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Fred, I generally agree with the sentiment concerning certain people who never seem to be satisfied by anything.  I know a lot of activists were against any debt ceiling increase at all, and are mad as hell about the vote.  I think their expectations are entirely too high.  (Even the Ryan budget, as controversial as it is, wouldn’t balance the budget for a good long time.)

But with this particular debt deal, the fact that we still got an S&P credit downgrade tells me that we really should have done a lot better.  A compromise that doesn’t actually get the job done isn’t worth much.  If your car is careening towards a cliff, and you know that you must depress the brake 60% in order to avoid falling off, the debate among the other passengers in the car about whether to depress the brake 30% or 40% is sort of irrelevant.  At some point you need to consider the possibility of pulling the emergency brake on your own and hoping for the best.

So it’s at least an open question in my mind as to whether it would have been better to have the deal we ended up with, or whether it would have been better to force a government shutdown in order to get a better one.

Water is wet.  The sky is blue.  The United States is insolvent.

These are all true and indisputable statements, and none will change anytime soon.

Yet as The Great Debt Ceiling Debate continues, it is fascinating to watch both sides spin their rhetoric while missing the big picture entirely.  The Left, led by President Obama, says the U.S. must raise its debt limit or the government will default, throwing world markets into chaos. Particularly ironic was Obama chastising the Republican debt negotiators for allowing the country to come this close to the brink of default, apparently forgetting that he and his Party have spent incomprehensible amounts of money (with no value or return-on-investment) to put us at that brink.

Many on the Right, including some Tea Parties, seem content to play the blame game, arguing that Obama and the Democrats are solely to blame for America being on the edge of the abyss, conveniently forgetting that George W. Bush (who inherited a budget surplus) and his Republican Congress more than doubled the national debt during their watch.

As the debt deadline looms, markets are finally getting jittery because for the first time, there is a sense that, just maybe, the “they’ll get it done” confidence may not apply. And no one really knows for sure how things will shake out if the government cannot pay its bills.

Relax.  Of course the politicians will “get it done.”  They’ll do for one major reason, and it’s not an altruistic sense of doing what’s best for the country.  It’s called self-preservation; they don’t want to lose re-election next year because a government default further tanks the already dismal economy.

So they will play with the numbers, cook the books, and come up with a sound-bite worthy agreement that allows both sides to save face but in reality seals Americ’s fate.  Welcome to the Washington Two-Step.

In all likelihood, the debt ceiling will be raised somewhere north of $17 trillion (good for Obama), with promises of big “deficit reductions” and spending cuts over the next 10 years (red meat for the GOP base). 

Common sense begs a question, though.  In the spirit of Lightning McQueen in Cars, when he is told to “turn right to go left,” why is it necessary to spend more (increasing the debt) in order to cut spending (deficit reductions).  Kind of seems counterproductive. 

Even though we are told things are “much more complicated” in Washington than they seem to common folk (codespeak for don’t rock the boat), here’s an idea: since we knew this day was coming for quite some time, wouldn’t it have just been easier to tighten the nation’s belt by cutting spending and reducing the exorbitant waste, and therefore not having to raise the (already unsustainable) debt level?

While that works efficiently in the private sector, it is anathema to politicians, because, for the vast majority of lawmakers, it’s not about doing the right thing for country or constituents, but themselves.  That’s why Congress has historically passed workplace rules that Americans were mandated to follow, but which exempted Congressmen. And both Parties are equally complicit.

Which is why it doesn’t matter what happens with the debt ceiling. The beast has become so large that it is impossible to kill.  The ballgame is over, and United States will never be the same. Most tragically, it is a quagmire of our own doing.  We the people made our bed, and now we must lie in it.

Let’s be honest.  There is no possibility left to fix the problem. It has become pointless to discuss the “solutions” to America’s fiscal situation, because they simply do not exist.  This author included, there have been many who have outlined realistic, common sense steps that, while painful, would turn the ship around, thus avoiding the massive iceberg. But that won’t happen, because there is no political, or public, will to make them a reality. None.

Americans have been feeding at the public trough, in one form or another, for so long that everyone thinks they are “entitled” to damn near everything.  And despite the imminent financial collapse caused by that “let me get mine” mentality, the people still don’t want to give up the keys to the Treasury.  There remains a naïve belief that America is too big to fail.  How wrong.

Many mistakenly believe that the high standard of living enjoyed in America is a result of having the largest economy in the world.  It is not.  Because we have deliberately outsourced virtually our entire manufacturing base and refuse to become energy independent, the economy is built on a house of cards.  And the underlying foundation?  Debt.

Like their government, Americans have an unquenchable thirst for things they cannot afford.  Three year-old car not new enough anymore?  Buy a new one — with debt.  Want a 4,000 square foot house with flat screen TV’s in every room? Take out a massive mortgage.   Want to tell all your Facebook friends your exciting status of eating out every night?  Buy a smart phone you can’t afford.

So while certainly not defending the actions of Congress, it is really only reflecting the will of the people.

Which is why the debt deal, like most everything in Washington, will be smoke and mirrors.  They’ll increase our ability to borrow and spend more, but what they won’t tell you is that any future agreements to cut the deficit will be null and void in a year, as future Congresses will be under no obligation to follow any deficit reduction measures this legislature passes. It will continue to be Business As Usual.

The United States’ debt is now equal to our  annual Gross Domestic Product, a debt so high that we wouldn’t even meet European Union standards for admission. And anytime Europe has one up on you, you’ve got problems.

The economy won’t implode in a firestorm today or tomorrow, as some predict, but will be a slow, painful burn as entitlement programs eventually run out of money, government services dry up, interest rates rise, and inflation goes through the roof. 

This is no longer conjecture, but a mathematical certainty. Americans will have to reap what they have sown, and the diseased crop is quickly coming to harvest.

                                                                                 *****

The big question is whether Americans are ready and willing to admit their hypocrisy when it comes to spending.  Just as most sports fans feigned disgust during baseball’s Steroid Era, while secretly loving every minute of the enhanced level of play, so too are many criticizing mammoth spending while deep down hoping their pet projects don’t get slashed.

Baseball finally cleaned up its act, banning steroids (in 2005), and you know what? The offensive numbers are down across the board, and it’s not nearly as exciting as it was, but people still enjoy the game as players are playing within their natural abilities.

In much the same way, Americans will, at some point, have to learn to once again live within their means and realize that entitlements aren’t free and government money is actually their own. But it may take a default on the largest debt the world has ever known for that to sink in. And with that will come necessary, but extremely painful, sacrifices that will be the building blocks of The New America.

Will we finally learn the lesson to live within our means?  Hopefully, because if not, get used to living in the United States of China.

Chris Friend is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

 Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick Morris’ recent bestseller “Catastrophe.”

 Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

Robert Vickers profiled US Senate candidate Marc Scaringi in Sunday’s Patriot-News, describing his positions as “disjointed”. The profile betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of various schools of thought within the broader umbrellas of conservatism and Republican politics. Having spoken with Mr. Scarinigi on a few occasions, I can tell you that his positions –some of which I do not share– are all intellectually consistent and are well within the boundaries of conventional conservative philosophy.

Vickers:

The reasons why Harrisburg attorney Marc Scaringi believes he’s better suited for the U.S. Senate than incumbent Democrat Bob Casey Jr. are a bit disjointed.

No matter. They make sense to him.

Scaringi says the GOP professes conservative principles it rarely lives up to — but he’s running as a Republican.

He is staunchly free market — but wants congressional term limits for a free-market electorate.

He wants to see a massive reduction in activist U.S. foreign policy — but bristles at being called isolationist.

And he believes in the will of the people — but only to choose a senator who will legislate as he or she sees fit. If elected, “I’m not going to lecture or dictate to the voters,” he said. “But I don’t do anybody’s bidding.”

For someone who speaks glowingly of his time as an aide to former Sen. Rick Santorum, a self-professed social conservative, Scaringi has no social issues in his campaign platform.

I’ll take these one at a time, starting with term limits.

There’s nothing inherently anti-free market about term limits. None other than free-market economist Milton Friedman defended term limits, saying to the libertarian Cato Institute, “A six-year term limit for representatives would not change their basic nature, but it would change drastically the kinds of people who would seek election to Congress and the incentives under which they would operate. I believe that those of us who are interested in trying to reverse the allocation of our resources, to shift more and more to the private markets and less and less to the government market, must disabuse ourselves of the notion that all we need to do is elect the right people. At one point we thought electing the right president would do it. We did and it didn’t. We have to turn our attention to changing the incentives under which people operate.”

That sounds pretty pro-market to me.

Scaringi’s also not an isolationist.  At the risk of putting words in his mouth, I understand his position to be that he would be willing to engage in military action in order to protect vital US interests.  (I got the impression that this didn’t just mean keeping those sneaky Canadians above the 45th parallel.)  He certainly has a narrower view of those interests than I do, or than some others do, but the isolationist label does not fit.  Marc Scaringi is not Pat Buchanan.

(Would somebody care to explain what the vital US interest is in the ethnically tinged civil war in Libya?  Maybe I’d come aboard… if anybody in the Obama administration would ever attempt to explain it to the American people.)

As to the nature of political representation, the conflict described in the P-N article is as old as representative government itself.  Are representatives sent to exercise their own best judgement, or to blindly vote what they believe to be the will of the electorate at any given moment, irrespective of the consequences?  This is an intractable problem of representative government, and is hardly unique to Marc Scaringi.  (In the light of the ObamaCare vote, Casey has little room to criticize anybody else for substituting his own judgement for that of the electorate.)

On social issues, Scaringi may not have any positions listed on his website, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them.  Scaringi is pro life.  So is the incumbent, at least ostensibly.  Voters who care enough to learn the differences between Scaringi and Casey on social issues will do so.  At present, I think it’s fair to say that the primary animating political factors are economic and fiscal in nature.  Scaringi hasn’t abandoned social conservatism, he’s merely focusing on the same issues the swing-voter electorate cares about.  That’s just smart politics in my book.

Regarding Scaringi’s fit in the Republican party, many tea partiers and other reform-minded conservatives have faced the same question, and most have come to a similar conclusion.  Like it or not, our first-past-the-post electoral system has a tendency to produce a two-party system.  Despite its faults, the Republican party is the best vehicle for implementing a conservative vision.  That doesn’t make the Republican party an ideal institution, and it doesn’t inoculate the party from criticism.  Ronald Reagan criticized the Republican party once upon a time, and today we are better for it.  There’s nothing “disjointed” about criticizing a political party to which one belongs.

The underlying weakness in the Patriot-News profile is the inability to recognize the diversity of thought within conservative and Republican politics.  It was only in 2004 that Pat Toomey nearly defeated Arlen Specter in the Senate primary contest.  (Is seven years such a long time?)  It is astonishing to me that a person could live through the rise of the Tea Party within  Republican ranks and fail to comprehend that the GOP is not monolithic in nature.

 Sen. Piccola Can’t Pass His School Choice Bill, So He’s Killing Other Reforms

Spring is here, and that means water ice.

As the man at the counter placed his order, the total came to $4.30.  The clerk — a suburban high school-aged girl — mistakenly rang it up as forty three cents.  No problem. Mistakes happen.

All she had to do was subtract 43 cents from $4.30 and ring up the difference, and we’d be that much closer to our Italian ice.  Life would be good.

Except that the line stood still.  Turns out the girl was having a major problem — not with the cash register, but the math.  After conferring with her colleagues (and presumably a manager), it was determined that such a complex mathematical equation was just too difficult to mentally solve, so she just rang it up as a flat $2.00 and called it a final sale.

Hey, no one’s saying it’s easy to do calculations in your head with a long line of impatient gelati-crazed kids (and adults), but we’re also not talking about the complex mathematical equations Will solved in Good Will Hunting.

This situation is normally is blown off by a public that buries its head in the sand simply as an aberration, not reflective of America’s educational achievement. Wrong.  Our water ice clerk’s performance is not the exception, but the norm.

The United States ranks near the bottom of all educational categories against its industrialized competitors, and Pennsylvania is even worse: almost half of ALL eleventh graders cannot pass the state’s proficiency tests in reading and math.  That’s not just an inner city problem, but a statewide one.

So with education reform being such an integral part of last year’s GOP campaigns, and the Republicans sweeping to power by winning control of the Governor’s office and both state legislative chambers, it was a foregone conclusion that such reforms would be passed, with school choice leading the way.

But that didn’t happen, as that effort has been derailed — deliberately.  Not by the teachers’ unions mind you, but by the biggest political whiner of them all, Mr. School Choice himself — Republican Senator Jeff Piccola. 

*****

Pop quiz: name the politicians who said the following diametrically-opposed statements about the EITC (Educational Improvement Tax Credit), a successful decade-old program that gives tax credits to businesses that contribute to school choice scholarships.

A)    “I have always been a stalwart supporter of the EITC program and that’s why I recently introduced a measure to (upwardly) adjust the allowable household income for eligible families.” 

B)    “I can only speak for the Education Committee and it’s not coming out of there…it’s dead on arrival,” (referring to Montgomery County State Rep. Tom Quigley’s EITC expansion bill that just passed the House by a 190 to 7 vote).

Answers: Jeff Piccola and…Jeff Piccola.

You see, Piccola, Chairman of the Education Committee, has been leading the charge on Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), which is weak school choice legislation written last year while Rendell and the Democrats were in control and not reworked to reflect a school choice governor (Tom Corbett) and the new GOP-controlled House.

Despite untold millions spent by deep-pocketed SB 1 supporters — many of whom demonized the majority of conservatives (their allies, no less) who simply wanted a better, more inclusive bill rather than settling for one that only affected very low-income students — SB 1 died this spring.

And the reasons for its death could fill a book on what NOT to do in politics.

It never dawned on these Harrisburg know-it-alls to actually count votes before they shot off their mouths about SB 1’s virtually guaranteed passage.  So when a number of GOP senators announced they were not on board with the bill as it was written, jeopardizing its chances of success, it would have made good political sense to ask them what their concerns were, in a genuine attempt to understand their issues, and if possible, win their support.

But that didn’t happen. 

Instead, the SB 1 forces, now desperate to keep the issue alive since their wealthy friends might soon be turning off the money spigot, launched a series of brazenly stupid PR campaigns ostensibly designed to win over the wayward Republican senators.  Their strategy?  Produce misleading (and anonymous) phone calls, newspaper ads, radio commercials and deceitful direct mail pieces plastered with messages like “Shame on You, Senator.”

Not exactly the way to endear the targeted pol to your side.  The result? Scratch even more Republicans.

So with the prospects of SB 1 going the way of the dodo, it was left to the House to do the heavy education reform lifting, which it did with its near-unanimous vote to expand the EITC.

Given that the EITC was clearly the only bill with life, why would Piccola kill a concept he supports (EITC expansion is also in his SB 1) by declaring the House bill “DOA?” Especially when it would be absolutely guaranteed to pass the full senate and be signed into law by the Governor?

Selfishness.  If Piccola can’t have it his way, with his name on the bill he wants, he’ll settle for nothing. Curiously, that is exactly the charge leveled by SB 1 zealots against those trying to craft a more inclusive bill.

So much for education reform being all about “the kids.”

Piccola’s ineptitude has directly led to three things:

1)      The Republican Party is now viewed — correctly — as obstructionist.  Abandoning its campaign promise of reforming education, and turning its back on parents and their children who would benefit from the House bill does not benefit the GOP heading into an election year where Democrats will be much more competitive.

2)      The children —our future — are the biggest victims, pawns in the chess game Piccola is playing to garner headlines and accolades.  Piccola, who as committee chairman has the sole power to release the EITC bill from his committee for a full senate vote, may have won this political round — if you can call that a “win” — but in doing so, he’s turned his back on Pennsylvania’s students. When nearly half our high school juniors cannot read and add, and a solution is carelessly disregarded, we are all losers. 

3)      The perception that all politicians are greedy, self-interested hacks has been further reinforced in the minds of Pennsylvanians.  That’s a shame, because there really are many elected officials who put in an honest day’s work, fighting for the right reasons, not to satisfy their personal agendas — like Rep. Quigley and Chester County Rep. Curt Schroder, another educational reform leader fighting for ALL Pennsylvania students.

What happens now?  Maybe SB 1, if amended to truly include the middle class, has a shot in the fall.  Or possibly, if enough pressure can be brought upon Piccola and the hypocrites who staunchly support the EITC but are noticeably silent on Piccola’s DOA strategy, the EITC will be voted upon by the senate this spring.  But that window is closing fast.

Neither may occur, in which case meaningful education reform will not take place for a minimum of two years, as nothing controversial will be initiated during the 2012 election cycle.

Above all, one thing is certain. If education reform — be it school choice, EITC, teacher strikes or a host of other issues — hinges on Jeff Piccola’s political prowess, the prospects for success are about as great as the water ice clerk winning a Fields Medal in Math.

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick Morris’ recent bestseller “Catastrophe.”

Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

“Drill, baby, drill!”

That political phrase is fast approaching “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” territory, but its message is infinitely more important. The need to become energy independent is an absolute, since America’s increasing reliance on foreign oil threatens its national and economic security like never before.

With fuel prices skyrocketing, millions of jobs are threatened, and petro dollars flow from the United States to countries which wouldn’t shed a tear over another 9/11.

Because no new oil refineries or nuclear power plants have been constructed in over three decades, one leader in particular has been attempting to reduce America’s insatiable appetite for imported oil. Last year, he opened up over 500,000 square miles of coastal waters to oil and gas exploration for the first time in over twenty years, including the Atlantic Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and northern Alaska.

He summed up why: “The bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”

In addition, this politician said, “I will tap our natural-gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.”

It’s no surprise that this call for drilling was a “bitter disappointment for environmentalists and Democrats,” as one press report noted. 

The surprise, however, is that this leader happens to be the head of the Democratic Party – –none other than President Barack Obama.

Obama’s actions — pushing nuclear power in particular, as he arranged loan guarantees for two new plants — are akin to a conservative Republican calling for a ban on handguns.  The Democratic Party has long been captive to the radical environmentalist wing, who view Obama’s push for oil and nuclear as nothing short of treasonous.

One would think that if these folks are labeling Obama’s efforts a “betrayal,” the GOP would be embracing the President on what has traditionally been part of the Republican platform.

One would be wrong.

From the 2008 campaign to the 2010 State Of The Union address, where energy independence was a major theme, the standard Republican responses have been, “Well, he really doesn’t believe that,” and “his plan doesn’t go far enough.”

Far enough?  From what?  The standard GOP policy of America bent over a Middle Eastern barrel?

Even the Tea Parties are not immune.  The President recently toured a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Bucks County, using the occasion to further tout his energy policy.  One of that region’s largest Tea Party organizations staged a rally, billing their event as a protest to Obama “discouraging domestic oil production” by “ignoring the necessity to drill for oil in our vast national reserves.”

Hey, never let facts get in the way of the truth.

The intransigence of the Republicans to run with what should be their core issue is simply incomprehensible. And while energy independence should never be a partisan issue, given that it affects our future more than anything else, it is clearly obtainable only if the GOP/Obama version is executed.

Alternative energy sources are most certainly important, but will never produce anything remotely close to the nation’s energy needs.  The indisputable fact is that black gold, natural gas and nuclear will always be the mainstay, at least until a new source is discovered.

But what has the GOP done, both when it had majorities and after it lost them?  Nothing positive.

George W. Bush could have opened up the ANWR in Alaska with virtually no opposition had he called for such in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  Instead, it took him seven years to call for lifting the offshore drilling moratorium put in place by… the first President Bush.  Too little, too late.

During a radio interview I conducted in March 2010, a Pennsylvania Republican congressman actually said he couldn’t introduce an offshore drilling bill because he was “in the minority.” Sorry, but Civics 101 says otherwise.  Any bill can be introduced; the issue is whether it would make it out of Committee.  The political leverage would come from pitting the obstructionist Democratic Congress against its own President.  But that never happened.

And then-Minority Leader John Boehner’s response to Obama’s plan? Nothing but rebuke rooted in pure partisanship. “It’s long past time for this Administration to stop delaying American energy production off all our shores and start listening to the American people who want an “all of the above” strategy to produce more American energy,” he has said.  But Boehner’s rubber never met the road.  Not when the GOP controlled the Congress and White House.  Not when they were in the Minority.  And not now.

Where were the Tea Party folks and Obama-bashers when the Republicans did nothing to achieve energy independence, despite holding all the cards?   They had better be careful, because selective memory and deliberate inconsistencies are the hallmarks for losing all credibility with The Great American Middle.

Is the President’s plan perfect? Of course not.  The rigs in the Gulf still sit idle, moratoriums still exist, and drilling in the ANWR isn’t on the President’s agenda.  It’s inexplicable and inexcusable that his willingness to explore options for energy independence has been met with a Republican brick wall. 

Whether it’s pure partisanship, a GOP tactic to win the Senate and White House next year, or simply the insular nature of Congress, the inability to make energy the number one issue is catastrophic. The huge growth platform that energy independence creates is the ONLY way for America to solve its budgetary woes.

Yet nothing happens.

The current inaction pushes the nation further into the red, endangering Americans’ welfare in an unprecedented fashion.

The ugly reality is that the USA may soon stand for United States Of Arabia.

Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick recent bestseller “Catastrophe.”

   Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

Recently on Good Morning America, Congresswoman and presidential contender Michele Bachmann was asked, “What is America’s number one vital interest in the Middle East.”

She answered, “…our safety and security of people in the United States is always number one.”

Not only was Bachmann’s response a non-descript talking-point, but it didn’t even answer the question.  Unfortunately, Bachmann missed a softball that she could have, and should have, knocked out of the park, one that would have separated herself from her colleagues.

Here’s the correct answer:

America’s vital interest in the Middle East can be summed up in three words: oil, oil and oil.  That’s it.  If that region wasn’t sitting on such huge reserves, America wouldn’t give it a second thought, with the exception of its security guarantee to Israel.

As a Republican and Tea Party leader, Bachmann should have instinctively talked of America’s unholy reliance on foreign oil, much of it from hostile nations in the Middle East, and aggressively pushed for energy-independence. 

She could have talked about how the largest natural gas deposits in the world remain virtually untapped (the Marcellus and Utica Shale); the vast oil reserves in Alaska that are closed to drilling; the Bakken Formation in North Dakota that holds over 4 billion barrels; the petroleum reserves under the Rockies that could well be the largest on the planet; the fact that we’re not drilling offshore , and that production has not yet resumed in the Gulf.

She could have then explained that, if we focused on these domestic sources, we wouldn’t be paying $4/gallon and watching inflation rise, nor would we be fretting about the Middle Eastern uprisings, and who we should be supporting. 

But she didn’t.  And that’s too bad, because otherwise, Bachmann’s voice on the national stage is an important one.

The fact is that if a leader doesn’t understand, or can’t articulate, solutions to the single-biggest problem facing America — being bent over a barrel because of our energy dependence — then their effectiveness is extremely limited.

And because neither Party, nor current and past Administrations, has done anything to achieve energy independence, America is now involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict with no clear objectives.  The only things being accomplished are creating more uncertainty in world markets and placing American military personnel in danger. And for what?

Several points to consider:

1)      There is no question why the U.S. is involved.  It’s not about stopping a brutal dictator, nor is it about civilian deaths.  And it’s not about democracy and freedom for the Libyans.  It’s simply because Libya produces a lot of oil.  If it was really about any of the aforementioned reasons, we’d be forcefully engaged in most countries around the globe, since democracies are the exception.  Just look at the Rwandan conflict: 20 percent of the population was slaughtered, but it had no oil.  Result: no intervention.  A little truth for why we are in Libya would go a long way.

2)      So much for Obama’s campaign pledges of “no more wars of choice,” and “no blood for oil.”

3)      Gaddafi, while certainly no angel, has not been the thorn in America’s side he once was.  He admitted complicity in the Pan Am 103 bombing and paid reparations, dismantled his nuclear weapons program and, understanding the new world order after the 9/11 attacks, stopped harboring terrorists.  As a result, Libya was taken off the U.S. government’s State Sponsor of Terrorism list by the Bush Administration, with then- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stating Libya was being rewarded for its “renunciation of terrorism and the excellent cooperation Libya has provided to the United States” in the war on terror. And the flow of Libyan oil has been unimpeded. So much for the brutal dictator theory.

4)      Who exactly are the rebels we are supporting by bombing the country and establishing the No Fly Zone?  Are they all James Madison-types looking to establish a democratic Republic? Or are they the Muslim Brotherhood— or worse?  Given many Middle Easterners’ track record of viewing the United States as the Great Satan, the odds probably aren’t favorable that we’ll be singing Kumbaya with them a few months from now — especially since reports now state that eastern Libya (home of the rebels) sent more fighters to engage the U.S. in Iraq than anywhere else.

5)      A No-Fly Zone does not make a democracy.  Okay, we are preventing Gaddafi from using his aircraft.  But what happens when he starts whipping the rebels anyway?  Do we bomb his troops and tanks?  Do we send in Special Forces?  What happens when a pilot is shot down— as just happened?  More important, what happens when a similar situation arises in Saudi Arabia, and civilians get mowed down — as they will, since the King isn’t going quietly.  Do we establish a No Fly Zone over The Kingdom?  Do we bomb them, too?  Not a chance in the world.

Despite all the questions, there are no answers, and the coalition, if you can call it that, has already begun splitting apart.

6)      We lose no matter how you slice it.  The majority of Libyan oil is sold to Italy and France, yet America has been roped in to do their heavy lifting.  Why?  And as more Libyans die from allied airstrikes, America will get blamed on the Arab Street.  Gaddafi’s claim of another “Crusade ” against a Muslim nation will hit home to millions of Muslims across the world, vastly undermining any goodwill that may have been generated over the last several years and bolstering terrorist recruitment.  And the support of the worthless Arab League, whose officials are already back-tracking, means nothing.  It’s not their planes doing the bombing, but ours.  We get all the negatives and none of the positives while the Arab League gets the best of both worlds.

The United States’ involvement in Libya, a nation that in no manner attacked America or caused it harm, sets an extremely dangerous precedent. Ironically, this effort, executed with no foresight and one that has absolutely no endgame, further endangers our national security.   Playing into the mentality of millions of Muslims that the U.S. seeks to dominate their countries will only enflame anti-American feelings.

George Washington could not have been more right when he advised against foreign entanglements and intervening in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. That wisdom is proof that modern advances will never be a substitute for old-fashioned common sense.

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in DicK Morris’ recent bestseller “Catastrophe.”

 Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

Ladies and gentlemen, meet J. Eric Fuller. J. Eric was one of the victims of the shooting in Tucson. He was wounded in the knee and back, but apparently he is on the mend given his recent public appearance. He is still in pain, no doubt, but he fared better than Christina Taylor Green and Gabrielle Giffords.

In a scene so surreal it almost defies description, J. Eric appeared as part of an ABC News town hall in Tucson with Christiane Amanpour. The theme of the town hall, “An American Conversation Continued”, brought together victims, witnesses, and heroes of the Tucson shooting. Politely. Civilly. Until the topic of gun control came up. That’s when J. Eric threatened to kill the founder of the Tucson Tea Party.

That’s where the atmosphere turned tense. When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated. Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, “You’re dead.”

When State Rep. Terri Proud (R-Tucson) rose to explain and clarify current and proposed gun legislation in the state, several people groaned or booed her. One of those booing, according to several witnesses, was Fuller. Witnesses sitting near Fuller told KGUN9 News that Fuller was making them feel very uncomfortable.

The event wrapped up a short time later. Deputies then escorted Fuller from the room. As he was being led off, Fuller shouted loudly to the room at large. Several witnesses said that what they thought they heard him shout was, “You’re all whores!”

So not only is Trent Humphries worth of death, everyone else is a whore. I can feel the fabric of our body politic healing right now!

Don’t spend much time wondering about J. Eric’s political leanings, either.

Fuller gave an interview with the Democracy NOW radio show, in which he said of the Tucson shootings: “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle, and the rest got their first target.”

snip…

“Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled,” Fuller ranted on, “senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls.”

Civility–you’re soaking in it!

I really hope everyone looks good and hard at J. Eric Fuller now that the mask is off. His is the face of the radical left, the same faction of society that has hijacked the Democrat party. Not only is he guilty of threatening to take the life of a man simply because that man believes differently, he continues to spread the political blood libel that the right is responsible and even gleeful over the deaths of children and patriots. And in the next breath he will hold himself up as a paragon of virtue and tolerance.

I, for one, have no problem with heated rhetoric. We on the right are passionate about our cause because we see our liberty hanging in the balance and we know that if America falls, the rest of the free world won’t hold out for very long. There is no plan B. The left is similarly as passionate, although for them it’s more about power and control than anything else. Either way you look at it, the stakes are huge and the conversations ought to get heated. I want people like J. Eric Fuller, Paul Krugman, Paul Kanjorski, and every other left-winger out there to make their baseless accusations and vent their spleens at every opportunity so that we can all see them for who they really are.

By the way, word is now that J. Eric is under arrest for making death threats. He’s in jail where he ought to be, away from those whom he would harm. That’s how a civil society deals with criminals.

(1) Potential challengers to Bobby Casey are starting to come out of the woodwork. Lilik has the scoop on what some are calling a “Ron Johnson”-like challenger, John Moran.  I would not normally pay a lot of attention to a geographically challenged candidate who is not a career pol, but the comparison to the uber-high-quality candidate Johnson caught my eye.  If the primary field becomes crowded (as it did in the 2010 Lt. Gov. primary), and if we get both Gerlach and Dent in the mix, a high quality central-PA candidate might just have a chance.  (Also, don’t dismiss State Sen Jake Corman just yet.  He is definitely taking a hard look at this, and he has the potential to raise a ton of coin.)

(2) Senator Coburn’s sobering remarks to the debt commission:

(3) Jim DeMint seems not to understand strategy, pledges not to oppose Senate GOP incumbents.

(4) What if Dr. Seuss drew Star Wars?

(5) Quote of the Day is from Tim Carney:

Which is more amazing: That liberals are willing to hike taxes on small business during 9.8% unemployment? Or the passion they feel for it?

(6) Check out the AEI debate between Rep. Paul Ryan and NYT-er David Brooks.  I think Brooks’ point about rejecting the dichotomy between sort of a Rand-ian laissez-faire and Euro-socialism is worth pondering, but I’m not buying his assessment that the Obama-crats aren’t Euro-socialists, and apparently the audience didn’t buy it either.

(7) You might think it’s funny, but it’s snot: Mucus affects your sense of smell.

(cross-posted)

It never ceases to amaze how the media can get a story so wrong. 

Just this week, ABC’s Good Morning America discussed how the Republican Party was now unified after “raucous” primaries, specifically when Tea Party candidates challenged the Establishment.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sure, some of the Party faithful have come together after the primary season, for they understand what’s at stake for the GOP this November.  For them, the idea is to win a generation, not an election.  America is at a crossroads, and whoever gains control of Congress will decide who knows best: government or the people. 

But for many in the Establishment, it’s not, nor has it ever been, about issues.  Instead, it’s much more self-serving: power for the sake of holding on to power.  And it’s about being part of the Club, where there are two sets of rules: one for themselves and one for everyone else.

Ironically, it’s the Tea Party that has been criticized for “hijacking” the Republican Party, and for not working within the parameters of the GOP.  That movement, and its candidates, have received considerable flak, being labeled “extremist” and being blamed for jeopardizing Republican victories in the general election.

While there are scattered Tea Partiers running third-party in the general election, by far the greatest threat to Republican success comes from Establishment Republicans who fared poorly in the primaries.

These losers love to characterize themselves as “moderate, ” a label they want to connote common sense and pragmatism.  The reality is that “moderate,” in the truest sense, applies to those with no convictions, or worse, to those who abandoned their principles long ago for the sake of holding on to elected office.

There is a far more apropos term: hypocrite.

*****

In most election cycles, these people emerged victorious in primary elections, and in doing so, they expected the endorsement of their vanquished rivals.  And usually received it.

But there’s a new sheriff in the Republican Party now, and the Establishment doesn’t like it, so much so that it is willing to sacrifice the growth of the Party for purely selfish reasons.

And this isn’t a localized irregularity, but a concerted effort nationwide to keep the Tea Partiers — READ: common sense Americans demanding accountability — from achieving success.

*****

In this regard, perhaps the best known hypocrite is Congressman Mike Castle, who has adamantly refused to endorse the Tea Party-backed Christine O’Donnell after she beat him in the primary.  His reason?  She was mean to him, hurt his feelings, and ran a dirty campaign. 

Translation: O’Donnell exposed Castle’s ultra-liberal voting record.

But Castle isn’t alone in his contempt for O’Donnell and her supporters. Top strategist Karl Rove continues to openly criticize O’Donnell, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a statement on election night that it would be sitting out the Delaware race.  While the NRSC did an about-face, you can just imagine how passionately it will intervene on O’Donnell’s behalf.

Castle’s effort to derail O’Donnell not only seriously jeopardizes the GOP’s attempt to win the Senate, but is a direct affront to the Party that served him so well for his nearly half-a-century in political office.  How’s that for loyalty?

But it doesn’t stop in Delaware.

In Alaska, defeated Senator Lisa Murkowski not only won’t endorse winner Joe Miller, but she is actively waging a write-in campaign against him. About the only thing Murkowski can accomplish by her selfish act is to hand the seat to the Democrats — helping them maintain control of the Senate.

In Utah, Senator Bob Bennett didn’t make it past his state Party’s nominating convention, but he also didn’t play ball, threatening his own write-in campaign after his loss. 

The Florida Senate race, one the most crucial the nation for the GOP, should have been a relatively easy win, but Governor Charlie Crist has thrown a wrench in the mix.  Crist, a former Republican, saw his poll numbers dropping and decided to run as an Independent against GOP rising star Marco Rubio. 

Rubio, campaigning on the traditional Republican platform, stood a much better chance to win in November, but Crist, rather than do the right thing and back Rubio, has energized the Democrats by giving them an opening that shoudn’t be there.  Because of Crist’s action, there exists the possibility that Florida Republicans may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

And let’s not forget the GOP suicide tactics occurring in the biggest battleground state of all — Pennsylvania.

No, we’re not talking about Arlen Specter.  Give the senator credit.  Rather than going Independent in the fall against Pat Toomey, Specter saw the writing on the wall, realized the Republican Party wasn’t for him, and switched.  

Interestingly, the biggest potential derailer of the Republican effort is the so-called “conservative” Sam Rohrer.  The 18-year State Representative and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate has refused to endorse Attorney General and GOP nominee Tom Corbett. 

Worse still, Rohrer has tacitly endorsed an organized write-in campaign for his candidacy, which, in a close election, could well prove decisive.

Why would Rohrer do something which could only lead to the Democrat taking over the Governorship?  Good question.  The answer seems….

Read the rest at Philadelphia Magazine’s Philly Post:

http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2010/10/05/in-defense-of-the-tea-party/

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com

Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick Morris’ recent bestseller “Catastrophe.”

Freind also serves as a weekly guest commentator on the Philadelphia-area talk radio show, Political Talk (WCHE 1520), and makes numerous other television and radio appearances, most notably on FOX 29.  He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com

Sounds stupid, right?  That’s exactly the message party organizations are inadvertently communicating to base voters.  In fact, parties are sending crisscrossed messages to both base voters and swing voters, with disastrous results.  The ideological primary voters are being pitched a pragmatic argument, and the pragmatic swing voters are being pitched an ideological argument.  How could we lose!

Conventional wisdom holds that moderate candidates are better candidates in general elections than candidates who are more ideological.  With this idea in mind, parties recruit and promote candidates by placing greater weight on their supposed moderateness than on any other qualities a candidate might have, such as good communication skills, a tireless work ethic, or general intelligence and competency.

My working thesis (for which I think I have a decent amount of evidence) is that swing voters are very flexible from an ideological perspective.  They are certainly more ideologically flexible than a lot of influential people think.  (Generously, we might describe swing voters as pragmatic.  Less generously, one might call them fickle, or at least impressionistic.)  Yet, the fundamental sales pitch to this swing electorate is often one concerning ideology (specifically, the lack thereof).  So we’re in a situation where candidates are recruited primarily for a quality that is not especially important to winning elections.

Base voters (that is, primary election voters), on the other hand, are usually quite ideological.  Base voters can be drawn to ideologically charged candidates who (-let’s be frank) sometimes suffer from poor communication skills and/or other deficiencies.  Despite this ideological preference, base voters are often instructed to vote for moderate primary candidates, which to say the least can be a hard sell at times.  Moreover – adding in the thoughts from the previous paragraph – , party leaders tell base voters to vote for moderates precisely because they are moderates.

In other words, the quality that supposedly makes a candidate good is that the base hates him, and that’s the principal argument that you’re making to the base.  It’s little wonder some are calling this a war on conservatism since that’s exactly how these candidates are marketed!  On top of that, the logic behind this supposed electability quality of moderateness is quite poor.

Is that any way to select candidates or run a party?

Throw in dirty pool, sharp elbows, the good ‘ol boys insider game, and borderline corrupt practices of earmarking and lobbyist favoritism, and you’re looking at the recipe for a revolt.

Welcome to the revolt.

Party organizations would be much better off if they went about looking for candidates ideologically acceptable to the base who are also generally attractive on non-ideological dimensions.  This makes more sense to me than the current way of doing things the other way around, which is finding candidates who are expressly barely-or-un-acceptable to the base with little regard to non-ideological qualities that might persuade swing voters.