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	<title>Obama&#039;s Enemies List: A Growing List of Obama&#039;s Enemies &#187; Nancy Pelosi</title>
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	<description>Are you on OBAMASHITLIST?</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:25:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Proposed ‘Pelosi Provision’ of the STOCK Act unveiled yesterday.</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/08/proposed-pelosi-provision-of-the-stock-act-unveiled-yesterday/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/08/proposed-pelosi-provision-of-the-stock-act-unveiled-yesterday/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AlvarezDana</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[credit-card]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[from-the-rules]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[legal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[senator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[senator-dianne]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speaker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speaker-pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stock act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[whether-or-not]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/08/proposed-pelosi-provision-of-the-stock-act-unveiled-yesterday/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The STOCK Act &#8211; which is short for the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act; honestly, I wish that they&#8217;d stop coming up with cute names for these. This particular one is not really obnoxious, but some of them have really reached for the acronym &#8211; started to get really pushed through last year, once it came out that Members of Congress, including then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, were profiting unduly from legal insider trading* . I call it &#8216;legal&#8217; not in the sense that there was nothing wrong with said insider trading; I call it &#8216;legal&#8217; because Congress exempted itself from the rules that the rest of us have to follow. The distinction is important. It&#8217;s perfectly legal for, say, Senator Dianne Feinstein to buy into a biostock company just before the company picks up a fat government subsidy check, even if she knew about it ahead of time. That&#8217;s the problem . Anyway, one of the more egregious things being done &#8211; again, involving then-Speaker Pelosi in at least one case &#8211; was the practice of offering Members of Congress a favorable position from which to buy into an IPO. Pelosi in particular used this practice to buy into a Visa IPO , right before credit card legislation that hampered Visa g ot somehow sidetracked in Congress for a year ; she ended up making a killing on the (again, &#8216;LEGAL&#8217;) deal. And, naturally, the amendment that would ban this practice in the future has been named the &#8216;Pelosi Provision&#8217; by Republicans. By all accounts, the former Speaker is unhappy about this; I am uncertain whether or not that she is as unhappy about this as I am that the woman made several million unfortunately-legal dollars off of her former position to manipulate and delay legislation, but I somehow doubt it. The bill is largely expected to pass, by the way: the real fireworks will be in conference. If the thing gets defanged, it will be there &#8211; so keep an eye out for that particular problem. It wouldn&#8217;t be the first time that a troublesomely reformist piece of legislation got revised out of existence, while out of camera range&#8230; Moe Lane ( crosspost ) PS: Politico reports that the STOCK Act&#8217;s original sponsors Louise Slaughter and Tim Walz are unhappy that the Republican majority has taken away their bill and are now busily reshaping it. Alas for Rep. Slaughter, it&#8217;s not exactly Eric Cantor&#8217;s fault that she was incapable of getting it passed in the first place&#8230; ]]></description>
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		<title>The Audacity of Obama&#8217;s Secularism</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/07/the-audacity-of-obamas-secularism/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/07/the-audacity-of-obamas-secularism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FlodinCeglinski711</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Kerry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Global Warming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religious]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/07/the-audacity-of-obamas-secularism/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ The secularists of the French Revolution regarded the Roman Catholic Church as the last obstacle to atheism's final triumph. Blurting this out, the French dilettante Denis Diderot proposed to his fellow revolutionaries that they strangle the last priest with the "guts of the last king." Under this spirit, the forces of secularism picked up speed in the 18th and 19th century, went into overdrive in the 20th, and now floor it in the 21st. Barack Obama is the one these revolutionaries have been "waiting for." He is the stealth radical, soft in temperament but hard in thought, who seeks to use religiosity without religion to purge all traces of God from public life. Not wanting to repeat John Kerry's electoral debacle -- which even Nancy Pelosi attributed to the leaden senator's undisguised secularism -- Obama worked hard to con the religious into voting for him in 2008. He "valued" religion, particularly the votes of the religious. On his campaign web page, "people of faith" enjoyed their own special slot, a mere two tabs down from the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community." Obama cast himself as a "post-partisan" politician on matters of the spirit. He found fawning dupes in the religious community to provide him with pulpits and platforms for faux-pensive addresses on his newly conceived "connection between politics and religion." This pretentious throat clearing amounted to nothing more than Alinskyite advice to his fellow Democrats that they exploit religion for secularist and socialist purposes.]]></description>
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		<title>Retiring Blue Dog Democrats Say Pelosi Reason They’re Leaving Congress…</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/06/retiring-blue-dog-democrats-say-pelosi-reason-theyre-leaving-congress/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/06/retiring-blue-dog-democrats-say-pelosi-reason-theyre-leaving-congress/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:22:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>BrennanShawna20</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[breed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[million-worth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rerun-helps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speaker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the-relative]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the-speaker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[their-breed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weasel wonk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[win-control]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/02/06/retiring-blue-dog-democrats-say-pelosi-reason-theyre-leaving-congress/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thanks, Nancy. Via Politico: In 2010, Nancy Pelosi starred in $75 million worth of negative ads that helped Republicans win control of the House and wrest the speaker’s gavel from her. Now, the relative handful of moderate Democrats left say the fear of a rerun helps explain why so many of their breed are headed ]]></description>
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		<title>Michelle Malkin Endorses Rick Santorum</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/30/michelle-malkin-endorses-rick-santorum/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/30/michelle-malkin-endorses-rick-santorum/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:06:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Markisacopyrightthief</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Al Gore]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cap and Trade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[earth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[follow-the-pro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreign-policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[frontrunners]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gingrich]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pennsylvania]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[santorum]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/30/michelle-malkin-endorses-rick-santorum/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Newt Gingrich has effectively called on Rick Santorum to drop out of the presidential race, yet the former Pennsylvania senator continues to poll in the double digits and shows no sign of quitting. Why are so many conservatives dissatisfied with a choice between Gingrich and Mitt Romney? Michelle Malkin's Santorum endorsement is a good primer. [Santorum] didn't cave when Chicken Littles in Washington invoked a manufactured crisis in 2008. He didn't follow the pro-bailout GOP crowd - including Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich - and he didn't have to obfuscate or rationalize his position then or now, like Rick Perry and Herman Cain did. He also opposed the auto bailout, Freddie and Fannie bailout, and porkulus bills. Santorum opposed individual health care mandates - clearly and forcefully - as far back as his 1994 U.S. Senate run. He has launched the most cogent, forceful fusillade against both Romney and Gingrich for their muddied, pro-individual health care mandate waters. He voted against cap and trade in 2003, voted yes to drilling in ANWR, and unlike Romney and Gingrich, Santorum has never dabbled with eco-radicals like John Holdren, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi. He hasn't written any "Contracts with the Earth." Santorum is strong on border security, national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement. Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values - not just in word, but in deed. Personally, I think Santorum's big government votes under Bush ought to be given more weight. Republicans tend to be much less fiscally conservative when they hold power or act on behalf of parochial concerns, so candidates who resist that temptation have more credibility than those who don't. Santorum has also given little indication of having learned from the foreign policy blunders of the Bush years. That said, it is a respectable case, especially when compared to the contortions others must go through to justify supporting their preferred candidate. It's also a reminder of why Santorum is going to continue to collect a lot of votes from conservatives uncomfortable with the frontrunners' records. ]]></description>
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		<title>Pelosi: “Tea Party Has Taken Us Away From Kind of Progress Country Deserves”…</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/28/pelosi-tea-party-has-taken-us-away-from-kind-of-progress-country-deserves/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/28/pelosi-tea-party-has-taken-us-away-from-kind-of-progress-country-deserves/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:00:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Markisacopyrightthief</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[achieving-equal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[becoming-law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[est]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lilly]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[produce-the-progressive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subject]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tomorrow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weasel wonk]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/28/pelosi-tea-party-has-taken-us-away-from-kind-of-progress-country-deserves/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fear not, Pelosi says if you give her $3 she can &#8220;produce the progressive change&#8221; we need. From: Nancy Pelosi (dccc@dccc.org) Subject: Lilly Ledbetter Date: January 28, 2012 1:18:37 PM EST Drew &#8211; Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act becoming law and an important step to achieving equal pay for ]]></description>
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		<title>Our Bill Clinton</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/26/our-bill-clinton/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/26/our-bill-clinton/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Onoshobishobi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ronald Reagan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[charm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[closet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conservatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[governor-chris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[insufferable]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[liberal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prophet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ronald reagan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[white]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[white-house]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/26/our-bill-clinton/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ WASHINGTON -- How long have I been saying it? At least for 15 years, but in private I have been aware of it longer. Newt Gingrich is conservatism's Bill Clinton, but without the charm. He has acquired wit but he has all the charm of barbed wire. Newt and Bill are, of course, 1960s generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl hopping. It is not as egregious as Bill's, but then Newt is not as drop-dead beautiful. His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out. If I have heard of some, you can be sure the Democrats have heard of more. Nancy Pelosi's intimations are timely. Newt up against the Prophet Obama would be a painful thing to watch. He might be deft with one-liners but it would be futile. There are independent and other uncommitted voters to be cultivated in 2012 -- all would be unmoved by Newt's juggling of conservative shibboleths. Newt and Bill, as 1960s generation self-promoters, share the same duplicity, ostentatious braininess, a propensity for endless scrapes with propriety and the law. They are tireless hustlers. Now Newt is hustling my fellow conservatives in this election. The last time around he successfully hustled conservatives in the House of Representatives and then the conservatives on the House impeachment committee. He blew the impeachment and in fact his role as Speaker. He backed out in disgrace. He now says Republicans in the House were exhausted with his great projects. Nonsense, I knew many of them, and they were exhausted with his atrocious leadership. He is not a leader. He is a huckster. Today Mitt Romney has 72 Congressional endorsements. Newt has 11. Possibly the 11 have yet to meet him. Now he has found his key for the hustling conservative electorate. He is playing the liberal media card and saying he embodies conservative values. Like Bill with his credulous fans, Newt is hoping conservatives suffer amnesia. Possibly some do. Perhaps they cannot recall mere months ago when this insufferable whiz kid was lambasting the great Congressman Paul Ryan for "right-wing social engineering" -- more evidence of Newt's not-so-hidden longing for the approval of the liberal media. After his Ryan moment Newt's campaign was a death wagon, and it will be so again -- hopefully before he gets the nomination. Conservatives should not climb onto his death wagon. He is a huckster, and I for one will not be rendered a contortionist trying to defend him. I did so in his earliest days and learned my lesson. After Newt's and Bill's disastrous experiences in government both went on to create empires, Bill in philanthropy and cheap thought, Newt in public policy and cheap thought. As an ex-president Bill has wrung up an unprecedented $75.6 million since absconding from the White House with White House loot and shameless pardons. I do not know how much Newt has amassed, but he got between $1.6 million to $1.8 million from Freddie Mac, and he lobbied for Medicare Part D while receiving, according to the Washington Examiner 's Tim Carney, "Big Bucks Pushing Corporate Welfare." Now after a lifetime in Washington he is promoting himself as an outsider. Contending with Newt for the Republican nomination are Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney. All three are truer conservatives than Newt. I like them all. But John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, and John Lehman, Ronald Reagan's secretary of the navy, are for Mitt, and they are solid conservatives. Governor Chris Christie and the economic pundit Larry Kudlow laud Mitt on taxes, on spending, and on attacking crony capitalism. Kudlow calls Romney "Reaganesque." Ann Coulter seems to loathe Newt. Back in 1992 I appeared with Chris Matthews on some gasbag's television show. Was it Donahue? At any rate, I said candidate Clinton had more skeletons in his closet than a body snatcher. It was a prescient line then, and I always got a laugh. I can apply the same line today to Newt, though he has skeletons both inside and outside his closet. Conservatives should not be surprised by the scandals that lie ahead, if they stick with him. Those of us, who raised the question of character in 1992, were confronted by an indignant Bill Clinton, treating the topic as a low blow. To listen to him, character was the "c" word of American politics. It was reprehensible to mention it. By now we know. Character matters. Paul, Santorum, and Romney have it. Newt has Clinton's character. ]]></description>
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		<title>Pelosi’s Spokesman: Nancy Pelsoi Doesn’t Know Anything At All</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/26/pelosis-spokesman-nancy-pelsoi-doesnt-know-anything-at-all/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/26/pelosis-spokesman-nancy-pelsoi-doesnt-know-anything-at-all/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:15:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>LanaGalloway</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[confirmation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[granny]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[her-keen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[simply-familiar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spokesman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/26/pelosis-spokesman-nancy-pelsoi-doesnt-know-anything-at-all/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Thanks for the confirmation. He clarifies that Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants is simply familiar with the publicly-available facts of the ethics case, and based on her keen intellect, she can therefore predict it&#8217;s enough to sink him. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office&#8230; Read more: Pelosi&#8217;s Spokesman: Nancy Pelsoi Doesn&#8217;t Know Anything At All ]]></description>
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		<title>#SOTU Recap: SSDD (Or, Something Sounded Familiar)</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/25/sotu-recap-ssdd-or-something-sounded-familiar/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/25/sotu-recap-ssdd-or-something-sounded-familiar/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:15:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>LogemannCid284</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[both-baffling]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[hearts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[martha stewart]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/25/sotu-recap-ssdd-or-something-sounded-familiar/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ Listening to Barack Obama&#8217;s State of the Union Speech last night was like listening to just about every one of his SOTU speeches&#8230; Actually, with the exception of Obama&#8217;s promise to sign a law making Congressional insider trading illegal [Martha Stewart may have some resort recommendations for Nancy Pelosi], listening to Obama&#8217;s SOTU speech really was listening to his other speeches, as this RNC video points out. Oddly enough, there is no writers&#8217; strike going on, so the lack of originality is both baffling and amusing at the same time. __________________ “Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.” Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labor, 1918 ]]></description>
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		<title>Conservatives, Gingrich, and Grace</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/conservatives-gingrich-and-grace/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/conservatives-gingrich-and-grace/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:00:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>LanaGalloway</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[circumstances]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/24/conservatives-gingrich-and-grace/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ With Speaker Gingrich having won South Carolina, and now polling ahead of Gov. Romney in Florida and nationally, there is one question that keeps popping up. What is it about Newt Gingrich that conservatives voters find appealing? Rush Limbaugh has at least part of the answer : To those of you in the Republican base, this isn&#8217;t complicated. Newt is winning. He is on a momentum roll here because he can articulate conservatism, that and he&#8217;s willing to take it to Obama. I have said for the longest time that whoever does that, whoever articulates conservatism with passion, with love, cause that&#8217;s love of country, with good cheer. Conservatism is inclusive. Somebody who can articulate it happily, proudly, with good cheer cannot be beat. Rush is right, Newt articulates conservatism. He does it very well and he rarely misses an opportunity to do so in grandiose fashion. This in and of itself isn&#8217;t that big of a deal. In all honesty, articulating conservatism isn&#8217;t all that hard, especially when our focus is leaning more and more towards conservative populism. What makes this interesting is that Newt has managed to win by articulating conservatism while having a considerable record of apostasies. Newt isn&#8217;t an empty vessel as Rush suggests. No, he is a vessel filled to the brim with ex-wives and mistresses. Newt is a man who sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi, who favored an individual mandate, who, for all intents and purposes, lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So what is it about Newt that allows the conservative voter to so easily look beyond these betrayals? I attempted to answer this question in a series of tweets last night. To my surprise, Ben Domenech gathered up my tweets and put them in this morning&#8217;s Transom. To even greater surprise, Peter Robinson then quoted me in a post at Ricochet . In &#8220; The Transom &#8221; this morning, Ben Domenech quotes Aaron Gardner , providing a big part of the answer: From @Aaron_RS: “I think much of Newt&#8217;s appeal is that he is on a journey of redemption, and the people want to believe they are as well. His conversion, and the broader idea of Americans being able to bounce back. His story fits the mood. You add the redemption theme to Newt being able to appear confident and communicate ideas to people, and you have a result like SC. Mitt, on the other hand, has no redemption story because to repudiate any past position is to admit he was wrong. In the end, Newt is more optimistic while being honest and that goes a long way in building trust. Mitt isn&#8217;t getting that benefit.” Romney, in other words, is the diligent older brother, the one who has behaved himself all his life and just can&#8217;t understand why he doesn&#8217;t get more credit. Newt? Newt&#8217;s the prodigal son&#8211;a sinner like everyone else. The idea of redemption being a compelling force in this cycle isn&#8217;t really all that far fetched. The last decade has left many people wanting redemption. Whether it is because of the war taking its toll, the economy tanking, or the less than subtle feeling that Orwell&#8217;s boot is stomping on our human faces forever; the reality is that a lot of people in America are looking for some sort of redemption, political, economic, and even spiritual. And they are getting it vicariously through Newt&#8217;s candidacy. To be clear, Gingrich is not the redeemer, he is but one of the many seeking redemption. And that, when looked at in the right light, is humanizing and, as odd as this may sound, akin to humility. His candidacy revolves around a symbiotic relationship with the angst the voters are expressing. This was made clear last night when the audience was disallowed the opportunity to provide instantaneous feedback. Newt was thrown off his game by not being able to interact with the audience. Add to this the fact that Newt isn&#8217;t simply seeking redemption, he is willing to fight for it by articulating conservatism, and you start to see why his likability is increasing and his negatives are dropping. We won&#8217;t know until later whether this story ends with actual redemption, both personal and national, or if it ends with another betrayal. That said, the circumstances that exist today have made people less apprehensive towards taking this leap of faith. As for myself, I haven&#8217;t decided whether I can support Newt, or that I could defend him for four years. But like Rush said in the transcript I linked at the beginning: I trust the Republican base. That&#8217;s who I trust. I trust the Republican voters. I&#8217;m totally confident with them. They are the people in this audience. Why wouldn&#8217;t I trust them? They&#8217;ll figure this out. They&#8217;re not a bunch of brain-dead, mind-numbed robots. This is how democracy works. It&#8217;s how representative Republicanism works. It&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to hold onto, for crying out loud. Aaron B. Gardner ]]></description>
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		<title>Rick Santorum, Bad Economist</title>
		<link>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/18/rick-santorum-bad-economist/</link>
		<comments>http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/18/rick-santorum-bad-economist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>concernedcoloradoan</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.obamashitlist.com/2012/01/18/rick-santorum-bad-economist/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ During Monday's Republican debate ( transcript ) in Myrtle Beach, SC, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich offered a bold vision for allowing Americans to voluntarily contribute the "employee portion" of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal investment accounts, while the "employer portion" would continue to be paid into the Social Security Trust Fund -- a fund that only Al "Lockbox" Gore and Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA) think actually holds anything like real money. Gingrich made accurate and important points that such a change would hugely benefit the country: Now, what does it do? It gets the government out of telling you when to retire. It gets the government out of picking winners and losers. You save — it makes every American an investor when they first go to work. They all have a buildup of an estate, which you do not get in the current system. And the estimate by Martin Feldstein at Harvard, who was Reagan's chief counsel and economic advisors, was you actually reduce wealth inequality in America by 50 percent over the next generation because everybody becomes a saver and an investor and you have a universal investing nation. Former Senator Rick Santorum responded: [T]here's nobody for the last 15 years that's been more in favor of personal savings accounts than I have for Social Security. But we were doing that when we had a surplus in Social Security. We are now running a deficit in Social Security. We are now running a huge deficit in this country. Under Congressman Gingrich's proposals, if he's right, that 95 percent of younger workers taken, there will be hundreds of billions of dollars in increased debt, hundreds of billions of more debt being put on the books, which we can't simply — we're going to be borrowing money from China to fund these accounts, which is wrong. I'm for those accounts, but first we have to get our fiscal house in order, balance this budget and then create the opportunity that Newt wants. But the idea of doing that now, is fiscal insanity. Santorum is epitomizing what Frederic Bastiat would have called "a bad economist." In his seminal 1848 essay on the difference between the bad economist, who considers only "that which is seen," and the good economist who "takes into account… those effects that must be foreseen," Bastiat presaged Monday's battle between Santorum, who didn't offer a vision past tomorrow, and Gingrich, who reminded us that whatever his other faults he remains the deepest thinker on the podium: Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil. It's true: The United States has a huge budget deficit and debt. Some of that is already due to Social Security because its payout requirements now exceed its income from payroll taxes. It's about to get much worse. According to USA Today , based on the 2011 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Annual Report: Social Security's long-term shortfall grows about $1.2 trillion annually — a sign of an imbalance between the number of young workers and older beneficiaries, according to the Social Security trustees' annual reports. The $21.4 trillion unfunded liability represents the difference between all taxes that will be paid and all benefits received over the lifetimes of everyone in the system now — workers and beneficiaries alike. This is the measure corporations and insurance companies use to assess financial adequacy of their retirement programs. The number differs from the $6.5 trillion, 75-year shortfall that Congress uses to assess Social Security's health. Congress's 75-year figure is smaller because it counts taxes collected from future workers -- those toiling from 2050 to 2085, for example -- but doesn't count the benefits they will get in the 76th year and beyond. In addition, Congress reduces its estimate of Social Security's shortfall by counting the $2.6 trillion in IOUs the government has issued to the program's trust fund. However, the government's audited books, issued by the Treasury Department , don't count that money as having any value to the federal government because it is a debt the government has issued to itself -- like paying off a car loan with a credit card. In other words, if you believe Newt Gingrich's math -- and Santorum didn't challenge it -- that his plan of allowing voluntary personal accounts would make Social Security solvent in the long run, then Santorum is worried about a relatively paltry (by President Obama's spending standards) couple hundred billion dollars of additional annual deficit for some number of years in order to save as much as $20 trillion over the long term. And like all bad economists (including Keynesians and Democrats), Santorum ignored the massively pro-growth aspects of Gingrich's proposal: The multi-trillion dollar increase in privately saved wealth will provide a major adrenalin boost to the American (and world) economy, causing increased employment and GDP growth, translating into higher tax revenues that will offset at least part of the increased deficit that a "static" model would predict. Santorum makes another major mistake, subject to the same criticism some have made of Republican attacks on Romney's Bain Capital: he's using an argument that we would expect from, and that should be left to, Democrats. Democrats are deeply antithetical to anything that would increase the number of Americans who have a financial interest in understanding government regulation, intervention, spending, and taxation. They are, as economist Don Luskin puts it, part of the real political conspiracy, namely the coordinated effort by the left to keep you poor and stupid . Do you think the nation would have tolerated Dodd-Frank if another 10 or 20 or 50 million people of voting age suddenly realized that federal regulation actually impacted them rather than just "the one percent"? How about cap-and-trade, or the out-of-control NLRB, FCC, or EPA? How about Obamacare? No, a nation of investors is a nation without a Democratic majority and don't think Nancy Pelosi and friends don't know it. If Rick Santorum were as much a free-market capitalist as he claims to be, he would, rather than making Obama's arguments for him, be championing Newt's personal Social Security account plan while pressing the Speaker a little harder on details of how to deal with the short-term budget impact of increasing long-term economic liberty and national fiscal solvency. It is a trade manifestly worth making, bad economists notwithstanding. ]]></description>
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