Nation-Building

The GOP is in full obstructionist mode regarding the economic stimulus plan - there's an excellent summary at myDD of the GOP's general strategy: The GOP's main contention has been now for over 30 years that by reducing the top tax rate on personal and corporate income that a large increase in aggregate total savings would result. Yet the savings rate of American households has been declining for more than a decade and it now stands at the lowest level of the post-WW II era. Since 2003, the combined annual net savings of households, businesses, and government have declined to about one percent of gross national income. So if increasing the savings rate is the goal so as to thus increase investment, cutting taxes hasn't worked. And yet the GOP continues to pitch the idea that tax cuts lift the economy. Well, the Democrats are batting now and they shouldn't swing at balls outside the strike zone. To continue the metaphor, this is the GOP's set up pitch. They wan...

More Obama Derangement Syndrome, this time from Leon at RedState, who labels Obama as "corrupt" and "morally deparaved": as we will remember in two short days, all is not morally well in America. Barack Obama is sure to have a lengthy honeymoon with many people, who will be willing to overlook his essential moral emptiness for as long as it appears that he is doing a competent job of running his Administration. As for me, it is my hope for America that Obama’s moral emptiness will be exposed through his actions for all to see, and in such a way that we will not continue to allow ourselves to sweep it under the rug. I anticipate that after Obama's (second) term as president ends, these will be the same voices calling for him to be impeached.

The Senate testimony of Steven Chu for Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration gave a very specific, detailed look at how the new Administration will treat nuclear energy as a priority. The NEI Nuclear Notes blog , which follows the commercial energy industry, has compiled a list of excerpts from the testimony in which Chu is questioned on specifics about how he would promote nuclear power. Chu answered a number of questions from Senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, about the various issues including waste storage and loan guarantees. I think this final back and forth with Senator Mary Landrieu served as a good summary: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA): My question is, to follow-up, and I ask this, because, not because it hadn’t been asked ten times to you this morning, but I think, in asking, you’ll understand how many of us feel about nuclear. You’ve had a least six or seven questions. Mine’s going to be the eighth. It’s just apparent to us, mainly based on the great leader...

Obama Derangement Syndrome is here to stay. This lunatic says that Obama is "evil" and prays for the President to fail: I do not hesitate today in calling on godly Americans to pray that Barack Hussein Obama fail in his efforts to change our country from one anchored on self-governance and constitutional republicanism to one based on the raw and unlimited power of the central state. It would be folly to pray for his success in such an evil campaign. I want Obama to fail because his agenda is 100 percent at odds with God's. Pretending it is not simply makes a mockery of God's straightforward Commandments. ... Nowhere in the Bible does it teach us to obey evil rulers. Nowhere. This is a time for principled biblical resistance, not phony Christian appeasement. To summarize, Obama wants "unlimited central government" and he is evil because this conflicts with the Commandments (I must have missed the one where it says, Thou Shalt Not Vote Democrat). This is rath...

During the election, the McCain campaign slogan was "Country First". This was seized upon with glee by GOP partisans as a rebuke against Obama, who (it was implied) put himself first instead of his country. Now, however, in losing the election, these same fair-weather patriots would prefer that McCain put Party above Country - clearly their concept of Country was a subset - the so-called " Real America " - that shared their political views and agenda. John McCain's principles and patriotism have now become a point of contention instead of pride for these small-minded partisan fools. Case in point - RedState has already told McCain to go " suck a lemon ". A more official rebuke comes from Rick Santorum, former GOP Senator for PA, who frets that John McCain might seek to re-burnish his credentials as a maverick by working amicably with president Obama: McCain was once the mainstream media darling, back when he joined Democrats on a host of issues. H...

The Bush Administration is essentially over : The president will be the president until 12 noon Tuesday, but most of his employees will be gone by the close of business Friday. They’ll turn in their BlackBerrys, laptops, building passes and gym keys. And by the time the weekend is out — before the new administration can reverse course on waterboarding or SCHIP or anything else — teams of painters and carpet cleaners will have wiped away any hint that they ever set foot in the White House The moment did not pass unnoticed at Daily Kos, either: It's 5:00 PM in the Eastern time zone, which includes Washington DC. 5:00 PM is the standard end of the workday. It's Friday, the end of the week. Monday is a federal holiday, so the mass of federal employees will not be working. On Tuesday President-elect Barack Obama will become President Barack Obama, our nation's 44th president. Some White House staff will be kept on for the next few days. Certainly in the defense...