Good news: Democratic President Barack Obama invoked the words of a Republican White House predecessor Tuesday.
Bad news: Those words came from Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" speech, delivered in 1910 in Osawatomie, Kan., nearly a year and a half after his presidency ended.
President Obama chose that little town as the appropriate setting for his own speech echoing Roosevelt's fiery condemnation of concentrated wealth.
Praising Roosevelt's "vision," Obama re-asserted Washington's obligation -- and right -- to combat "the gaping inequality" produced by " 'you're on your own' economics." Decrying the "breathtaking greed of a few," Obama said Roosevelt "knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest."
Obama repeated Roosevelt's warning that "our country means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy ... of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him."
So who, under the Roosevelt-Obama concept, guarantees that opportunity?
The federal government, of course.
Hey, how are all those other federal guarantees working out for you?
OK, so without practical government regulation of business, economic Darwinism will run amuck. But at this point, regulation run amuck is strangling our gasping economic recovery -- and Obama wants more.
Ponder this ominous passage, wisely omitted by Obama, from that Roosevelt speech: "We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community."
Whoa, "Roughriders."
So who decides whether to "permit" gaining a fortune -- and whether it "represents benefit to the community"?
Again, the federal government.
No wonder "T.R." didn't win the Republican presidential nomination he sought in 1912. No wonder he lost that year's general election when he ran as the Progressive (aka Bull Moose) Party nominee.
And no wonder the "progressive" Obama picked that call to class-warfare arms to quote.
Too bad he doesn't instead quote, and heed, these words uttered by other former Republicans -- while they were still presidents:
This, in a country $15 trillion in debt with out-of-control entitlements systematically starving every other national need. This obsession with a sock-it-to-the-rich tax hike that, at most, would have reduced this year’s deficit from $1.30 trillion to $1.22 trillion is the classic reflex of reactionary liberalism — anything to avoid addressing the underlying structural problems, which would require modernizing the totemic programs of the New Deal and Great Society.
As for those structural problems, Obama has spent three years on signature policies that either ignore or aggravate them:
●A massive stimulus, a gigantic payoff to Democratic interest groups (such as teachers, public-sector unions) that will add nearly $1 trillion to the national debt.
●A sweeping federally run reorganization of health care that (a) cost Congress a year, (b) created an entirely new entitlement in a nation hemorrhaging from unsustainable entitlements, (c) introduced new levels of uncertainty into an already stagnant economy.
●High-handed regulation, best exemplified by Obama’s failed cap-and-trade legislation, promptly followed by the Environmental Protection Agency trying to impose the same conventional-energy-killing agenda by administrative means.
Moreover, on the one issue that already enjoys a bipartisan consensus — the need for fundamental reform of a corrosive, corrupted tax code that misdirects capital and promotes unfairness — Obama did nothing, ignoring the recommendations of several bipartisan commissions, including his own.
In Kansas, Obama lamented that millions “are now forced to take their children to food banks.” You have to admire the audacity. That’s the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you’ve been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection!
Why? Because, you see, he bears no responsibility for the current economic distress. It’s the rich. And, like Horatius at the bridge, Obama stands with the American masses against the soulless plutocrats.
This is populism so crude that it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chavez. But with high unemployment, economic stagnation and unprecedented deficits, what else can Obama say?
He can’t run on stewardship. He can’t run on policy. His signature initiatives — the stimulus, Obamacare and the failed cap-and-trade — will go unmentioned in his campaign ads. Indeed, they will be the stuff of Republican ads.
As the most powerful man in the world, there is always a heightened sense of security around Barack Obama.
Wherever he goes, the U.S president is surrounded by a small army of security agents, armour-plated vehicles and police officers to ward off any possible attacks against him.
But at the annual Army-Navy American college football game yesterday, the president could not have been in a safer place.
Obama was pictured enjoying the game at Fedex Field in Landover, Maryland, where he was surrounded by thousands of soldiers and Naval officers, no doubt helping to relax
his normally tense security team.
The game is played between the teams of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
The president worked the Navy sidelines before the game, shaking hands and even getting a hug from the mascot — a goat wearing a Santa hat.
He then performed a left-handed coin toss at midfield, which the Army won and elected to receive.
And as the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, the president cannot afford to show favouritism to either team.
So he adhered to presidential tradition by spending a half on each side of the field.
In a formal half-time ceremony, he switched from Navy to Army with an escorted walk on the 50-yard line from sideline to sideline.
As always, the pageantry was breathtaking, starting with the Army Corps of Cadets' march onto the field three hours before kick-off.
Then the Brigade of Midshipmen - the student body of the U.S Naval Academy - took their turn.
Both sides taunted each other in good spirits.
'Why so quiet?' was the Navy chant after their team took a 14-0 lead — and beach balls and even an inflatable snake were batted while slick scoreboard videos poked fun at one
academy or the other.
The Midshipmen struck first on an 4-yard touchdown run by Proctor — one of those 54 seniors — with 1:06 to go in the first quarter. They went up by 14 early in the second when running back Alexander Teich — another senior who will train to become a Navy SEAL upon graduation — plowed his way in from 10 yards out.
But Army (3-9) was steadfast, bulling their way back down the field, cutting the deficit in half on a keeper by quarterback Trent Steelman that saw him go 34 yards untouched into the end zone. Malcolm Brown followed suit three minutes later, tying the game at 14 with a 5-yard run.
Then, after the cannon sounded and Steelman ran toward his quadrant of bouncing Cadets just before halftime, it appeared the dark cloud could be lifted over Army football with a statement victory.
"That's why it was such a heartbreaker for this team," Steelman said. "We felt, and we knew, we were the better team to day. Just to be in it like that and know the game is right there in your hands, it's a tough one to swallow."
Mitch Stringer/US Presswire
President Obama watches the game at FedEx Field today.
The two teams would trade blows in the third, bringing the score to 21-21 heading into the final quarter when the Midshipmen finally took control. A pair of field goals from kicker Jon Teague — the second from 44-yards out with 10:26 to play — made up the difference.
On Army's last-gasp effort, a fourth-and-7 from the Navy 25-yard line with less than five minutes to play, Steelman ran the option and Niumatalolo did not watch. He couldn't bear to see whether the blitz hit home.
"Shows what kind of coach I was, I wasn't even looking," Niumatalolo said. "I was praying, I had my head down, I didn't even see what happened."
Steelman was stuffed, handing Navy the ball back. Army would see just one more offensive play — a 29-yard completion that landed 61 yards short of the end zone.
"Those guys deserve to feel better than they do right now," Army coach Rich Ellerson said of his graduating players.
After the locker room scene, after a congratulatory speech from the secretary of the United States Navy, Niumatalolo sat at the podium and made it only a few short words into the first question before he had to choke back tears.
He thought about the graduating Black Knights who gave Navy everything they could handle. He thought about his seniors, who, in four years, never knew what a loss to Army.
President Barack Obama is playing politics by trying to delay a decision on its development until after the 2012 election.
It’s sad that Obama would rather play politics and play to his liberal, environmental base than approve the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would carry an estimated 700,000 barrels of oil a day from the sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
A decision won’t be made on the pipeline until 2013. The delay is intended to allow the project’s developer to figure out a way around Nebraska’s Sandhills, an ecologically sensitive region that supplies water to eight nearby states.
We believe ample time has been given to determine this and get the project moving.
The project has been studied exhaustively over a three-year period, including two environmental impact studies.
Obama claims he is not playing politics with this issue.
Of course he is.
If Obama were to approve the development of this pipeline, he risks angering his tree-hugging friends and risks losing contributions from a lot of liberal donors.
The majority of Americans believe that we need to depend less on unstable or unfriendly foreign countries for oil.
Allowing the development of this pipeline meets those criteria.
Opponents say it would bring “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract, as well as the risk of spills.
That argument is weak since that energy would be expended in Canada and because there are numerous pipelines already crisscrossing this country with minimal problems.
They want to have fights over an oil pipeline that has nothing to do with whether or not Americans, on average, ought to see their taxes go up $1,000 in 2012. That’s what gives Washington a bad name,” Mr Carney said.
The 1,700-mile pipeline is only one of the so-called “riders” that have been attached to the legislation by Republican leaders, who faced a potentially damaging revolt from conservative lawmakers over the payroll tax plan and needed to find a way to appease them.
Tying the pipeline to the payroll tax cut appeals to Republicans because it could potentially split the Democratic party. Indeed, two powerful liberal constituencies have been at loggerheads over the Keystone XL project, with environmentalists fearing contamination and construction unions desperately wanting the jobs.
Some Democrats show signs of wavering. “We’ve got to get a deal done,” said Emanuel Cleaver, a Democratic congressman from Missouri, on Friday. “I do think that if I had one minute to vote I’d probably vote to accept the deal, but it’s not good government.”
The harder line taken by Republican leaders has complicated and lengthened the negotiations over the payroll tax cut extension, which were supposed to wrap up by December 16.
As well as dealing with the new Republican demands, negotiators still have to sort out the thorny question of how to pay for the new stimulus. Democrats are under pressure to drop their insistence on a millionaires’ tax, while Republicans mainly want to cover the cost by curbing the pensions and pay of federal workers.
There are some areas of compromise in terms of generating revenues, such as imposing higher fees of loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage groups, and launching new spectrum auctions. But the biggest question in US fiscal policy remains unresolved, with little time to spare.
Got a letter in the mail yesterday that had a cancellation stamp on the envelope that read: "North Pole-Zip 191910, December 2011." The letter was a long one, and I will abbreviate it for readers. It was signed: "Very truly yours, Santa H. Claus."
Santa Claus' Christmas Celebration goes all the way through the first weekend of January; every weekend is chock full of Christmas activities including story time, breakfasts and dinners with Santa himself. Forbes magazine named the town as one of the "World's Top Christmas Destinations," and the 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree opened Santa Claus' holiday season when it stopped there Nov. 21 on its way to Washington, D.C.
"It is so magical at Christmastime and you tend to forget that in July," said St. Nick's Restaurant manager Larry May, who is in charge of the Pancake Breakfast with Santa and the Traditional Christmas Dinner with Santa. "You get to relive the joys of childhood through the eyes of your children."
Missouri's Tecklenburg family enjoyed Dinner with Santa and stayed at Santa's Lodge the first weekend of December.
"My wife works with someone who came here last year and told her how awesome it is," Jason Tecklenburg said while waiting in line for Santa photos with his wife, Kelly, and children, Olivia, 7, and Samuel, 4, all of Union, Mo. "We're looking at lights, the whole gamut of what they've got going on, cookies with Santa, Candy Castle."
From 7 to 10 a.m. each Friday, Saturday and Sunday through the third weekend of December, the days start with Pancake Breakfast with Santa. Then, at 9 a.m. each weekend day, including Friday, Story Time with Santa takes place at Santa's Candy Castle. Also, starting at 9 a.m. on the same days, children can write a letter to Santa at the workshop for Santa's Elves next to the historic, fully restored 1935 Santa Statue on the grounds of the Santa Claus Museum.
A contingent of volunteer "elves," in addition to the museum's regular volunteers, answers letters from all over the world, such as from Sri Lanka, Germany, Russia and Lithuania.
Holiday World Theme Park co-owner and matriarch Pat Koch, who speaks fluent German, translates and writes back to the letter writers from Germany. The town's post office averages 10,000 letters a year, but has years when it receives as many as 40,000 letters. The "elves" answer letters up to Dec. 22.
"So, really, it takes an army of volunteers to get those letters answered and postmarked back," Holiday World and Santa Claus Museum communications manager Nathan Ryder said. "Santa's elves stay very, very busy."
The main cost to the museum is postage; otherwise, the Koch Development Co. donates printing, letters and envelopes. The museum relies solely on donations from the public for postage costs.
"Some parents include a dollar or two to cover postage, which is very helpful," Ryder said. "Sometimes someone sends money without a letter just to help out with postage."
Other December-only attractions include Santa Claus' Great Big LED Tree of Lights; Santa Claus Land of Lights: Family Christmas Light Adventure inside open-year-round Lake Rudolph Campground and RV Resort, which tells the story of Rudolph; Christmas Lake Village Festival of Lights, which is nine miles of themed residential light displays; Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire and Christmas Wood Carvings at Santa's Candy Castle; Santa Claus Arts and Crafts Show at the American Legion; Visit with Santa at the Santa Claus Christmas Store; and Buffalo Run pioneer village, buffalo farm and grill/gift shop Holiday Open House in Lincoln City, Ind., which is near Santa Claus. Buffalo feedings take place at 11 a.m. on weekends.
Highland, Ill., couple John and Wendy Sanders, along with their 22-year-old daughter, Jayme Crundwell, stopped first at Buffalo Run the first weekend of December on their way to Santa Claus.
"It's a good drive, a good day trip," said Wendy Sanders, who learned how to throw a tomahawk from Buffalo Run owners Michael and Kathleen Crews' son, Kenton, 14.
The Crewses live on the farm's 100 acres, formerly owned by Abraham Lincoln's relative Dennis Hanks, related to Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, and the property sits across the street from Lincoln's Boyhood Home, which is open to the public.
