Debates: Republicans vs. Republicans

Fox: High Stakes, High Drama for Final Debate Before Voting Begins  "Here’s what’s on the line for the six men and one woman vying for the chance to confront Barack Obama:"

                                                       http://www.lucianne.com/

In new Iowa mailer, Romney keeps hammering Gingrich for his loveseat moment

" Romney’s mailer echoes the wording in a web advertisement his campaign released yesterday. Both knock Gingrich for teaming with Pelosi in 2008 for an ad that urged Americans to take global warming seriously."

CBS: What to watch in tonight's GOP debate  "Gingrich's professorial posture in early debates - when he wasn't being attacked - convinced voters to give him a second look; his task tonight will be not to say something to make them reevaluate that decision."....
 "Romney is a good debater but can seem uncomfortable when on the attack; if he can be convincingly aggressive against Gingrich, it will both diminish the frontrunner and help put to rest concerns among some Republicans that he won't take the fight to President Obama in a general election."....
"Then there are the candidates who have pinned all their hopes in Iowa: Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. All three are campaigning aggressively in the Hawkeye State in the hope that a surprise victory there will give their sputtering campaigns a shot of momentum. Expect all three to try to appeal to evangelical voters, who dominate the GOP electorate in Iowa...."
"Look for [Ron] Paul to clash with his rivals on foreign aid and the U.S. military presence abroad as well as civil liberties issues at home - and to be greeted with rapturous applause from his passionate supporters, who are usually a boisterous presence in debate audiences."

PJ Media: Tonight’s Debate: The Big One? On the last big chance before Iowa, watch for the second-tier to make some noise.   "The media tonight is focusing on what will happen between Gingrich and Romney, but both will survive Iowa. The real fight will be between Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum."
Sorry, Paul supporters, but his silly, romantic, "be- nice- to- Iran foreign policy" makes him no better than Obama to me. And I personally do not need another one of those.


Team Obama: We’ll Take The Longest Republican Primary You Have, Please

http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/12/political-battle-wounds/

Campaign In 100 Seconds: Wacky Races  "The two front runners are going head to head in a “you’re richer than I am” debate and enlisting surrogates across the board to push their message and attack their opponents."   Video.

A parting wave to Barney Frank

Networks Trumpet Barney Frank’s Legacy, Ignore Role in Housing Crisis " “The first line in Barney Frank’s political epitaph,” The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes predicted on Monday’s FNC Special Report upon news the longtime liberal Democratic Congressman won’t seek re-election, will “be the housing crisis.” But that isn’t what those who decide the first draft of history considered relevant."...

Video: Bill O'Reilly and Barney Frank smackdown   Here we would imbed a video but still cannot install Adobe Flash. We'll just have to do it the way they did it back in the 20th century. TD

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Victor Davis Hanson; Oil-Rich America?

Victor Davis Hanson  "There were always known to be additional untapped reserves of oil and gas in the petroleum-rich Gulf of Mexico, off America’s shores, and in the American West and Alaska. But even the top energy experts never imagined just how vast the energy there was — or that it was also beneath far more unlikely places such as South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. Some studies suggest the United States has now expanded its known potential gas and oil reserves tenfold.
"The strategic and economic repercussions of these new finds are staggering, and remind us how a once energy-independent and thereby confident American economy soared to world dominance in the early 20th century."
....
"For the American poor and unemployed, how liberal is it, really, to keep energy prices high while stalling millions of high-paying private-sector jobs that would both lower government costs in entitlements and empower the working classes?
"In the current presidential campaign, three issues dominate: national security, fiscal solvency, and high unemployment. Development of America’s vast new gas and oil finds would address all three at once.
"The idea of vastly expanding American gas and oil production in the 21st century is almost as unbelievable as the present administration’s apparent reluctance to capitalize on its windfall."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2011/12/15/94587

The Moral Case For Capitalism and why it must be made.

   I am a retired union employee who carried a tool bag and spent my 45-year career on the Labor side of contracts, observing picket lines and cheering for union negotiators.  But I have never been employed by anyone outside the so-called 1% and when they suffered financially, so did we. There was a fine balance between their fiscal health and ours; as our wages went up, more contractors turned to non-union workers.
   Soon, we had priced ourselves out of the market for individual customers who needed skilled work in their homes and our only market virtually became bigger companies.
   Our enormous hourly scale translated into below-standard yearly earnings because of layoffs and a slow economy. Most of those shops who would hire us were owned by families whose yearly earnings would place them in Obama's despised "millionaires and billionaires" class that earned over $250,000. Many of this hated class would do all they could to keep us working, even at a financial loss to themselves and I knew a number of business owners who too often made less on the year than did their employees. Once when my wife was ill and I missed several days of work, my next check had the full 40 hours pay on it. When I pointed this out to my boss, he told me just to keep quiet about it.  Yet they were the "rich 1%" and we were the revered "99%".
   Business owners are despised by economic ignoramuses who know nothing of the delicate balance that is inherent in a prosperous economy. The US economy was vital and healthy while the socialistic structures in Europe and elsewhere struggled. The American free-enterprise system built continental railroads and freeway systems, then it geared up to defeat the Axis nations and the forces of Communism.
   But the "occupiers" and their cheerleader-in-chief understand nothing about this magnificent system called capitalism; they seek to vanquish it in favor of economic philosophies that brought only dreariness to half the world for nearly a century. The Tunnel Dweller

The Moral Case For Capitalism
"Voters will be hit with a blast of weaponized ignorance* in 2012, and told to forget everything that has actually happened since 2008."
"But these elements are not the core of the President’s re-election strategy. They’re meant to confuse voters and soften them up for the real sales pitch, which will be entirely moral in character. It doesn’t matter if the things Obama has done didn’t work, or even – as in the case of ObamaCare – achieved exactly the opposite results from what Obama promised. We are morally obliged to follow such policies in the interest of “fairness,” “compassion,” and so forth, even when their failure is obvious. "
....
"Betraying the morality of capitalism, and denying its unbreakable connection to liberty, has empowered the State to become its own special interest.  When property rights are fully respected, and all other rights are thus properly illuminated, public officials become public servants.  Have a look at the full transcript of Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview, and ask yourself if the man considers himself a “servant” in any meaningful sense."

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

*Emphasis added because I love that term. "Weaponized ignorance". Beautifully put.

We hired the wrong man

Neal Boortz:  Taxes, they matter  ..."Americans are leaving states that have high taxes and forced union membership for states with lower taxes and right-to-work laws.  This confounds libs and progs.  They just can’t understand why people, businesses and wealth are repelled by higher taxes and forced unionization.  So their solution was to have a liberal think tank work on this issue.  Somewhere, somehow a different explanation for these migrations had to be created.  It just can’t be taxes, and it certainly can’t be the wonderful unions … so come up with another reason!"...

Walter E. Williams: Economic Fairness  "...and that includes 35 percent of Congressional Black Caucus members, who tend to vote against school choice. Their actions are dictated by what's good for the National Education Association, not low-income black children. Do you think that's fair? By the way, teachers at public schools are twice as likely as other parents to send their own children to private schools. That ought to tell us something."