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Former Congressman David Stockman also headed Reagan's Office of Management and Budget. Not of the Reagan White House Office, but the Office of the entire United States. Here's what he said about the failed budget negotiations:
"Fiscal governance in Washington is totally kaput. They never pass an annual budget resolution and enforcement plan, which was taken as a sacred duty back in the day; and there are never even annual appropriations bills for the mere 25% of the budget still subject to the Congressional “power of the purse”.
Instead, what occurs is a perennial string of short-term Continuing Resolutions (CRs) followed by an 11th hour, 3000 page pork-ridden “Omnibus Appropriations” bill that no one has read and which gives log-rolling (i.e. more domestic for more defense) a new definition.
In short, the debt ceiling was the only fiscal control mechanism left. And even that has been neutered time after time in the last decade by the hideous, flat-out lie that if the Treasury on any given day is one dollar short of being able to cover all of its due bills it must default on each and every one of them including interest payments, thereby destroying the credit of the United States. Yada, yada.
Finally, that lie was being put to the test and would have been eviscerated sometime next week. Yet after a lifetime on the public teat, Kevin McCarthy like his two GOP predecessors surrendered to the Doomsday Machine because he works for the GOP wing of the Swamp, not the voters, current and future.
And he did so while expectorating the most risible of lies: Republicans are changing the culture and trajectory of Washington—and we’re just getting started.
Not close. Not in the ballpark or even the catcher’s box behind home plate.
The deal does absolutely nothing to change the current “trajectory” toward fiscal disaster because it reduces nary a dime of built-in spending for defense, entitlements/mandatories, veterans and net interest, while those items account for 89% of the $80 trillion of built-in spending over the next decade."
The narrow strait is the most important chokepoint for the world's oil supply. Some 21 million barrels — or $1.2 billion worth of oil — pass through the strait every day.
Will a closed Strait hurt Iran? In terms of international oil sales, yes, but in terms of daily life, no. Iran pumps 3.5 million barrels of crude oil per day. The situation at this hour:
Most people hear “Hormuz” and think gas prices.
That’s part of it. But it’s bigger. It’s a central artery for global trade, and we talked about how disruptions hit second-order systems fast, including inputs tied to food production (field work and fertilizers), trucking, and downstream shocks in everything from shipping insurance to medicine, medical supplies, medical treatments and regional stability.
This is why the “we’re energy independent so it doesn’t matter” line is naive. In a globally priced commodity world, you don’t get to opt out.
Former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes to Christ and discovers the supernatural Christian heritage of West, and how worldly families destroyed it. She is now married and living in the US.
"I like Os Guinness’s analogy of the cut flower civilization. I find it very vivid in regard to non-Christian conservative parents. Conservative non-Christian families are cutting themselves off from our foundational roots.
Let’s think about what happens to a plant when the roots die. What happens when you pick flowers and put them in a vase? Obviously, the flowers wither. And if you cut conservative morals off from Christianity, they fade.
"This decline is exactly what we have seen in the West over the last century and a half. Some people say the decay dates back to the Enlightenment. It’s a gradual fading that goes on and on. My fear is that we have landed in a place of moral wilderness.
"For the West to restore itself, it has to rediscover and revive its biblical roots. I insist that the biblical...
