Regardless whether you believe Georgia or Russia is to blame for the ongoing conflict in the Caucasus, the Russians continue to show that they aim to use the war as an excuse to dominate the Georgians. As Reuters reports, the Russians continue to violate the terms of the cease-fire, and are blocking access to the Georgian port of Poti.
Russian forces dug trenches and built fortifications in key areas of Georgia Thursday, but also rolled columns of tanks north toward home, picking and choosing how their nation would comply with the terms of a peace accord.
Although Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pledged his forces would pull back from Georgia by Friday, his troops appeared to be in no hurry—even settling down in strategic spots. This raised concerns about whether Moscow was aiming for a lengthy occupation of its smaller, pro-Western neighbor.
Some of my friends over at the Campaign for Liberty think he might. The word is that his training partner is a donor to the Ron Paul presidential campaign. How cool would it be for Michael Phelps to become a supporter of the freedom movement and even do an ad for Ron, or other limited government conservatives?
Here is an excerpt from the blog chatter on the subject.
His training partner, Erik Vendt, is already a dedicated follower of liberty, a $200 donor to the Ron Paul campaign (on December 16th no less), and doing his best to convince Phelps that freedom works.
John McCain put it succinctly and powerfully today when he told the world, “Today we are all Georgians.” I am watching CNN, which is covering a rally in Tbilisi, Georgia where president Mikheil Saakashvili gave an impassioned speech. He quoted McCain and the crowd erupted in cheers.
The Russians seem to be trying to rebuild their lost Soviet empire. It is sad to watch the world stand by helplessly as the Russians roll over a sovereign nation that is moving towards freedom and democracy. There really are no good options, here. Obviously we don’t want a war with Russia, but if the world does nothing, Russia will only set its sights on Ukraine or other former Soviet republics.
In the meantime, McCain’s statement sums up how the civilized world views the events of the last few weeks. We are all Georgians, indeed.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives have been giving speeches on energy prices in a mostly empty room while the Democrats are on vacation. I have been out of the country and haven’t been following this story until now, but my colleague Nan Swift has been.
The revolt on the House floor will continue until the Republicans can bring the Democrats back from their August vacation to vote on increasing the domestic supply of energy to bring oil and gas prices down. I’m told that some of the speeches have been quite good, and that the R’s might have finally gotten their groove back. Let’s hope so.
I will be on the House floor tomorrow to see with my own eyes what is going on. No cameras are allowed, so I will just have to write updates on this blog when I get back to the office. Will the Democrats continue to ignore real solutions to high energy prices this summer? Time will tell. But it’s good to see the House Republicans finally show some bold leadership, even though the mainstream media is ignoring their speeches.
When a friend emailed this policy paper to me today, I was shocked by the degree of populist pandering by the Obama campaign. His ideas about taking money from one person or group and giving it to another person or group are not new. But the type of redistribution in such a blatant fashion — taking from oil company profits and giving the money directly to the masses in order to buy votes — is breathtaking.
“Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”
America is not a culture, nor has it ever been, where this kind of socialist scheme is accepted. “Upset that you can’t pay your bills? That’s okay, just use force to take money from someone that has more money than you.” Class warfare is rampant in the Democrat Party, but this Obama “Emergency Economic Plan” goes beyond the normal rhetoric and crosses the line into something dangerous.
Republics fall with such policies, driven by ambitious politicians that play up the victimhood of the people and focus their anger on convenient scapegoats. Most businesses have a profit margin of around 7-9%, and Exxon Mobil falls within that average. If Obama and his socialist allies are so worried about “windfall profits” perhaps they should impose a tax on liberal college professors who make six figures, and give the money to students to buy books. Maybe they should implement a windfall profits tax on trial lawyers who make more than $80,000 a year and give the money to the jurors who get paid next to nothing.
The Obama campaign truly frightens me in its demagogic quest to do whatever it takes to win the election. If this man gets elected, hold onto your wallets, and be ready to get mugged by the federal government.
FreedomWorks chief economist Wayne Brough was interviewed by Fox Business News about the mortgage bailout bill that just passed Congress and was signed by President Bush. As he points out, this new bill is bad news for homeowners who pay their mortgages — and renters, like me.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is leading the charge to lift the congressional moratorium on offshore drilling. As David Freddoso of National Review Online notes,
“On September 30 — two months from today — the ban on fossil-fuel drilling off America’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and in the oil-shale fields of the West will expire. Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, must pass an appropriations bill extending the bans.”
This means that the moratorium can only continue this year if the Democrats decide to add it to appropriations legislation.
This is not something that the American people are going to support this year, given the rising costs of fuel. President Bush has said some positive things about increasing our domestic exploration, and has lifted the presidential moratorium against offshore drilling. Hopefully congressional Republicans have the fortitude to take this issue to the American people.
Liberals in Congress want to continue to block attempts to increase our domestic supply of oil and gas, while conservatives want to begin the process of lowering prices. In the words of Dick Armey, it is time to DRILL DRILL DRILL.
It’s about time. Senator Stevens (R-AK) represents everything that is wrong with politicians. He is a corrupt, self-righteous politician who uses his influence and taxpayer money to enrich himself.
This indictment (and hopefully conviction) is good for the American people, and it’s good for the Republican Party, which needs a house cleaning. Here is the report from Reuters.
The U.S. Justice Department has scheduled a news conference for 1:20 p.m. to make an announcement “regarding a significant criminal matter.” The official said the news conference would announce the criminal charges against Stevens that have been returned by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.
Senator Obama is a tax and spend liberal. There is no doubt about that. He supports raising the capital gains tax even though he admits that it will not increase government revenue. He argues that raising this tax is merely an issue of “fairness.” He does not seem to care about the harmful economic impact of raising such taxes.
Consistent with his redistributionist tendencies, Obama also wants to raise the payroll tax on Social Security for anyone making over $250,000. Here is a good critique of that policy from Lawrence Lindsey:
“Obama’s plans would provide a powerful incentive for the highest-earning Americans to work less, invest less and contribute less to the economy.”
This would fundamentally change the purpose of Social Security. It was never meant to be a welfare program based on a progressive taxation scheme. It was only meant to provide income to retirees with money from current workers.
The federal government doesn’t need more revenue, it needs to cut spending and lower tax rates. Otherwise, if Obama gets his way and pushes through massive new spending on things like health care or universal pre-school, he will have to substantially increase taxes on everyone to pay for it.
With the economy slowly moving along, the worst thing we could do is increase taxes and spending, and cause capital to flee our shores. Let’s hope the American people realize this before they sign on to Obamania.
