George Will at the Inaugural Disinvitation Dinner

Herbert Croly, preeminent moral preener

A century ago, Herbert Croly published “The Promise of American Life,” a book — still in print — that was prophetic about today’s progressives. Contemplating with distaste America’s “unregenerate citizens,” he said that “the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities.” Therefore, Croly said, national life should be a “school” taught by the government: “The exigencies of such schooling frequently demand severe coercive measures, but what schooling does not?” Unregenerate Americans would be “saved many costly perversions” if “the official schoolmasters are wise, and the pupils neither truant nor insubordinate.”

Progressives and the growing dependency agenda

From President Empty Suit, who knows he is the smartest guy in any room.

As John Kass said, please, just shut up.

The prospect of listening to him blah blah blah his way through three more of these annual speeches is enough to cause the nation to curl up on the floor in the fetal position and start breathing from a brown paper bag. The man is talking the country to death, and we can’t take anymore.

The State of the Union is: We need Hillary now

Most of us are tired of the Moral Preener in Chief lecturing us to death. Please, STFU.

President Gas Bag

Mockery and truculence are called for.

The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.

It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention.

It’s worse than the Oscars.

The national self-debasement begins well before the speech is under way. Members of Congress — supposedly free men and women serving as the elected representatives of the citizens of a self-governing republic — arrive hours early, camping out like spotty-faced adolescents waiting for Justin Bieber tickets, in the hope of staking out some prime center-aisle real estate that they might be seen on television, if only for a second or two, being greeted by the national pontifex maximus as he makes his stately procession into the chamber.
. . .
It will come as no surprise that the imperial model was reinstated by Woodrow Wilson, Princeton’s answer to Benito Mussolini and the most dangerous man ever elected to the American presidency, a would-be dictator who attempted to criminalize the act of criticizing the state, dismissed the very idea of individual rights as “a lot of nonsense,” and described his vision of the presidency as effectively unlimited (“The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can”). A big man needs a big show, and it is to Wilson’s totalitarian tastes that we owe the modern pageant.

Great Caesar’s Ghost: On the nauseating spectacle that is the State of the Union address (emphasis added)

“Woodrow Wilson, Princeton’s answer to Benito Mussolini” is excellent.

MUCH more mockery and truculence are called for.

Continue reading ‘SOTU 2014, from President Empty Suit’ »

Michael Munger’s blog, Kids Prefer Cheese

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)

U.S. Constitution

James M. Buchanan

Better Than Plowing (Google Books)

mutually beneficial exchange, voluntary exchange

Continue reading ‘Public Choice Explained by Michael Munger’ »

The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life….

Parliament of Whores, P.J. O’Rourke

“ZZ TOP! ZZ TOP!” by Tim Blair, The Telegraph, April 26, 2012

Election Capitol Hill Workshop: Intensive 3-day course following the 2010 Elections

photo credit: David Davies

Capitol Hill Workshop: 2010 Election is of particular interest to anyone needing more background on how Capitol Hill really works and who needs early insight into the 112th Congress and the administration.

You will leave this workshop with a solid understanding of:

• Congressional operations and the legislative process
• How public and foreign policy become law
• Congressional politics and leadership
• Congressional budgeting today
• The role of OMB in the legislative process
• Effective communication with Congress
• The new 112th Congress

Plus outstanding course materials – materials include the then-available Congressional Directory, the Training Edition of Persuading Congress, and the Training Edition of the award-winning Congressional Deskbook.

Designed for executives, federal employees GS-13 and above, military officers, supervisory personnel, and Leadership Development participants, to meet these leadership competencies: Strategic Vision, Planning and Quality; Identifying/Integrating Key Issues; Setting Work Priorities; Balancing National/Local Interests; Problem Anticipation/Adjustment; Managing Budgetary Processes; and Senior Level Communication.

November 17-19, 2010 (3 days)

Approved for 1.7 CEUs from George Mason University.


Where: Washington, DC

More details and secure online registration: ElectionCapitolHillWorkshop.com

This course and any combination of its topics can be tailored for custom on-site presentation at your location.

Capitol Hill Workshop: Politics, Policy, and Process

Intensive 3-day congressional operations workshop

Congressional decision-making is driven by politics, policy and process. In this engaging workshop, Washington-based experts discuss these 3 P’s and help you understand the complete policy-making process.
You’ll get a solid understanding of:

• Congressional operations and the legislative process
• How public and foreign policy become law
• Congressional politics and leadership
• Congressional budgeting today
• The role of OMB in the legislative process
• Effective communication with Congress
• How the media covers the Hill
• Current campaign and election trends
• How members of Congress advance their legislative, public policy and political agendas
• How personal and committee staff work
• How you can build win/win relationships with staffers

Attend a congressional hearing and see the process in action.

June 9-11, 2010, 8:30 am – 4 pm all three days.
Approved for 1.7 CEUs from George Mason University.

Where: In Washington, DC
This is a required course for the Certificate in Congressional Operations and for the Certificate in Communication and Advocacy.
For more information, including agenda and secure online registration, see CapitolHillWorkshop.com

This Thursday night is tough for me because there are so many conflicting events … I have to decide which to attend for the time-slot!

• Screening at MOMA, February 16, 2006, 8.30 pm … “Song’s Inn” (2004, China) 52 minutes, US premier.
  Directed by Yang Yun. China’s Three Gorges Dam, one of the largest dam projects in history, is scheduled to be completed by 2009. In the meantime, many villages will be flooded to accommodate its construction. This documentary reveals the effects of the dam on townspeople living in a soon-to-be-destroyed Chinese village.
  11 West 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, 212-708-9400

• Free lecture, first-come-first-seating, door opens at 6.30pm … “Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama” at the La Maison Francaise of NYU, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 … 7:00 pm, Prof. Kenneth Silver and Prof. Carol Ockman. A conversation with the guest curators of the Jewish Museum exhibition devoted to the great French actress (1844 – 1923). 16 Washington Mews, 212-998-8750
• or one of the Free Concerts at Manhattan School of Music …

decision, decisions …