Today marks the 48^th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and with it, 48 years of conspiracy theories.

The Left has promulgated nearly all of these theories since the day of the assassination in 1963. Kennedy was killed by a communist — someone to the left of him — but yet we’re still told this was some grand conspiracy, involving what would necessarily be dozens or even hundreds of people who orchestrated and executed it (and then kept the secret!) with right wing forces at the center.

Various suspects have included military industrialists, the CIA, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, pro-Israeli groups, oil magnates aligned with Lyndon Johnson, right-wing racists, E. Howard Hunt, and J. Edgar Hoover.

Even at the time, the Kennedys and the mediacouldn’t accept that a lone deranged leftist was responsible. Kennedy, after all, was in Dallas, a hotbed of rightwing extremism as they saw it. Even as the shooting was taking place, Connally yelled out “They’re going to kill us all!” Jacqueline Kennedy didn’t change her clothes until she got back to Washington, stating to Lady Bird Johnson she wanted “them to see what they did to Jack.” (Emphasis mine.) This was the liberal mindset, from the people in the car on out.

Gerald Posner’s 1993 book “Case Closed” makes a strong and convincing argument that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and for it he’s been demonized as a right wing stooge, a Kennedy-hater, or enforcer of the establishment line, obviously on the payroll of some nefarious right wing phantom.

But Posner did what most of the conspiracy theorists don’t do: look at the actual evidence that exists, and at the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. Why do all these conspiracy theorists typically ignore all that’s known about Oswald? Because there’s a clear trajectory in his activities that led to the assassination.

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While Obama tours the country promoting his personal donation plan, the Republican Presidential hopefuls are in a pitched battle for the nomination and arguing which tax simplification plan is best. Threatened with the possibility of rate cuts, the Media and politicians trot out the usual suspects of lies about tax hikes and tax cuts.  This is a battle Republicans must win and, to do so, they need to expose those lies.

Keep in mind that the battle between those who create wealth and those that want to redistribute it, mainly politicians, is as old as civilization itself.  We read of tax battles and even reform in every age, like Urukagina’s tax reductions in Babylonia/Sumer in 2350 BC.  Equally venerable are the constant set of demagogic lies by those against tax cuts and simplification.  It is important to note that politicians like complicated tax codes and high tax rates because they control those rates and dispense the loopholes and regulations that complicate the tax code.  Tax simplification means they lose power.  As a result, resistance to tax reform is more often the rule than reform. As for the lies, they abound, so let’s consider just a few:

Lie # 1: Tax cuts cause deficits/Tax hikes balance the budget.  The Media and the Left often say that the Reagan and Bush tax cuts led to deficits while Clinton’s tax hikes led to a balanced budget. In truth, according to the IRS, federal tax revenues rose dramatically after the overall Reagan tax cuts/reforms (98%) and the Bush tax cuts (a record $700+ billion). This is just as they did after the Harding/Coolidge cuts (61% revenue increase) and after the Kennedy/Johnson cuts (62% revenue increase).  Those are the four major income tax reductions we have had since the inception of the income tax in 1913 and every time revenues rose after they were in place – every time.

So did the tax rate cut cause a deficit? The lie, of course, is to blame the revenue gathering mechanism (tax code/rate cut) instead of the revenue spending mechanism, i.e. Congress/Presidents.  The spenders kept spending – often at an accelerated rate when they saw the new revenues.  Thus, the fault for continuing deficits lies not with tax rate cuts, which produced higher revenues, but with politicians who spent too much.

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What has happened to liberals in the past 50 years? A quick perusal of the news each day shows a clear pattern of anti-American behavior and actions by Democrats. We read of Democrat behavior today that would have appalled American liberal statesmen like John Kennedy and Patrick Moynihan. While liberals of 50 years ago stood for generous social programs and higher taxes on the rich, we never doubted their love of America. Today, it is difficult to believe otherwise!

It is clear liberals view America as evil, hateful and a problem for the world. They curse and ridicule traditional values that made America grow from once-poor colonies to the world’s greatest superpower in a few hundred years. A quick viewing of headlines today shows the hatred liberals have for our country and even the desire to strengthen our enemies. For instance:

Liberal wacko Congressman Dennis Kucinich praises Syria murderer Bashad al-Assad
Holder: Justice to Drop Investigations Into CIA Officials Involved in Torture That Democrats advocated investigating these heroes that keep us safe proves my point!

Halt to Deportation of Citizen’s Same-Sex Partner Draws Fire So much for enforcing laws such as the Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Clinton!
CNN: McKinney blasts U.S. on Libya TV

U.S. shifts to closer contact with Egypt Islamists Does anyone really believe we should be doing business with the Muslim Brotherhood or Taliban?

Veterans Allege VA Censoring Prayer Would the VA have banned a Muslim ceremony with the Koran?

Dick Durbin: Illegal Alien Could Become President Instead of enforcing immigration laws, Democrats advocate changing the Constitution!

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Since the beginning of government, the ambition of those who spend money has rarely been matched by the ability of citizens to pay for government.  Modern day America, California or Greece are not exceptions to the rule, just examples of yesterday on a more grand scale today.  As perpetual as that problem is  - so too is the argument over the best way to raise tax revenue.  In simple terms, lower tax rates produce a more vibrant economy and higher revenues over time.  Higher tax rates do the exact opposite.  Heading into 2012, the Country cannot afford for Republicans to lose that economic argument.

The issue of taxes produces perhaps the greatest display between real politics and false economics.  Politicians throughout time have passed laws claiming to raise taxes.  In truth, politicians pass laws that raise tax rates.  That is a political process.  From there, the laws of economics take over.

In general, throughout all time, people adjust their behavior in reaction to political laws by acting in accordance with economic laws which are driven by human nature.  So if the penalty for speeding went up to $5000 per ticket – the number of people who speed would be reduced.  If the penalty for making income increases, i.e. taxes, rises – the amount of income actually made or reported will be reduced over time as well.

Today we are faced with astronomical deficits nationally and in many states.   The debt repayment obligation for California next year alone is larger than the budgets of 21 states.  What should governments do?  Should they politically raise tax rates? Or should they economically lower rates?  The answer is the latter and if Republicans (1) fail to make the argument why in 2011 and 2012, as this article implies they will, Grover Norquist, Tom Coburn duel over tax hikes , and (2) don’t stop simply saying NO to so-called tax increases, then Barack Obama will be reelected.

Consider this argument for cutting tax rates to raise revenue:

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George Will in today’s Washington Post:

Now we have explainers. They came into vogue with the murder of President Kennedy. They explained why the “real” culprit was not a self-described Marxist who had moved to Moscow, then returned to support Castro. No, the culprit was a “climate of hate” in conservative Dallas, the “paranoid style” of American (conservative) politics, or some other national sickness resulting from insufficient liberalism.

Last year, New York Times columnist Charles Blow explained that “the optics must be irritating” to conservatives: Barack Obama is black, Nancy Pelosi is female, Rep. Barney Frank is gay, Rep. Anthony Weiner (an unimportant Democrat, listed to serve Blow’s purposes) is Jewish. “It’s enough,” Blow said, “to make a good old boy go crazy.” The Times, which after the Tucson shooting said that “many on the right” are guilty of “demonizing” people and of exploiting “arguments of division,” apparently was comfortable with Blow’s insinuation that conservatives are misogynistic, homophobic, racist anti-Semites.

On Sunday, the Times explained Tucson: “It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But . . .” The “directly” is priceless.

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It’s a bit too early for House Republican leader John Boehner to measure the drapes and pick out new wallpaper. But the Intrade pay-to-play prediction markets are now showing a 76 percent chance of a GOP House takeover in November, along with a 60 percent probability that Republicans will capture at least seven new Senate seats.

So Boehner’s lengthy broadside attack on Obamanomics at the City Club of Cleveland last week takes on special meaning. Headlines following the speech were all about Boehner’s call for the resignation of Obama policy generals Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. But the more substantive question is this: What might a newly ascendant congressional Republican majority actually stand for?

Republican leaders are expected to publish a governing agenda next month, probably an updated version of the bold and successful Newt Gingrich/Dick Armey “Contract with America” of 1994. John Boehner is a key alumnus of that effort. But folks around the country are waiting to see if congressional Republicans will make a strong and aggressive case for a true economic-growth and jobs agenda now, in 2010.

The stock market, for example, has known for months that the GOP will capture the House. But investors are not yet confident that the GOP will focus on GDP, instead of mere ambiguous generalities, trying to be all things to all people. Indeed, if the Republicans borrow heavily from the tea-party “Contract from America” — and its call for constitutional limits to government, tough spending restraint, free-market reforms, and supply-side tax policies — stocks could mount a mighty rally in the weeks ahead.

Well, Mr. Boehner’s speech was a very promising beginning to all this.

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“Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”  Those words first voiced in 1815 by Captain Stephen Decatur Jr., America’s first post-revolution hero and, to this day, the youngest Captain ever commissioned by the US Navy, should be on the mind of every American President and every American Secretary of State every waking hour.

Though condensed and trivialized over time to the over simplified, “My country right or wrong,” and ridiculed by those who are embarrassed by patriotism, Decatur’s words, we believe, revealed a prescient understanding that future leaders of the then still very young republic would be called upon to make difficult decisions if the unique quality of American Liberty was to be preserved…decisions that could drastically impact the lives of many Americans.  Decatur also understood that while mistakes might be made from time to time, as long as the mission was the preservation of liberty and freedom, the republic deserved the support of the people.

We don’t believe Decatur was being cavalier and we don’t wish to be either.  He had seen war up close and personal, having commanded an incredibly heroic raid at Tripoli harbor that the legendary British Admiral Horatio Nelson, later called “the most bold and daring act of the age.”  Decatur had been dispatched, along with the newly established First Marines, by Thomas Jefferson to the shores of Tripoli on the Barbary Coast in support of what may have been the most important and long enduring foreign policy decision since the birth of the new American nation.  America would protect its interests, any place, any time and at any cost.  Defending liberty has always required determination and a clear sense of purpose.  Often its cost would be high.  Thirty-five American servicemen were lost on the Barbary Coast as the young nation first asserted its right to sail the high seas anywhere in the world.

A century and a half later John F. Kennedy made the same point when he pronounced, “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Nothing ambiguous about Jefferson’s policies, or those of James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy or those of most any other American Administration up until the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 when Jimmy Carter’s vacillation and lack of resolve caused foreign leaders to doubt America’s willingness to defend its interests even in the face of an act of war against it.

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Rand Paul’s controversial remarks about the 1964 Civil Rights Act illustrate what I have been saying for years, that Republicans would benefit tremendously from knowing and appreciating the heritage of our Grand Old Party.  That landmark legislation was the culmination of a century of efforts by Republicans to protect African-Americans from their Democrat oppressors.  Let’s look at the facts.

On his deathbed in 1874, Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) told a Republican colleague: “You must take care of the civil rights bill – my bill, the civil rights bill.  Don’t let it fail.”  In March 1875, the Republican-controlled 43rd Congress followed up the GOP’s 1866 Civil Rights Act and 1871 Civil Rights Act with the most comprehensive civil rights legislation ever.  A Republican president, Ulysses Grant, signed the bill into law that same day.

Among its provisions, the 1875 Civil Rights Act banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.  Sound familiar?  Though struck down by the Supreme Court eight years later, the 1875 Civil Rights Act would be reborn as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

During the twenty years of the FDR and Truman administrations, the Democrats had refused to enact any civil rights legislation.  In contrast, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which had been written by his Attorney General, a former Chairman of the Republican National Committee.  The original draft would have permitted the federal government to sue anyone violating another person’s constitutional rights, but this powerful provision would have to wait until the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  The bill had to be weakened considerably to secure enough Democrat votes to pass, so violations would be civil, not criminal offenses, and penalties were light.  Vice President Richard Nixon helped overcome a Democrat filibuster in the Senate.  The GOP then strengthened enforcement with its 1960 Civil Rights Act.

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David Weigel, at The Washington Post, asked me to comment on Michael Steele’s view of  the so-called Southern Strategy.

Speaking at DePaul University on April 20, RNC Chairman Michael Steele urged Republican leaders to work with the Tea Parties.  He has the right approach, to which I would add the fact, per my article on BigGovernment.com, that The Republican Party began as a Tea Party Movement.

Steele then went on to say:

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans.  This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass.  The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship.  People don’t walk away from parties.  Their parties walk away from them.  For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South.  Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

Chairman Steele makes an interesting point, but he is accepting as true the Democrat version of events.  The theme of Back to Basics for the Republican Party is that celebrating our party’s heritage is not just for minority outreach but for all Republicans to appreciate that the GOP has been a great force for good ever since being founded in 1854 to oppose the Democrats’ pro-slavery, anti-freedom agenda.  I drew on that record of achievement in writing the historical information on the RNC website, also posted as Heroes and Heroics.

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The US economy remains in a tepid stage at best – subject to a multiple dip recession at worst.  Unemployment is high and private sector jobs are taking longer than usual to rebound.  Even the Obama Administration is forced to admit unemployment will be high for a long time to come.   Starting two years ago this July, I said if Obama was elected President, we would have a difficult economy, at best, for at least six years.  Unless our governments, federal and state, make a concerted effort to change the economic psychology facing Americans today, that prediction can’t help but come true.

There is no question that the American economy is in bad shape.  Unemployment has only been this high one other time since World War II, i.e. in the 1980’s.  Recessions similar or deeper than this recession occurred in 1918, the Great Depression, the 3 recessions of the 1950’s, and the stagflation of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

Recessions of this magnitude take on a life of their own because both businesses and consumers are plagued with doubts – doubts about future government policy, doubts about consumer spending, doubts about the prospects for future investments.  Those doubts literally diminish future economic activity as investors and consumers favor caution over investing and spending.  The psychology of larger recessions exaggerates downturns as fears mount.  That Psychology of Doubt delays recoveries in ways that cannot be measured by statistics alone.

In order to break that Psychology of Doubt, it takes bold action on the part of governments – not half measures or technical adjustments.  Indeed, each of those recessions did not end until there was a dramatic change in the government policy – usually a change to the very policies that drove our economy into the ditch in the first place – excepting only World War II’s effect on the Great Depression.

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Today, in 1962, the United States banned all trade with Cuba. The Castro regime capitulated soon after…oh, wait…

In a recent puff piece, The New York Times reports that our President is tired. This is not the first such report. Back in May, when he treated England’s Gordon Brown so shabbily, the excuse given — according to The Daily Telegraph – was that wrestling with the economic crisis had left Barack Obama too exhausted to be able to focus on foreign affairs.

We should perhaps discount what was said in May. For, as I have attempted to document in detail here, here, here, here, here, and here, President Obama is a gentleman, and, as such, he is never unintentionally rude. He is, in fact, a master of the insulting gesture, which he seems to reserve for political opponents, such as Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, and for political leaders in countries, such as England, France, Germany, Israel, and Poland, which were closely associated with the United States prior to the Age of Obama.

This time, however, Barack Obama may be genuinely tired, and he may be depressed as well. He certainly has warrant. In public, he may claim that he deserves a B+ for his first year in office, but the polling data suggests that he has earned a failing mark, and he has to know better.

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