http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php/pruden/full_column/anybody_but_obama_takes_the_lead
HARDING SAID IT PRETTY WELL:
“There has grown up the idea that by some impossible magic a government can give out a bounty by the mere fact of having liberty and equality written over its door,” he said in a campaign speech from his front porch in Ohio, “and that citizenship need make no deposit in the bank of the common weal in order to write checks upon the bank. Here at home we have had too much encouragement given to the idea that a government is a something-for-nothing institution. . . . It is only in a country where the merit, capacity and worth of men and women are recognized and rewarded that merit, capacity and worth are developed. You and I, and good Americans of whatever color, blood or creed, know that the aspiration of all men is equal opportunity, and that no injustice known to man can be greater than that of the tyranny and autocracy that enslaves all men, all their ambitions and all their freedom.”
The conventional wisdom, which is usually but not always wrong, holds that Rick Perry is ahead of the field: He looks asleep, and that’s where everybody else yearns to be. The prospect of President Romney is bor-iiiing.
So far as we actually know, this reflects only the conventional wisdom of pundits, television’s talking heads and the other gasbags who always dominate the Pundit Primary. The various polls, earnest though they may be, are little more than straw polls. In the long scheme of events, straw polls taken now are not worth much. The road through the caucuses and primaries is a long one, paved mostly with killer potholes big enough to swallow in one gulp a candidate the size of Chris Christie.
Mitt Romney, like Hillary Clinton before him, seems to be the inevitable nominee, but the campaign has been a search for an alternative to the inevitable, a quest for a tastier flavor of the day/week/month. Anything but a boring grape soda called Mitt.
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/10/18/random_thoughts/print Random thoughts on the passing scene: Like so many people, in so many countries, who started out to “spread the wealth,” Barack Obama has ended up spreading poverty. Have you ever heard anyone as incoherent as the people staging protests across the country? Taxpayers ought to be protesting against having their money spent to […]
http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2011/10/18/to_live_or_die_on_the_floor/print
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sometimes sounds as if she has cast aside any attachment to reality. Responding to a bill co-authored by Rep. Joe Pitts, Pennsylvania Republican, that would prevent federal funds from going to pay for abortions under the slowly unraveling health care law critics call “Obamacare,” Pelosi said that if Republicans vote for the measure, “they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene.”
The Protect Life Act passed the House last week, but will likely die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
There are more stirrings on this fundamental social issue. The November 8 ballot in Mississippi will include Initiative 26, known as the Personhood Amendment, that says: “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148836#replies PA Police Operate in Israeli TownPA Arabs show up to harvest Jewish-grown olives in Samaria, with PA police standing watch. Palestinian Authority Arabs showed up at the Jewish village of Adei Ad on Monday to harvest olives – olives from trees that were planted and nurtured by local Jewish farmers. The PA group was […]
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148867
Russia and China Practice Loans for Oil to Bolster Chavez
Taking a risk, Russia and China are loaning Venezuela billions in hope that Hugo Chavez can hold out.
Russia and China learned the hard way in Libya and Iraq that oil deals signed with a despotic regime can backfire if that regime was ousted. Now they appear to be taking the same gamble in Venezuela.
Last week Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin visited Caracas to sign a loan agreement to finance arms purchases from Russia including Sukhoi fighter jets, combat helicopters, and small arms. This comes on top of a previous $2.2 billion loan for Russian tanks and anti-aircraft missiles.
