Posted on By: Fred

Project Obama: A Puppetmaster or a Puppet?

Is President Obama the mastermind of the radical-left movement or merely its symbol? Actually, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the socialist project, which had been nearly a century in the making, in 2008 came to fruition, winning the presidential election and seizing power. And whether the face of the movement, Barack Obama, is indeed its leader or just a puppet of a revolutionary cabal is purely academic. Still, trying to divine the truth is an intriguing proposition. So let me take a stab at this intellectually stimulating game. And no, I’m not going to indulge in guesswork, trying to penetrate the veil of mystery surrounding Obama, a man without a past. My intention is to arrive at an answer by induction from what is a matter of public record and what is in plain view.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/project_obama_a_puppetmaster_or_a_puppet.html#ixzz1l9dvZ5hT

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Posted on By: Fred

They Mean Well. Really?

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why conservative pundits, even such stalwarts as Rush Limbaugh, when discussing the virtually inexhaustible supply of liberal follies and blunders, hasten to express their confidence that the perpetrators are “well-intentioned.” Why do conservatives hew mindlessly to the conventional line that far-left radicals are necessarily high-minded and motivated by the best of intentions?

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Posted on By: Fred

Bloomberg’s Broken Windows

In 1982, two social scientists—George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson—published an article in the Atlantic in which they argued that a city window left broken is an invitation to further disorder. Their message was as simple as it was unconventional. Sweat the small stuff (graffiti, aggressive panhandling, petty crime) and you’ll stop problems before they grow bigger.

In the three decades since, mayors and police chiefs across America have transformed their cities by taking the broken-window message to heart, especially in New York. Now Occupy Wall Street has taken a high-profile part of Manhattan and turned it into an anarchist campground worse than the Tompkins Square Park of the 1980s, when it stood for the worst of New York—encampments of the homeless and a haven for drug dealing. The OWS protesters seem to have no fear of Michael Bloomberg: A sign at one entryway warns hizzoner that if he tries to interfere, he will be the one arrested.

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Posted on By: Fred

Cheer-up, America! The Case for American Optimism

Look for moments of maximum pessimism. To the legendary value investor Sir John Templeton, this was the secret to learning how to buy low and sell high.

In recent months, I’ve been feeling the pessimism in a big way. You probably have too. Watching the scroll of headlines on cable news channels this summer, I thought I was in an overdone disaster film. Riots break out across the globe, screamed a Drudge headline. Markets were crashing. An earthquake cracked the Washington Monument. In my hands, Mark Steyn’s new book After America — a rollicking read that makes a strong case that we should prepare for the apocalypse — arrived perfectly timed with the S&P’s downgrade of the United States’ credit rating. The end, surely, seems nigh.

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