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Peter Wehner comments on James Ceaser’s appellation for the political change that produced the 2010 election results.
In his excellent essay in the Claremont Review of Books, titled “The Great Repudiation,” Professor James Ceaser wrote
“The results of the 2010 election changed the landscape of American politics. … In fact, 2010 is the closest the nation has ever come to a national referendum on overall policy direction or “ideology.” … There is only one label that can describe the result: the Great Repudiation.”
To understand just how much the landscape of American politics changed, consider (as John does) yesterday’s events — a day in which the Democratic majority in Congress averted across-the-board tax increases and enacted new tax breaks for individuals and businesses and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was forced to pull an almost $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill, replacing it (presumably) with a Continuing Resolution.
These were major substantive achievements by Republicans — and enormous substantive concessions by President Obama and his party. We have the Great Repudiation to thank for them.
And here’s James Ceaser’s article, from the Claremont Institute.
…The midterm election is one of the distinctive features of America’s constitutional system. By allowing an expression of voter sentiment separate from the presidential selection, midterms help supply the Congress with concrete political support for checking the president’s power. A check of this kind seems to be exactly what the public had in mind in 2010, ending liberal hopes that Obama’s presidency would inaugurate a “new” New Deal. …
…Elections in America serve two functions: a “formal” function of appointing the personnel for constitutional offices, which takes place in every election; and an “informal” function of signaling what the people want, which takes place only in certain elections, when national public sentiment has congealed into a common message or theme. The situation in Washington reflects a conflict stemming from the results of these two functions. On the formal side, the array of forces puts neither party in full control. Democrats hold the presidency, Republicans now firmly control the House, and the Senate will likely swing in ways no one can foresee. The Democrats, who now derive their power from this formal situation and rely on officials chosen in elections conducted two and four years ago, will emphasize their offices’ constitutional authority. They represent for the moment the conservative position. On the informal side, Republicans boast not just of their seats and numbers in Congress, but of the majority’s weight and power as expressed in the clear message delivered on Election Day. This claim cannot, of course, cancel the formal array of power-we are a nation governed by laws and institutions-but there is nothing amiss in reminding those in office that they cannot stray too far, too long from the majority’s wishes without straining a democratic system’s authority. Although the informal function should not be overvalued, it should not be undervalued either.
The Republicans’ case, resting on this informal claim that can always be disputed, is already under assault. Along with the Democrats’ open campaign to persuade the public that the election did not mean what Republicans thought it did, there is an allied effort underway, far more subtle, to undermine and weaken the GOP position. It comes from a group of self-proclaimed wise men who present themselves as being above the fray. These voices, acting from a putative concern for the nation and even for the Republican Party, urge Republicans to avoid the mistake of Obama and the Democrats of displaying hubris and overinterpreting their mandate. With this criticism of the Democrats offered as a testimony of their even-handedness and sincerity, they piously go on to tell Republicans that now is the time to engage in bipartisanship and follow a course of compromise. The problem with this sage advice is that it calls for Republicans to practice moderation and bipartisanship after the Democrats did not. It is therefore not a counsel of moderation, but a ploy designed to force Republicans to accept the overreaching policies of the past year-and-a-half. It is another way to defend Obama’s “change.” If Republicans are to remain true to the verdict of 2010, the message of this election cannot be merely containment; it must be roll back.
Peter Schiff says that the Fed has no other tricks left to artificially stimulate the economy. Worse yet, the quantitative easing will be bringing us inflation.
…For years, the Fed has been able to prevent market forces from correcting our growing economic imbalances by inexorably pushing rates lower. This happened in 1991, 2001, and most notably in 2008. These easing campaigns succeeded in boosting the economy in the short term by greatly increasing the amount of debt held by both the private and public sectors. As such, these episodes have allowed our economy to delay and magnify the ultimate reckoning.
Just like a junkie who requires ever-increasing doses of heroine to achieve the same high, the Fed has needed to take rates ever lower to boost the economy after its previous stimulants had faded.
To stimulate after the bursting of the housing bubble (which itself resulted from the low interest rates used to juice the economy following the bursting of the dot-com bubble), the Fed lowered interest rates to practically zero. At that point, rates could go no lower. However, when that stimulus failed, the Fed decided to bring on the heavy artillery in the form of “quantitative easing,” or as it is known in the vernacular, “printing money to buy government debt.”
…However, the Fed’s plan backfired. The selling pressure on long-term bonds is overwhelming the Fed’s buying pressure. Spiking rates (which move inversely to price) are powerful evidence that the bond bubble has finally burst. The Fed threw everything but the kitchen sink at the bond market to force yields lower, yet they rose anyway. If bond prices failed to rise given such a Herculean effort to lift them up, there can be only one direction for them to go: down.
…What lies ahead is a new era of rising interest rates, soaring consumer prices, increasing unemployment, economic stagnation, and lower living standards. Instead of stimulating the economy, quantitative easing and deficit spending will prove to be a lethal combination. …
In Contentions, Michael Totten points out Gideon Rachman’s comment: WikiLeaks dispels many conspiracy theories about US intentions.
Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times says WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange deserves a medal rather than prison. “He and WikiLeaks have done America a massive favour,” he writes, “by inadvertently debunking decades-old conspiracy theories about its foreign policy.”
…Rachman points out that many rightists in China and Russia, and leftists in Europe and Latin America, assume that whatever American foreign-policy officials say in public is a lie. I’d add that Arabs on both the “left” and the “right” do, too. Not all of them, surely, but perhaps a majority. I’ve met people in the Middle East who actually like parts of the American rationale for the war in Iraq — that the promotion of democracy in the Arab world might leech out its toxins — they just don’t believe the U.S. was actually serious.
And let’s not forget the most ridiculous theories of all. Surely somewhere in all these leaked files there’d be references to a war for oil in Iraq if the war was, in fact, about oil. Likewise, if 9/11 was an inside job — or a joint Mossad–al-Qaeda job — there should be at least some suggestive evidence in all those classified documents. If the U.S. government lied, rather than guessed wrong, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, or if NATO invaded Afghanistan to install a pipeline, this information would have to be written down somewhere. The State and Defense department bureaucracies are far too vast to have no records of what they’re up to. …
In Hot Air, Allahpundit blogs about more beneficial information from WikiLeaks.
No foolin’. So fulsomely slavish to the cause have our progressive icons become that their propaganda now makes even the Castros blush. Keep on rocking, “reality-based community.”
Incidentally, this story comes from a Wikileaks document. Second look at Assange?
[T]he memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so “disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room”.
Castro’s government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it “knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”…
The cable describes a visit made by the FSHP to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in October 2007. Built in 1982, the newly renovated hospital was used in Michael Moore’s film as evidence of the high-quality of healthcare available to all Cubans. …
Ed Morrissey has a post on an ironic turn of events.
The man who heralds himself as the vanguard of radical transparency has finally found an opacity he can support — himself. Julian Assange’s legal team has demanded an investigation into the leak of documents from Sweden’s investigation of rape allegations after the Guardian reported on them over the weekend. This is, of course, a Schadenfreude-tastic moment — but shouldn’t take away from the seriousness of the issue …
…Defendants facing criminal charges have the right to a presumption of innocence. Nations have the right to expect that their internal systems for communication will remain secure, whether that be for diplomatic or military purposes. Not all transparency is beneficial, a lesson Assange appears to be learning the hard way.