December is now over in Iraq, and it looks to be the month with the second fewest American fatalities since the beginning of the war in March 2003. It was also the best month in terms of Iraqi civilian deaths, Iraqi police and military deaths, and US wounded.

23 American troops were killed in Iraq in December. That compares to 112 in December 2006. The first month of the war, when many marveled how few casualties we were suffering, saw 65 US deaths.

Only February 2004 saw fewer Americans killed (20). But that month was, unfortunately, something of an anomaly at the time - 47 were killed the month before and 52 the month after.

But December 2007 was a continuation of a clear trend. October, November and December, with a total of 96 deaths, were the safest three months in the entire war. That rolling three month total has been coming down for the last 6 months, basically since General Petraeus’ “surge” strategy was implemented.

Annualizing December gives a mortality rate of 252 out of about 130,000 average troops, or 0.194%. That’s not that different for a demographically comparable group of US civilians - in 2005 the CDC reported a mortality rate of 0.143% for males aged 25-34 (that’s all races, black males in the same age group had a 2005 mortality rate of 0.253%).

And its worth noting the causes of death. 14 of the 21 deaths in December were attributed to “hostile action” (the rest were “accidents”, or “illness”). According to a recent Forbes article, the most dangerous job in America is “Fishers and Related Workers” with a workplace fatality rate of 0.142%. That’s about 10% more dangerous than workplace (i.e. hostile action) fatalities in Iraq.

Looked at another way, 14 Americans were killed by hostile action in Iraq in December, 11 American police officers were killed here “in the line of duty” in the same month.

George Will on McDonalds:

McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85 percent of its U.S. restaurants — average annual sales, $2.2 million — are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s has made more millionaires, and especially black and Hispanic millionaires, than any other economic entity ever, anywhere.

Looks interesting:

From today’s NYT:

Coming of age in the 1960s, I heard the word “fascist” all the time. College presidents were fascists, Vietnam War supporters were fascists, policemen who tangled with protesters were fascists, on and on. To some, the word smacked of Hitler and genocide. To others, it meant the oppression of the masses by the privileged few. But one point was crystal clear: the word belonged to those on the political left. It was their verbal weapon, and they used it every chance they got.

Forty years have passed and not much has changed, complains Jonah Goldberg, a conservative columnist and contributing editor for National Review. Leftists still drop the “f word” to taint their opponents, be they global warming skeptics or members of the Moral Majority. The sad result, Goldberg says, is that Americans have come to equate fascism with right-wing political movements in the United States when, in fact, the reverse is true. To his mind, it is liberalism, not conservatism, that embraces what he claims is the fascist ideal of perfecting society through a powerful state run by omniscient leaders. And it is liberals, not conservatives, who see government coercion as the key to getting things done.

Good interview with the author here.

An interesting paper from Queen’s University (Canada) economics professor Gregor Smith: 

Abstract

During the past fifteen years Japan has experienced unprecedented, high unemployment rates and low (often negative) inflation rates. This research shows that these outcomes were predictable as part of a stable, readily recognized Phillips curve.

A graph from the paper:

…coincidence?…

Some nice quotes from the WSJ reminding us which of our two major political parties has historically been the party of racial oppression.

Blacks “are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both of body and mind.”
–Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Co-founder of the Democratic Party (along with Andrew Jackson)
President, 1801-09

“I hold that the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good–a positive good.”
–Sen. John C. Calhoun (D., S.C.), 1837
Vice President, 1825-32
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

If blacks were given the right to vote, that would “place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored Negro in the country upon an equality with the poor white man.”
–Rep. Andrew Johnson, (D., Tenn.), 1844
President, 1865-69

“Resolved, That the Democratic Party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1852

Blacks are “a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race.”
–Chief Justice Roger Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1856
Appointed Attorney General by Andrew Jackson in 1831
Appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Andrew Jackson in 1833
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Andrew Jackson in 1836

“Resolved, That claiming fellowship with, and desiring the co-operation of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the paramount issue–and repudiating all sectional parties and platforms concerning domestic slavery, which seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the Territories; and whose avowed purposes, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the ’slavery question’ upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservatism of the Union–NON-INTERFERENCE BY CONGRESS WITH SLAVERY IN STATE AND TERRITORY, OR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA” (emphasis in original).
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1856

“I hold that a Negro is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this government was made on the white basis; made by the white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others.”
–Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (D., Ill.), 1858
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1860

“Resolved, That the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1860

“The Almighty has fixed the distinction of the races; the Almighty has made the black man inferior, and, sir, by no legislation, by no military power, can you wipe out this distinction.”
–Rep. Fernando Wood (D., N.Y.), 1865
Mayor of New York City, 1855-58, 1860-62

“My fellow citizens, I have said that the contest before us was one for the restoration of our government; it is also one for the restoration of our race. It is to prevent the people of our race from being exiled from their homes–exiled from the government which they formed and created for themselves and for their children, and to prevent them from being driven out of the country or trodden under foot by an inferior and barbarous race.”
–Francis P. Blair Jr., accepting the Democratic nomination for Vice President, 1868
Democratic Senator from Missouri, 1869-72
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

“Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten states, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1868

“While the tendency of the white race is upward, the tendency of the colored race is downward.”
–Sen. Thomas Hendricks (D., Ind.), 1869
Democratic nominee for Vice President, 1876
Vice President, 1885

“We, the delegates of the Democratic party of the United States . . . demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese Empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1876

“No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and that even carefully guarded.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1880

“American civilization demands that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1884

“We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1900

“The repeal of the fifteenth amendment, one of the greatest blunders and therefore one of the greatest crimes in political history, is a consummation to be devoutly wished for.”
–Rep. John Sharpe Williams (D., Miss.), 1903
House Minority Leader, 1903-08

“Republicanism means Negro equality, while the Democratic Party means that the white man is supreme. That is why we Southerners are all Democrats.”
–Sen. Ben Tillman (D., S.C.), 1906
Chairman, Committee on Naval Affairs, 1913-19

“We are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who can not be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1908

“I am opposed to the practice of having colored policemen in the District [of Columbia]. It is a source of danger by constantly engendering racial friction, and is offensive to thousands of Southern white people who make their homes here.”
–Sen. Hoke Smith (D., Ga.), 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Interior by Grover Cleveland in 1893

“The South is serious with regard to its attitude to the Negro in politics. The South understands this subject, and its policy is unalterable and uncompromising. We desire no concessions. We seek no sops. We grasp no shadows on this subject. We take no risks. We abhor a Northern policy of catering to the Negro in politics just as we abhor a Northern policy of social equality.”
–Josephus Daniels, editor, Raleigh News & Observer, 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Navy by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
Appointed Ambassador to Mexico by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933
USS Josephus Daniels named for him by the Johnson Administration in 1965

“The Negro as a race, in all the ages of the world, has never shown sustained power of self-development. He is not endowed with the creative faculty. . . . He has never created for himself any civilization. . . . He has never had any civilization except that which has been inculcated by a superior race. And it is a lamentable fact that his civilization lasts only so long as he is in the hands of the white man who inculcates it. When left to himself he has universally gone back to the barbarism of the jungle.”
–Sen. James Vardaman (D., Miss.), 1914
Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, 1913-19

“This is a white man’s country, and will always remain a white man’s country.”
–Rep. James F. Byrnes (D., S.C.), 1919
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941
Appointed Secretary of State by Harry S. Truman in 1945

“Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when–and only when–brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy–it ought to be sufficient to convince even the blacks themselves.”
–William Jennings Bryan, 1923
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1896, 1900 and 1908
Appointed Secretary of State by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

“Anyone who has traveled to the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. . . . The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to have thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to advance the true reason–the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples. . . . The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to intermarriage of the two races–there can be no quarrel there.”
–Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1925
President, 1933-45

“This passport which you have given me is a symbol to me of the passport which you have given me before. I do not feel that it would be out of place to state to you here on this occasion that I know that without the support of the members of this organization I would not have been called, even by my enemies, the ‘Junior Senator from Alabama.’ ”
–Hugo Black, accepting a life membership in the Ku Klux Klan upon his election to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Alabama, 1926
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937

“Mr. President, the crime of lynching . . . is not of sufficient importance to justify this legislation.”
–Sen. Claude Pepper (D., Fla.), 1938
Spoken while engaged in a six-hour speech against the antilynching bill

“I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union.”
–Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Senate Majority Leader, 1977-80 and 1987-88
Senate President Pro Tempore, 1989-95, 2001-03, 2007-present
His portrait stands in the U.S. Capitol.

President Truman’s civil rights program “is a farce and a sham–an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill.”
–Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69

“There is no warrant for the curious notion that Christianity favors the involuntary commingling of the races in social institutions. Although He knew both Jews and Samaritans and the relations existing between them, Christ did not advocate that courts or legislative bodies should compel them to mix socially against their will.”
–Sen. Sam Ervin (D., N.C.), 1955
Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, 1971-75

“The decline and fall of the Roman empire came after years of intermarriage with other races. Spain was toppled as a world power as a result of the amalgamation of the races. . . . Certainly history shows that nations composed of a mongrel race lose their strength and become weak, lazy and indifferent.”
–Herman E. Talmadge, 1955
Democratic Senator from Georgia, 1957-81
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, 1971-81

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”
–Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957

“I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race.”
–Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961
The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.

“I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes.”
–Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I’m not going to use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that’s made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods.”
–Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002

“The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans.”
–James Webb, 1990
Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia

“Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”
–Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984

“I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation.”
–Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

“You cannot go into a Dunkin’ Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
and
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy.”
and
“There’s less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, 1987-95
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

Bonus quote:
“It has of late become the custom of the men of the South to speak with entire candor of the settled and deliberate policy of suppressing the negro vote. They have been forced to choose between a policy of manifest injustice toward the blacks and the horrors of negro rule. They chose to disfranchise the negroes. That was manifestly the lesser of two evils. . . . The Republican Party committed a great public crime when it gave the right of suffrage to the blacks. . . . So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the menace of the rule of the blacks will impend, and the safeguards against it must be maintained.”
–Editorial, “The Political Future of the South,” New York Times, May 10, 1900)

Really crazy Clinton ad:

And who paid for those xmas presents Senator?

From IBD:

…(A) panel at the IPCC conference titled “A Global CO2 Tax” took a step that will have a more lasting impact than an empty agreement. It urged the U.N. to adopt taxes on carbon dioxide emissions that would be “legally binding to all nations.”

And guess who would be hit the hardest? That’s right, the tax, if levied, would put an especially high burden on the U.S.

“Finally, someone will pay for these costs” related to global warming, Othmar Schwank, a global warming busybody from Switzerland, told Sen. James Inhofe’s office. We imagine Schwank, a panel participant, took great glee in saying the U.S. and other developed nations should “contribute significantly more to this global fund.”

Schwank estimates the CO2 tax would generate “at least” $10 billion to $40 billion a year in revenues; but anyone who believes that has not paid attention. Even in nations that have a legitimate and more-or-less-limited government, such as ours, bureaucratic programs and taxes always grow bigger than first expected…

…The driving force of the environmental movement is not a cleaner planet — or a world that doesn’t get too hot, in the case of the global warming issue — but a leftist, egalitarian urge to redistribute wealth. A CO2 tax does this and more, choking economic growth in the U.S. and punishing Americans for being the voracious consumers that we are.

Eco-activists have been so successful in distracting the public from their real intentions that they’re becoming less guarded in discussing their ultimate goal.

“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” Emma Brindal, a “climate justice campaign coordinator” for Friends of the Earth Australia, wrote Wednesday on the Climate Action Network’s blog…

In 2006 the UN’s operating budget was $4.19B (of which the US contributed 82%).  Now they’re talking about a “tax” that would send $10-40B sloshing through their coffers. Which side of the climate change debate is supposed to be hopelessly tainted by financial interests?

In the US all federal tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives, the institution most directly elected by the people. Yet the UN, where voting is done by sovereign states, most of which are not even democracies, can apparently conjure up for itself a new tax to increase its revenues 2-10x.

On a related note, a choice quote from last week’s Bali conference:

“When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it. This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not.”

Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, UK Policy Studies Institute

From CNN:

Former President Bill Clinton said Monday that the first thing his wife Hillary will do when she reaches the White House is dispatch him and his predecessor, President George H.W. Bush, on an around-the-world mission to repair the damage done to America’s reputation by the current president — Bush’s son, George W. Bush.

“Well, the first thing she intends to do, because you can do this without passing a bill, the first thing she intends to do is to send me and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again,” Clinton said in response to a question from a supporter about what his wife’s “number one priority” would be as president.

I wonder what “open for business” means coming from a guy like Clinton.

Does it mean the party in the White House will again be soliciting illegal political contributions from foreign governments? Of perhaps it means the US will return to the Clinton-era policy of looking the other way as US-funded international bureaucrats undertake massive financial frauds like the Iraq Oil for Food program and Cash for Kim?

Maybe Clinton will tell Beijing his wife will follow his example in side-stepping the Defense Technology Security Administration, allowing the Chinese to bulk up their military with illegal purchases of our missile, satellite, and super computer technology.

He’ll probably just tell his foreign admirers that the fire sale of American freedoms, influence, and security is back on.

If you have an hour and want to learn more about the Austrian School of Economics (Menger, Hayek, von Mises), listen here.

Great article in New Jersey’s The Record.

No politician would ever run on a platform that increased unemployment, caused parents to have fewer children or made Americans sicker and poorer. Yet, that is exactly what will result if New Jersey passes paid family leave, yet another government-sponsored benefit program…

…But the experience of Europe tells us otherwise. According to various sources, Europe’s unemployment rate, at 8.5 percent, is almost twice that of the United States. Moreover, Europeans are simply poorer than we are, with the European gross domestic product per capita at $29,400, versus $43,500 in the United States…

…A recent Wall Street Journal article on the Swedish disability program noted that Swedes are the healthiest people in the world – and yet the country has the world’s highest rate of disability. Assar Lindbeck, one of Sweden’s best-known economists, notes that the social programs have made it acceptable to live off others and not to work…

…The experience of Europe tells us mandated programs result in fewer jobs, declining families and eroding work ethics. The free market approach may not satisfy politicians’ need to say they solved a problem. Rather, it works quietly, over time, creating multiple solutions, with some working better than others. Over time, the bad ones are rejected and the good ones are free to further evolve.

Read the whole thing.