A very strong statement on religious liberty today from Mitt Romney in the Washington Examiner:

President Obama versus religious liberty

The Obama administration is at it again. They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.

….

My own view is clear. I stand with the Catholic Bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation. I am committed to overturning Obamacare root and branch. If I am elected President, on day one of my administration I will issue an executive order directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a waiver from its requirements to all 50 states. And on day one I will eliminate the Obama administration rule that compels religious institutions to violate the tenets of their own faith. Such rules don’t belong in the America that I believe in.

The America I believe in is governed by the U.S. Constitution and I will not hesitate to use the powers of the presidency to protect religious liberty.

….

What the Obama administration has done is indefensible. But this is about even more than President Obama denying America’s Catholics their constitutionally protected rights. This is about the preservation of our freedom. We must come together to make sure that these egregious violations of our Constitution do not stand.

The whole article is well worth a read.

Though he’s on the left, so we disagree with Juan Williams on most issues, he’s always seemed like an honest and decent man. So it was pretty shocking to see this blatant play of the race card, full of Al Sharpton style demagoguery.

One part stood out as particularly ugly. Williams, reviewing his debate question to Newt Gingrich about Gingrich’s use of the term “food stamp president”, says:

He [Gingrich] used the same rhetorical technique of the segregationist politicians of the past: rejecting the premise of the question, attacking the media and playing to the American people’s resentment of liberal elites, minorities and poor people.

Really, Mr. Williams? Rejecting the premise of a question in a debate is a “segregationist technique”? Gingrich (who we do not support in the Republican primary) is offering ideas to help black young people. You may disagree with his ideas, but their intent is to try to help. Comparing a person to segregationists is just pure, unadulterated slander. It is disgusting and shameful what Williams wrote. Racism is evil. So is a false accusation of racism. Mr. Williams owes Mr. Gingrich an apology and a retraction.

Herman Cain on the latest media-generated controversy over Mitt Romney’s religious views (via NRO):

Herman Cain refused to wade into the controversy over whether it is accurate to call Mitt Romney a Christian or not.

“I’m not running for theologian in chief,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union this morning. “I’m a lifelong Christian and what that means is one of my guiding principles for the decisions I make is I start with do the right thing. I’m not getting into that controversy. He’s a Mormon. That much I know. I’m not going to do an analysis of Mormonism vs. Christianity for the sake of answering that.”

Funny, the media seem to be much more concerned with this type of question than they were in the last presidential election cycle when Racist Reverend Wright’s parishioner was running.

Cain answered the question the way it should be answered, which is not to answer it. Theological differences are as old as religion. But they have no place in a political campaign. Values are a separate issue. It matters greatly if a candidate for office accepts or rejects America’s traditional Judeo-Christian values. But people with very different theological views can and do advocate the right values. All the candidates should follow Cain’s lead and refuse to play the media’s game.

On a related note, it was unfortunate to hear some conservatives, most notably William Bennett, attribute what is a legitimate theological debate to bigotry. Perhaps he meant only that it was bigotry in the context of whether to support a political candidate. In any case, theological differences are not bigotry. Bennett should know better than to use that kind of left-wing “argumentation” style.

From the NY Times:

President Obama said on Thursday that he was “comfortable” with a Senate proposal to pay for his jobs legislation with a tax surcharge on income above $1 million.

“I’m fine with the approach they have taken,” Mr. Obama said when asked at a news conference about the tax proposal put forth by Senate Democrats to cover the $445 billion cost of a jobs proposal that the Senate is expected to take up soon. The bill would, among other features, seek to stimulate the economy by lowering payroll taxes on workers and employers.

Mr. Obama, who previously had suggested paying for the jobs bill by limiting the value of deductions taken by households earning more than $250,000 a year, said the alternative offered by Senate Democrats would also meet his objective of “asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.”

This is a real “dog bites man” story. Of course he’s comfortable with it. We can’t imagine any plan to take more of other peoples’ money that would make the president uncomfortable.

And let’s note again that Obama and the Democrats (in and out of the media) still haven’t offered any definition of what constitutes a person’s “fair share” of taxation. The working definition seems to be “more”.

So Bill Clinton is complaining that he’s not getting enough credit for his record as president?

OK, let’s apply the George W. Bush standard (as devised by liberals):

• The NASDAQ peaked in January 2000 at 4572.83
• The NASDAQ closed Friday (11 years later!) at 2,415.40
• If President Bush was responsible for the housing bubble crash, then Clinton was responsible for the NASDAQ tech stock bubble crash, right?

E.J. Dionne’s columns don’t offer much in the way of argument or information, but they are valuable as a window into the mind of the left. For example, his column from the Washington Post website on September 28th, titled “Why conservatives hate Warren Buffett“.

Maybe only a really, really rich guy can credibly make the case for why the wealthy should be asked to pay more in taxes. You can’t accuse a big capitalist of “class warfare.” That’s why the right wing despises Warren Buffett and is trying so hard to shut him up.

But conservatives don’t hate Warren Buffett, they disagree with Warren Buffet on the issue of tax rates. And no one is trying to shut him up. It’s pure psychological projection from Dionne, who obviously hates conservatives. He doesn’t offer any evidence in the whole column, none, to back up his assertion that conservatives hate Buffett or anyone else, or that anyone is trying to shut him up. But this is pretty much an article of faith on the left – they’re motivated in large measure by hate, envy, and anger, so they just assume we on the right are motivated by the same emotions.

What’s really bugging Dionne is the fact successful Americans aren’t giving enough of their earnings to the government, and that anyone dissents from the idea that they should give more to the government.

Wealthy people, by definition, have done better within this system than other people have. They ought to be willing to join Buffett and Edwards in arguing that for this reason alone, it is common sense, not class jealousy, to ask the most fortunate to pay taxes at higher tax rates than other people do. It is for this heresy that Buffett is being harassed.

Wealthy people, by definition, do not put their money under a rock, they use it for all sorts of things – they invest in new or existing businesses, they pay employees, they purchase goods and services from other businesses, they give to charity – but Dionne and his fellow leftists don’t think any of that counts. Their comments suggest that only money given to the government counts as contribution to society.

In the “news” item from the Washington Post about President Obama’s latest iteration of his same old “deficit reduction” plan, the hackery begins right up top in the title: “Obama’s debt-reduction plan: $3 trillion in savings, half from new tax revenue“.

And the item begins:

President Obama will announce a proposal on Monday to tame the nation’s rocketing federal debt, calling for $1.5 trillion in new revenue as part of a plan to find more than $3 trillion in budget savings over a decade, senior administration officials said.

….

About half of the tax savings would come from the expiration next year of the George W. Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy.

But of course, raising taxes is not “savings”. The whole thing is written using Democratic Party language and talking points – “tax savings”, “tax cuts for the wealthy”, etc. The only thing missing is the official DNC logo at the top of the page.

There’s been a good amount of reaction to the blog post put up by Paul Krugman at the NY Times today. There’s been less reaction to the story that’s linked below Krugman’s on memorandum as I write:

A group of Muslim protesters set fire to an American flag outside the US embassy in London during a minute’s silence to mark the moment that the first hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago.

You expect some Muslims fanatics to burn a US flag somewhere on any given day. You expect some irrational, angry leftist like Paul Krugman to post some irrational, angry bile on a day like today. So we don’t get particularly shocked or outraged by either event.

We tend to agree with William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

That’s how they feel, so in a sense I’m glad Krugman gave voice to it on this day. They can’t stand the fact that the attacks on 9/11 proved that their world view was wrong, and every mention of 9/11 is like a thorn in their political sides.

Clarity about how leftists like Krugman think and what they believe about America is important, especially important as we approach an election year. We should encourage them to be as open and honest about their real views as possible.

Update: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air isn’t outraged either:

It’s nothing Krugman wouldn’t say (and probably does say) the other 364 days out of the year, and Krugman says it in pretty much the same vacuous manner of the everyday sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome. After reading this, you seriously have to remind yourself that the New York Times pays Krugman to write it; this wouldn’t even pass muster for a Letter to the Editor at most newspapers. It’s so trite, sad, and cliched that it’s hardly worth the effort to rebut. He’s mailing this in from 2003. It’s as if Krugman hasn’t bothered to think about 9/11 in the past ten years at all, which says a lot more about Krugman than it does about 9/11.

Yahoo News posted a commentary from Democrat activist William Browning, attacking Senator John McCain of Arizona for alleging a wildfire in May was started by illegal immigrants or drug smugglers.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made an appalling statement June 20, regarding the Wallow Fire that was raging in his home state. The largest wildfire in the state’s history had allegedly been started by illegal immigrants.

“During our tour of the damaged areas caused by the Wallow Fire on Saturday, we were briefed by senior Forest Service officials, one of whom informed us that some wildfires in Arizona (across our southern border) are regrettably caused by drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. This statement is consistent with what we’ve been hearing for years, as well as testimony by the Forest Service and media reports dating back as far as 2006,” McCain’s website stated.

….

Caleb Joshua Malboeuf and David Wayne Malboeuf are cousins who were allegedly camping in the Bear Wallow area May 29. The Tucson Citizen reports their campfire supposedly burned out of the control and high winds picked up the campfire and it quickly spread. After $79 million, 72 burned buildings and 538,000 acres the two men are charged with five counts which face jail time and/or fines.

McCain owes the state of Arizona and every Hispanic living in his state an apology.

Senator McCain’s statement, that “some wildfires in Arizona…are regrettably caused by drug smugglers and illegal immigrants”, is a perfectly reasonable statement, there’s nothing appalling about it at all.

The only appalling statement in this story came from William Browning.

News flash for Yahoo and Mr. Browning – “Illegal immigrant” and “Hispanic” are not synonymous. Most of the Hispanic people living in Arizona are not illegal immigrants, they are citizens or legal residents of the state.

A Republican making such an equation would immediately be shouted down as a racist hate-monger. But obviously the standards are different for liberal Obama supporters.

From The New York Times, “Rally Raises Anew Question of the Boundaries of Perry’s Faith“:

Few political figures in America have so consistently and so unabashedly intermingled their personal faith and their public persona, peppering speeches with quotations from Scripture, speaking from the pulpit at churches, regularly meeting and strategizing with evangelical Christians and even, in one recent speech, equating public office with the ministry.

This reminded us of Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day Prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

….

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

FDR – right-wing religious extremist.

A great speech (via NRO)by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida:

“I haven’t been here long enough to think that any of this stuff that’s going on is normal.”

“If we had a billion dollars for every time I’ve heard the words ‘Tea Party extremist’ we could solve this debt problem.”

“Compromise that’s not a solution is a waste of time.”

Interesting paper from The Heritage Foundation on “poverty” in the United States, “Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What is Poverty in the United States Today?”

For decades, the U.S. Census Bureau has reported that over 30 million Americans were living in “poverty,” but the bureau’s definition of poverty differs widely from that held by most Americans. In fact, other government surveys show that most of the persons whom the government defines as “in poverty” are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term. The overwhelming majority of the poor have air conditioning, cable TV, and a host of other modern amenities. They are well housed, have an adequate and reasonably steady supply of food, and have met their other basic needs, including medical care. Some poor Americans do experience significant hardships, including temporary food shortages or inadequate housing, but these individuals are a minority within the overall poverty population. Poverty remains an issue of serious social concern, but accurate information about that problem is essential in crafting wise public policy. Exaggeration and misinformation about poverty obscure the nature, extent, and causes of real material deprivation, thereby hampering the development of well-targeted, effective programs to reduce the problem.