More solid economic reporting you can, um, take to the bank: 'Gold is not backed by anything, unlike the US dollar.'

Double Ivy-League degreed Chicago Democrat thinks America needs to toughen up.



Toughen up, buttercups!

September 30 ...

In 1777 the Congress of the United States -- forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces -- moved to York, PA. In 1791 Mozart's opera The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna, Austria. In 1846 dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in his Boston office. In 1882 the world's first commercial hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, WI. In 1935 the Hoover Dam was dedicated. In 1938 British and French leaders decided to appease Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. In 1946 an international military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes. In 1949 the Berlin Airlift came to an end. In 1954 the first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus, was commissioned by the Navy. In 1962 James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi, defying segregation. In 1993 an estimated 10,000 people were killed when an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 6.4 struck southern India.

In a piece titled "Did the Founding Fathers Screw Up?" American Prospect editor-at-large Harold Meyerson writes, in part:

In the age of globalization, governmental systems are pitted, inescapably and willy-nilly, against one another. Over the past decade, it's grown harder to argue that American democracy has been delivering for its people as well as China's Leninist capitalism has for the Chinese. By the measure of economic growth, a smart authoritarian elite beats a self-negating democratic republic four days out of five. The world looks at us and sees only contentious repose.

Americans angered by the failures of our political system should be angered at the failures of our governmental system as well. The problem isn't that we're too democratic. It's that we're not democratic enough.

Read the whole piece -- and try not to let your jaw hit the floor.

September 29 ...

In 1547 novelist, poet, and playwright Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcala de Henares, Spain. In 1758 Admiral Horatio Nelson was born in Norfolk, England. In 1789 the US War Department established a regular army with a strength of several hundred men. In 1829 London's reorganized police force, which became known as Scotland Yard, went on duty. In 1918 Allied forces scored a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line during World War I. In 1943 General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice aboard the British ship Nelson off Malta. In 1978 Pope John Paul I was found dead in his Vatican apartment just over a month after becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1979 Pope John Paul II became the first pope to visit Ireland as he arrived for a three-day tour. In 1982 seven people in the Chicago area died after unwittingly taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. In 1988 the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL, the first manned space flight following the Challenger disaster. In 2000 the privately built SpaceShipOne rocket plane hurtled past the edge of earth's atmosphere, completing the first stage of a quest to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize. In 2005 the US Senate confirmed John Roberts to be the next Chief Justice of the United States.

Nile Gardiner:

Obama's declining presidency has become synonymous with the image of big government, from spiralling budget deficits and out of control federal spending to massive taxpayer funded bailouts and increasing regulations on businesses and healthcare.
...

The United States is undergoing one of the biggest political revolutions in its post-war history, and perhaps the most important since Ronald Reagan, with an emphatic rejection of the idea that government knows best when it comes to handling key domestic issues, especially relating to the economy. President Obama, whose administration has practically worshipped at the trough of big government, looks spectacularly out of touch with a clear majority of the American people. The highly interventionist liberal experiment of the last two and a half years has been a spectacular failure, with 14 million Americans out of work, sliding consumer confidence, collapsing house prices, and falling stock markets.

This is why Barack Obama could well end up being the last big government president of the United States, a nation that simply cannot afford the lavish excesses of an imperious presidency that drains the pay-checks of hard-working Americans with impunity and reckless abandon. The historic loss of faith in the federal government under Obama has combined with growing support across America for a return to the limited government ideals of the Founding Fathers. Nothing is ever certain in politics, but it is hard to see how a future president can shamelessly adopt the same borrow, bailout and spend approach zealously adopted by the current administration, without extremely damaging consequences for the United States.

September 28 ...

In 551 BC thinker and philosopher Confucius was born in Qufu, China. In 48 BC after landing in Egypt, Pompey the Great was assassinated on orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt. In 1066 William the Conqueror invaded England to claim the English throne. In 1542 Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego. In 1781 American forces, backed by a French fleet, began the Siege of Yorktown, VA, which eventually ended the Revolutionary War. In 1787 Congress voted to send the just-completed Constitution of the United States to state legislatures for their approval. In 1850 flogging was abolished as a form of punishment in the US Navy. In 1920 eight members of the Chicago White Sox were indicted for throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, in what was called the "Black Sox" scandal. In 1924 two US Army planes landed in Seattle, having completed the first round-the-world flight in 175 days. In 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union agreed on a plan to partition Poland. In 1989 deposed Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos died in exile in Hawaii at age 72. In 1991 jazz great Miles Davis died in Santa Monica, CA at age 65. In 1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat signed an accord to transfer much of the West Bank to the control of its Arab residents. In 2000 the Al-Aqsa Intifada begins after Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. In 2004 terrorists in Iraq released two female Italian aid workers, Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, and five other hostages.

Victor Davis Hanson:

Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom of aging societies. Whether at Byzantium during the Nika Riots or in bread and circuses Rome, when the public expects government to provide security rather than the individual to become autonomous through a growing economy, then there grows a collective lethargy.
...

Somewhere around 1985 in California I noticed that my students were hoping for a state job first, a federal job second, a municipal job third -- and a private one last. Around 1990, suddenly two sorts of commercials were aired everywhere: how to join a law suit by calling a law firm's 1-800 number or how to get a free power chair, scooter, or some other device by calling the 1-800 number of a health care company that would do the paper work for Social Security on your behalf.
...

All affluent societies believe that they are just too rich not to be able to afford another regulation, just one more moralizing indulgence, yet again an added entitlement. But as we see now in postmodern America, idle 250,000 acres of farmland for a tiny fish, shut down an entire oilfield, put off a new natural gas find in worry over possible environmental alteration, add a cent to the sales tax, mandate yet another prescription drug entitlement not funded, or offer yet another in-state tuition discount to an illegal alien -- and the costs finally equate to an implosion as we see in Greece or California. And as we know from past collapses, a new entitlement in a matter of minutes becomes an institutionalized right whose withdrawal causes far more anguish than its prior nonexistence. Justinian learned that when he sought to cut the civil service and almost lost his throne.

September 27 ...

In 1779 John Adams was named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain. In 1854 the first great disaster involving an Atlantic Ocean liner occurred when the steamship Arctic sank with 300 people aboard. In 1928 the US said it was recognizing the Nationalist Chinese government. In 1939 Warsaw, Poland surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. In 1940 the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis was set up. The military and economic pact was for 10 years between Germany, Italy and Japan. In 1942 Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performed together for the last time, at the Central Theater in Passaic, NJ, prior to Miller's entry into the Army. In 1954 Tonight! hosted by Steve Allen, made its debut on NBC TV. In 1964 the Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy. In 1979 Congress gave final approval to forming the Department of Education, the 13th Cabinet agency in US history. In 1989 Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc. agreed to a $3.4 billion cash buyout by Sony Corp. In 1994 more than 350 Republican congressional candidates gathered on the steps of the US Capitol to sign the "Contract with America," a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House. In 2004 North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon announced that North Korea had turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons.

George Will:

Unfortunately, soon after 1932, New Deal progressivism washed over the courts, which became derelict regarding their duty to protect economic liberty. Courts deferred to governments eager to experiment with economic micromanagement. Inevitably, this became regulation in the service of existing interests. And regulatory agencies often succumbed to "regulatory capture," whereby regulated businesses and professions dominate regulatory bodies.

September 26 ...

In 1774 Johnny Appleseed was born in Leominster, MA. In 1777 British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution. In 1789 Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first secretary of state, John Jay was appointed the first chief justice of the US, and Edmund Randolph was appointed the first United States Attorney General. In 1888 poet T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, MO. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission was established. In 1918 the final Allied offensive on the western front during WWI, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, began against the Germans. In 1944 Operation Market Garden, which landed troops behind German lines in the Netherlands, failed.In 1950 UN troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans. In 1952 philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist George Santayana died. In 1955 following word that President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, the New York Stock Exchange saw its worst price decline since 1929. In 1960 the first televised presidential debate, between candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, took place in Chicago. In 1980 the Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the "freedom flotilla" of Cuban refugees that had begun the previous April. In 1986 William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the US, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member. In 2000 Slobodan Milosevic conceded that his challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, had finished first in Yugoslavia's presidential election and declared a runoff -- a move that prompted mass protests leading to Milosevic's ouster. In 2001 in Kabul, Afghanistan, the abandoned US Embassy was stormed by protesters in the largest anti-Amercian protest since the September 11 terror attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.

William Galston:

If you don't think ideological perceptions matter in American politics, you need read no further. If you do and you're a Democrat, there's something to worry about. Even as the terms of the political debate in Washington, in the eyes of many Democrats, have moved steadily to the right, the electorate is increasingly likely to see itself as ideologically closer to the Republican Party than to Democrats. Unless Obama and Democrats can find a solution to this riddle --and find one fast -- they will be contesting the 2012 election on forbidding terrain.

September 25 ...

In 1690 the earliest of the multi-page American newspapers, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, published its first -- and only -- edition in Boston. In 1775 American Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen was captured by the British as he led an attack on Montreal. In 1789 the first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became known as the Bill of Rights.) In 1897 novelist William Faulkner was born in New Albany, MS. In 1890 President Benjamin Harrison signed a measure establishing Sequoia National Park. In 1919 President Wilson collapsed after a speech in Pueblo, CO, during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1957 with 300 US Army troops standing guard, nine black children, forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, AR because of unruly white crowds, were escorted to class. In 1973 the three-man crew of the US space laboratory Skylab 2 splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean after spending 59 days in orbit. In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court. In 1995 Ross Perot announced he would form a new Independence Party that would field its own White House candidate and would try to be the swing vote in congressional races. In 2004 US warplanes, tanks, and artillery repeatedly hit at Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq.

Charles Krauthammer:

The authentic Obama is a leveler, a committed social democrat, a staunch believer in the redistributionist state, a tribune, above all, of "fairness" -- understood as government-imposed and government-enforced equality.

That's why "soak the rich" is not just a campaign slogan to rally the base. It's a mission, a vocation. It's why, for all its gratuitous cynicism and demagoguery, Obama's populist Rose Garden lecture on Monday was delivered with such obvious -- and unusual -- conviction.

He's returned to the authenticity of his radical April 2009 "New Foundation" address (at Georgetown University) that openly proclaimed his intent to fundamentally transform America.

Good. There's something to be said for authenticity. A choice, not an echo, said Barry Goldwater. The country will soon choose, although not soon enough.

35 years ago on this date in 1976, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery. (She was released after 22 months after receiving clemency from President Carter.)

Also on this date, 20 years ago in 1991, Theodor Seuss Geisel -- Dr. Seuss -- died at the age of 87.