Budget deficit moves closer to $1 trillion mark:

The federal budget deficit is on pace to break the $1 trillion mark for a third straight year. Record deficits are putting pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to come up with a plan to rein in government spending.

Already, the deficit through the first eight months of this budget year is $927.4 billion, according to the latest report from the Treasury Department released Friday.

Three years ago that would have ranked as the highest ever for a full year. Instead, this year’s deficit will likely exceed last year’s $1.29 trillion imbalance and nearly match the $1.41 trillion record reached in 2009. The budget year ends on Sept. 30.

In the article is AP’s Economics Writer, Martin Crutsinger, frequently references the growth of the budget deficit in early years of the Bush Administration, without addressing the increased security costs in the aftermath of 9/11.

He also doesn’t mention that inthe three years preceding the swearing-in of a Democratic Congress in 2007, deficits were declining. Despite Mr. Crutsinger’s attempt to blame Bush for these deficits, Democrats controlled Congress for each of the three fiscal years the federal government ran trillion-dollar deficits, including the current one.  And for the last two, there has been a Democrat in the White House with the power to veto their spending bills.

A power he failed to exercise.

UPDATE:  In case, you don’t believe me, take a gander at this chart:

Maybe Bill Clinton’s political survival emboldened Anthony Weiner.  After all, the former president, who just happened to officiate at his fellow Democrat’s wedding, lied about an extra-marital tryst he had in the White House.  And he served out his second term.

Yet, the question that keeps coming up is not just why Weiner, like his fellow partisan, lied about his flirtations with a twentysomething woman not his wife, but also why he repeating his denials in regular appearances on cable (and broadcast) news.  At least, Bill Clinton didn’t go on a media tour with a duplicitous dog-and-pony show.  He just wagged his finger, claimed he did not have “sexual relations with that woman” and attempted to move on.

Thirteen years later, with a stronger conservative presence in the media, particularly the new media and with the prominence of one such conservative (whom Mr. Weiner’s allies targeted), with a record of breaking stories of corruption on the left, surely Mr. Weiner must have known that some of the right would relentlessly pursue the truth of this matter.

Did Mr. Weiner, given his reputation as an anti-Republican attack dog, really think the media would cover for him on this?

Or maybe it was just the Democrat suffered from, as Ed Morrisey put it, “severe lack of judgment.”

RELATED:  Where are all the feminists, you know those gals once so outraged about a distinguished conservative jurist allegedly telling a female co-worker about a pubic hair on a can of Coke?

With that inside knowledge of conservatives’ governing philosophies prevalent among our critics, Sam, in commenting on my Herman Cain post, informs us that it is “naive and self-hating to think that a politician who says he thinks being gay is a sin will actually not push for legislation to limit our rights.”

He bases his knowledge not on any evidence of Mr. Cain’s past actions as CEO of a small corporation, but, well, on what must be some unique insight he possesses.  Another of our readers, Ted B. AKA Charging Rhino, actually took the time to learn a little about the Republican presidential candidate’s record, informing us that the company Cain once helmed, “Godfather’s Pizza does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Perhaps Cain’s critics should investigate the candidate to find out if when he helmed Godfather’s pizza — or in any of his corporate work, he advocated discriminatory policies or took discriminatory actions, that is, did he fire (or fail to promote) any employee because of his sexuality?

Yesterday, Stacy McCain sees this kerfuffle as part of Cain’s appeal:

Cain’s appeal is his plain-spoken nature and, when asked about homsexuality, he stated (a) his personal belief as a Christian, and (b) his libertarian understanding that people have to live their own lives according to their own choices.

So far the evidence indicates the former CEO was speaking honestly when he distinguished his personal views from his policy intentions.

NewsBusters (a site hosted by the Media Research Center) is always a great source to highlight the blatant leftist leaning of what used to be considered ‘mainstream’ media outlets. One of their most visited nemeses is Chris Matthews of MSNBC.

Their latest link for Matthews highlights his comments last night regarding Rep. Anthony Weiner’s current predicament. It’s titled “Matthews: Weiner in Trouble Because His Behavior Offends ‘Culturally Backward’ Christian Conservatives”, and naturally this insinuation by Matthews grabs the viewer for its obvious condescension and elitism. But it seems NewsBusters may have missed an even more curious comment from the huge-headed commentator. As you view the imbedded video, tell me if what Matthews says at 0:10 strikes you as well:

It’s getting very very hard to defend the behavior—politically—of the party. Now you throw on top of that, immoral behavior, indiscreet behavior, embarrassing behavior, gross behavior like this…”

(My emphasis)

Now? “NOW “?!

Where was Matthews when Rep. Massa was playing tickle-fight with his staffers and encountering Rahm Emanuel in the shower? Has he never heard of Barney Frank’s brothel? Elliot Spitzer, Jim McGreevey, and my God, Bill Clinton?!

“NOW“?!

Should we consider from Matthews that all these (and believe me, we could go on all day listing them, no?) dalliances pale in comparison with Weiner twitting pics of his unit to consenting, presumably adult ladies, and that this most recent embarrassment to the party of Jackson and Jefferson is finally the one that sends him over the edge?

Thank goodness for MRC and NewsBusters for watching his incoherent drivel so we don’t have to and can therefore enjoy the snippets of it for what they’re worth: a theater of the absurd.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Nick, seems Matthews believes 91% of Americans are “‘Culturally Backward’ Christian Conservatives” given that that percentage of our fellow citizens believe it is “morally wrong” for a married man (or woman) to have an affair.

In The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom, the Gipper has some advice for his successor on matters budgetary:

Keeping a budget balanced is a lot like preserving virtue — you have to learn to say “no.”

“We are,” Michael A. Walsh, looking at the dismal state of the U.S. economy writes in the New York Post, “witnessing the total failure of academic Keynesian economics, with its heavy emphasis on high taxes and exorbitant government spending.”  (Via Instapundit.)  As Michael Barone reminds us, it’s not just government spending that’s dragging the economy down:

. . . the Obama Democrats piled further burdens on would-be employers in the private sector. Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill are scheduled to be followed by thousands of regulations that will impose impossible-to-estimate costs on the economy.

That seems to have led to a hiring freeze. . . .  [W]hile the number of layoffs is now vastly less than in the first half of 2009, the number of new hires has not increased appreciably. Many more people have been unemployed for longer periods than in previous recessions, and many more have stopped looking for work altogether.

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.

With the departure of his economic team, the president would do well to tap some people familiar with the burdens of federal regulations, you know, guys who have worked in the private sector.

Sometimes, when we face off against our adversaries in the blogosphere, we become less civil than we might be in the real world because here we’re just see words on the computer screen, whereas in person we can see an actual human being.  In blogs, it becomes easier to reduce each person to his political views (and sometimes views as misinterpreted by the critic).

Last night, at the launch party for Outfest, I chanced upon (if chance it was) one of my initial internet sparring partners and found David Ehrenstein to be an excellent interlocutor.  We both sung the praises of the gay and lesbian film festival.  And that wasn’t the limit of our agreement. We also agreed that there has been a cultural shift resulting in an increasing social acceptance of gay people.  Whether or not it was the the TV series Will & Grace (as I suggested in a recent post) or some other cultural event, something else altogether or (more likely) a combination of these (& other) things, it’s a different world from the one men of his generation — and my own — knew when we came out.

Unlike some of his left-of-center confrères, he recognized that there has also been a change on my side of the political aisle.  He attributed it to Ken Mehlman’s coming out, I to Mary Cheney’s.

We also discussed the changes in culture as homosexuality becomes more socially acceptable, with him wistfully recalling the live of poet Frank O’Hara and sharing stories about gay Hollywood stars of the past — and their lovers.  It was a most delightful conversation.  And a reminder that you can often have the more civil of discussion with your ideological adversaries, something which alas this medium sometimes seems to discourage.

Kenny Rogers offers some words of wisdom to Newt Gingrich (& Anthony Weiner):

Asking “Who goes first — Anthony Weiner or Newt Gingrich?“, Jennifer Rubin explains:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) is reportedly “dug in,” refusing to resign despite the growing list of Democrats calling for his ouster. . . .  Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich’s senior staff and his Iowa crew have quit. En masse. . . .

Gingrich insists he is staying in the race. He’s all about the issues you see, just like when he was House speaker. His organizational skills, lack of discipline and leadership deficiencies have always been his undoing.

But why, at least for now, do these two hang on?

They should listen to Mr. Rogers.  You gotta know when to fold.

While many conservatives, including my co-blogger are enthusiastic about Herman Cain’s candidacy, I have some concerns which I expect to address in short order.  Despite those concerns, I do appreciate that enthusiasm; the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO has been saying all the right things about big government and small business and saying them well.

Saying the right things, however, does not, in itself, guarantee that Cain, or any candidate for that matter, would make a good chief executive.  And while he may have said the right things about free enterprise, he has not, alas, said the right things about gays.

In a blog post earlier today, our friend Chris Barron addressed those comments:

The bottom line is that Herman Cain’s personal position on whether being gay is a sin or a choice has no bearing on whether the policies he supports would be good for gay and lesbian Americans.

Chris, to be sure, makes an interesting point.  Even so, I’m still not likely to back this businessman for the GOP nomination.  That said, Chris is right to differentiate a politician’s personal positions from his public policy proposals.

If you believe, as I do, that social change comes not from government, but from the private sector (by which I mean not just private enterprise, but also other non-governmental institutions), you would want a leader who refuses, as apparently does Mr. Cain, to impose his personal beliefs on the rest of us.

We don’t expect government to make our lives better for us, but to leave us alone so that we, together with individuals and groups, with whom we choose to associate, can make it better on our own.

In The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom, we find the Gipper’s understanding of President Obama’s reelection strategy in light of Republican attempts to hold the line on out-of-control federal spending:

Big difficulty is [in] cutting down gov[ernmen]t expense is the expenses have votes.

[First bracketed word in original.]

Finding this headline in Bloomberg News: “Initial Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Increased Last Week”, Michael Barone, considering the surfeit of bad economic news, “at what point do the supposed experts start expecting bad economic news? You’d think they might be after the last two weeks.”

Indeed.

Because them that govern spent all their time making up new laws to stop men like you and me from getting anywhere.

Michael Caine as Peachy Carnehan in
The Man Who Would Be King

So I’m reading today how the Stalinization of Healthcare Act of 2010 is facing renewed Constitutional scrutiny, this time at the hands of a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia. Much hay has been made since the passage of the monstrosity and immediate court challenges thereto of the political make-up of the judges who have so far heard arguments and their seemingly ideologically mirrored conclusions about the federal government’s Constitutional authority to force its subjects citizens to purchase a service for no other reason than that they happen to live in America. Which is to say, up until now, every judge appointed by a Democrat has sided with the Administration, and every Republican-appointed judge has sided with Americans.

What’s gratifying about what we learned today is that members of the panel of the 11th hearing this particular case (this is the one in which twenty-six states have filed suit), made up of two Clinton appointees and on GHWBush appointee, are skeptical of the Administration’s position. If they were to rule the way observers are thinking they will, it’d be the first time a body representing the judicial branch has, ahem, crossed the aisle.

And to be honest, that’s what’s making me grit my teeth a little bit.

Yes, yes, yes. I’m all upset (or whatever) about the “politicization of the Judicial Branch…”

And yes. It’s always grated on me how the Left in America tends to go bawling to the Bar when they can’t convince a majority of their fellow citizens to go along with their cockamamie schemes. When accusations of ‘hate’, ad hominem insults, and attempts to shame voters (or legislators) into going their way don’t seem to win the other side over (imagine, huh?), the Left seems all too prepared time after time to lawyer-up and take their adversaries to court, rather than ever attempting (really) to settle their difference the good old-fashioned representative democratic (“American!”) way: at the ballot box.

So that’s partly—but only partly—why if (hopefully when) this charlie foxtrot is finally dispensed with, it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory for us. Not only because we had to go hat-in-hand to the Black Robed Sages like a bunch of little bitches…

No, no. It’s because this whole national humiliation has said some very troubling things about the state of our alleged democratic republic.

Consider: (more…)

Citing Leonard Read, the Gipper, on one of his index cards quoted in The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom, appears to be offering advice to some who comment to this blog:

No bad idea is ever overcome by attacking the persons who believe it.

On Monday, Jennifer Rubin wondered about the president’s contention on his latest road tour that “he’s made tough decisions that will pay off over time“.  Rather than make bold choices, she contends the president . . .

. . . is intentionally avoiding them. His budget did not pass the laugh test. His budget speech 2.0 was a partisan attack on the House’s budget plan and failed to present a scoreable, specific budget. He refuses to put forth a coherent plan of his own to restructure entitlements.

In the past, President Obama yielded to Congress, letting House Democrats write his “stimulus” (er, the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and Senate Democrats craft his health care overhaul.  Given that history, it is no wonder the president has failed to put forward a coherent plan of his own.  The Democratic leadership in Congress hasn’t put forward its plan, so he has nothing to go on.

As Ed Morrissey observes:

Republicans have taken great pains to continually refer to the number of days since Senate Democrats have produced a budget, now at Day 769 and counting.  Democrats have begun to chafe at Harry Reid’s strategy of attempting to grab a world record for punting, especially since Democrats have to argue in next year’s elections for voters to trust them with leadership for the next two years.

Perhaps, the president is also chafing, waiting like the Senate Democratic caucus for its leadership to move.  Wouldn’t a bold decision-maker prod Harry Reid et al. to act?  A man who touts himself as making bold choices does so not just in word, but also in deed.  Releasing such a budget proposal with real reforms would just be the kind of deed a bold leader needs to undertake; a real leader is willing to risk opposition, to risk criticism for the sake of the country he loves.

Even before U.S Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) acknowledged tweeting the picture in question, all my gay friends (and acquaintances) who have mentioned the matter wonder at the folly of a married man engaging in such activity.  Most of these fellows (and gals) are Democrats.

They do get that marriage changes things for a man — and a woman.

Please note, all these conversations have taken place in Los Angeles, a city far more liberal socially than the rest of the country.  Would be nice to see if some of the organizations advocating state recognition of gay marriage used this occasion to fault a straight married man for failing to respect his marital vows.

Their statement would not only show that they understand the meaning of marriage, but would also express a view in line with gay Americans, well, at least those gay Angelenos with whom I’ve spoken.  And, I daresay, a good number of others.

Here’s another piece of wisdom the Gipper recorded on one of his many note cards, included in the wonderful recent release, The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom:

One way to distinguish truth from all its counterfeits is by its modesty:  truth demands only to be heard among others while its counterfeiters demand that others be silenced.

He attributes this bit of wisdom to Sydney Harris.

Not entirely sure what to make of Jonathan Chait’s piece in the New Republic today, Risk Factor: For Republicans, do the benefits of fanaticism outweigh the costs? Do appreciate the delicious irony of man who, during the George W. Bush era, prided himself on hatred of the president of the United States wondering about Republican fanaticism.

Do wonder how the man who made the case for Bush hatred would have responded to an article in 2003 asking whether for Democrats the benefits of fanaticism outweigh the costs.

When I drove cross country in 2007, I had a conversation with a friend who, had since I left the DC-area in 1999, married his partner in a church ceremony.  Until he met his husband, my friend refrained from sexual activity, doing his part to set an example of the “responsible” single homosexual and not wanting to engage in sexual activity without emotional attachment.

In our conversation in ’07, several years after he and his beloved exchanged their vows, he confessed that he wished he had experimented more in his single days.  Despite this change in attitude about those days, he remain committed to the ideal of marital monogamy; he would remain faithful to his betrothed.  That conversation came to mind this afternoon when I read Jennifer Rubin’s latest commentary on Anthony Weiner:

Women whom he apparently told his wife about before their marriage but could not bring himself to give up. The press isn’t invading his mind or his bedroom; it’s looking at his Tweets and talking to the women on whose Timeline he was willing to risk his marriage, his career and his self-respect.

Emphasis added.  My friend recognizes in word and deed what Weiner understood only in word, that marriage vows change things.  A gay man understands the meaning of marriage, a notion which a powerful straight man refuses to integrate into his life.  If Weiner wasn’t willing to give up his sexual flirtations with other women, why then did he get married?

Even as the gay man referenced in this post recognizes the mistakes (if mistakes they were) he had made in not “experimenting” before he met his beloved, he won’t let his past failure alter his existing marital vows.

Some men, both gay and straight (and I would dare say some women as well), refuse to recognize the responsibilities which inhere in the very idea of marriage.  In exchange for the lifelong commitment of your betrothed, you agree, to borrow an expression, to forsake all others.  Here, the gay man instructs a straight counterpart on the meaning of marriage.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  David in N.O. writes, “BTW, any marriage supporter who says extra-marital trysting is ok is no supporter of marriage of any kind.”  He got that right.

While tidying my apartment last night, I chanced upon this night I had scribbled last year during my cross-country drive:

The Obama I fear most as a Republican is the one I, as an American most want to see.

I believe I was recalling some of the stirring speeches the Democrat offered early in his bid for the White House.

Had the president turned out to be the unifier he claimed to be, that new kind of politician, his boosters billed him to be, instead of focusing on such items on the liberal wish-list as greater state involvement in heath care, he would have spent 2009 and 2010 focusing on the economy, not just by promoting big-government schemes, but by listening to Republicans and incorporating their pro-growth ideas into his policy proposals.

He, like Bill Clinton in 1995 and 1996, would have veered to the center, helped unite the country and delayed, if not destroyed, anay chance for a conservative revival.  My party would have been the weaker, but our nation would have been the stronger.