Battle of Gettysburg - The Invasion of the North

It was 150 years ago on July 1, 2 & 3rd, 1863 that the decisive battle of Gettysburg was fought in southern Pennsylvania. In order to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the  battle I will be posting "news reports" of the  lead up to the battle and the battle itself  between now and July 4th as if reported today in contemporary terms assuming the knowledge we now have of the battle.


 In June 1863, Confederate general Robert E. Lee and 75,000 soldiers of the  Army of Northern Virginia invaded the North in hopes of relieving pressure on war-torn Virginia and  defeating the Union Army of the Potomac guarding Washington D.C.  and striking a decisive blow to Northern morale and thus ending the war with the 11 state of the Confederacy to create  separate country.

According to Wikipedia:

Shortly after the Army of Northern Virginia won a major victory over the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Chancellorsville (April 30 – May 6, 1863), Robert E. Lee decided upon a second invasion of the North (the first was the unsuccessful Maryland Campaign of September 1862, which ended in the bloody Battle of Antietam). Such a move would upset Federal plans for the summer campaigning season and possibly reduce the pressure on the besieged Confederate garrison at Vicksburg. The invasion would allow the Confederates to live off the bounty of the rich Northern farms while giving war-ravaged Virginia a much-needed rest. In addition, Lee's 75,000-man army could threaten Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and possibly strengthen the growing peace movement in the North.

By mid-June, the Army of Northern Virginia was poised to cross the Potomac River and enter Maryland. After defeating the Federal garrisons at Winchester and Martinsburg, Ewell's Second Corps began crossing the river on June 15. Hill's and Longstreet's corps followed on June 24 and June 25.

To screen his movements from the Northern Army, Lee kept the Blue Ridge Mountains and it's northern extension "South Mountain"  between him and the Union Army around Washington DC. He had his Calvary under Jeb Stewart guard the passes to keep the Union from knowing his movements. His army crossed the Potomac River near Hagerstown  Maryland.

Jon Anderson of the Army Times gives us a report:

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The capital of Pennsylvania is in panic today amid reports that Confederate troops are crossing the Potomac River.
Harrisburg residents are packing into trains and wagons, loaded down with luggage and whatever cherished items they can carry. Government officials in the capital are also preparing to evacuate.
Governor Andrew Curtin has ordered local militia units to defend Pennsylvania's border from “the Rebel Invader.”
Gen. Robert E. Lee’s of Army of Northern Virginia will have to get through Maryland first.
Fresh from their victory in Winchester, Va., Lee’s lead units — including a brigade of cavalry — began crossing the Potomac near Hagerstown yesterday afternoon, now followed by major units from at least one of his three corps.

http://www.armytimes.com/article/20130616/OFFDUTY/306160004/June-16-1863-Lee-crosses-Potomac-Pennsylvania-panic

 

TO BE CONTINUED:

 

 

 

 

Gettysburg Address in Movies

"Mr Smith Goes to Washington" 1939 at Lincoln Memorial

"Ruggles of Red Gap" 1935

"Charles Laughton. His soup-to-nuts recitation of the celebrated speech is the unexpected highlight of Ruggles of Red Gap, a 1935 screwball Western that time has relegated to the semi-shadows. It’s a beautifully understated performance that manages to illuminate the meaning of each and every word. (It also makes me more forgiving of the film’s early minutes, when Laughton’s portrayal of a very proper English butler succumbs to a silver-candelabra-up-the-heiner level of broadness.)
Just as impressive is director Leo McCarey‘s decision to set the scene atop a giddy vaudeville routine featuring a saloon full of clueless cowboys and barkeeps. It’s a ton of fun."

http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/behold_charles_laughton_delivering_the_gettysburg_address_in_its_entirety_in_iruggles_of_red_gapi.html

And at the new Steven Spielberg Movie " Lincoln" 2012 at a theater near your.

In each case it is not done by an actor portraying Lincoln but by someone deeply influenced by it.

ELECTION DAY 2012

"The big battle for freedom and the future begins at first light"

EVERYONE TO THE COLORS

VOTE FOR ROMNEY/RYAN 

Romney: "Vote for Love of Country"

 "Today, Obama asked his supporters to vote for revenge; Today I ask you to vote for love of country" 

How Republics Fall

I have been thinking alot about this topic this past weekend and in fact it was hard to concentrate on college football because this subject is so serious. Then, I read this article by Michael Knox Beran, a lawyer, that sets forth my same fears!

The media savants sympathized with the delirium of Charlotte because they worship at the same altar and feed at the same trough. Two and a half centuries ago Edmund Burke said the reporters’ gallery in Parliament was an estate “more important far than” the other three put together. Today America’s Fourth Estate is not merely predisposed, as it has been for generations, to favor a particular political party: It is deeply engaged in the hero worship of a particular political leader. The closeness of mainstream journalists to President Obama has debauched their integrity. Some of them give the White House veto authority over their stories. Others look to be rewarded with plum jobs or stimulus-funded ads. This abasement before power presages a return to a time when political writers, among them Swift and Defoe, were the professed protégés of statesmen and relied on Whig or Tory patronage for their bread; it also leaves the country vulnerable to the distortions of ostensibly neutral journalists who are too fervently committed to the leader to tell the truth about him. Obama worship, once the quaint foible of Grub Street liberalism, has become its opium, perhaps its bath salts.......When, after days of media cheerleading, Obama rose modestly in the polls, the acolytes instantly sounded the death knell for Romney. The election was all but over, the princes of palaver declared. Time’s Mark Halperin spoke of the Romney campaign’s “death stench,” and MSNBC’s Steve Benan said that the president was now “exactly where he wants to be.”......Then came Cairo and, still more terribly, Benghazi. The “Gang of 500,” as Halperin styles the bigwigs with whom he shares the liberal soapbox, was duly outraged . . . by Mitt Romney. The Republican nominee had the lèse-majesté to criticize Obama’s foreign policy. The president’s own statement on Benghazi, which he delivered in the Rose Garden before departing for a campaign event in Las Vegas, went largely unscrutinized by the media gang..... Having been corrupted into a semi-official state press, America’s mainstream media is now transforming the most important election in a generation into the political equivalent of an episode of The Bachelor. Liberalism’s scribal class is actually pleased that the contest has become a referendum not on the president’s record or his plans but on his charisma and popularity. In the kingdom of vapor, substance has no place. This is how republics die, in thrall to the inane, the frivolous, and the inconsequential. A liberalism incapable of persuading the public to embrace its policies has been converted by its media tribunes into a publicity stunt. As a result, the nation that gave the world the Federalist Papers and the Lincoln–Douglas debates may very well reelect a flawed chief executive for no other reason than that he has been continuously portrayed as a super-nice guy by the media lackeys who tend the Obama cult. Is it later than we think? Very possibly.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/321100/how-republics-fall-michael-knox-beran

Mitt's Speech to 2012 Republican Convention

Mitt Romney will never be a conservative as I am.  He is a practical moderate who lives a conservative lifestyle . He is a doer and a fixer and that is what the country needs at this troubled time. I give him a lot of credit for picking Paul Ryan who is the future of the Conservative Movement. As much as I loved Ronald Reagan I was disappointed in 1980 when he picked George H.W. Bush about what it foretold for the future. I wanted Jack Kemp then and now we have a disciple of Jack Kemp in Ryan.  For 24 years the Conservative Movement has been leaderless ...... we have gone down many dead ends, Palin being the most recent example. Now win or lose Paul Ryan is our future.

Last night there were several points when I literally stood up and cheered Mitt Romney's acceptance speech.

"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family."

James Tranto of the Wall Street Journal writes:

Previewing Romney's speech last week, Peggy Noonan advised him to use humor: "President Obama can't stand to be made fun of. His pride won't allow it, his amour propre cannot countenance a joke at his own expense. If Mr. Romney lands a few very funny lines about the president's leadership, Mr. Obama will freak out. That would be fun, wouldn't it?"

Another line I loved:

President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro’s Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments but is eager to give Russia’s President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.”

And:

“In America we celebrate success, we don’t apologize for success.”

Perhaps the line that will be remember the longest:

Hope and change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”

Finally the missing Rose:

Mom and dad were married 64 years. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist— because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That's how she found out what happened on the day my father died— she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose.

There was a time in this country when we valued the strong silent man of few words. A Gary Cooper or a John Wayne or a Dwight Eisenhower. Mitt Romney is cast from that mold!



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80507.html#ixzz259m8UodY

 

 

Christmas in August

MOVIE: "Act of Valor" *****

Just saw "Act of Valor" (2012) as a Netflix rental but will be buying the blu-ray edition in the near future. I loved the movie and will want to add it to my DVD collection. The story line according to IMDB:

An unprecedented blend of real-life heroism and original filmmaking, Act of Valor stars a group of active-duty Navy SEALs in a powerful story of contemporary global anti-terrorism. Inspired by true events, the film combines stunning combat sequences, up-to-the minute battlefield technology and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure. Act of Valor takes audiences deep into the secretive world of the most elite, highly trained group of warriors in the modern world. When the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a deadly terrorist plot against the U.S., a team of SEALs is dispatched on a worldwide manhunt. As the valiant men of Bandito Platoon race to stop a coordinated attack that could kill and wound thousands of American civilians, they must balance their commitment to country, team and their families back home. Each time they accomplish their mission...

This movie is about the American warrior ethos. Men who are willing to kill Americas enemies without being conflicted or agonizing over it.. As is stated in the movie  "there are damn few" For all the reasons Rodger Ebert didn't like the movie I do! Ebert who was in SDS in college writes:

 Act of Valor" is gift-wrapped in patriotism. It was once intended as a recruitment film, and that's how it plays.

So what's the problem! We need more movies like this.


One of my favorite quotes from the movie:

LT Rorke: Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life. Beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

~ Chief Tecumseh (Poem from Act of Valor the Movie)

One of the opening quotes from the movie:

 “He said the worst thing about growing old is other men no longer see you as dangerous…dangerousness was sacred,” ..... “Your father was a reader. Churchill, of course, but also Faulker and books about Tecumseh.” 

 “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.” ~ Sir Winston Churchill

149 Years Ago Today... Picketts Charge at Gettysburg

149 years ago today, July 3, 1863, the Union of the United States was saved when the center of the Union line at Gettysburg held and the South "never smiled again".

According to Wikipedia:

Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered psychologically. The farthest point reached by the attack has been referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy

.

Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three-quarters of a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. Although some Confederates were able to breach the low stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repulsed with over 50% casualties, a decisive defeat that ended the three-day battle and Lee's campaign into Pennsylvania.^[1] Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, General Pickett replied: "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."^[2].......As the three Confederate divisions advanced, awaiting Union soldiers began shouting "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!" in reference to the disastrous Union advance on the Confederate line during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg.

Tomorrow is the 236 birthday of the United States but today is the day it was saved 149 years ago by men in blue holding Old Glory and willing to give their lives for that Union and to end the scourge of slavery.

FLAG DAY, JUNE 14, 2012

Old Glory was adopted as the flag of the United States 235 years ago today on June 14, 1777 by a resolution  of the Second Continental Congress. As George M. Cohan wrote:

You're a grand old flag,


You're a high flying flag

And forever in peace may you wave.

You're the emblem of

The land I love.

The home of the free and the brave.

Ev'ry heart beats true

'neath the Red, White and Blue,

Where there's never a boast or brag.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

Keep your eye on the grand old flag

Gov. Walker and America Win!!!!!

Stand with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker!

If the public employee unions get away with the recall in Wisconsin on Tuesday there will be no stopping then. No political leader will take a chance in incurring their wrath for 50 years and  government will take over more and more of the  American  economy.  We will become more and more an entitlement society. There will be no return from the road to serfdom. The drive of the individual will be suffocated and the thing that makes Americans different will be gone. The Walker supporters in Wisconsin  will be holding the line for all of us...... stand tall and be counted!

Jed Babbin:"Lost Sense of Duty"

When a dozen or more Secret Service agents chose to party with hookers at the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, their decision was a deviation from the military-law enforcement culture which needs to be as closely examined as the misbehavior they apparently engaged in. Part of it may be a diminution of character, as Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal......

(see my post below)

But it is much more than that. The deviation from Secret Service practice and tradition demonstrated by the hooker party was a knowing and intentional abandonment of their duty.....

And in those off-duty times, duty is ever-present. Yes, character is part of it. Men of character don't carouse with prostitutes wherever they find themselves, they don't take illicit drugs or hit the booze to an extent that they can't be at 100% alertness and strength to do their jobs when they report for duty -- that word again -- the following day.

The sense of duty -- a deep commitment -- isn't something a person who is dedicated to their purpose can abandon. It's ingrained in body and soul, a habit and creed.....
Link to entire column

Noonan: America's Crisis of Character

The nation seems to be on the wrong track, and not just economically.

• By PEGGY NOONAN

Every story that has broken through the past few weeks has been about who we are as a people. And they are all disturbing.......

The leveling or deterioration of public behavior has got to be worrying people who have enough years on them to judge with some perspective.
Something seems to be going terribly wrong

To read the rest of this excellent column click on the link.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303513404577354221282508372.html

Time for Conservatives to Rally to Mitt Romney

The Leaders of the Conservative cause are starting to rally to Mitt Romney. Last week it was South Carolina  Senator Jim DeMint and Jeb Bush.This week it is Florida senator Marco Rubio and now congressmen Paul Ryan.  It's time for all Conservatives to join them to start the campaign against President  Barack Obama. The "hot mic" incident, where it was revealed that  Obama will, if reelected,  go even farther to the Left in appeasing  the despots of this dangerous world , should send a chill down the spine of every Conservative.   That combined with the huge debt that is swallowing us should sober us all up and demonstrate that  our differences are minor in comparison to the danger that hovers over the United States.

Preventing the reelection of President Obama will not be easy.  For all his weakness abroad he is a skilled  Chicago street fighter in domestic politics and will continue his class warfare in an attempt to stay in office.His allies in the public employee unions will spend  millions to keep their patron saint in the White House.

It's been said before, but this is the most important election in a long long time.  If  Obama is reelected there will be no going back. We will withdraw from leadership in a dangerous world and economically  there will be no return from the road to serfdom. We will enter a world were freedom will be gone and we will wish every day we could replay the election of 2012.

Mitt is not perfect and some of us have longed for others with better Conservative credentials.. They, for various reasons, have  elected to stand on the sidelines. Mitt Romney HAS been willing to lead and we should rally to him in this time of testing.

 Cross the line and stand with Mitt Romney!

Mitt Romney: "I believe in America!"

Called to Duty

Time for a little perspective on what is important. The Eugene Register Guard newspaper invited local World War II veterans to come have their portraits taken to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The response was overwhelming. (See the photos and read and hear their stories in print and at registerguard.com in a special four-day package starting this Sunday, Dec. 4.)

This is a video of those picture taking sessions. Click on the title for a link to a better view of the video. Soon they will all be gone. This is a wonderful act and tribute. Thank you Register Guard !

An English Thanksgiving, 1942

Click on the title for an interesting story about Thanksgiving in England in the dark days of World War II. Early in the war Japan was still advancing across the Pacific and Germany held most of Europe. America was still gearing up for war and American soldiers were just beginning to arrive in England and introduced the American holiday of Thanksgiving to the English people who had been standing alone against the Nazi juggernaut.

In those dark days, Americans took special pleasure in displaying their homegrown holiday to the Mother Country. The English were dubious at first but slowly realized they were being invited to share in something very special.

Helping to win them over was an extraordinary act of generosity very much in keeping with the spirit of the holiday. Merchant ships had carried tons of frozen turkey across the submarine-infested Atlantic for the big day. Then the Yanks announced they would donate all of it to the thousands of British war wounded in hospitals. Instead they would dine on roast pork and eat plum pudding for desert, alas without the standard rum sauce.

To read the rest click on the title.



Happy Thanksgiving America !

Paul Ryan's speech today: "Saving The American Idea"

“Saving the American Idea: Rejecting Fear, Envy and the Politics of Division”

House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan is delivering the following remarks at a speech today at the Heritage Foundation:

We’re here today to explore the American Idea, and I can’t think of a better venue for this topic. The mission of the Heritage Foundation is to promote the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

These are the principles that define the American Idea. And this mission has never been timelier, because these principles are very much under threat from policies here in Washington.

The American Idea belongs to all of us – inherited from our nation’s Founders, preserved by the countless sacrifices of our veterans, and advanced by visionary leaders, past and present.

What makes America exceptional – what gives life to the American Idea – is our dedication to the self-evident truth that we are all created equal, giving us equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that means opportunity.

The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.”

This commitment to liberty and equality is something we take for granted during times of prosperity, when a growing economic pie gives all Americans the opportunity to pursue their dreams, to provide brighter futures for their kids, or maybe just to meet their families’ needs.

These are tough times. We know all too well that too many Americans are hurting today. And these hardships have reopened our longstanding national debate over what it means to be an exceptional nation. Have those periods of unprecedented prosperity in America’s past been the product of our Founding principles?

Or, as some would argue, have we made it this far only in spite of our outdated values? Are we still an exceptional nation? Should we even seek to be unique? Or should we become more like the rest of the world – more bureaucratic, less hopeful, and less free?

The American Idea is not tried in times of prosperity. Instead, it is tested when times are tough: when the pie is shrinking, when businesses are closing, and when workers are losing their jobs.

Those are the times when America’s commitment to equality of opportunity is called into question. That’s when the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns – when many in Washington use the politics of division to evade responsibility for their failures and to advance their own narrow political interests.

To my great disappointment, it appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback. Many Americans share my disappointment – especially those who were filled with great hope a few years ago, when then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois.

Do you remember what he said? He said that what’s stopped us from meeting our nation’s greatest challenges is, quote, “the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics – the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And yet, nearly three years into his presidency, look at where we are now:
•Petty and trivial? Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.” Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?
•Chronic avoidance of tough decisions? The President still has not put forward a credible plan to tackle the threat of ever-rising spending and debt, and it’s been over 900 days since his party passed a budget in the Senate.
•A preference for scoring cheap political points instead of consensus-building? This is the same President who is currently campaigning against a do-nothing Congress, when in fact, the House of Representatives has passed over a dozen bills to help get the economy moving and deal with the debt, only to see the President’s party kill those bills in the do-nothing Senate.

Look, we put our cards on the table. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives advanced a far-reaching plan filled with common-sense reforms aimed at putting the budget on the path to balance and the economy on the path to prosperity.

But instead of working together where we agree, the President has opted for divisive rhetoric and the broken politics of the past. He is going from town to town, impugning the motives of Republicans, setting up straw men and scapegoats, and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments, as he tries to build support for punitive tax hikes on job creators.

The tax increases proposed by Senate Democrats and endorsed by the President – when combined with the new taxes in the health-care law, and the President’s other tax preferences – would push the top federal tax rate to roughly 50 percent in just 14 months, while doing nothing to promote job creation.

This tax increase on so-called “millionaires and billionaires” would actually constitute a huge tax hike on the nation’s most successful small businesses. According to the Tax Foundation, the surtax would hit roughly 35 percent of small-business income.

As P.J. O’Rourke put it, “The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.”

Actually, the news is even worse. As a practical matter, when you try to chase ever-higher spending with ever-higher tax increases, you eventually run into a brick wall of math.

The President has been talking a lot about math lately. He’s been saying that, quote, “If we’re not willing to ask those who’ve done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit… the math says… we’ve got to put the entire burden on the middle class and the poor.”

This is really a stunning assertion from the President. When you look at the actual math, you quickly realize that the way out of this mess is to combine economic growth with reasonable, responsible spending restraint. Yet neither of these things factors into the President’s zero-sum logic.

According to the President’s logic, we should give up on trying to reform our tax code to grow the economy and get more revenue that way. Instead, these goals are taking a backseat to the President’s misguided understanding of fairness.

Remember that 2008 debate, when ABC’s Charlie Gibson pointed out that raising the capital gains tax rate actually tends to drive revenues down?

Obama replied: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.” That’s the kind of logic we are unfortunately seeing today.

Also according to the President’s logic, spending restraint is incompatible with a strong, well-functioning safety net. The belief that recipients of government aid are better off the more we spend on them is remarkably persistent. No matter how many times this central tenet of liberalism gets debunked, like Brett Favre, it just keeps coming back.

The President has wrongly framed Republican efforts to get government spending under control as hard-hearted attacks on the poor. In reality, spending on programs for seniors and for lower-income families continues to grow every year under the House-passed budget – it just grows at a sustainable rate. We direct tax dollars where they’re needed most, and stop spending money we don’t have on boondoggles we don’t need.

The President’s political math is a muddled mix of false accusations and false choices. The actual math is apolitical, and it’s clear: By the time my kids are my age, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the size of government will be double what it is today.

Government health care programs alone will have grown to consume 45 percent of federal spending. The primary driver of this increase is runaway inflation in health care costs, which are rising at 2 to 3 times the rate of GDP.

It’s impossible to keep funding health care expenditures at this rate. Even President Obama has said, quote, “If you look at the numbers, Medicare in particular will run out of money, and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up.”

So the real debate is about how best to control these unsustainable costs. And if I could sum up that disagreement in a couple of sentences, I would say this: Our plan is to empower patients. Their plan is to empower bureaucrats.

The Republican plan gives individuals the power to put market pressure on providers and make them compete.

The President’s plan is to give 15 unelected bureaucrats in Washington the power to cut Medicare in ways that, according to Medicare’s own chief actuary, would simply drive providers out of business. This would result in harsh disruptions and denied care for seniors.

Pain like this simply can’t be sustained. So when it comes to out-of-control spending on entitlements, the President’s math simply doesn’t add up.

And his math is no better on the tax side. Let’s say we took all the income from those the President calls “rich” – those making $250,000 or more. A 100 percent tax rate on their total annual income would only fund the government for six months. Just six months!

What about some of the other tax hikes the President likes to talk about? Under the President’s policies, deficits are set to rise by a whopping $9.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
•Letting the top two tax rates expire would equal roughly 8 percent of that planned deficit increase.
•Eliminating tax subsidies for oil and gas companies would only equal 0.5 percent of the President’s planned deficits.
•And what about corporate jet owners? That provision would reduce those deficits by just 0.03 percent.

Look, I’m all for closing tax loopholes – but you can’t close our nation’s deficits by chasing ever-higher spending with politically motivated tax hikes here and there. Instead, tax reform must broaden the base and lower rates.

This policy approach, which has attracted strong bipartisan support, would bolster our fiscal health by increasing competitiveness and encouraging more investment and job creation.

Lately, the President has been fond of taking Ronald Reagan quotes out of context, in an effort to persuade Republicans that Reagan would have agreed with the idea of using fear and envy to push a partisan agenda of permanently higher taxes.

Every time he does this, I can picture Reagan shaking his head: “There you go again.”

Obama quotes Reagan as saying that bus drivers shouldn’t pay a higher effective tax rate than millionaires. Well, that’s a no-brainer. Nobody disagrees with that.

But it is simply disingenuous to use this quote as evidence that Reagan would have supported the tax increases that Obama wants Congress to pass.

Reagan was attempting to build support for the landmark 1986 tax reform, a revenue-neutral law that reformed the tax code by lowering tax rates while broadening the tax base.

Reagan’s point – which President Obama clearly missed – was not that we should raise tax rates to chase out-of-control spending in Washington.

His point was that we should get rid of loopholes that are exploited by the few, so that we could lower everyone’s tax rates and help the economy grow.

The House-passed budget includes this kind of tax reform, which many agree would provide an immediate boost to the economy. Our budget proposed getting rid of scores of loopholes, lowering the hurdles for job creation and economic growth, and making our tax code fair, simple, and competitive.

In his address to Congress last month, the President said he agrees in principle with this kind of reform, especially when it comes to the uncompetitive way we tax our businesses.

This made Republicans think, well, we might have an opportunity here for the kind of genuine consensus-building that the President talked about as a candidate.

Yet he chose not to pursue this kind of tax reform. Instead, he sent us a partisan bill filled with the same stimulus proposals that failed two years ago, only this time he also asked for permanent tax hikes to go with them.

He’s also failed to work with us on another area where one would think we could find common ground: ending the lavish subsidies and government benefits that go to those who are already successful.

The House-passed budget was full of proposals to get rid of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.
•Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically-connected solar energy firms?
•Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?
•Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?

Rather than raising taxes and making it more difficult for Americans to become wealthy, let’s lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.

The President likes to use Warren Buffett and his secretary as an example of why we should raise taxes on the rich.

Well, Warren Buffett gets the same health and retirement benefits from the government as his secretary.

But our proposals to modestly income-adjust Social Security and Medicare benefits have been met with sheer demagoguery by leading members of the President’s party.

The politics of division have always struck me as odd: the eagerness to take more, combined with the refusal to subsidize less.

Instead of working with us on these common-sense reforms, the President is barnstorming swing states, pushing a divisive message that pits one group of Americans against another on the basis of class.

This just won’t work in America. Class is not a fixed designation in this country. We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups.

The Treasury Department’s latest study on income mobility in America found that during the ten-year period starting in 1996, roughly half of the taxpayers who started in the bottom 20 percent had moved up to a higher income group by 2005.

Meanwhile, half of all taxpayers ended up in a different income group at the end of ten years. Many moved up, and some moved down, but economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most people over this period.

Another recent survey of over 500 successful entrepreneurs found that 93 percent came from middle-class or lower-class backgrounds. The majority were the first in their families to launch a business.

Their stories are the American story: Millions of immigrants fled from the closed societies of the Old World to the security of equal rights in this land of upward mobility.

Telling Americans they are stuck in their current station in life, that they are victims of circumstances beyond their control, and that government’s role is to help them cope with it – well, that’s not who we are. That’s not what we do.

Our Founding Fathers rejected this mentality. In societies marked by class structure, an elite class made up of rich and powerful patrons supplies the needs of a large client underclass that toils, but cannot own. The unfairness of closed societies is the kindling for class warfare, where the interests of “capital” and “labor” are perpetually in conflict. What one class wins, the other loses.

The legacy of this tradition can still be seen in Europe today: Top-heavy welfare states have replaced the traditional aristocracies, and masses of the long-term unemployed are locked into the new lower class.

The United States was destined to break out of this bleak history. Our future would not be staked on traditional class structures, but on civic solidarity. Gone would be the struggle of class against class.

Instead, Americans would work, compete, and co-operate in an open market, climb the ladder of opportunity, and keep the fruits of their efforts.

Self-government and the rule of law would secure our equal, God-given rights. Our political and economic systems – rooted in freedom and responsibility – would reward, and thus cultivate, traditional virtues.

Given that the President’s policies have moved us closer to the European model, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that his class-based rhetoric has followed suit.

We shouldn’t be surprised... but we have every right to be disappointed. Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy, and resentment.

This has the potential to be just as damaging as his misguided policies. Sowing social unrest and class resentment makes America weaker, not stronger. Pitting one group against another only distracts us from the true sources of inequity in this country – corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.

Ironically, equality of outcome is a form of inequality – one that is based on political influence and bureaucratic favoritism.

That's the real class warfare that threatens us: A class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society. And their gains will come at the expense of working Americans, entrepreneurs, and that small businesswoman who has the gall to take on the corporate chieftain.

It’s disappointing that this President’s actions have exacerbated this form of class warfare in so many ways:
•While the EPA is busy punishing commercially competitive sources of energy, a class of bureaucrats at the Department of Energy has been acting like the world’s worst venture capital fund, spending recklessly on politically favored alternatives.
•While the unemployment rate remains stuck above 9 percent, a class of bureaucrats at the National Labor Relations Board is threatening hundreds of jobs by suing an American employer for politically motivated reasons.
•And while millions of Americans are left wondering whether their employers will drop their health insurance because of the new health care law, a class of bureaucrats at HHS has handed out over 1,400 waivers to those firms and unions with the political connections to lobby for them.

These actions starkly highlight the difference between the two parties that lies at the heart of the matter: Whether we are a nation that still believes in equality of opportunity, or whether we are moving away from that, and towards an insistence on equality of outcome.

If you believe in the former, you follow the American Idea that justice is done when we level the playing field at the starting line, and rewards are proportionate to merit and effort.

If you believe in the latter kind of equality, you think most differences in wealth and rewards are matters of luck or exploitation, and that few really deserve what they have.

That’s the moral basis of class warfare – a false morality that confuses fairness with redistribution, and promotes class envy instead of social mobility.

I’d like to introduce President Obama to the Ronald Reagan he isn’t so eager to quote – the man who said, “Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes – one rich, one poor – both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?”

President Reagan was absolutely right. Instead of policies that make it harder for Americans to rise, let’s lower the hurdles to upward mobility.

That’s what the American Idea is all about. You know, in the midst of all the joys and sorrows of our everyday lives, I think we sometimes forget why America was considered such an exceptional nation at its Founding, and why it remains so.

To me, the results of the Founders’ exceptional vision can be summed up in a single sentence: Throughout human history, the American Idea has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.

Americans, guided by our ideals, have sacrificed everything to combat tyranny and brutal dictators; we’ve expanded opportunity, opened markets, and inspired others to resist oppression; we’ve exported innovation and imagination; and we’ve welcomed immigrants seeking a fresh start.

Here in America – unlike most places on earth – all citizens have the right to rise.

Thank you.

I sure wish he were running for President !

USS Constitution

"Clear the decks for action" Old "Ironsides" in Boston harbor. Still on the United States Navy rolls and the oldest warship still afloat.

From Wikepedia:

USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. Named by President George Washington after the Constitution of the United States of America, she is the world's oldest floating commissioned naval vessel.[Note 1] Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794. Joshua Humphreys designed the frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Constitution and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. Built in Boston, Massachusetts at Edmund Hartt's shipyard, her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.

Constitution is most famous for her actions during the War of 1812 against Great Britain, when she captured numerous merchant ships and defeated five British warships: HMS Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane and Levant. The battle with Guerriere earned her the nickname of "Old Ironsides" and public adoration that has repeatedly saved her from scrapping. She continued to actively serve the nation as flagship in the Mediterranean and African squadrons, and circled the world in the 1840s. During the American Civil War she served as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy and carried artwork and industrial displays to the Paris Exposition of 1878. Retired from active service in 1881, she served as a receiving ship until designated a museum ship in 1907. In 1931 she started a three year 90-port tour of the nation, and in 1997 she finally sailed again under her own power for her 200th birthday.