While complainging that the MSM (main stream media), especially the ’New York Times,’ won’t report it, Lawrence Kudlow argues that the U.S. Economy is doing very well. Kudlow points out that GDP was up 3.8% in the last quarter of last year, business investment is up 18%, and other indicators point to sustained economic growth in the future. Why does the MSM hide these facts, because to report them would mean they would have to praise Bush’s tax cuts.

Irwin Stelzer argues that the U.S. economy is doing ok. He is troubled by the impact the oil markets and the foreign exchange market can have on the U.S. Economy. He writes: "HAPPENINGS IN THE TWO GLOBAL MARKETS that do not conform to Adam Smith’s model frequently roil free-market economies such as America’s. The foreign exchange market is dominated by central banks that manipulate the value of national currencies for reasons unrelated to what we think of as natural economic forces. And the oil market is heavily influenced by a producer cartel determined to keep prices well above those that would prevail in a competitive market" Stelzer argues that America’s real GDP is reduced by 0.4% by every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil. If Foreign Exchange Markets decide to sell rather than buy U.S. Dollars this could drive the value of the dollar even lower. That scenario leads to the apocalyptic vision of Paul Craig Roberts.

The greatest pessimism about the future of the U.S. economy is expressed by Paul Craig Roberts in his article entitled,’America’s Superpower Status Coming to and End?’ Roberts argues that the U.S. economy is failing because of its inability to create jobs, especially productive middle class jobs, and because the dollar is losing its value and undermining its status as the world’s reserve currency. Roberts concludes:

"Oblivious to reality, the Bush administration has proposed a Social Security privatization that will cost $4.5 trillion in borrowing over the next 10 years alone! America has no domestic savings to absorb this debt, and foreigners will not lend such enormous sums to a country with a collapsing currency – especially a country mired in a Middle East war running up hundreds of billions of dollars in war debt. A venal and self-important Washington establishment combined with a globalized corporate mentality have brought an end to America’s rising living standards. America’s days as a superpower are rapidly coming to an end. Isolated by the nationalistic unilateralism of the neoconservatives who control the Bush administration, the United States can expect no sympathy or help from former allies and rising new powers."

As I continue to make my way through Terry Teachout’s biography of H.L. Mencken, I was stuck by the following passage (by Teachout) regarding the writer’s views on Hitler:

He had no feeling for the darkness in the heart of man. He looked at evil and saw ignorance. To him Hitler was Babbitt run amok, and he thought it inconceivable that such a buffoon could long pull the wool over the eyes of the most civilized people on earth.

This is probably something that’s already been said by someone smarter than I, but it strikes me that this is frequently a problem for liberals, both of the classical and the modern variety. They do not necessarily reject the notion of evil (although some of them do), but seem to lack the moral imagination to appreciate its true depth. One sees this in Howard Dean’s fatuous comments about "right-wing pastors," cited by Joe Knippenberg last weekend. One also sees it in John T. Flynn, my biography of whom is due out later this month. Flynn had nothing good to say about Hitler, but essentially characterized him as nothing more than a cheap demagogue--FDR (whom he also hated) with a little mustache. He simply could not envision the kind of evil that would deliberately murder millions of people. Likewise, when asked to imagine evil, the worst that Dean can come up with is the preacher at the local Baptist church.

I was going to post some links to the briefs and editorials, but it looks like Peter beat me to the punch. I do, however, have a few comments about the cases. First of all, as I have stated elsewhere, the McCreary County case really should not be close. Whatever one’s view is of the First Amendment and the scope of its prohibitions, it is obvious to any reasonable observer that the displays at issue here do not constitute "establishment" of any sort. They were historical displays that included numerous secular documents and symbols, united by a common theme about their impact on American law and government. The defendants in this case even took the unnecessary step of posting explanatory documents that informed viewers of the Commandments’ impact on American secular law. This does not offend the Constitution. The First Amendment does not forbid public officials from posting a historical display simply because some people may find the content of that display offensive.

Second, for anyone interested in reading the amicus brief filed by the Ashbrook Center and Senator Harris, I would like to point out that the brief addresses the plaintiffs’ "standing" problems at pages 4-8. I believe it is the only brief filed in this case that mentions the issue. Standing is central to any lawsuit because a plaintiff cannot sue if he or she has not been injured in some way by the defendant. The Supreme Court requires that a plaintiff show that he has actually suffered an injury, caused by the defendant, that will be remedied by the lawsuit. This is why the Supreme Court rejected Michael Newdow’s suit to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. Newdow had not been injured in any way, so his suit was dismissed and the Court did not even need to address the merits of his claims.

The death penalty decision finally puts to rest once and for all the old saying that the Supreme Court follows the election returns.

The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today on a case coming out of Kentucky in which the ACLU is arguing that the placing of the Ten Commandments as part of a "Foundations of American Law and Government" display on public property (which inlcudes the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, etc.) violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against laws "respecting an establishment of religion." Larry J. Obhof thinks this will be an easy case for the Supreme Court to decide. And here is my take on the issue, which The Columbus Dispatch published this morning.

Joe Knippenberg brings our attention to the latest outrage by the U.S. Supreme Court and posts all the links you need. I just wanted to add this comment.

The Court seems to have violated its Constitutional obligations in three ways in this case:

1st)The Court has violated the separation of powers and once again acts as a Super Legislature substituting its will for the will of our elected law makers.

2nd)The Court has violated the principle of federalism by unjustly overturning the statutes of 19 states in this case.

3rd)And perhaps most disturbing of all, the members of the Court who have signed on to the majority opinion have violated their oath of office by, once again, deferring to International opinion and citing International Courts as a standard for their decisions. The members of the Court take an oath to support/uphold the U.S. Constitution.

We saw this coming:

So what is the "new natural law"? It is the "law of nations," selectively cobbled together by judges from the opinions of their fellows all around the world, for the sake of producing results those judges find congenial.

According to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to invoke cloture is the only barrier standing between us and tyranny of the majority:

For the temporary gain of a hand-full of “out of the mainstream” judges, some in the Senate are ready to callously incinerate each Senator’s right of extended debate. Note that I said each Senator. For the damage will devastate not just the minority party. It will cripple the ability of each member to do what each was sent here to do – – represent the people of his or her state. Without the filibuster or the threat of extended debate, there exists no leverage with which to bargain for the offering of an amendment. All force to effect compromise between the two political parties is lost. Demands for hearings can languish. The President can simply rule, almost by Executive Order if his party controls both houses of Congress, and Majority Rule reins supreme. In such a world, the Minority is crushed; the power of dissenting views diminished; and freedom of speech attenuated. The uniquely American concept of the independent individual, asserting his or her own views, proclaiming personal dignity through the courage of free speech will, forever, have been blighted. And the American spirit, that stubborn, feisty, contrarian, and glorious urge to loudly disagree, and proclaim, despite all opposition, what is honest and true, will be sorely manacled.

But, of course, that’s not the most over-the-top portion of his speech; this is:

But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler’s dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law. Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. Bullock writes that “Hitler was prepared to promise anything to get his bill through, with the appearances of legality preserved intact.” And he succeeded.

Hitler’s originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

And that is what the nuclear option seeks to do to Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

This is so outrageous in so many ways that it’s hard to know where to begin. Well, here’s a place, borrowing from the spirit of Byrd’s remarks: one step away from moderate, constitutional government is demonizing your opponents, which makes it difficult to engage in regular legislative give-and-take, and makes every election a potential regime crisis. Since the election of 2000, Democrats seem to have hurled themselves headlong down this path.

James Nuechterlein offers an extremely effective skewering of the Thomas Frank thesis in this month’s First Things. Here’s his concluding paragraph:

Democrats go wrong not because they have forgotten the lessons of FDR and the New Deal, but because they have not sufficiently put those lessons behind them. Ours is the least class-ridden society in the Western world. The political economy of the 1930s is not America’s historical paradigm; it is its great exception. Democrats, of course, are not entirely ignorant of that. They now address themselves to middle-class interests, but their middle class is still a working class that simply has a few more dollars in its pocket. They have not fully learned the lesson of exceptionalism: that America is the quintessential bourgeois society. We are, for better and worse, middle class and middlebrow right down to our bones. And their failure to see that is what’s the matter with the Democrats.