Poll: Most Want Obama Fired In 2012 - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

But that personal favorability doesn't translate into re-election support when voters are asked if Obama deserves a second term. Says Schoen: "Despite voters feelings toward Obama personally, 56 percent say he does not deserve to be re-elected, while 38 percent say he does deserve to be re-elected president

." Worse, Schoen adds, "43 percent say that Barack Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush, while 48 percent say Bush was a better president than Obama has been."
Poll: Most Want Obama Fired In 2012 - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

American Thinker: ObamaCare and the Constitutional Crisis

An unintended consequence of the Supreme Court ruling, should they rule in favor of the Case Law adherent, is that the Literalist majority of Americans might come to feel as if they are no longer free, as if they are unable to understand the rules under which they have given their consent to be governed, as if the conclusion of a long-felt oppression is complete. At this point, social upheaval is not only possible, but likely.
American Thinker: ObamaCare and the Constitutional Crisis

American Thinker: Will of the People

Governments throughout America, particularly the federal government, are broken and making a huge mess of things. Though significantly changing this equation is a long haul, no doubt, next week's elections will prove monumental -- the biggest test to date for the rebels who seek to have their voices heard.
American Thinker: Will of the People

American Thinker: The Curse of the Welfare State

What we see happening in France and across Europe are the devastating effects of the welfare state. We see a citizenry whose work ethic, morals, power of reason, and grasp on reality have been grievously damaged. They balk at hard work, yet they want to enjoy lives of plenty and ease. Their governments are bankrupt, but they still keep demanding benefits that are impossible to deliver. And while they refuse to engage in hard labor themselves, they see nothing wrong with living at someone else's expense.
American Thinker: The Curse of the Welfare State

The Coming Landslide - Michael Barone - National Review Online

Bigger government, in this view, helps the ordinary citizen, who is otherwise at the mercy of the masters of the marketplace. And those citizens will be grateful, especially in times of economic distress, to the politicians who expand government ever further.
This theory has been getting some empirical testing over the past two years. And it doesn’t seem to be working any better than Keynes thought the theories of defunct economists were working in the 1930s.
The Obama Democrats have been giving Americans more government, with a vengeance. But the voters seem about to wreak vengeance in their turn.
The Coming Landslide - Michael Barone - National Review Online

American Thinker: At the End of the Liberal Dynasty

In the Juan Williams affair, they are telling us that liberal journalists have to take a vow, as members of the exclusive NPR Vegan Club, never to be caught grabbing a salty snack at the Fox News Drive-In window. Is that what liberalism is reduced to?

American Thinker: At the End of the Liberal Dynasty

American Thinker: A Mass Nervous Breakdown of the Left

The left can be mean, vicious, and deceitful. I've recently concluded, however, that the left is having, before our eyes, a mass nervous breakdown at the prospects of its collapse, exacerbated by the lost prospect of being on the verge of something really big. They thought they had won. Now, they're seeing it all crumble in a mountain of unsustainable debt, a loss of freedom, and an awakening of voter awareness of who's and what's at fault.

American Thinker: A Mass Nervous Breakdown of the Left

The Sharp Political Instincts of the Tea Party Should Not be a Surprise

Now, this, my friends, is a profundity, particularly coming from Michael Barone. Let me read this to you again. "The tea party movement today, like the peace movement 40 years ago, has brought many new people into politics -- and many with sharper political instincts than their detractors in the press have been able to understand."

The Sharp Political Instincts of the Tea Party Should Not be a Surprise

There’s No Avoiding ‘Repeal and Replace’ - James C. Capretta - National Review Online

But Washington’s newcomers must not lose sight of the big enchilada on the government-reform menu: the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.
Because the hard truth is that the proponents of a supersized welfare state believe they have already won the fight. Their vision is now the law, with the government on course to control the flow of resources in the entire health sector. Even if every other idea to downsize the government is enacted, Obamacare as passed has us on the road to unlimited government — with America’s middle class increasingly dependent on the benefits they receive from elected political leaders.

There’s No Avoiding ‘Repeal and Replace’ - James C. Capretta - National Review Online

The President vs. the Public - Rich Lowry - National Review Online

They got a 1,073-page stimulus bill, a 2,409-page health-care bill, and a 2,319-page financial-reform bill passed. That’s 5,801 pages in just three pieces of legislation, at a very conservative cumulative estimated cost of $1.9 trillion over ten years. If this is what Obama’s broken Washington produces in three bills, what would a functioning one do?
For all their reputation as obstructionists, Republicans weren’t able to stop any of this. Unlike in the early Clinton years, Republicans aren’t benefiting from obstructionism so much as from failing to block a president’s deeply unpopular priorities. Washington worked for Obama — and now he’s paying the price.

The President vs. the Public - Rich Lowry - National Review Online

American Thinker: The Democrats Will Steal the Election if We Let Them

A number of comments on my recent pieces dealing with electoral issues (particularly "The American Left Slides Into Psychosis") have mentioned the importance of protecting the vote to assure that standard corrupt Democratic tactics are not allowed to lessen the weight of the impending November avalanche. This is certainly a valid point in this age, when Stuart Smalley has found his way from the tube to the Senate and the Black Panthers have been resurrected from their status as footnote to the '60s to serve as enforcers for humane, progressive liberalism. It will serve us well to take a close look at the Democrat record in this matter, consider what they may be up to regarding this election, and, the most serious question of all, ask why the GOP lets them get away with it.

American Thinker: The Democrats Will Steal the Election if We Let Them

Paul Krugman: Professor Ahab - Stephen Spruiell - National Review Online

Krugman’s claim that the stimulus should have been bigger is consistent with his view that for every macroeconomic problem there is a correct answer that it is within the power of one man to calculate. Not only is such a claim unfalsifiable, but our experience with fiscal stimulus indicates that this particular form of voodoo economics simply steals demand from the future and leaves us worse off in the long run. Krugman urges us to ignore that history: He argues that real fiscal stimulus has been tried only once in recent memory, when massive government borrowing during World War II pulled America out of the Depression. But there are many competing explanations for the post-war boom — too many to allow us to gamble our prosperity on a World War II–sized stimulus on the chance that the Keynesian view is right this time.
Paul Krugman: Professor Ahab - Stephen Spruiell - National Review Online

Higher Education Subsidies Wasted | Downsizing the Federal Government

Just as housing subsidies incentivized people to purchase homes that they otherwise shouldn’t have, higher education subsidies have incentivized people to go to college who weren’t ready or suited for it. In both cases, the cost to taxpayers has been substantial while the alleged benefits have proven illusory.
Higher Education Subsidies Wasted | Downsizing the Federal Government

Good Time to End Farm Subsidies | Downsizing the Federal Government

Better news for taxpayers would be the abolition of farm subsidies. While they obviously remain popular with the beneficiaries and their patrons in Washington, the general public seems to be increasingly aware that the subsidies amount to little more than legalized theft.
Good Time to End Farm Subsidies | Downsizing the Federal Government

Two Wars and We Don't Feel a Draft - Reason Magazine

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it?" he demanded. That was the end of that idea, until the Civil War.
Two Wars and We Don't Feel a Draft - Reason Magazine

The American Spectator : Obama's New Teacher

The reality is that for all the small government rhetoric, Republicans and conservatives alike have supported expansive federal education policy when it suits them. It was the Reagan Administration that nurtured the modern school reform movement in 1983 with the publication of A Nation at Risk, which called for improving (and standardizing) curricula and academic standards. Obama's own reform efforts are a continuation of those of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who, with the help of then-education committee chairman John Boehner, passed No Child. Another pet project of conservative reformers, the now-shuttered D.C. Opportunity school voucher program, was established by the then Republican-controlled Congress in 2003 (admittedly, at the behest of residents frustrated with the woeful school district).
The American Spectator : Obama's New Teacher

Obamacare Suit Can Proceed - By Robert Alt - The Corner - National Review Online

When Speaker Pelosi was asked by a reporter, “Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health-insurance mandate?” she responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” By contrast, when the judge today considered whether the states had made a significant enough claim that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to enact the mandate, he found that it was “not even a close call.”

Obamacare Suit Can Proceed - By Robert Alt - The Corner - National Review Online

The American Spectator : Party Like It's 1995

What the Gingrich Congress did in those first three years -- against calumny from most Democratic colleagues, fierce opposition combined with prevarications from the Clinton White House, and an extraordinarily hostile establishment media -- was nothing short of remarkable. On the substance of domestic policy, it may have been the greatest congressional performance ever. Its performance provides a template for how to do things right, while providing Republican Leader John Boehner (a key figure in 1994 as well) some lessons about the sorts of actions to avoid -- lessons that a duly chastened but energetic Republican Conference can make great use of in 2011 and 2012.
The American Spectator : Party Like It's 1995

Your Pre-Election Post-Mortem - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Conventional wisdom is that the election is being driven by anger and blind anti-incumbent fervor. Nonsense. Overwhelmingly, it is Democratic incumbents, not Republicans, who are under siege. This is a national revolt against the Democratic governance of the last two years.
Your Pre-Election Post-Mortem - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Freer Is Better - Reason Magazine

The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom lowers the ranking of the United States to eighth out of 179 nations—behind Canada! A year ago, it ranked sixth, ahead of Canada.
Don't say it's Barack Obama's fault. Half the data used in the index is from George W. Bush's final six months in office. This is a bipartisan problem.

Freer Is Better - Reason Magazine

The American Spectator : The Limits of Liberal Demagoguery

The political success of liberalism is parasitic, feeding off order and prosperity that the implementation of liberal policies couldn't possibly create.
Bill Clinton's recent bragging on the campaign trail about the budgets that he balanced in the 1990s is an illustration of this: Where did those budgets come from? Not from the policies of liberalism. Take away the significant reductions in defense spending that came from Ronald Reagan winning the Cold War, the wealth from an entrepreneurial economy that an era of tax cuts generated, and the check on Democratic spending schemes from Newt Gingrich's Congress, and those budgets would never have been balanced.

The American Spectator : The Limits of Liberal Demagoguery

Jim DeMint: Senator Tea Party - John J. Miller - National Review Online

“This is part of an American awakening,” says DeMint. “If people want to take back their government, they can do it. No state is out of play.” DeMint is now positioning himself as the Great Awakener — a national leader of a highly decentralized tea-party movement whose activist energy may hold the key to turning 2010 into another 1994 for the GOP.
Jim DeMint: Senator Tea Party - John J. Miller - National Review Online

Keeping the Poor in Poverty - Michael Tanner - National Review Online

Yet Obama and the Democrats, in thrall to the teachers’ unions, steadfastly resist proposals to give parents more control over their children’s education. Washington, D.C., has a public-school system that, despite spending more per child than almost any other system in the nation, still has a dropout rate of more than 50 percent. Yet one of the first actions of the president and congressional Democrats was to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offered vouchers to permit poor children to opt out of the city’s rotten public schools.
Keeping the Poor in Poverty - Michael Tanner - National Review Online

The American Spectator : So Much Worse Than Carter

But the indictment of Obamanomics goes beyond the actual performance so far. Even worse is that the economic policies have been so illogical, so transparently doomed to failure, and so threatening to America's future.
The American Spectator : So Much Worse Than Carter

New Library Topic: Keynesianism | Intellectual Takeout (ITO)

"The Keynesian idea in itself is actually fairly simple: The market economy is inherently unstable, and recession and high unemployment are mainly the result of insufficient spending in the private sector. Therefore, to achieve full employment and sustained economic growth, the government needs to actively intervene to increase spending, if necessary through deficit financing.

Critics of Keynes pointed out problems with his theory relatively quickly."

New Library Topic: Keynesianism | Intellectual Takeout (ITO)

The Republican Pledge to America | www.hillsdale-econ.com

"Instead we have the arbitrary rule of whoever has power. This regime uncertainty, as Robert Higgs has called it, is the primary reason that we have nearly 15 million unemployed and another 8.9 million working part-time who would rather have full-time employment. The most important aspect of The Republican Pledge is that it provides the certainty of limited government that allows the market economy to provide opportunity and an elevated standard of living for all Americans."
The Republican Pledge to America | www.hillsdale-econ.com