t satisfy Democratic liberals. One of their top goals is a new government-sponsored insurance plan, and that was a centerpiece of legislation passed by the Senate’s health committee. But Finance Committee members are looking at nonprofit co-ops instead.
In the House, the Blue Dogs want more done to try to control rising medical costs.
Democratic leaders say the back-and-forth is a normal part of the legislative process, but Republicans are latching on to the disarray in delight. The Republican National Committee has taken to issuing news releases headlined “Chaos” that highlight disagreements within the Democrats’ ranks.
In a Tweeter post on Friday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, gave a shout-out to the Democratic dissidents: “bludogs keep barkin.” Grassley is Baucus’ counterpart in the Senate health care negotiations.

WASHINGTON – Dissension within Democratic ranks over President Barack Obama’s health care initiative all but paralyzed the House Friday, typifying just how many political land mines are littering the path to enactment.
The Obama White House figured on some pushback from congressional Republicans, but leaders of his own Democratic Party struggled to get things moving. A powerful House committee chairman threatened to force a floor vote to break the impasse within Democratic ranks — a drastic step that could roil the House.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said negotiations with fiscally conservative Democrats on his panel cannot continue indefinitely. But a floor vote would put fellow Democrats in an exposed position, having to cast a vote on a $544-billion upper-income tax increase that the Senate is unlikely to embrace to help pay for covering the millions of uninsured Americans.
The problems on the House side of the Capitol come a day after Senate Democratic leaders announced they would not go ahead as planned with a floor vote before Congress departs for its August recess. Senate Democrats are also divided. While some are negotiating with Republicans, others want to plow ahead on their own.
“We’re going to have to look at perhaps bypassing the (Energy and Commerce) committee because we’ve got to get moving on this legislation,” Waxman said. “I hope we don’t come to that conclusion.”
Two House panels have already passed legislation. Waxman is stymied because seven conservatives on his committee — part of a group called the Blue Dog Democrats — are sticking together.
Negotiations are continuing, but Waxman said he’s running out of patience.
“We’re not going to let them empower the Republicans to control the committee,” he said.
“This can’t be an interminable discussion,” Waxman added. He’s agreed to a study to address why Medicare rates are lower in rural areas in hopes of mollifying the Blue Dogs, many of whom represent small town constituencies. Billions of dollars are potentially at stake. Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he hoped the talks would end on a positive note and the bill could proceed through Waxman’s committee.
As lawmakers continued to haggle, the White House said Obama will keep working on health care in August even if Congress goes home.
“Nobody in planning meetings decided we should just take August off,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “For a long time we planned to continue the discussion on the issues that are important, be it the economy, health care … education. That had always in many ways been priced into the scenario.”
Obama envisions legislation that would, for the first time, require all Americans to be insured. A new government insurance program would compete with private insurers, and insurance companies would be barred from excluding people with pre-existing conditions. The goals are to hold down costs and extend coverage to most of the 50 million uninsured. The price tag: $1 trillion-plus over a decade.
Obama met Friday morning at the White House with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. Reid said Thursday that the panel will push to complete a bill before the Senate breaks Aug. 7. Baucus has been negotiating with the panel’s Republicans in hopes of producing a bipartisan bill.
Finance Committee negotiators are looking at a bill that probably won’t satisfy Democratic liberals. One of their top goals is a new government-sponsored insurance plan, and that was a centerpiece of legislation passed by the Senate’s health committee. But Finance Committee members are looking at nonprofit co-ops instead.
In the House, the Blue Dogs want more done to try to control rising medical costs.
Democratic leaders say the back-and-forth is a normal part of the legislative process, but Republicans are latching on to the disarray in delight. The Republican National Committee has taken to issuing news releases headlined “Chaos” that highlight disagreements within the Democrats’ ranks.
In a Tweeter post on Friday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, gave a shout-out to the Democratic dissidents: “bludogs keep barkin.” Grassley is Baucus’ counterpart in the Senate health care negotiations.

I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic
for which it stands,
one nation,
under God,
indivisible,
with liberty
and justice for all.

So before I go, I’d like to give a very special thanks to our military (what’s up James; told you I’d mention your name!), the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, and KTVI Fox 2 News. To all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (happy 4th), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (happy 4th), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (read this again), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! And a Happy 4th of July to everyone! Fly your flags people!

so-cial-ism
–noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Think about it. Well, that’s my diction lesson for tonight. So before I go, I’d like to give a special thanks to the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, and KTVI Fox 2 News. To all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (embrace the future of our party), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers, my Democrat blogs and bloggers (google Merriam-Webster), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Enjoy.

June 7, 2003
The Real Leo Strauss
By Jenny Strauss Clay
Recent news articles have portrayed my father, Leo Strauss, as the mastermind behind the neoconservative ideologues who control United States foreign policy. He reaches out from his 30-year-old grave, we are told, to direct a ”cabal” (a word with distinct anti-Semitic overtones) of Bush administration figures hoping to subject the American people to rule by a ruthless elite. I do not recognize the Leo Strauss presented in these articles.
My father was not a politician. He taught political theory, primarily at the University of Chicago. He was a conservative insofar as he did not think that change is necessarily change for the better.
Leo Strauss believed in the intrinsic dignity of the political. He believed in and defended liberal democracy; although he was not blind to its flaws, he felt it was the best form of government that could be realized, ”the last best hope.” He was an enemy of any regime that aspired to global domination. He despised utopianism — in our time, Nazism and Communism — which is predicated on the denial of a fundamental and even noble feature of human nature: love of one’s own. His heroes were Churchill and Lincoln. He was not an observant Jew, but he loved the Jewish people and he saw the establishment of Israel as essential to their survival.
To me, what characterized him above all else was his total lack of vanity and self-importance. As a result, he had no interest in honors within the academy, and was completely unsuited to political ambition. His own earliest passion, he confessed, was to spend his life raising rabbits (Flemish Giants) and reading Plato.
He was first and foremost a teacher. He did not seek to mold people in his own image. Rather, he was devoted to helping young people see the world as it is, in all its misery and splendor. The objects of his teaching were the Great Books, those works generally recognized as the foundation of a liberal education. But that alone was not a sufficient reason for reading them.
He began where good teachers should begin, from his students’ received opinions, in order to scrutinize their foundation. At that time, as is still true today, academia leaned to the left; hence such questioning required an examination of the left’s tenets. Had the prevailing beliefs been different, they too would have been subject to his skeptical inquiry.
Among the received opinions of the time was an unquestioned faith in progress and science combined with a queasiness regarding any kind of moral judgment, or ”relativism.” Many young people were confused, without a compass, with nothing substantial to admire. My father’s turning them to the Great Books was thus motivated not merely by aesthetic or antiquarian interest, but by a search for an understanding of mankind’s present predicament: what were its sources and what, if any, were the alternatives? The latter he found in the writings of the ancient Greeks.
Furthermore, he insistently confronted his students with the question of the ”good life.” For him, the choice boiled down to the life in accordance with Revelation or the life according to Reason — Jerusalem versus Athens. The vitality of Western tradition, he felt, lay in the invigorating tension between the two.
My father saw reading not as a passive exercise but as taking part in an active dialogue with the great minds of the past. One had to read with great care, great respect, and try, as he always said, to ”understand the author as he understood himself.” Today this task, admittedly difficult and demanding, is dismissed in fashionable academia as impossible. Rather, we are told, each reader inevitably constructs his own text over which the author has no control, and the writer’s intentions are irrelevant.
The fact is that Leo Strauss also recognized a multiplicity of readers, but he had enough faith in his authors to assume that they, too, recognized that they would have a diverse readership. Some of their readers, the ancients realized, would want only to find their own views and prejudices confirmed; others might be willing to open themselves to new, perhaps unconventional or unpopular, ideas. I personally think my father’s rediscovery of the art of writing for different kinds of readers will be his most lasting legacy.
Although I was never a student of my father’s, I sat in on a class of his in the 1960′s; I think it was on Xenophon’s ”Cyropaedia.” He was a small, unprepossessing and, truth be told, ugly man (daughters are their parents’ worst critics), with none of the charisma that one associates with ”great teachers.” And yet there was something utterly charming. One of the students would read little chunks of the text, and my father would comment and call for discussion. What marked this class was a combination of an engagement with questions of the highest seriousness (in this case, what is the best form of government) with the laughter of intellectual play.
It was magic. If only the truth had the power to make the misrepresentations of his achievement vanish like smoke and dust.

Steele and the soul of the GOP
Future of chair, party to be debated at special session this week.
By Jim Galloway
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, May 18, 2009
SAVANNAH —- To understand the churning passions within the Republican Party this weekend, all one had to do was play a game of follow-the-leader.
In one of two speeches on Saturday, national GOP chairman Michael Steele paid red-meat tribute to the defiance of 1,200 frustrated and angry delegates who showed up at the state Republican convention.
“We don’t have to remake anything. What do we have to remake? Our values?” Steele shouted.
But only a few hours earlier, at a smaller breakfast event, the chairman of the Republican National Committee had delivered a quite different message, using the blunt language that’s made him famous.
The chairman said he had inherited leadership of a party that was “stuck in a 1980s philosophy, using a 1990s strategy to win campaigns.”
The Republican demand for orthodoxy and purity, Steele said, risks making the party irrelevant to “the changing heartbeat of this nation.”
“We can no longer be afraid that to open up, to invite someone in, diminishes us. I don’t know how that works,” Steele said. “If you are true to your convictions, to your core, why are you so afraid to share that?”
The RNC chairman rushed out of Savannah without speaking to reporters. Unscripted moments have cost him lately —- plus, there was a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to prepare for.
But more importantly, the head of the national GOP probably needed a few hours to ready himself for this week’s palace revolt.
The 108 days of Steele’s tenure as the first African-American chairman of the GOP will be marked by a special session of the 168-member Republican National Committee that elected him.
A faction within the RNC has placed at least two items on the agenda. One is a high school-prankish resolution to mandate that all Democrats be referred to as “Democrat Socialists.”
A more serious measure would put new controls on Steele’s power to determine where Republican cash resources —- which remain formidable —- will be spent.
Georgia has Republicans on both sides of a fight that is less about book-keeping practices and more about how Republicans should attempt to recover from four years of defeat.
Alec Poitevint, former chairman of the state GOP and a former treasurer of the RNC, identified himself as one of the “dissidents” insisting on tighter fiscal controls over the new chairman.
“We live in a more transparent world,” Poitevint said.
More exacting, business-style regulations would increase faith in Steele’s role as “CEO of the Republican National Committee,” the Bainbridge businessman said —- and “absolutely” should not be interpreted as the first move in an attempt to send him packing.
But Poitevint hinted at dissatisfaction with Steele’s early performance, which has been marked by gaffes —- the latest over Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith. “There’s an impatience within the Republican base. I think that’s what you see at the RNC,” Poitevint said.
Sue Everhart, re-elected by acclamation as chairman of the state GOP this weekend, twisted many an arm in January to get Steele elected. And she’ll do so again this week to preserve his authority.
To slap controls on Steele would be a blunder for a party looking to expand its reach, she thinks.
“We’ve had chairmen that were very extravagant; we’ve had chairmen that were frugal,” said Everhart. “To me, it would be sending a message. Do we not want him to be able to write checks because he’s black? We don’t trust him? Why?
“I don’t think we need to put anything on Michael that we didn’t put on any other chairman,” she said. “I think it’s just a bunch of people who didn’t get who they wanted, so they want to punish him.”
Linda Herren is the third Georgia Republican on the RNC. She’s not opposed to controls aimed at exorbitant spending.
But the constantly morphing draft resolutions she’s seen would require Steele to get approval for expenditures over $100,000 to $150,000.
“You can spend that in stamps,” she said. “That would pretty much tie his hands.”

1. Jealous resentment against a rival, a person enjoying success or advantage, etc., or against another’s success or advantage itself.

2. Mental uneasiness from suspicion or fear of rivalry, unfaithfulness, etc., as in love or aims.

3. Vigilance in maintaining or guarding something.

4. A jealous feeling, disposition, state, or mood.

Sound familiar? I’ve noticed a lot of that sentiment in the democratic party lately. And what’s so confusing to me is the fact that you guys are actually in control right now. Is the Obama honeymoon period over? Are you starting to realize that in 2010 you may not fare well? Are you now feeling the pinch of the new tax hikes, let alone whatever new tax raises this administration has planned for the next four years that no one even knows about yet? Are you scared that in 2012 the new Republican Party will take back our government? Is it because you can see and hear us gearing up to destroy you? Well, whatever the reason, stop with all the jealousy- it’s a weak emotion. Talk sh*t about how Rush Limbaugh runs our party all you want, try to pretend like Michael Steele doesn’t exist all you want, pretend like higher taxes are a good thing all you want; but you know what’s going to happen in a few years. We’re building a newer, younger GOP and we’re coming to get you. Enjoy your moment in the sun, but just know we see the green in your eyes. So to all my Republican political blogs and bloggers, to all my Libertarian political blogs and bloggers, and to all my Democrat political blogs and bloggers (your ship is slowly sinking): Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! See you later.

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric:
• Ad hominem – attacking the arguer and not the argument.
• Argument from “authority”.
• Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an “unfavourable” decision).
• Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
• Special pleading (typically referring to god’s will).
• Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
• Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
• Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
• Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
• Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not “proved”).
• Non sequitur – “it does not follow” – the logic falls down.
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “it happened after so it was caused by” – confusion of cause and effect.
• Meaningless question (“what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
• Excluded middle -considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the “other side” look worse than it really is).
• Short-term v. long-term – a subset of excluded middle (“why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?”).
• Slippery slope – a subset of excluded middle -unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
• Confusion of correlation and causation.
• Straw man – caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.
• Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
• Weasel words – for example, use of euphemisms for war such as “police action” to get around limitations on Presidential powers. “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”.

These are all rules that we learned as children (on the right) of how to detect when you’ve won a debate or an argument against a liberal. So yes, if we (on the right) come off as a little bit arrogant or dismissive, it’s only because we know that your point and premise are both invalid and not even worth discussing. Why would we continue have a discourse with you? It’s pointless! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Somehow people on the left always seem to reverse that actuality. Sorry for this post being so short, but I just had to bring you liberal democrats back to reality and remind my Republican friends of why it’s so frustrating talking to anyone on the left. In closing, I’d like to give a special thanks to the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, and KTVI Fox 2 News. To all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers, my Libertarian blogs and bloggers, my Democrat blogs and bloggers (stop it already), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong.

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric:
• Ad hominem – attacking the arguer and not the argument.
• Argument from “authority”.
• Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an “unfavourable” decision).
• Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
• Special pleading (typically referring to god’s will).
• Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
• Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
• Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
• Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
• Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not “proved”).
• Non sequitur – “it does not follow” – the logic falls down.
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “it happened after so it was caused by” – confusion of cause and effect.
• Meaningless question (“what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
• Excluded middle -considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the “other side” look worse than it really is).
• Short-term v. long-term – a subset of excluded middle (“why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?”).
• Slippery slope – a subset of excluded middle -unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
• Confusion of correlation and causation.
• Straw man – caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.
• Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
• Weasel words – for example, use of euphemisms for war such as “police action” to get around limitations on Presidential powers. “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”.

These are all rules that we learned as children (on the right) of how to detect when you’ve won a debate or an argument against a liberal. So yes, if we (on the right) come off as a little bit arrogant or dismissive, it’s only because we know that your point and premise are both invalid and not even worth discussing. Why would we continue have a discourse with you? It’s pointless! Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Somehow people on the left always seem to reverse that actuality. Sorry for this post being so short, but I just had to bring you liberal democrats back to reality and remind my Republican friends of why it’s so frustrating talking to anyone on the left. In closing, I’d like to give a special thanks to the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, and KTVI Fox 2 News. To all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers, my Libertarian blogs and bloggers, my Democrat blogs and bloggers (stop it already), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong.

June 7, 2003
The Real Leo Strauss
By Jenny Strauss Clay
Recent news articles have portrayed my father, Leo Strauss, as the mastermind behind the neoconservative ideologues who control United States foreign policy. He reaches out from his 30-year-old grave, we are told, to direct a ”cabal” (a word with distinct anti-Semitic overtones) of Bush administration figures hoping to subject the American people to rule by a ruthless elite. I do not recognize the Leo Strauss presented in these articles.
My father was not a politician. He taught political theory, primarily at the University of Chicago. He was a conservative insofar as he did not think that change is necessarily change for the better.
Leo Strauss believed in the intrinsic dignity of the political. He believed in and defended liberal democracy; although he was not blind to its flaws, he felt it was the best form of government that could be realized, ”the last best hope.” He was an enemy of any regime that aspired to global domination. He despised utopianism — in our time, Nazism and Communism — which is predicated on the denial of a fundamental and even noble feature of human nature: love of one’s own. His heroes were Churchill and Lincoln. He was not an observant Jew, but he loved the Jewish people and he saw the establishment of Israel as essential to their survival.
To me, what characterized him above all else was his total lack of vanity and self-importance. As a result, he had no interest in honors within the academy, and was completely unsuited to political ambition. His own earliest passion, he confessed, was to spend his life raising rabbits (Flemish Giants) and reading Plato.
He was first and foremost a teacher. He did not seek to mold people in his own image. Rather, he was devoted to helping young people see the world as it is, in all its misery and splendor. The objects of his teaching were the Great Books, those works generally recognized as the foundation of a liberal education. But that alone was not a sufficient reason for reading them.
He began where good teachers should begin, from his students’ received opinions, in order to scrutinize their foundation. At that time, as is still true today, academia leaned to the left; hence such questioning required an examination of the left’s tenets. Had the prevailing beliefs been different, they too would have been subject to his skeptical inquiry.
Among the received opinions of the time was an unquestioned faith in progress and science combined with a queasiness regarding any kind of moral judgment, or ”relativism.” Many young people were confused, without a compass, with nothing substantial to admire. My father’s turning them to the Great Books was thus motivated not merely by aesthetic or antiquarian interest, but by a search for an understanding of mankind’s present predicament: what were its sources and what, if any, were the alternatives? The latter he found in the writings of the ancient Greeks.
Furthermore, he insistently confronted his students with the question of the ”good life.” For him, the choice boiled down to the life in accordance with Revelation or the life according to Reason — Jerusalem versus Athens. The vitality of Western tradition, he felt, lay in the invigorating tension between the two.
My father saw reading not as a passive exercise but as taking part in an active dialogue with the great minds of the past. One had to read with great care, great respect, and try, as he always said, to ”understand the author as he understood himself.” Today this task, admittedly difficult and demanding, is dismissed in fashionable academia as impossible. Rather, we are told, each reader inevitably constructs his own text over which the author has no control, and the writer’s intentions are irrelevant.
The fact is that Leo Strauss also recognized a multiplicity of readers, but he had enough faith in his authors to assume that they, too, recognized that they would have a diverse readership. Some of their readers, the ancients realized, would want only to find their own views and prejudices confirmed; others might be willing to open themselves to new, perhaps unconventional or unpopular, ideas. I personally think my father’s rediscovery of the art of writing for different kinds of readers will be his most lasting legacy.
Although I was never a student of my father’s, I sat in on a class of his in the 1960′s; I think it was on Xenophon’s ”Cyropaedia.” He was a small, unprepossessing and, truth be told, ugly man (daughters are their parents’ worst critics), with none of the charisma that one associates with ”great teachers.” And yet there was something utterly charming. One of the students would read little chunks of the text, and my father would comment and call for discussion. What marked this class was a combination of an engagement with questions of the highest seriousness (in this case, what is the best form of government) with the laughter of intellectual play.
It was magic. If only the truth had the power to make the misrepresentations of his achievement vanish like smoke and dust.

Federal Tax on Cigarettes Goes Up 155% Wednesday
By George Sells

March 31, 2009

WEST ALTON, MO – (KTVI-FOX2now.com)

Smokers are just hours away from the largest single tax increase on cigarettes in American history. Many smokers spent Tuesday rushing around St. Louis looking to stock up before the prices goes up. The Federal excise tax on cigarettes goes up 155% Wednesday from 39 cents to a dollar and a penny. How much might the price jump tomorrow? It could be a little or a lot. The big tobacco companies won’t tell the stores.

At the Dirt Cheap Cigarette location in West Alton, it’s clear something is going on. Upon entering, you find nearly a dozen people in line, several of whom are carrying five or ten cartons of cigarettes. People are clearly stocking up. David Allen sums up many peoples’ feelings here.

“It feels like they’re picking on the smokers a little bit.”

The smokers are about to see the largest single tax increase on cigarettes in U.S. history. The 155% jump in excise tax will add 62 cents on to the price of every pack of cigarettes beginning April 1st. That’s Wednesday. The federal government says the money will be used to provide health care for poor children.

Standing in line, holding ten cartons, is Mary Schaefer. She says this will be the end of the smoking line for her and her husband.

“For me this is my last month to smoke. Between the economy and my husband losing, about to lose his job, we’ve got to do something, so we’re gonna quit. ” She says she has her children to think of.

“The kids have gotta eat before I’ve gotta smoke.”

How much the price will jump Wednesday remains unclear. Dirt Cheap’s owner tells FOX 2 that the big tobacco companies have been inching prices up for several week, potentially building in the price hike in advance. There will be no way to know for certain how much they’ll hit smokers Wednesday until they publish the day’s prices some time late Tuesday night.

In the interim, smokers are buying up cigarettes in droves, hoping to keep the government’s hand out of their pockets a little bit longer.

Doug Dorner says he can only take so much

“I only bring in so much and they keep raising the taxes on this stuff. I don’t know why.”

He says he’ll soon be priced out of his smoking habit. Of course, many in anti smoking circles will tell you, that’s the idea.

Copyright © 2009, KTVI-TV

Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect.

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect.

“Oh my gosh,” Bernardo Torres said Tuesday when a clerk at a CVS Pharmacy in Falls Church, Va., told him the new price, which went up in anticipation of the tax increase. Torres wanted to buy his aunt two cartons of cigarette-size cigars, but he walked away empty-handed after hearing the new price: $134. The tax on little cigars went from 4 cents to $1.01 a pack.

“I don’t know what to do. This is going to hit her hard,” Torres said of his disabled aunt, 64, a heavy smoker who won’t quit.

“I’m going to quit,” said Will Hues, 27, smoking a cigarette outside the store. He said prices have gone up so much that “you’re out of your mind to pay it.”

The increases, which raise the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents a pack to $1.01, applies to all tobacco products. It comes as more than two dozen states, desperate for revenue in a sunken economy, consider boosting their own tobacco taxes this year.

“This is very historic,” said Matthew McKenna, director of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before the tax hike, cigarette prices averaged about $5 a pack. Now, tobacco companies are raising prices by different amounts. Some are absorbing part of the increase; others are raising prices more.

In the past, a 10% price increase reduced cigarette consumption about 4%, McKenna said. He expects the federal tax hike to prompt at least 1 million of the 45 million adult smokers to kick the habit.

“We expect this to accelerate the decline” in cigarette consumption, said Bill Phelps, spokesman for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company. He said consumption has been dropping 3% annually for a decade. “Some people may quit smoking,” he said. “Others may cut back.”

Nik Modi, a tobacco industry analyst at UBS, expects cigarette consumption to drop by about 9% annually. Tobacco companies won’t be badly hurt, he said, because they’ve prepared for the increase.

Last month, companies began raising prices to cover the tax increase. Marlboro maker Philip Morris raised prices by at least 71 cents a pack. R.J. Reynolds, maker of Camel, did so by at least 42 cents.

Congress passed legislation last year raising the tax to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, but former president George W. Bush vetoed it. In February, President Obama, who has struggled to quit smoking, signed a new version.

Even tobacco-growing states such as North Carolina are considering increases. Two states, Arkansas and Kentucky, doubled their taxes this year.

The federal increase “will fall on those who can least afford it,” said Frank Lester, spokesman for Reynolds American. He said one in four smokers live at or below the poverty line.

“More lower-income people than higher-income people will quit” because they cannot afford the tax hike, said Eric Lindblom of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

USA TODAY

Federal Tax on Cigarettes Goes Up 155% Wednesday
By George Sells

March 31, 2009

WEST ALTON, MO – (KTVI-FOX2now.com)

Smokers are just hours away from the largest single tax increase on cigarettes in American history. Many smokers spent Tuesday rushing around St. Louis looking to stock up before the prices goes up. The Federal excise tax on cigarettes goes up 155% Wednesday from 39 cents to a dollar and a penny. How much might the price jump tomorrow? It could be a little or a lot. The big tobacco companies won’t tell the stores.

At the Dirt Cheap Cigarette location in West Alton, it’s clear something is going on. Upon entering, you find nearly a dozen people in line, several of whom are carrying five or ten cartons of cigarettes. People are clearly stocking up. David Allen sums up many peoples’ feelings here.

“It feels like they’re picking on the smokers a little bit.”

The smokers are about to see the largest single tax increase on cigarettes in U.S. history. The 155% jump in excise tax will add 62 cents on to the price of every pack of cigarettes beginning April 1st. That’s Wednesday. The federal government says the money will be used to provide health care for poor children.

Standing in line, holding ten cartons, is Mary Schaefer. She says this will be the end of the smoking line for her and her husband.

“For me this is my last month to smoke. Between the economy and my husband losing, about to lose his job, we’ve got to do something, so we’re gonna quit. ” She says she has her children to think of.

“The kids have gotta eat before I’ve gotta smoke.”

How much the price will jump Wednesday remains unclear. Dirt Cheap’s owner tells FOX 2 that the big tobacco companies have been inching prices up for several week, potentially building in the price hike in advance. There will be no way to know for certain how much they’ll hit smokers Wednesday until they publish the day’s prices some time late Tuesday night.

In the interim, smokers are buying up cigarettes in droves, hoping to keep the government’s hand out of their pockets a little bit longer.

Doug Dorner says he can only take so much

“I only bring in so much and they keep raising the taxes on this stuff. I don’t know why.”

He says he’ll soon be priced out of his smoking habit. Of course, many in anti smoking circles will tell you, that’s the idea.

Copyright © 2009, KTVI-TV

Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect.

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect.

“Oh my gosh,” Bernardo Torres said Tuesday when a clerk at a CVS Pharmacy in Falls Church, Va., told him the new price, which went up in anticipation of the tax increase. Torres wanted to buy his aunt two cartons of cigarette-size cigars, but he walked away empty-handed after hearing the new price: $134. The tax on little cigars went from 4 cents to $1.01 a pack.

“I don’t know what to do. This is going to hit her hard,” Torres said of his disabled aunt, 64, a heavy smoker who won’t quit.

“I’m going to quit,” said Will Hues, 27, smoking a cigarette outside the store. He said prices have gone up so much that “you’re out of your mind to pay it.”

The increases, which raise the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents a pack to $1.01, applies to all tobacco products. It comes as more than two dozen states, desperate for revenue in a sunken economy, consider boosting their own tobacco taxes this year.

“This is very historic,” said Matthew McKenna, director of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before the tax hike, cigarette prices averaged about $5 a pack. Now, tobacco companies are raising prices by different amounts. Some are absorbing part of the increase; others are raising prices more.

In the past, a 10% price increase reduced cigarette consumption about 4%, McKenna said. He expects the federal tax hike to prompt at least 1 million of the 45 million adult smokers to kick the habit.

“We expect this to accelerate the decline” in cigarette consumption, said Bill Phelps, spokesman for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company. He said consumption has been dropping 3% annually for a decade. “Some people may quit smoking,” he said. “Others may cut back.”

Nik Modi, a tobacco industry analyst at UBS, expects cigarette consumption to drop by about 9% annually. Tobacco companies won’t be badly hurt, he said, because they’ve prepared for the increase.

Last month, companies began raising prices to cover the tax increase. Marlboro maker Philip Morris raised prices by at least 71 cents a pack. R.J. Reynolds, maker of Camel, did so by at least 42 cents.

Congress passed legislation last year raising the tax to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, but former president George W. Bush vetoed it. In February, President Obama, who has struggled to quit smoking, signed a new version.

Even tobacco-growing states such as North Carolina are considering increases. Two states, Arkansas and Kentucky, doubled their taxes this year.

The federal increase “will fall on those who can least afford it,” said Frank Lester, spokesman for Reynolds American. He said one in four smokers live at or below the poverty line.

“More lower-income people than higher-income people will quit” because they cannot afford the tax hike, said Eric Lindblom of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

USA TODAY

in•san•i•ty
Function: noun
Inability to understand the nature and consequences of one’s acts (as making a will) or of events, matters, or proceedings in which one is involved.

Why do you think that south city is better maintained than north city even though you both share the same tax base? Central West End anyone? The Loft District? Come on people! Try out the new Republican Party…or keep getting the same results. And that also goes for the entire metro east. So to all my Republican blogs and bloggers, my Libertarian blogs and bloggers, my Democrat blogs and bloggers (wise up), and to all political blogs and bloggers: let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! Vote April 7th metro east residents! And a special thanks to the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, and the National Black Republican Association. And to my first love Na Na: stop referring to your son as anything other than his birth name, dressing him up in ridiculous costumes on halloween, and pretending that your father didn’t have a movie based on him. See you later and everyone have good luck getting to work today!

By Ray Long and Rick Pearson
Tribune Reporters
6:29 PM CDT, March 17, 2009
SPRINGFIELD

Gov. Pat Quinn will use his first state budget address Wednesday to call for a 50 percent increase in income taxes as well as higher fees for license plates and drivers licenses to deal with the state’s mounting deficit and to fund a public works program, documents first obtained by the Tribune show.

Less than two months on the job after replacing his impeached and ousted predecessor, Quinn will try to ease the blow from higher income taxes on lower-income families with an increase in the personal exemption–a move he estimated would hold the line or cut taxes on as many as 5 million people.

Quinn also is proposing a 10-day holiday on the state’s sales tax in August for the purchase of school-related clothing and supplies.

At the same time, he’s proposing an increase in corporate income taxes and the closing of some business tax breaks while also asking state workers to pay more for their health insurance and to take four unpaid days off work.

Quinn also is supporting a proposal backed by Democratic leaders that would boost cigarette taxes to help pay off overdue bills to healthcare providers to the poor, legislative sources said. The proposal, filed in the Senate today, would boost the current 98-cent per pack cigarette tax by 50 cents and could increase another 50 cents in the next year, sources said.

Further, Quinn is considering $20-a-year hike in license plate sticker fees, which would rise to $99 on July 1, and increasing the driver’s license fee to $20 from $10 now, according to information provided to lawmakers.

“We can–and must–turn the state of our economy around,” Quinn said in a letter to lawmakers that accompanies his budget plan. “I believe it is not only possible to get Illinois back on the road to recovery, but make it stronger for future generations.”

Quinn will try Wednesday to persuade skeptical and nervous lawmakers to embrace his tough choices to keep the state afloat amid the potential of a record $11.5 billion deficit by the summer of 2010.

“This gap is too large to be addressed with any single measure, whether it is spending cuts, revenue increases, or federal recovery money,” Quinn told lawmakers in a letter that accompanies the budget plan, obtained by the Tribune. “It calls for every type of solution. That is what this budget does. This plan makes tough decisions while maintaining our commitment to our priorities and, more importantly, it protects our most vulnerable citizens.”

As he boarded a St. Patrick’s Day flight from Chicago to Springfield earlier today, Quinn acknowledged he would need the “luck of the Irish.”

The Quinn income tax hike proposal would raise the rate to 4.5 percent from 3 percent for individuals, levels first reported last week by the Tribune and to 7.2 percent from 4.8 percent for corporations. The tax increases are the centerpiece of a plan that he hopes will fill the budget gap and provide him with a path to win the office he inherited following his predecessor’s impeachment and ouster.

Without any changes in Illinois tax structure, Quinn forecasted a drop in the state sales tax revenues of 4.2 percent in the new fiscal year beginning July 1, a drop of nearly 22 percent in corporate tax receipts and a reduction in individual income tax revenue of more than 2 percent.

His proposal for a $26 billion construction plan dubbed “Illinois Jobs Now!” is aimed at creating 340,000 jobs over several years. Quinn’s predecessor, Rod Blagojevich, was unable to get approval for a public works plan during his six years in office because of mistrusting lawmakers. With Blagojevich facing federal corruption charges and out of office, Quinn will stand a better chance of pushing through a construction plan if he is successful working with lawmakers and eschewing his predecessor’s style of confrontation.

Under the plan, $14 billion would be targeted for bridges and roads, $4.6 billion for mass transit, $4.2 billion for school construction and $971 million would be set aside for $971 million. One of the more contentious provisions of the construction program is that Quinn wants pay for it through increasing fees for driver’s licenses and license plate fees to pay for transportation-related improvements while using 10 percent of the new income tax revenue to pay for school construction and other “economic development” projects around the state.

Resisting pressure from lawmakers to raise the gasoline tax, Quinn showed no signs in his budget documents that he would go along. Proposals to increase the current 19-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline have ranged from hikes of 8 cents to 23 cents a gallon. But Quinn repeatedly has been adamant in opposition.

Quinn’s proposals to save money include such matters as restructuring some of the state’s debt in a move to save as much as $500 million during the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2010.

But he also is looking at ways to make smaller reductions. One example would be combining two agencies, the Department of Natural Resources and the Historic Preservation Agency. The savings from merging, estimated at $1.2 million, comes after Quinn reopened several state parks that Blagojevich closed.
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

1. Jealous resentment against a rival, a person enjoying success or advantage, etc., or against another’s success or advantage itself.

2. Mental uneasiness from suspicion or fear of rivalry, unfaithfulness, etc., as in love or aims.

3. Vigilance in maintaining or guarding something.

4. A jealous feeling, disposition, state, or mood.

Sound familiar? I’ve noticed a lot of that sentiment in the democratic party lately. And what’s so confusing to me is the fact that you guys are actually in control right now. Is the Obama honeymoon period over? Are you starting to realize that in 2010 you may not fare well? Are you now feeling the pinch of the new tax hikes, let alone whatever new tax raises this administration has planned for the next four years that no one even knows about yet? Are you scared that in 2012 the new Republican Party will take back our government? Is it because you can see and hear us gearing up to destroy you? Well, whatever the reason, stop with all the jealousy- it’s a weak emotion. Talk sh*t about how Rush Limbaugh runs our party all you want, try to pretend like Michael Steele doesn’t exist all you want, pretend like higher taxes are a good thing all you want; but you know what’s going to happen in a few years. We’re building a newer, younger GOP and we’re coming to get you. Enjoy your moment in the sun, but just know we see the green in your eyes. So to all my Republican political blogs and bloggers, to all my Libertarian political blogs and bloggers, and to all my Democrat political blogs and bloggers (your ship is slowly sinking): Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! See you later.