=== Todays Toon ===
Sir George Ferguson Bowen GCMG (2 November 1821 – 21 February 1899) was a British colonial administrator whose appointments included postings to the Ionian Islands, Queensland (Australia), New Zealand, Victoria (Australia), Mauritius and Hong Kong
=== Bible Quote ===
“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”- 2 Corinthians 3:6=== Headlines ===
Boehner Expects 'Whale of a Fight' With Obama
John Boehner, the man expected to be the next speaker of the House, tells Fox News he expects to go toe-to-toe with the president over taxes and health care.India Preparing for Epic Obama Entourage
Security arrangements have become the stuff of legend before Air Force One even takes off for a trip aimed at strengthening ties and trade between the world's two largest democracies
Is Gov. Daniels a GOP Player for 2012?
Fox News' 'Special Report' kicks off its '12 in 2012' series, profiling potential GOP contenders for the White House, with a look at Indiana's Mitch Daniels, a two-term governor of the Hoosier State
Soros Takes Big Hit On Election Night
George Soros, the Hungarian-born businessman known for bankrolling liberal causes, saw a slew of his pet projects and candidates get wiped out by the Republican tidal wave
Man in custody over stolen chihuahua
A 33-year-old man is in custody after failing to appear in court over charges related to the theft of a prize-winning chihuahua.
Domino's offers $31,000 for one hour's work
NO special qualifications required - working in a pizza restaurant for just one hour for a juicy $31,000.
Man 'wore high heels out of shop'
A MAN faces shoplifting charges after police said he tried to steal a pair of women's high-heel shoes by wearing them out of a shop.
Fire stops work at coal terminal
COAL loading has been interrupted at Queensland's largest coal export terminal after the railway was shut because of a fire scare.
Man run down by tow truck in Brisbane
A PEDESTRIAN hit by an out of control tow truck is in a critical condition in a Brisbane hospital.
CityRail is still on the slide
COMMUTERS at a southwest Sydney train station have been left slip-sliding in the rain after the wrong platform tiles were installed.
Abbott talks to angry farmers
TONY Abbott yesterday ensured that the plight of farmers would not be forgotten. The Opposition Leader flew to Forbes, in NSW's west.
Ron Medich to apply for bail
LAWYERS for Ron Medich are expected to make another bail application, despite police charging him with Michael McGurk's murder.
Latest HSC a formula for confusion
IF teachers who wrote questions for the HSC were marked, they'd be headed for a fail, with a third exam riddled with mistakes.
Demand proves moor is merrier
DEMAND for prestige positions on Sydney Harbour has placed the dream of boats close to hime beyond all but the very wealthy.
Fire scare hits coal loading
A FIRE scare in railway wagons has disrupted coal loading at Queensland's largest coal export terminal at Dalrymple Bay near Mackay.
Brough targets Peter Slipper
FORMER Howard minister Mal Brough has no respect for Liberal colleague Peter Slipper and is aiming to oust him from Fisher at the next election.
We won't cop sharing with pollies
POLICE will finally pocket a long-awaited pay rise today, but they are not happy about sharing it with state government politicians.
Clem7 tolls to rise by 50%
TOLLS on the Clem Jones Tunnel will rise by 50 per cent in an effort to ease financial pressure on the embattled RiverCity Motorway.
Tow truck hits pedestrian
A pedestrian has been rushed unconscious to hospital after being struck by a tow truck at Rocklea on Brisbane's southside.
Slow start for hi-tech licence
QUEENSLAND'S long-awaited "smart licence" has been rolled out, with Toowoomba drivers to be the first to receive it.
Top cop bungled ruling: CMC
THE Crime and Misconduct Commission gives scathing assessment of the objectivity of Deputy Police Commissioner Kathy Rynders.
Staff sacked after jail romances
ALMOST a dozen prison staff have been sacked for having inappropriate relationships with inmates at state-run jails in the past three years.
More rain looms for weekend
ANOTHER weekend and more rain for the southeast with showers, and possible thunder, expected to continue over the next couple of days.
Noosa camel safaris on last legs
A RENOWNED camel safari business must leave Noosa's North Shore or face being removed by Sunshine Coast Council officers.
Truck jack-knife sparks Monash chaos
THREE inbound lanes and one outbound have been closed on the Monash after a crash involving several cars.
Man trapped after truck smash
A TRUCK driver has been freed from his cabin after being pinned for 90 minutes following a collision in Gippsland.
Teen robbed after bash threat
A MAN threatened to bash a teen if he didn't hand over his money last night.
Victoria 'encouraging Nazi eugenics'
THE "warped practice of eugenics is rising from its Nazi tomb" in Australia, a senior Catholic bishop says.
Car mows down two pedestrians
A WOMAN suffered serious head injuries when she and a friend were cut down by an out-of-control motorist.
Magistrate spares 'solid citizen'
A MAN who drove at twice the speed limit before slamming into a car has been described as a "solid citizen" by a magistrate.
Favileo sure was the one to beat
THEY say there's no such thing as a sure thing in horse racing
Liberals' late-night crisis meeting
ALL Liberal Party candidates were summoned to a meeting last night as the party's election strategy descended into chaos.
Fall leaves boozy revellers stranded
OAKS Day train services were thrown into chaos with thousands stranded after a woman was hit by a train at Southern Cross station.
Six years for killing six-year-old
A DRUNKEN hoon who mowed down and killed a young boy as he played in his front yard has been jailed.
Croc bites surfer
An amazing photo shows the moment a small saltwater crocodile bit a surfer.
Eastern-suburbs traffic moving again
WRECKAGE from a spectacular peakhour crash has been cleared from a major arterial road and traffic is moving again.
Dancing in the grain fields
SOUTH Australia is edging tantalisingly closer to the state's largest and most valuable grain crop ever - tipped to be worth close to $3 billion.
Life springs back down by the riverside
BREATHTAKING sunsets, meticulously maintained vines and a burgeoning river are just a sample of some of the immense beauty in our own backyard.
Have your family treasures valued
THE old crockery set under the sink or that painting gathering dust in the shed may be worth a lot of money and this Sunday will be the chance to find out.
Children's headstart for school
PARENTS of disadvantaged children will be taught how to ensure their kids are ready for school in new early education centres around the state.
Privacy laws a threat to children
CHILD welfare authorities have revealed abused children have died because of Federal Government "privacy" rules which block the sharing of danger warnings.
War against locusts heats up
THE battle against the worst locust plague in 40 years is about to hit its peak with five aircraft and 140 people deployed.
Stem the growth - Australia's already full
AUSTRALIA already is over-populated and the public is "way ahead" of politicians when it comes to understanding the pressure on our natural resources.
Voters slow off the mark in local polls
ONLY 192,000 votes out of a possible 1.1 million have so far been cast in the local government elections.
Farmers' protest growing taxes
FARM groups will consider a mass rally to protest against an increasing range of state government taxes and issues threatening food production.
ASIO tailed WA ex-JI man 'for years'
THE ex-jihadist and West Australian at the centre of a mosque row in Norway has been monitored by Norwegian and Australian authorities for years.
Tensions boil at detention meet
TWO people were arrested in Northam last night after hundreds of angry residents were been locked out of a public meeting on a planned detention centre.
Missing fisherman found dead
THE body of a 56-year-old fisherman has been retrieved from waters off Perth after his boat was found with its motor running and a tuna fish on his line.
Mitchell questioned over shovels
POLICE investigating the disappearance of Iveta Mitchell questioned her husband about shovels and spades during a search, a court has heard.
160km/h cops watched Lambo 'speed away'
A LAMBORGHINI being taken on a customer test run by a Perth mechanic disappeared into the distance travelling at 160km/h, a court heard today.
Police arrest rail sex-attack suspect
POLICE are questioning a man over a series of sex attacks on women using Perth's northern suburbs train line.
Nothing new
=== Journalists Corner ===
Obama's Trip to India ... Too Soon?The president is scheduled to go on a 10-day trip to India just days after the election. So, is Obama running away from the midterm results? Juan Williams seems to think so....
===
"The Great Compromise?"
Cutting a tax cut deal? What Obama may want from the GOP before extending the Bush tax cuts...
===
Rep. John Boehner Speaks Out!
How will the new House majority move their agenda forward? Catch the revealing interview!
===
Anchoring the Midterms!
Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly breaks down Fox's big win, on the big night!
On Fox News Insider
VIDEO: A380 Engine Explosion Caught on Tape!Michelle Malkin Asks: Does Obama "Get It"?
WATCH: Did Chris Matthews Blatantly Disrespect Bachmann in Interview?
Gingrich: Pelosi Didn't Want to Govern as a Centrist
Sen. Jim DeMint's Warning for the GOP
=== Comments ===
Bank on Julia Gillard’s inactionPiers Akerman
IF you had to decide whether Julia Gillard’s Government was utterly incompetent or merely totally inadequate, the wiser choice would be to plump for abject incompetence. - It is dangerous dismissing the ALP as being inept when they are corrupt and purposeful. Heiner was not a mistake, nor was the appointment of GG. The $43 billion NBN is not an accident neither was the Pink Batts plan. People have died and money has disappeared and what is happening is not due to incompetence on the part of the ALP.
But it does reflect on the competence of the press. More so on the senior editors who provide the direction which the press take.
The issue of Hamidur Rahman is not an accident. A school child is dead, and the issue has never been examined but for the finger of corruption. - ed
===
What the Heck Happened in the Election?
BY BILL O'REILLY
First of all, it was a "prove yourself" vote. Most Americans believe that President Obama has not yet proved himself to be an effective leader. Therefore, his policies were widely repudiated across the country, and that's why the Republicans gained at least 60 seats in the House.
On the Tea Party front, apparently Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller in Alaska and Sharron Angle in Nevada did not prove themselves to independents, so they all lost. But Rand Paul and Marco Rubio won big because those guys ran very effective campaigns. It all comes down to performance, as it should.
The Harry Reid victory surprised me. I thought the guy was through because he epitomizes the big spending liberal agenda, which is not succeeding right now. But apparently in Nevada, the Democratic machine is very effective. Reid also ran a very good TV ad.
As "Talking Points" predicted, pot legalization was defeated in California. But other election results are hazy.
The Northeast and the West Coast remain very liberal in the face of economic hardship. I mean, Sen. Barbara Boxer winning big is incredible. California is bankrupt, and the entire country is heading that way as well. Sen. Boxer is a notorious far-left zealot who rubber stamps just about every spending program, and she wins in a landslide? It's amazing.
I understand Jerry Brown. He's an honest guy, but will he reform the state? It's possible, but his party has led California to disaster.
Here in New York, where I live, the Republicans could not really mount any serious challenges in the state races, even though New York has descended into chaos under the Democrats.
I guess the most gratifying part of the election Tuesday night was seeing that pinhead Alan Grayson booted out of Congress by voters in Orlando, Florida. They don't come lower than Grayson.
Predictably, the liberal media was hysterical last night:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC NEWS ANCHOR: Are you hypnotized tonight? Has someone hypnotized you, because no matter what I ask you, you give the same answer? Are you hypnotized? Has someone put you under a trance tonight that you give me the same answer no matter what question I put to you?
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MINN.: I think the American people are the ones that are finally are speaking tonight. We're coming out of our trance. Really, we are coming out of our nightmare.
MATTHEWS: OK, well…
BACHMANN: So, I think people are thrilled tonight. I imagine that thrill is probably maybe not quite so tingly on your leg anymore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Over at The Washington Post, columnist Eugene Robinson said the vote was racist against Obama, and Dana Milbank flat-out lied about the Fox News coverage.
All in all, there was a correction last night in America, but we remain a divided country politically. The president held on, but just barely.
===
Kasich Victory In Ohio Offers Blueprint for Beating Obama In 2012
By Van Hipp
With the dust still settling from Tuesday's historic election results, the pundits are busy sizing up what to make of it all. The shift of power in the U.S. House, the national gains by Republicans, the impact of the Tea Party and the implications of all of the above are hot topics. And names like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ron Johnson are dominating the discourse.
Still, with all due respect to the field of this week's victors, the storyline of one winner stands above the rest: John Kasich is the governor-elect of Ohio.
But more telling than just his win is how he did it: by withstanding an Obama onslaught; turning back liberal fear attacks with a message of hope; and offering a leaner, more efficient alternative to big government run amuck.
In short, if Barack Obama’s spend and tax presidency for the past two years is a question, John Kasich emerged Tuesday night as the logical answer.
Ohio is paramount in presidential politics. Since 1964, voters in the Buckeye State have correctly picked the winning presidential candidate in 11 consecutive elections. Think keeping the Ohio governor’s office in Democratic hands was important to President Obama? You bet.
With his eyes on 2012, Obama has already made a dozen trips to Ohio to stump and raise millions of dollars for incumbent democratic Governor Ted Strickland.
While President Obama can’t leave fast enough for India to escape Tuesday’s results, the only place it seems he wanted to go for the past two years was Ohio.
Unfortunately for the president, there were two major problems with his strategy to pour time and resources into Ohio’s gubernatorial election:
First, Ohio was the wrong place to promote his tired policies of over-taxing, over-spending, and over-regulating,
And second, John Kasich was the wrong candidate to target with an “everything but the kitchen sink" strategy.
About that first point, Ohio is hurting. Since Ted Strickland became governor, Ohio has lost some 400,000 jobs. And despite the assertion from Democratic Party talking points, these aren’t jobs that were sent overseas by corporate bigwigs – they’re positions that found a new home in nearby states that offer a better environment for business.
Meanwhile, with 10% of Ohioans still out of work, it’s really no mystery why the voters rejected the Obama-Strickland message of more regulation, red tape and taxes as the path to economic prosperity. After four years of heading in the wrong direction, they know better.
The real story of this race, however, (and of the larger 2010 political landscape) is John Kasich.
In delivering a campaign and message that were pitch-perfect, the son of a mailman with working class roots provided a blueprint on going toe-to-toe with Obama and coming out on top.
Kasich took the president’s best shot – 12 of them to be exact – and never strayed from the notion that results trump rhetoric.
Of course, it helps that Kasich is Kasich. His record of results is impressive. In particular, as chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee through much of the '90s, he’s remembered fondly as the last man to balance our nation’s budget. At the time, it was a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since a man walked on the moon.
Today, thanks to the Obama administration’s spending spree, it’s an achievement that seems less likely than catching a cow jumping over the same planet.
There’s something else about Kasich. He has an undeniable energy and optimism that set him apart from the crowd. While Obama and Strickland spent their time on the campaign trail peddling fear and identifying “enemies,” Kasich consistently offered a better way through lower taxes, less government spending, fewer regulations, and more private sector jobs.
In one of his campaign ads, Kasich asserted that Ohio’s best days are still ahead. With a leader like John Kasich at the helm, that assertion seems less like a campaign slogan and more of a certainty.
As for President Obama, I think his political kryptonite has been discovered. His initials are J.K. and come January he'll be sworn in as Ohio’s next governor.
Van D. Hipp, Jr. is the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and has served as a member of the Presidential Electoral College. He is also the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army and currently serves as Chairman of American Defense International, Inc. (ADI) a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in government affairs and business development.
===
There's No Similarity Between Reagan and Obama
By Craig Shirley
Today, November 4, marks the thirtieth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s election as president. It is a fitting time to dispense once and for all with the myth that there is any similarity whatsoever between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
Washingtonians and insecure politicians obsess with comparisons but can anyone imagine Lincoln or FDR or JFK or Reagan comparing themselves to previous presidents? Far too secure in their own skin, they enjoyed the presidency as Kennedy said paraphrasing the ancient Greeks that it was "the full use of your powers along lines of excellence."
Fellini said, "you must live spherically" and by this, the old movie director meant one should live their lives in many different directions. Reagan was a star athlete and a good student and a class president at Eureka College and a captain of the swim team there.
He was a successful radio broadcaster, favorite movie actor and a six term union president and host of GE Theatre (one of the most popular shows on television all through the 1950's) and a lecturer and a writer and a governor and a political leader and a rancher and a carpenter and horseman and devote Christian and doting father and loving husband and good friend.
He did all these things before becoming the 40th president of the United States and then when he did, he revived a moribund country, resuscitated a dead economy (far worse than Obama's) and then conquered an Evil Empire, freeing millions imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain.
He did all these things because he believed and lived American Exceptionalism.
And then he rode off into the sunset, never worrying about his post-presidency as a means of cleaning up the mess of his time in office.
He left no mess but instead, the country and the world much better off than he found it. Reagan's legacy didn't need to be rehabilitated. After all, his approval rating in January of 1989 was 70 percent. Among voters under 30, it was a mind boggling 85 percent!
Barack Obama, on the other hand, is our first "Facebook" president. He wrote two autobiographies before he was elected. His only world knowledge is in the study of himself which explains his preferred personal pronouns of "I" and "Me" and "My." He is a product of his generation and has never risen about his utterly self-absorbed culture.
Reagan was derided by the elites all the time he was in Washington as some kind of unsophisticated dummy but in fact was an extraordinary well-read man, having developed his own singular and unique ideology, based on the individual.
He arrived at this as a student of the Enlightenment, of faith and of populism. Thomas Paine was his favorite philosopher and embraced the "Natural Law" of man's freedom associated with him and his peers of the time.
Yet Reagan also embraced the faith-based belief that God's plan for Man was freedom as well as the populism of Andrew Jackson, who understood innately that the only system that worked must include, as Reagan said, "maximum freedom consistent with law and order."
One is hard pressed to believe that Obama thinks such thoughts though simpering elitists like Paul McCarthy have bought into the hype and propaganda about Obama. Can anyone recall Obama ever quoting a Founding Father or a great philosopher? Reagan quoted the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian!
Of more immediate concern are the incessant comparisons between 1982 and 2010. In fact, there is no comparison, mainly because even though Reagan's popularity had sagged and support for Reaganomics had fallen, when pressed, in all the polling data, the American people still believed in Reagan's prescriptions.
Today, the American people don't believe in Obama's plan and by overwhelming numbers, too, oppose everything he has sponsored over the past two years.
After 1982, Reagan didn't need to "move to the left." He stuck to his guns by staying the course, the theme of that off-year election. Is anyone urging Obama to "stay the course?"
Reagan's plan eventually came to fruition beginning in January of 1983 when the economy created one million new jobs. The Washington Post thought this was so significant, it was not even reported in the front section of the paper, let alone the front page.
His plan resulted in 96 months of unbroken economic growth, the creation of 18 million new jobs, the eradication of inflation and high interest rates and, to boot, non-defense federal spending fell by nearly 14 percent on his watch.
He also used the veto pen more than any president since Ike.
Let's see if Obamanomics creates one million new jobs next January. Just like Reagan?
Oh, please.
Craig Shirley is president of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs and has written two books on Ronald Reagan, including his newest, "Rendezvous With Destiny" (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2009). He is now working on a third Reagan book and a political biography of Newt Gingrich.
===
Did Freedom Win?
By John Stossel
The polls have closed. The Tea Party took some important races, and Republicans re-took control of the House. Many winning candidates campaigned on a promise to cut back on government. Some vowed to restore government to its constitutional limits.
As a libertarian, I so want to believe that the Tea Party marks the beginning a comeback for small government.
But I’m probably deluding myself. I know that big government usually wins. Remember the last time the Republicans took power? They promised fiscal responsibility, and for six of George W. Bush’s eight years, his party controlled Congress. What did we have to show for it?
Federal spending increased by 54 percent. That’s more than any president in the last 50 years. Much more than the 12 percent increase under Bill Clinton, and it even beat the 36 percent increase under big spender Lyndon Johnson. The number of subsidy programs grew 30 percent, and the regulatory budget grew 70 percent. The private sector shrank, while the government sector grew by 1.6 million jobs.
Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress created a prescription drug entitlement, the biggest entitlement expansion since Medicare. At one point, he nearly tripled the Department of Education budget.
Republicans want another chance, but any sensible person would be skeptical. We saw what happened when Republicans got a taste of power, and it wasn’t pretty. Why should we believe it wouldn’t happen again? Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., likely the next chair of the House Education Committee, has already said that he’s not going to abolish the Department of Education.
Republicans anticipated skepticism and tried to address it with the Pledge for America, an echo of the 1994 Contract With America. But the Pledge is modest. It promises no cuts in Medicare, Social Security or the military. That’s where most of the money is. Those programs account for 60 percent of the budget.
Their reluctance to call for entitlement cuts is politically understandable: Older people vote and don’t like the prospect of Medicare cuts. But taking Medicare off the budget-cutting agenda forsakes one’s credibility as a fiscal hawk. Medicare faces $36 trillion in unfunded promises.
Social Security adds $4.3 trillion more. As Shikha Dalmia writes in Forbes, “By 2052, Uncle Sam’s three entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- will consume all federal tax revenues, leaving nothing for government’s core, constitutional functions.”
OK, congressmen and would-be congressmen are just politicians. But the Tea Party is supposed to be different. It stands for fiscal responsibility, spending cuts and deficit reduction. A New York Times poll found that 92 percent of tea partiers said they would rather have a “smaller government providing fewer services” than a “bigger government providing more services.”
That’s encouraging. But when it comes to specifics, the results aren’t as good. The poll found that 62 percent thought “the benefits from government programs such as Social Security and Medicare are worth the costs.” A Bloomberg poll found that most tea partiers “want more drug benefits for Medicare patients.” And when was the last time you heard tea partiers complaining about the exploding military budget?
Strangely, in other questions, tea partiers did seem willing to accept cuts in domestic entitlement programs if it meant smaller government. The contradictory answers don’t bode well for the time when lobbyists for well-organized special interests mount their passionate attacks against cuts.
You just cannot be committed to cutting government if you would leave two of the costliest programs intact.
By now we know that Republicans have retaken the House. Divided government historically spends less than governments under one-party control. But if the people who most loudly demand smaller government can’t deliver a clear message on the biggest sources of government spending, the fiscal future of the country is in trouble.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. The show airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. and midnight ET. It re-airs Fridays at 10 p.m., Saturdays at 9 p.m. and 12 midnight, and Sundays at 10 p.m. (all times eastern). He's also the author of "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity."
To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
===
On the 30th Anniversary of Ronald Reagan's Election, A Valuable Lesson
By Annelise Anderson
Thirty years ago today, on November 4, 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States. He garnered 50.7 percent of the popular vote and 489 of 535 electoral votes.
The Republicans came to power in the Senate with a 53-47 majority. The House of Representatives remained in control of the Democrats, who held 243 seats to the Republicans’ 192.
The country elected new leaders because of problems both at home and abroad. The economy was in trouble -- high unemployment, high inflation (double-digit consumer price increases in 1979 and 1980) and high interest rates. Abroad, 52 hostages were being held at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.
As President Obama looks at the Congress elected two days ago, his situation is strikingly similar to Ronald Reagan’s after the 1980 election. The economy remains in trouble and the Congress is divided, in the same way it was then: The president’s party holds the Senate, the other party controls the House.
Reagan’s first priority was a vital and growing economy, because that made everything else possible -- including his ultimate goal -- peace without surrender. A revitalized U.S. economy --and with it, a revitalized national defense -- would bring the Soviets to the bargaining table and give Reagan the cards he needed to negotiate with them.
Reagan had been talking about economic problems for five years before he was elected president. Taxes were too high. Federal spending needed to be controlled. Bureaucratic regulations were sapping economic creativity. And the country needed a stable monetary policy to bring inflation under control. These were the principles of his economic program.
The transition to the new administration began the day after Reagan was elected, and he lost no time. Major revisions in the budget the outgoing president, Jimmy Carter, had sent to the Congress were under way almost immediately -- control of domestic spending and increases for national defense. Across-the-board cuts in marginal tax rates (10 percent a year for three years) and business tax reductions were on the drawing boards, as were plans to reduce regulations. Within days of taking office on January 20, 1981, Reagan issued an executive order decontrolling energy prices and met with Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, to communicate his support for the Fed’s efforts to control inflation.
And Reagan reached out immediately and continually to members of Congress from both sides of the aisle in 53 separate meetings during his first 70 days in office. Still, the economic program was going nowhere.
And then, on March 30, 1981, he got shot. On April 22, a recovering Reagan -- just 10 days out of the hospital -- called Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House, and asked to speak to a joint session of Congress. The country’s admiration for its wounded president -- his grace under pressure -- was so great that Tip could hardly say no. On April 28 Reagan addressed the joint session, to standing ovations, and laid it to them:
It’s been half a year since the election that charged all of us in this government with the task of restoring our economy . . . . Six months is long enough. The American people now want us to act and not in half measures. They demand and they’ve earned a full and comprehensive effort to clean up our economic mess. . . .the budgeting actions taken by the Congress over the next few days will determine how we respond to the message of last November 4th. That message was very simple. Our government is too big, and it spends too much.
Reagan continued to focus on his economic program. His personal diary, in which he wrote virtually every night, expresses his frustration with congressional action -- they didn’t want to cut taxes, they didn’t want to cut (or control) domestic spending and they didn’t want to spend money for national defense. On May 22 he wrote:
Dems finally have come up with a counter proposal to our tax program. They want to include a reduction of the income tax rate on unearned income from 70 per cent to the 50 per cent top rate on earned income. We wanted that in the first place but were sure they'd attack us as favoring the rich. Several of their other proposals are things we wanted. Decision is, I'll reluctantly give in provided they'll accept the three years across the board which will be 5, 10 and 10, instead of the 10-10-10 we originally proposed. I'll hail it as a great bipartisan solution.
H—l, It’s more than I thought we could get.
Both Reagan’s tax and budget bills were approved by the Congress (Reagan calls it in his diary “the greatest political win in half a century”) and signed at his California ranch on August13, 1981.
The economic program was finally under way, but the economy had taken a turn for the worse --at the time the worst recession since the Great Depression. Reagan was under continual pressure to reduce the deficit by increasing taxes, but noted in his diary on November 2, 1981, “I will not give in and raise taxes.”
The economy hit a low in November 1982, and then started to improve. On December 4, 1982, Reagan’s diary notes: “Meeting on economic policy. Question is how to make people and Congress understand that our program offers the best chance to get out of the recession. Signs
are all there -- inflation falling, interest rates dropping, Fed discount rate down to 12.”
From the November 1982 low, the economy grew at almost 5 percent a year, for 92 straight months. New jobs -- 19 million while Reagan was in office -- were created. After a brief recession in the early 1990s, the economy grew for another 102 months.
Reagan struggled throughout his presidency with the Congress and, sometimes, with his own staff to keep taxes low, control spending and provide enough for defense. He regretted not balancing the budget, but low taxes and the defense buildup were more important. By the time he left office, the budget deficit was declining in relation to the economy and so was defense spending. And Reagan did a remarkably good job controlling domestic program spending -- both discretionary and entitlements -- reducing it by 2 percentage points of GDP.
On October 6, 1983, Reagan wrote a letter to Bob Tyrrell, editor of the American Spectator, disavowing supply-side economics and expressing his own view: “It’s always seemed to me that when government goes beyond a certain percentage of what it takes in people’s earnings we have trouble. . . . I think we’ve learned that government’s wants are unlimited.”
The message of the election this year is not very different from the message in 1980: The government is too big, and it spends too much. Whether President Obama and the new Congress will be able to find a path from that message through the unlimited wants of government is the question.
Annelise Anderson is a fellow at the Hoover Institution. She and her husband, Martin Anderson, are authors of Reagan’s Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster (Crown, 2009).
===
HOMELESSNESS CURED
Tim Blair
Even poor folk can afford a home in Obama’s America. So why is everybody unhappy with him?
===
Latham says tomorrow belongs to the Greens, not Labor
Andrew Bolt
As I’ve said, the Greens are eating Labor alive:
FORMER ALP leader Mark Latham says the future is green - not Labor - and predicts ‘’consensus’’ politics will only deepen his party’s identity crisis…Michelle Grattan mourns for Labor:
In an essay for The Monthly, Mr Latham says union power and factional control has intersected negatively with community resistance to the notion of a carbon price and the stalled international climate negotiations. But if the ultimate battle is between nature and consumerism, nature will prevail Mr Latham says. ‘’I never thought I would write this, but logically I must: the future lies with the green movement not with the Labor movement.’’
His comments join remarks from Labor senator Doug Cameron and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet about where the party needs to position itself.
Latham notes: ‘’An intriguing aspect of (Julia) Gillard’s character is her failure to participate in the debate on Labor’s identity … she has not written books, essays or even newspaper articles on this subject.’’ He maintains Gillard is ‘’poorly equipped, as a freshly minted leader, for renewing Labor’s purpose’’.===
Latham is a biased observer, but one suspects there is also a whiff of truth in what he writes - which is unfortunate.
An enemy within?
Andrew Bolt
And, of course, if Britons wonder if they now have an enemy within, it can only be that they are Islamophobic, and do not realise Islam means “peace”:
JEERING Muslim fanatics turned an Old Bailey court into a battleground yesterday after an Al Qaeda follower was jailed for stabbing an MP.More:
In unprecedented scenes the angry mob chanted “British go to hell” as would-be assassin Roshonara Choudhry was handed a sentence of life with a minimum of 15 years.
Startled security guards bundled the mob out of the historic court as they turned their hate on the judge and a Muslim woman on the jury. One shouted “curse the judge” while another ranted: “Shame on you sister, sitting on a jury, judging a Muslim sister.”
The gang, sitting in the public gallery, chanted “Allahu akbar” or “God is great” and another demonstration raged outside the court…
After being thrown out, three fanatics protested outside the Old Bailey holding a home-made placard saying “Stephen Timms – Go to Hell.” Others chanted “British soldiers must die”.
TWO Muslim fanatics who chanted “Death to Britain” in an Old Bailey court refused to apologise last night.Yes, anyone objecting to further Muslim immigration is a bigot who does not realise the many varied ways in which diversity enriches Western countires:
Abu Yahya and Abu Saalihah ... shouted “curse the judge” and rounded on a female Muslim juror after Roshonara Choudhry was jailed.
But yesterday, both men warned of further Islamic bloodshed after blaming Britain for inciting violence.
A radical website has praised the stabbing of the MP Stephen Timms and published a list of other MPs who voted for the war in Iraq, along with details of where to buy a knife…Anyway, even if mass immigration of Muslims into Britian is just one of those social engineering experiments that went a little wrong, there’s no fixing it anyway, other than bully Britons into accepting it.
The website, Revolution Muslim, is hosted in Bellevue, Washington…
In a statement published this week the website praised Roshonara Choudhry, who tried to stab Mr Timms to death during a constituency surgery in Beckton, East London.
Choudhry ...told police she had visited the Revolution Muslim website and watched videos on Youtube by Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular.
“We ask Allah to keep her safe and secure, to hasten her release and to reward this heroine immensely,” it said.
“We ask Allah for her action to inspire Muslims to raise the knife of jihad against those who voted for the countless rapes, murders, pillages, and torture of Muslim civilians as a direct consequence of their vote.” ...
Accompanying the statement is a prayer in Arabic to “destroy your enemy and the enemies of Islam” naming Mr Timms and the judge in the case, Jeremy Cooke.
A link on the website takes the reader to the site of Tesco Direct for a £15 kitchen knife, similar to that used by Choudhry.
There are also 29 religious statements encouraging holy war, including one that said: “When you meet those who disbelieve, smite at their necks till you have killed and wounded many of them then take them as captives.” ...
Revolution Muslim includes speeches by the British preacher Anjem Choudary, details of protests organised at Marble Arch and a campaign for the release of Mohammed Hamid, known as “Osama bin London” who helped train the failed July 21 bombers.
===
Would identity cards help?
Andrew Bolt
A redefining of Aboriginal identity isn’t just causing confusion among non-Aborigines:
Gary Ryan was sentenced to a maximum of eight years with a non-parole period of six years at the County Court today, after mowing down six-year-old Bangoang Tut in the boy’s own front yard after a pre-Christmas drinking binge late last year…How tricky a business this is, even for a charity whose commitment to Aboriginal welfare cannot be doubted:
At school, he was not accepted by the indigenous community for being too white, and became a loner.
An Aboriginal woman who was told she looked too white for a job promoting Andrew Forrest’s Generation One is refusing to accept an apology from the organisation.Where the dreadful discrimination occurred:
Tarran Betterridge, 24, was “shocked and humiliated” upon hearing she didn’t look “indigenous” enough to hand out flyers promoting the mining magnate’s project, which aims to end Aboriginal inequality.
Generation One’s chief executive Tim Gartrell on Thursday apologised for the “hurtful” incident....
“...at no point did we issue directives asking for indigenous people who look indigenous. That is offensive...."…
But the Canberra university student isn’t satisfied with the apology.
“It came out really soon,” she told AAP…
Ms Betterridge said Generation One had offered to stay in touch but she wouldn’t want to work with an organisation “that’s discriminated against myself and my people”.
However, the interviewer, Emanuela D’Annibale, ... confirmed working to guidelines that required at least some recruits to ‘’look’’ indigenous…No comments, please. It is too dangerous legally for me. And, sorry, but I can’t comment, either, again for legal reasons. But is it really risking too much to observe that all these people can’t really be racists?
‘’I wouldn’t have picked her for Aboriginal at all … to me she looked like an Aussie girl.’’
(Thanks to reader Jeff and others.)
===
But the cooking in Puglia is much admired
Andrew Bolt
That’s interesting:
MIKE Rann is under growing pressure to explain connections with an area of Italy to which he has committed millions of taxpayer dollars.(Thanks to several readers.)
The opposition yesterday stepped up its attack on the South Australian Premier by raising a second “pet project” linked to the Puglia region of Italy after The Australian revealed more than $900,000 had been spent since 2007-08 on a trade fair that no SA companies attended.
According to parliament’s Register of Members’ Interests, Mr Rann’s wife, Sasha Carruozzo, owns property in Puglia, has relatives in Italy and travels as a guest of the Pugliese regional government.
===
Hanging bankers is a bad investment
Andrew Bolt
WE’VE all had our fun this week. Hanging the rich has been the mob’s bloodsport for centuries, after all. And they don’t come much richer than our own bank bosses.
Question is: will we cool down before we do ourselves some damage?
How soon we forget. It’s only two years ago, during the global financial crisis, that millions of us were terrified our banks would collapse like some overseas, freezing investment and taking our savings with them.
Now we’re furious that they’re strong, with the big four now posting between them profits of some $20 billion.
The mob resents big profits. And when the Commonwealth stupidly tried to play tricky, waiting for the Reserve Bank announcement of a rate rise on Melbourne Cup Day to slip in a further rise of its own, the riot had its trigger.
What screams we’ve had, with demands for “controls” on these “greedy banks” with their “obscene profits” and “fat cat” bosses.
Almost no one dares stand against the mob. Talkback thrives on their anger. Politicians don’t survive by siding with banks against battlers.
Even Premier John Brumby, just days from an election, joined in the hate fest, gleefully damning the Commonwealth Bank as “scandalous” and “mercenary”, and guilty of “inexcusable greed”.
No wonder the bank’s boss, Sir Ralph Norris, has been in hiding. He’d be astonished to find he’s now the national villain, savaged for his $16 million-a-year salary, his 8ha hideaway on Waiheke Island and even his title.
But wait. If there’s one thing worse than a bank with big profits, it’s a bank with none. Especially your bank.
Which brings me back to Bob Brown, the Greens leader, and the ACTU .
===
Green mirage is killing our future
Andrew Bolt
When we will wake up? We’re destroying our future by chasing a green mirage:
SOUTH Korea and Taiwan are managing to produce cheaper power than Australia, even though they have to ship the Australian coal that fires their furnaces.Way to go. We’re pricing ourselves out of the market in part by demanding much more expensive ”green power” - a largely token gesture - and frightening off investment in coal-fired power by threatening an emissions trading system.
In self-sufficient Australia, households are paying one-third more for electricity than those in Taiwan and South Korea - two of the biggest buyers of Australian coal.
Residential power prices in Australia have surged 12.4 per cent in the past year, four times the rate of inflation…
Industrialists yesterday declared that Australia’s surging power prices could rob the manufacturing and mining sectors of their competitive edge…
The Energy Users Association of Australia yesterday claimed power prices were on track to double within five years and triple within a decade as utilities spent billions of dollars on infrastructure, and the federal government forced them to source one-fifth of their supplies from renewable energy by 2020…
Industry analyst Ben Freund, the chief executive of energy price comparison website GoSwitch, ... said Australia had not built any new coal-fired power stations for two decades, despite surging demand from a growing population fond of power-hungry air-conditioning, clothes dryers and flat-screen TVs…
“If demand is increasing, we should just be producing more of it; supply should meet demand as it does for any other commodity and we shouldn’t be seeing these sorts of skyrocketing prices.”
(Thanks to readers Ken and PaulC.)
===
Who’d have thought? Labor’s promised surplus threatened by scapegoat
Andrew Bolt
Treasurer Wayne Swan is already preparing his scaepgoat as yet another big Labor promise - underpinned by bold assumptions - is mugged by reality:
WAYNE Swan has warned that the high dollar is set to punch a hole in tax revenues.But let’s not say the Government spent too much, bribed too much or assumed too much. Let’s just blame a rising dollar that surely all the Government’s economist shouldn’t have been expected to factor in.
This included an expected $10.5 billion haul from the mining tax, putting at risk the federal budget’s return to surplus by 2013…
“The MRRT (mineral resources rent tax) revenue forecasts (that) were made when the dollar was at 85c obviously won’t be the same as forecasts prepared when the dollar is near parity,” the Treasurer told The Australian in Beijing…
“Issues around exchange rates don’t just have global consequences - our elevated dollar also has a range of implications for the Australian economy and for our budget position.”
The government has gambled its economic credentials on its plan to drag the budget out of the red by 2013, making this a core promise of this year’s election campaign…
But its return-to-surplus pledge is already under pressure, with the budget deficit hitting a record $63.3bn in the year to September as a result of soaring government spending and stagnant revenue…
Last month, the Finance Department bluntly warned the government on its return to office that its fiscal policy objectives would “be difficult to achieve” without major spending cuts. It suggested defence, superannuation and pension eligibility.
Mr Swan was also forced to dig deeper than planned into Treasury coffers to buy the support of the rural independents that Labor needed to form government after the August poll resulted in a hung parliament.
(Thanks to reader Paul C.)
===
Bigger government demanded to stop Big Government’s BER waste
Andrew Bolt
Even when you confront the education union with a failure of big government, it demands yet more of it:
TWO private schools facing closure after they were placed into voluntary administration were granted almost $3 million for two halls under the federal school stimulus program.Eh? Surely the case highlights instead the failing of big government handing out free money hand over fist through a central bureaucracy. If the money was the schools’ own, you can bet those wasted dollars they’d have been slower to spend it.
Casey College in Narre Warren South and Melton College in Caroline Springs also received $818,000 and $395,000 in federal funding this year, on top of the $1.5 million bailout provided by the state government so they could stay open until the end of the year.
The Australian Education Union has slammed the waste of taxpayer money, saying the case ‘’highlights the pitfalls and failings associated with the privatisation of education‘’.
One ray of hope:
The interim principal of Casey College ... said the board had successfully applied for a grant to build a gym and hall at Casey College under the federal stimulus program but construction had not begun.A spokesman for Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans said if facilities funded through the Building the Education Revolution ceased to be used for schooling, the Commonwealth would seek to recover the funds.(Thanks to reader Pronto.)
===
Shh. Just push them through
Andrew Bolt
Is this a symptomatic example of our boat people “program”?
A PERTH magistrate says the immigration department “effectively sabotaged” police investigations into a riot by detainees on Christmas Island and allowed key players to escape justice.(Thanks to reader bananabender.)
Magistrate Stephen Malley today ruled on whether five Sri Lankan Tamil detainees took part in a riot at the detention centre on November 21 last year.
He said it was “bizarre” that within 48 hours of the extremely violent riot, the immigration department shipped off 40 detainees to mainland detention centres, many of whom were heavily involved in the violence.
The actions of the immigration department “effectively sabotaged” investigations into the riot by the Australian Federal Police, Mr Malley said.
The court heard that Afghan detainees were violently set upon by Sri Lankan detainees following a dispute between the two groups.
Mr Malley said ... that following the riot the immigration department showed “little or no regard whether those they were releasing committed serious or criminal acts”.
===
Why the terrorist is an idiot
Andrew Bolt
IT’S time we realised most Islamist terrorists aren’t fiendishly clever killers in keffiyehs but laugh-out-loud bozos.
First, this truth might help us to sleep better. Second, it might also help us to shame these madmen out of existence.
And third, we might then persuade courts not to be surprised - and disarmed - when the jihadists they see turn out to be so pitiful.
I say this because Victoria’s Court of Appeal seemed struck last month by the fact that our latest gang of Islamic terrorists have the brains of a camel.
Or, as the court suggested more politely, they tended to be more a “rag-tag collection of malcontents” than the kind of “committed” professionalswho join “with their eyes wide open” an “al-Qaida or Jemaah Islamiah, with a proven record of committing the worst terrorist acts imaginable”.
Because of this alleged difference, the court ruled the jail sentences imposed on the group for plotting terrorist attacks in Australia were excessive, and lopped a year or two off each.
But a fact check: whether terrorists join al-Qaida or local outfits, they’re just as dumb as each other.
Even al-Qaida boss Osama bin Laden was described by his old friend, Issam al-Turabi, as having an IQ that “was not that great” - so even with his inherited millions and thousands of fruitcakes to help him, he’s never managed an encore in the US to his lucky strike on September 11, nine years ago.
True, this Melbourne group set the stupidity bar extremely low. For instance, there was this secretly taped exchange between one of the plotters and his wife as he packed for a weekend away with the gang.
Wife: Well, what are you going to do there exactly?===
Plotter: Uh, go do a bit of, you know, terrorist training.
Selling out their craft to the global warming cause
Andrew Bolt
Should journalists report the views of global warming sceptics - even just for balance?
A panel of “top” journalists and journalism academics, as chosen by the University of Technology Sydney’s far Left Centre of “Independent Journalism” and broadcast by the ABC, agree that on the whole the answer is ... no, or rarely. (Listen at the link.)
Naturally, in accord with their commitment to debate, not one person on the panel is a sceptic, or challenges this group think.
The ABC’s Sarah Clarke says she prefers to rely on material given the “all clear” by the IPCC, and praises the ABC and Fairfax papers for having been two “responsible” outlets that have been “objective” on global warming.No one panellist, because of this lack of debate, raises one of the more obvious questions. For instance:
Monash University’s Philip Chubb says the debate “doesn’t need to go outside the halls of climate change”.
Warmist academic Anne Henderson-Sellers, who says she sets her students the homework of watching the propagandist An Inconvenient Truth and The Age of Stupid to inform themselves, demands to know why journalists didn’t describe Lord Monckton as a “fruitcake” so her hairdresser wouldn’t be so impressed. Chubb calls him a “clown”.
- Where on earth is the evidence that media outlets have given an equal hearing to sceptics? For instance, which sceptical scientist here has got equal media time to Tim Flannery? Which sceptical film maker has received the air time of Al Gore? Which media outlets have backed a sceptical propaganda event as they have Earth Hour? Which media outlets have run sceptical specials as they’ve run specials warning of apocalyptic warning? Where is the sceptic on this very panel?
- How would these journalists justify treating as the “truth”, not to be questioned by outsiders, of statements by the IPCC since proved to be false or highly questionable? Are they to be treated as true until the IPCC admits they are not? Are outsiders who point out their error to be ignored unless the IPCC gives the “all clear” to report them?
- How can journalists justify suppressing a debate when even the leading warmist authority, the IPCC, says the chances of its theories of man-made warming being correct are ”at least a 9 out of ten” - which suggests there’s perhaps a 10 per cent chance they are wrong? Does this mean the media cannot even report the IPCC scientists who doubt? And how can mere journalists justify ignoring the views of sceptics as learned and prominent in their field as, say, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT? Would these journalists have refused to report the views of Galileo? Of that mere assistant patent examiner Einstein?
- Why does the astonishingly certain and peremptory Henderson-Sellers praise An Inconvenient Truth, and use it as a teaching aide, yet demand the media not report the sceptics who have proved that it is in fact riddled with errors and exaggerations? Why must a warmist as untrained and prone to exaggerate as Al Gore be spared scrutiny?
- How broadly should this restriction on reporting sceptics be applied? Should it also include not reporting them when they point out failed predictions? The vested interests , sheer nuttiness, religious fervor, totalitarian tendency or extraordinary hypocrisy of some warmists? The threat to freedom of some “solutions” the warmists proposed? The extraordinary futility and economic cost of Australia taking the lead on emissions trading, or adopting grand schemes for ”green energy”? Examples of mere alarmism? After all, these are subjects which surely may be discussed intelligently even by those “outside the halls of climate change”.
No comments:
Post a Comment