Monthly Archives: February 2012

George Burns, Chris Christie, Warren Buffett and the U.S. debt

The Friday Letter / Issue #166

No quick fix to economic ignorance

Stephen Combs / The Federalist Review

“Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair,” George Burns once said. Today we can say it’s too bad the people who think they know how to run the country are . . . running the country.
When President Obama tried to make it look like he was backing down from his order that Catholic hospitals, universities and charities provide their employees with free contraceptives and abortion-related services, nobody with a scintilla of business knowledge was fooled. Best we can tell, the “compromise” goes something like this: His original order requires employers to provide these services. The amended order requires their insurance companies to provide them.
Only two conclusions of this nonsense are possible. Either the President is profoundly ignorant of even the simplest business principles – like those required to manage a hotdog kiosk or sell Girl Scout cookies – or he thinks a majority of voters is so stupid that they will believe anything.  (more…)

Bonhoeffer understood the danger of Barack Obama

George Washington’s birthday, Feb. 22

The Friday Letter / Issue #165

‘A readiness for responsibility’

Stephen Combs / The Federalist Review

By now more Americans are likely familiar with some version of Martin Niemöeller’s famous words about genocide than at any time since he first spoke them around 1946: 

          First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist;
          Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist;
          Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist;
          Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
          Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.

             People who had never heard of Rev. Niemöeller now hear these words, quite simply because of their frightening relevance to events of today.¹ His warning, arranged in various ways in speeches over several years, is suddenly hot stuff. (more…)

Is the Catholic outrage real?

The Friday Letter / Issue #164

It’s not about the cost and availability of birth control.
It’s about power

Stephen Combs / The Federalist Review

Last year Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels caused an uproar among religious conservatives by suggesting that social issues take a back seat until the nation’s urgent financial crisis gets under control.
Mr. Daniels wasn’t saying we should ignore these debates, only that we must set priorities. As Mike Morrison of Hillsdale, Mich., wrote in a letter to the Wall Street Journal last March, “It is the sign of a true leader and statesman to focus on plugging the holes in our sinking ship, rather than sewing a torn sail.”
Three weeks ago Barack Obama declared open war on religion in America. Instantly, what first seemed like a torn sail became a gaping hole in the ship of state. This may explain new calls for Gov. Daniels to enter the race. It may explain Rick Santorum’s new life. (more…)

Obama to Catholics: ‘To Hell with you’

ACLU on separation of state and Catholic church: silence

The Friday Letter / Issue #163

Stephen Combs / The Federalist Review

If George W. Bush had done something stupid like force the Catholic Church to buy its employees free contraception, his critics would have rightly called him tone-deaf. Barack Obama has no such hearing loss, and those who say he doesn’t understand the American culture are simply ignorant of his ideology of Saul Alinsky power politics.
“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most health insurance plans will cover women’s preventive services, including contraception, without charging a co-pay or deductible beginning in August, 2012,” chirped Cecilia Munoz on her official White House blog. She is director of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council.
What part of this does the The View crowd hear? Free! Of course! It’s in our Constitution. Doesn’t it say something about The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? Or did we confuse that with something from Rules for Radicals? (more…)