Townhall: Cal Thomas: The Nixon Resignation At 40

Source:The New Democrat

It is clear that President Richard Nixon had to go and even Republicans then and now will tell you that. Perhaps even a majority of them and the only question was how that was going to happen. Somewhat voluntarily with the President resigning, or Congress forcing him out with impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. But I don't think anyone unless they actually hate the man, I mean seriously hate the man and not just saying that should get any joy from it.

The Nixon resignation ended one of the saddest and worst chapters in American history where you literally had a President and his team committing criminal acts while in office. The Chief Executive of the United States ordering criminal acts. With the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States the Attorney General John Mitchell covering up the acts. So that is the horrible part of this chapter, but how about the sad part.

I'm a loyal Liberal Democrat and I don't see Richard Nixon as evil. Without Watergate and the other criminal activities like the break ins and I understand that is a lot to leave out, sort of like saying had the 2007 New England Patriots who went 18-1 had a good defense and a strong running game they would've not only won the Super Bowl that year, but perhaps gone down as the best team of all-time with a 19-0 record. I understand all of that, but leaving aside President Nixon's weakness's and it would've depend on how the last thirty months of his presidency would've gone down, he would've gone down as a great President.

If you look at the facts that President Nixon was twenty-years ahead of everyone in the country when it came to foreign policy with Russia and China. Or that he ended our longest war the Vietnam War. Or that he was more than twenty-years ahead of his time on Welfare reform calling for Welfare to Work as early as 1969 to go along with education and job training. Or that he was already pushing for energy independence and even ahead of Jimmy Carter on that. The 2010 Affordable Care Act, a lot of the ideas in that plan come from the Nixon Administration. Expanding health insurance through the private sector and regulating private health insurers.

President Nixon wanted to reform not end the safety net in America with his New Federalism Policy. That wouldn't turned the programs over to the states and localities to run them with the resources to run them. And actually use these programs to move people out of poverty, instead of leaving them in poverty with a few more bucks. Nixon leaves his mark on Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Even if none of these former president's and the current president wants to be associated with them. And not just as it relates to executive power, but when it came to public policy as well. Because they saw that those policies actually work.

The Nixon Presidency unfortunately is a "what could've been presidency had only certain things didn't happen". But it is still an important and critical presidency and a lot of that being for positive reasons. Because of what they accomplished for the country in foreign and domestic policy, but also because of what they were working on that they didn't finish because of course of Watergate and the resignation. Which of course is President Nixon's fault and is a  presidency that not only deserves to be remembered, but respected as well.  

Townhall: Terry Jeffrey: 'Pat Buchanan Chronicles the 1960s: The Greatest Comeback'

Source:The New Democrat

When it comes to Richard Nixon's political career at least pre-White House I'm mostly interested in his career from 1961 after he just left the Vice Presidency after losing the 1960 presidential election to Senator Jack Kennedy. Up until January of 1969 when he's sworn as the 37th President of the United States. Because during this period Dick Nixon is completely out of public office either as a politician or as a public official in any office for the first time since January, 1947 when he gets sworn in as an elected U.S. Representative in the House of Representatives.

This was a very rough, but very productive time for Dick Nixon post 1962 California governor's race debacle where he lost to California Governor Pat Brown in a major landslide. So Nixon was at a point where he didn't know what to do with the rest of life. He got addicted to politics and public office his six years in Congress both in the House and Senate. And was a very hardworking and productive Vice President for President Dwight Eisenhower. And which Jack Kennedy still President going into 1963 it looked like JFK would get elected with huge Democratic majorities in Congress once again in 1964.

So what was Dick Nixon to do a man who loved political and public affairs and serving in government. What he did seeing that it would be at least a while before he would have another real shot at the presidency 1968 at the earliest. And that might of depended on who the Democratic nominee might be that year, he decided to make a lot of money as a corporate lawyer in New York. Defending and representing companies across the country and become a party man inside of the Republican Party in his spare time.

And when he wasn't doing those things he was studying current affairs inside of the United States and challenges that the country was facing and would be facing. Especially when it came to foreign policy and sort of did what would be called a world tour and meeting foreign leaders all over the world. So when he decided to run for public office again especially for president that he would be completely ready for it.

There was a PBS 1990 film from their American Experience series that chronicles all of these changes in Dick Nixon's life. That I highly suggest and a clip of that is on this post. And it shows exactly how he came back and all of the Congressional Republicans he helped out and backed in the 1966 mid-terms when House and Senate Republicans made big comebacks and the same thing in 1968 when they picked up a lot of seats again with Dick Nixon winning back the White House for the Republicans.

Townhall: Paul Greenberg: Howard Baker, Man in the Middle

Source:The New Democrat

To me at least as someone who is not a Republican Howard Baker the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee and Republican Leader who served both as Minority Leader with a Democratic President in Jimmy Carter and Senate Leader under a Republican President in Ronald Reagan is one of the last great statesman in the Republican Party. A true leader and I'll talk about his leadership later on. A true patriot someone who believed in country and governing first and always before politics.

There are so many examples of this, but go back to 1973 when a then Democratic Congress was looking at investigating the Nixon 1972 reelection campaign, as well as any involvement the Nixon Administration may of have in Watergate in other campaign violations. And the Senate took the lead in these investigations with the House coming later in their 1974 impeachment inquiry and Senate Baker at the time just starting his second term in the Senate was seen as both a Republican and Richard Nixon partisan and loyalist. Yet he serves as Ranking Member for the Republicans on the Senate select committee that investigated the Nixon reelect campaign.

And it was Senator Baker who had the most famous and I believe important line and question during that committee's investigation. Which was "what did the President know and when did he know it?" He wasn't there to defend a Republican President and his serve as President Nixon's counsel, but to find out the truth of what happened during the Nixon campaign and even what happened during Watergate. And that is how he led the Republicans on that committee and how he worked with Senator Sam Ervin the Chairman of that committee who was also a Democrat.

And then you can go up to 1977 and through the Jimmy Carter Administration where President Carter a mainstream Liberal Democrat (even from Georgia) who had huge majorities in Congress with a filibuster proof Democratic Senate in his first two years with sixty or sixty-one votes. And yet Howard Baker who had just become Senate Minority Leader the Republican Leader in the Senate in January, 1977 and who was called "President Carter's best friend in Congress", Howard Baker the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate. Because President Carter was what we call now a New Democrat a mainstream center-left Liberal. Not part of the FDR New Deal coalition or the George McGovern radical New Left that came of age in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Jimmy Carter even though he had those huge Democratic majorities in Congress both House and Senate was dealing with a Democratic Leadership especially in the House and to a certain extent in the Senate that was much more progressive than he was and much further to the Left. That when Democrats won the election going away in 1976 as far as not only winning back the White House, but retaining large majorities in Congress believed it was time to go back to the 1960s and expand the Great Society and go even further and creating large welfare state in America. But that wasn't who Jimmy Carter was and he needed Republican votes in Congress to pass a lot of his agenda to prevent Senate Republicans and Southern Democrats in the Senate from blocking his agenda. So he turned to Howard Baker for his help.

And then you can go to 1981 where Ronald Reagan is not only now President after defeating President Carter in a landslide in 1980, but thanks to Reagan Senate Republicans win back the Senate for the first time since 1952. And now control the upper half of Congress the Senate and pick up thirty seats in the House to give them a fairly large minority in the House that could work with Southern Democrats in the House as well. Senate Minority Leader Baker now becomes Senate Leader Baker and now has to lead the Senate and govern and not just his caucus. Which is not easy with a 53-47 majority where you still need sixty votes to prevent legislation from being blocked. And he was able to work with a Democratic House and get deals with Senate Democrats and President Reagan to keep the trains moving.

I see Howard Baker as Bob Dole before Bob Dole became Senate Republican Leader replacing Leader Baker who had just retired. Because they were both loyal Republicans and loyal Conservatives as their voting records in Congress suggest. But they both believed in public service and knew how to be public servants and to govern. And of course would've rather have seen different legislation than what they produced with the agreements that they would get with Democrats and even to a certain extent moderate Republicans in their caucus. But at the end of the day they knew how to govern and how to count votes. And at the end of the day they needed to produce even if that meant producing really good legislation or good legislation instead of great, than that is what they would do to prevent crisis's from happening.

Townhall: Jeff Jacoby: 'Lift the Embargo, But Liberate Cuba First'

Source:Townhall Magazine.

Source: The New Democrat

I'm in favor of lifting the American embargo on Cuba all together conditionally. And that means getting certain things from the Castro Regime in Cuba first.

That they allow their people to share the same benefits of trade that they allow their tourists and allow their people the same access to the country as they allow their tourists. And they allow their people to mingle with the tourists. Instead of trying to showcase Cuba as this beautiful paradise where people can live freely. As they are holding eleven-million Cubans prisoners and showing them the prison of a communist state.

That the Castro Regime in Cuba doesn't tax away most of the benefits from trading with America and pockets to bankroll its regime. That the money from trading with America goes to the Cuban people themselves with the government still being able to tax those benefits. Just not being able to pocket most of them. Similar to how trade tariffs work where trading between two countries goes to the people in the economy. But the governments get some, but not most of that back in taxes.

That normal travel would resume between Cuba and America. Americans would be free to travel to Cuba and go through Cuban customs. And Cubans would be allowed to travel to America and go through American customs. Or be able to leave Cuba freely from any other country instead of being held prisoner in their own country.

Cuba releases all current political prisoners not terrorists that they are currently holding. They release people that are simply being held for protesting the Castro Regime and stop arresting political prisoners in the future.

Why I take these positions? Because Cuba is the only country in the Americas that we do not trade with and that costs Americans money. Because every other country in the Americas, as well as Europe, Arabia and Asia all trade with Cuba. Money that could go to American companies and American workers for things that we would otherwise sell to Cubans.

Also the hypocrisy in the Cuban Trade Embargo because they are an authoritarian state. Well guess what we still trade with China which is still a Communist Republic. We traded with Russia when they were a Communist Republic. The Soviet Union back in the day a country of four-hundred-million people. More people than what the United States has today by the way. The People's Republic of China a country of over a billion people. What makes Cuba so special a third-world country of eleven-million people that doesn't represent any military threat to America even just ninety miles way.

You trade with authoritarian states and what happens is that people in those states get to see what your country is about and what it has to offer. How your people live and what they are about and what they are missing which is freedom. What it is like to not be a prisoner in your own country. And I agree it is not the Cuban Trade Embargo that wrecked the Cuban economy. The Communist Regime did that, but the trade embargo does not help the Cuban people which should be our number one concern when it comes to helping this country. And we can do something to help the Cuban people and give them a taste of freedom.
Source:Mango News

Townhall: Jacob Sullum: Pot, Poker, Prohibition: Do Republicans Really Want to be the Party of Unprincipled Killjoys?

Source:The New Democrat

Yesterday, Matt Welch had a column in the libertarian magazine, Reason, talking about big government paternalists on the Left.  He said that Progressives not only want to manage American's economic lives but their personal lives, as well.  Links to that article and to a post byThe New Democrat will be on this blog.  Welch was basically talking about what he sees as paternalistic and prohibitionist Progressives, people who want to outlaw fun things for Americans' own good.

Today, Jacob Sullum, an editor at Reason, had a column in Townhall talking about prohibitionist, big government, statist Republicans.  They want Uncle Sam to outlaw things that think are dangerous and deny Americans and the states the right to make these decisions for themselves.  Today's Tea Party Republicans like to talk about principles and standing by them.

Before you can stand by your principles you have to have some and you can't abandon them every time  somebody in the private sector or at the state level gets involved in activities that you personally do not like.  If you invoke a Federal solution in such cases, you are putting yourself in the position of some kind of god or something that has the moral judgement and authority to make such decisions for the entire country.  Except for Rand Paul and Rick Perry, you don't see a lot of Federalists in the Republican Party, right now.  

The paternalistic statists on the Left  want to outlaw, at the Federal level, hate speech, gambling, soft drinks, firearms, tobacco, and, perhaps, alcohol.  Some of them want to continue marijuana prohibition and, even, outlaw right-wing media. This statist wing of the Left definitely exists and is the farthest left that the left wing gets, while still believing in some form of democracy.

There are paternalistic statists on the Right as well.  If the crews of Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann ever had their way, pornography, gambling, same-sex-marriage and, perhaps, homosexuality would all be illegal at the Federal level with no provisions for options at the state level.  And, of course, marijuana would remain illegal.

Labels and principles have real meanings.  If you are going to call yourself a Federalist and a believer in individual freedom, you should know what those words mean and realize that you live in a liberal democracy where other people have the freedom to do things of which you personally do not approve. You should know, as well, that we are a Federal Republic with the police powers reserved to the fifty states by the U.S.Constitution.  If you don't, then when you put labels on yourself, you are just calling yourself names. 

Townhall: John C. Goodman: A Republican Vision For Health Care Reform

Source:The New Democrat

The thing about the Republican critique of the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, especially from the Tea Party, that has probably annoyed me the most, is the fact that they've never been able to present an alternative of their own. Even when they took back control of the House of Representatives in 2011, they offered nothing but but repeal and cut. "We'll get rid of ObamaCare or, at least try to, knowing that the Democratic Senate will block it and then we'll start over and do it again (50 times and counting)."  The Keystone Cops were not that dumb. They probably would have stopped at 10.  The GOP message seemed to be. "Let's go back to the old health insurance system, pre-2010, that left roughly fifty-million Americans without coverage and then maybe we'll come up with something better later (Please hold your breath).

Its is now 2014, another election year, with a new Congress and still the same players in charge. A Republican House and a Democratic Senate and over three years later still waiting to see the House Republican Leadership articulate an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.  Had they had that alternative, gee I don't know, maybe back in 2009-10 when they were completely out of power, when voters were saying we don't like ObamaCare yet but we don't like the old system either the  Republicans could have said, "We understand both your concerns and this is the alternative we would offer if we had the power to do it."

We have seen proposals from different Republican groups. including the Heritage Foundation and The American Enterprise Institute but without Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor in the House saying,  "This is the way we should go.  Lets assign that bill to the proper committees, have hearings, and even mark it up and maybe we'll get some House Democrats, who are worried about reelection because of ObamaCare, to join us."  But, we're still waiting for the Republican congressional leadership to articulate a health care reform plan. 

Townhall: Daniel J. Mitchell: 'Is America Doomed to Becoming a Failed European Style Welfare State'

Source:The New Democrat

One thing I tend to agree on with Progressive economists on is that there isn't any magic number to attach to how big the public sector has to be or how small it has to be that is the signal that government is too big and must be trimmed down. Before the Great Recession, America was doing very well economically for about 25 years, with a few slow-downs in between and periods of high unemployment, with our public sector to Gross Domestic Product ratio somewhere around 20 percent. The European Union as a whole did well economically also, especially Germany, with its public sector to GDP ratio around 45 percent during the same time period. And Scandinavia, among  the biggest governments in the developed world during the same period, grew well at around 65 to 70 percent.

When it comes to economic growth and the public sector, it is all about what you need government to do. What do people need to do for themselves and what do government and the people need when it comes to resources to be able to do for themselves so the society as a whole can prosper?With Scandinavia being rich in natural resources and land and with its socialist culture, it can afford expansive welfare states that come with higher taxes because it also has very small populations.

This situation is similar to Canada's but if you actually looked at the Canadian federal budget, the size of its government is not that much different fromAmerica's, the difference being that it has a much smaller national security budget and spends a lot more on public social insurance programs and on infrastructure.  Canada also has a great deal of land and is energy independent.  It also has a small population considering the vast physical size of the country.

America is different because we are rich in land and in natural resources but for whatever reason, we are still importing a hell of a lot of oil and gas when we are capable of producing all of the natural resources in the world, including oil and gas, and even though we are a country of 310 million people, we have thousands of square miles of land with very few people, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah. And we could easily produce all of the energy we need for ourselves if we just got around to doing it

My point is that a Scandinavian welfare state, considering the size of our population and the fact that we are still importing a hell of a lot of energy and have a large deficit when it comes to infrastructure, would not be the right economic model for us with those factors alone.  Since that is not the right economic model for us, it doesn't mean it can't work in other countries and has worked in other countries, but not all countries are the same and they have different needs and populations.

It's all about what government needs to do and what you need people to do for themselves and what businesses need to be productive and profitable. Once you get those factors figured out, then you get to how big the national government should be and how much it should tax to finance those operations that is consistent with strong economic and job growth, where most of the country has well-paid jobs and can pay its bills without government overtaxing it. 

Townhall: Daniel Doherty: Gallup Poll, Liberal Self-Identification on The Rise

Source:The New Democrat

I’ve sort of been sensing this since the 2006 mid-term elections that Americans have moved Left. Not far-left, but certainly in the liberal left direction after experiencing five years of the neoconservative Bush Administration with the pre-emptive War in Iraq and another unpaid for War in Afghanistan. With the 2002 Patriot Act, the Bush Administration having four years of unchecked power basically with a united Republican Congress that the country was moving away from this and wanted a check on the Bush Administration and weren’t happy with the Republican Congress.

And as a result the American voters spoke in 2006 and gave Democrats Congress back, both the House and Senate. Seven years later Democrats still hold the majority in the Senate with a 55-45 margin. Americans weren’t saying that they want to go from the neoconservative right and the religious-right, to a more socialist direction on the far-left. But that unchecked power when it goes to far is bad for the country. If I had to testify under oath whether America is a center-left or center-right country, I wouldn’t be able to answer that because I do not know for sure.

But I do know we are a country that likes our personal and economic freedoms and do not want a heavy-handed big centralized government trying to manage our lives for us. But we aren’t anti-government either. We just tend to have a skepticism for big government and only want government to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves and based on this you could make a very good case we are a center-left country. If you look at where the country is now on marijuana and the broader War on Drugs.

Or look at where America is now on privacy, gay rights and so-forth and that we aren’t calling for a big expansion of government in our economic affairs either. That Americans tend to be mainstream with their politics, but so is liberalism in its classical form. This is good news for Democrats, but is also a reminder for the Democratic Leadership when it comes to recruiting, that if you are going to recruit and back the more progressive or socialist even minded candidates, to run for office it better be in areas where they can actually win.

Lets say more far-leftist areas of the country, at least when it comes to the country as a whole, where even big government economics, where a large percentage of the population is even looking for a bigger government even at the federal level in their lives. And that will mostly be in the Northeast, Northwest and the San Francisco Bay Area. But for the rest of the country where the Democratic Party is strong, you want to have center-left Liberal Democrats representing you instead.