There has been nothing more cowardly in my lifetime than the American government’s dysfunctional response to the economic imperialism of China. The Chinese have shown a unique political sophistication in co-opting the elites of big corporate America with crony business deals; and politically pacifying Congress with a willingness to fund their deficit spending. But with the common man’s concern rising, two accomplished academics, Peter Navarro and Greg Autry have just published: “Death By China”; a muckraker’s call to confront the dangers of America’s dance with the Chinese Dragon in the 21st Century.

The first chapter of the book is a grim expose on the dangers of Chinese food exports. The reader is taken for a stroll down the modern isles of America’s super markets; where Chinese imports increasingly dominated display shelves. Perhaps some nice seafood grown in the raging chemical stew of the Yangtze’s river would be an attractive offering for your family tonight. Don’t worry about the fish and shrimp dying from the world’s most bacteria infested waters; the Chinese simply pour massive amounts of banned antibiotics in the water to prevent that nasty dis-colorization of diseases. The same quality control mentality often holds for China’s market share dominance in such staples as white meat chicken, apple juice, garlic, canned pears, honey and a myriad of other basic foods.

Feeling a little woozy after considering how much mercury and other poisons you have already accumulated in your body from eating these imported treats: you learn that Chinese communist drug makers now produce 70% of the world’s penicillin, 50% of its aspirin, and 33% of its Tylenol you may have ingested. The Dragon’s drug makers have also captured much of the world market in antibiotics, enzymes, primary amino acids, and vitamins. China has even cornered the world market for vitamin C—with 90% of market share. Oh by the way; China now plays a dominant role in the production of vitamins A, B12, and E, besides many of the raw ingredients that go into multivitamins.

As the authors report: “These statistics should disturb all of us for one simple reason: Far too much of what China is flooding our grocery stores and drug emporia with is pure poison. That’s why Chinese foods and drugs always rank #1 of those flagged down at the border or recalled by both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority.”

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Florida State University (FSU) President Barron recently sent a letter to the Faculty Senate Committee asking the body to review the Koch Foundation agreement with the university and its implementation. The final report, which was released last week, went beyond the scope of Barron’s request and examined other donors’ agreements and decisions made by the economics department at FSU. The results of that analysis have been repeatedly confused with the details of the memorandum of understanding with the Koch Foundation as proven by an article published by Inside Higher Ed. This post serves to clarify some of the mistakes being reported by various outlets.

Inside Higher Ed claims that FSU created a new economics course as part of the agreement with the Koch Foundation called “Market Ethics: The Vices, Virtues, and Values of Capitalism” and that this course featured the work of Ayn Rand.

In fact, this course was not part of the agreement between FSU and the Koch Foundation, and the work of Ayn Rand is never referenced in the memorandum of understanding between the two parties.

Moreover, the agreement gives the program director the opportunity to design a course, but leaves it entirely up to the professor to choose which program will best help their students learn. In the event that the professor does decide to design a course, the agreement states the course must “follow current department procedures for approving and new course offering.”

This freedom of course design was even acknowledged by professors at other institutions including University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, Richard Avramenko and Beloit College professor Joshua Hall, who told The Capital Times they had “complete freedom” to design their programs and that the Koch Foundation “had no input on the substance of the programming.”

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Just minutes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tabled (read: killed) the second piece of legislation presented by the House to his chamber addressing solutions to the politically manufactured debt ceiling “crisis” – legislation crafted through not only bipartisan negotiations among members of the House, but bipartisan consultation with Senate members – Mr. Reid had the unmitigated gall to infer that Republicans were being “obstructionist.”

As reported in the Washington Times:

“Republicans offered to let the vote happen Friday night, just minutes after the chamber voted to halt a House Republican bill. All sides expect Democrats’ bill will fail too, and the GOP said senators might as well kill both at the same time so that negotiations could move on to a compromise.

“‘We would be happy to have that vote tonight,’ Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republicans’ leader, offered.

“But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid objected, even though the vote would occur on his own bill. He instead said the chamber would have to run out the full procedural clock, which means a vote in the early hours Sunday morning.

“He said he would be willing to move up the vote if Republicans didn’t insist on a 60-vote threshold, which has become traditional for big, controversial items to pass the Senate. But the GOP held firm on that demand, so Mr. Reid said he would insist on the full process, which he said would show the country that Republicans were being obstructionist.”

At a time when the American people are screaming – nay, demanding – that those elected to office in Washington stop with the political positioning and gamesmanship, Progressive Democrat Harry Reid, a man whose approval rating is just 27 percent, whose negatives stand at 53 percent, a man whose last election was handed to him not by the people of Nevada but by the union members of Las Vegas, represents the quintessential example of exactly the kind of behavior Americans detest.

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From Major Garrett at National Journal:

In many respects, the deal will, if approved by all parties, resemble the contours of a short-lived pact negotiated last weekend by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Obama rejected that deal, forcing Congress to wrestle with other inferior legislative options throughout the week.

Among the newest wrinkles, according to informed sources, is an agreement to extend the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling very briefly to give the legislative process time to work without resorting to emergency, hurry-up measures.

President Obama has said he would only sign a short-term extension (days, not weeks) if it were linked to an extension of borrowing authority that lasts beyond the 2012 election.

According to sources, the Senate would use the military construction appropriations bill, one currently available for action, as the vehicle for the short-term extension. This element of the arrangement, like everything else, is subject to modification. But those close to the negotiations expect Congress to slow things down without jeopardizing the nation’s full faith and credit. A debt extension of days would achieve that goal. (more…)

This has been a difficult week; debt crisis resolution talks going to the last moment in Washington, an horrific mass murder by a lunatic in Norway, and an aborted followup attack on Fort Hood by a Muslim US soldier. It’s been a week of horror, frustration, sadness, and fear.

There is no question whatever that partisan politics is driving the current debt crisis in the nation’s capitol. Fundamentally, there is no benefit to anyone on either side of the growing American political divide to have the US government default. The idea of a downgrade of US government bonds or of the US economy itself by international arbiters of fiscal responsibility – the very same that recently downgraded some EU members for their failed economies and unrepayable/unsustainable debt – is almost unimaginable. For the longest time the United States has been seen by the international community as a beacon of fiscal stability and power; the possibility that those days are about to come to an ignominious end is difficult to process for most Americans and for many abroad observing the dramatic and frustrating negotiations in Washington.

One AP White House correspondent describes it all as simply “awful.”  But it is much more complex than that. The debt crisis and the feuding concepts of increasing debt versus cutting it are truly the outliers of more fundamental ideological differences of opinion regarding the nature of the mission of our government and its limitations.

Many on the left seem to believe that they alone are the voice of the people, and that those on the right care only for the wealthy. This idea that the left are the protectors of social justice causes has long been a favorite and over-worked meme for them. Elections have been won and lost on this concept of government involvement in the lives of the governed for beneficent purposes. This is the foundation of the liberal/leftist approach to government; it is also the reason why the EU is currently teetering on the edge of complete collapse. There was never any idea among the founding the fathers and the revolutionary generation generally that in the future the US government would fulfill a glorified role of protector/parent to the citizens of the country.

While the debt crisis could be analyzed accurately as a conflict between politicians trying to avert an economic collapse by enforcing the successful Reagan era precedent of tax cutting versus the entitlement driven need to raise taxes to afford all the entitlements there is something much more fundamental at work.

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Unions have rules. Union members who break those rules can be placed on trial by their union and, if found guilty, can be expelled or suspended from the union. They can also be fined, as Nathaniel Musser has learned the expensive way.

Musser, a former member of the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters, according to his lawyer, could not find work through his union. So, as union members sometimes do, Musser found work on his own–at a non-union company.

As working non-union is against many trade unions’ rules, the Carpenters’ union filed internal union charges against Musser and imposed a $300,900.00 fine against Musser. (more…)

Liberals are trying to kill the prospect of a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) in the ongoing battle over the debt ceiling. Some on the Right respond that they might settle for a “clean” BBA. But there are two types of a clean BBA, one of which would be even worse than the terrible mess we have today.

Some advocate that the BBA should require only that federal outlays cannot exceed federal tax revenues. They see it as two numbers, where the former must be less than the latter.

But this misses one critical point. If BBA only requires government to spend less than it collects, there are two ways to fix it. The first is cutting spending, and the second is raising taxes.

Many supporters of a clean BBA are not too worried. Although acknowledging the risk, they’re willing to take it on the grounds that they can use the prospect of electoral defeat to exert political pressure on members of Congress to ensure they don’t vote for tax increases.

But what about the courts? What if a judge orders a tax increase?

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Today, the U.S. Senate is the focus of the debt on hiking the debt ceiling. We are not encouraged.

From The Associated Press:

First word of an effort to reach a compromise came at mid-afternoon from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner—Obama’s principal Republican antagonist in a contentious new era of divided government. Both GOP leaders said they were in touch with the White House and hopeful of a deal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid heatedly denied their claims of progress on the Senate floor a short while later, but several hours later said events had changed.

“There are many elements to be finalized…there is still a distance to go,” he said in dramatic late-night remarks. “I’m glad to see this move toward cooperation and compromise,” he added.

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“Wait a second, you’re a singer. You’re a journalist AND you’re a conservative,” he said, rather surprised.

“Yeah … is that wrong?” I said.

“No, it’s just unexpected … and rare,” he responded.

I’ve been meeting a lot of new people lately. This is a blessing and a curse in Washington DC, as sooner or later politics WILL come up. It’s just how things are around here. And as a singer in a band, I encounter a ton of people who gravitate towards the band’s sound, my voice or something I’ve said on stage and conversations start.

Sometimes, these conversations are uncomfortable and the person I am talking to kinda backs away slowly when I mention conservatism or anything seen as ‘right-wing’ .. And other times, intense conversation takes place.

What I find though, is we as conservatives are bound to stereotypes so entrenched in the mind of the general population it’s hard for anyone to see us as who we really are. It’s like the minute I voice my political views and they’re of differing opinion, I am no longer the cool person who just caught their attention singing ‘Kiss Me’ or some other fun-loving song on stage. I’m now…just a conservative. Not a person. Not a pretty voice. Just a conservative, as defined by the media.

I know it all goes back to getting rid of labels and we can preach until we turn blue about how we want the left to see us for who we are and not the fanatics within our faction or the way the media paints us. But that’s a passive way of getting other people to take responsibility for the change we need to insight. Our preaching at, or to each other doesn’t get the job done. It just passes the buck, so to speak. We need to live the change we want to see and work towards it.

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The Mohair subsidy. The AmTrak subsidy. The Ready to Learn TV Program subsidy. What all of these federal subsidies (and scores more) have in common is that they are on the specific list of federal programs that Republicans are proposing to eliminate to cut the debt and preserve America’s fiscal integrity.

Hey, with the U. S. national debt increasing by $4.1 billion each day, we are faced with national bankruptcy—which has aroused the Republicans from their lethargy. They will agree to raise the debt ceiling if the politicians will agree to restrain their spending appetite by making specific cuts.

What specific suggestions for cuts has President Obama made? Almost none. It doesn’t count to talk about future savings from possible cuts in national defense, or alleged savings from Obamacare. It’s all in the future, and we don’t know if any of it will happen.

For the president to make no suggested cuts in our bloated federal budget is astonishing. Let’s take the more than $100,000,000 annual subsidy to Amtrak as one example. Amtrak is expensive and inefficient, which is no surprise. The first transcontinental railroads—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific—were built in the 1860s and they ran about $60 million (in 1869 dollars) in debt in building costs, and both went bankrupt (the Union Pacific several times) before the end of the 1800s. By contrast, the Great Northern Railroad, which went from St. Paul to Seattle was built with no federal subsidies and never went bankrupt. The subsidies to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific made them dependent on the government, and helped lead to their downfall. Thus, if the federal subsidies to transcontinental railroads failed when first tried in the 1800s, why should we be surprised that AmTrak loses money every year now. And what does this tell us about the huge subsidies President Obama has planned for high-speed rail?

Why is the president failing to join the current debate? Why is he offering almost no specific cuts?

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My favorite contributor over at Black Entertainment Television wrote a piece on President Obama’s eroding support among African Americans –specifically on his dismal handling of the economy. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, Obama’s African American support has dropped from 77%, to just over half supporting his stewardship of the economy. What a difference just two and a half years can make! When the president was elected, the exuberance among African Americans was infectious, joyous, and a bit overly optimistic as this clip from the day after the election shows:

Liberals and African Americans still clinging to “hope and change” cite in the president’s defense that he inherited a terrible economy from President Bush and that Obama can’t be expected to turn the economy around in only two and half years. It’s almost a plausible argument – until you start comparing this presidency and economy with the economy our 40^th President inherited from Jimmy Carter in 1981.

When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, interest rates were at 21%, inflation was at a wrenching 13.5%, and unemployment was at 7%. In contrast, when President Obama was inaugurated in 2009, interest rates were at a historically low 3.25%, inflation stood at 4.2%, and unemployment was at 7.8%. The misery index (the addition of inflation and unemployment numbers) when Reagan entered office was 20.5%, for Mr. Obama, 12.8%. Currently under President Obama, inflation is 2.7% and unemployment is at 9.2% and climbing with many economists believing it’s really 16% giving Obama a real misery index of 18.7%. Even the liberal Washington Post suggests that President Obama has had enough time to jump start the economy:

The economy rebounded significantly during Reagan’s third and fourth years in office. The unemployment rate declined, although not spectacularly. It was still at 8.3 percent in December 1983 and at 7.5 percent in August 1984 as the general election campaign was entering its final months.

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From CNBC:

I just got off the phone with a source on Capitol Hill who has spent the past few days trying to convince Republicans to vote for a debt ceiling hike.

He told me that the biggest obstacle he faces has been “market complacency.”

“Frankly, a bit of panic would be very helpful right now,” he said.

As he explained it, lots of people in Washington, D.C. expected that this would be a week marked by panic in the markets. Stocks would tank. Bonds would get clobbered. The dollar would do something dramatic. And all of this would help convince reluctant lawmakers that they had to reach a compromise on the debt ceiling.

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While President Obama, Senate Democrats and inside the beltway Republicans remain addicted to spending more money they do not have, a brave bloc of Congressional Members have stood up and said, “no”.

These 22 brave members of Congress bucked their party leadership and voted against Speaker Boehner’s debt ceiling bill. These lawmakers understand full well that they were elected to represent the American People and to reject the Washington D.C. wheeling and dealing that got us in this mess in the first place.

According Politico the members, who voted no on the Boehner bill were:

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At FreedomFest 2011, Reason’s Matt Welch spoke with Fox News’ Juan Williams about his passion for school choice reform, which Williams describes as the “civil rights issue of our time.”

Williams is the author of the new book Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate, which recounts in part his controversial firing from National Public Radio. He’s also the author of the critically acclaimed 1988 history of the civil rights movement, Eyes on the Prize.

Williams says he first came to the issue of education reform in the 1990s, when he was astonished by the level of dropout rates in inner-city schools, which disproportionately affects low-income and minority students. He credits George W. Bush for coining the phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations” to describe the educational status quo and remains surprised by the lack of widespread outrage from parents whose children are stuck in such failing schools. Still, he believes that the forces of school choice are making huge headway in breaking up a public school monopoly that fails to serve students and parents.

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First, opponents of Governor Scott Walker’s budget reforms protested a ceremony honoring Special Olympics athletes. The negative publicity that stunt got them did nothing to give them pause. Now, AFSCME and other liberal protesters decided to picket a business that makes a point of hiring people with special needs, on Thursday.  It was to be a day celebrating their success. But to Big Labor, it always has to be about Big Labor.

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A screenshot taken yesterday of the White House website:

For some background information, see this CNN Blog story about GE moving jobs to China
while GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is one of President Obama’s advisers on U.S. job creation.

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)