Fire Hydrant of Freedom

They know Obama will grant amnesty.  Either next year after this Nov election or before he leaves office.   

How LBJ ruined America:

**********Great Society's decline: The high cost of Lyndon Johnson's grand project

 By George Will 

 JewishWorldReview.com |    Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.

Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”

In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.

Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.

He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”

When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.

Between 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:

“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980. . . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”

But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”

Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:

For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.

LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”

Piketty fever

Bigger than Marx

A wonky book on inequality becomes a blockbuster
 May 3rd 2014  | From the print edition


Timekeeper  

Making equations cool again

IT IS the closest thing to a pop-culture sensation heavyweight economics will ever provide. “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, a vast work on the past and future of inequality by Thomas Piketty, a French economist, has become the best-selling title at Amazon.com. In America the online retailer has run out of the 700-page hardcover, which it sells for $25.

“Capital” has many virtues. It is a clear and thorough analysis of one of the foremost economic concerns of the day. It provides readers with a simple explanation for rising inequality. Wealth generally grows faster than the economy, Mr Piketty argues. What is more, there are few economic forces that counteract its natural tendency to become concentrated, as greater wealth brings greater opportunity to save and invest. In the absence of exceptionally rapid growth or a nasty period of geopolitical instability like that between 1914 and 1945, inequality therefore grows.



The book has attracted much criticism, however. The most common complaints fall into four broad categories. The first concerns Mr Piketty’s tone, beginning with the title. A deliberate allusion to Karl Marx’s magnum opus, it suggests both immodesty and an innate antipathy to markets. Some critics object to Mr Piketty’s use of words like “appropriation” to describe the rising share of income going to the rich. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Shuchman, a fund manager, fumed at the book’s “medieval hostility to the notion that financial capital earns a return”.


This is not just a matter of presentation. There is no disguising that Mr Piketty is keener on redistribution than many of his critics. Clive Crook, a columnist at Bloomberg (and former deputy editor of The Economist), asks whether the levels of future inequality the book predicts are really as “terrifying” as Mr Piketty claims.

Others find fault with the book’s economics. The statement “r > g” (meaning that the rate of return on capital is generally higher than the rate of economic growth) is central to the book’s argument that wealth tends to accumulate over time. But some complain that r is too mushily defined, especially by comparison with the calculus-strewn pages of much economics research. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Tyler Cowen of George Mason University reckons Mr Piketty sees capital as a “growing, homogeneous blob”, and so fails to take account of the variation, across time and investments, in the returns to wealth.

Happily, “Capital” is not written in economist-ese. There is relatively little mathematics; Mr Piketty uses 19th-century literature to illustrate many of his points. He freely acknowledges that riskier ventures are more lucrative than safer bets like government bonds. But he is less interested in individual investment choices than in the overall growth in value of an economy’s wealth, including everything from industrial machinery to summer homes and art collections. His data suggest that, with the exceptions mentioned, wealth of this sort does tend to grow faster than the economy as a whole. Since 1700, he reckons, wealth globally has enjoyed a typical pre-tax return of between 4% and 5% a year—considerably faster than average economic growth.

Doubting Thomas

Other critics claim that Mr Piketty ignores bedrock principles of economics. Those dictate that the return on capital should fall as it accumulates. The 100th industrial robot does not provide nearly the same boost to production as the first. Kevin Hassett, of the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think-tank, reckons the return should fall fast enough as wealth builds that the share of income that goes to the owners of capital should not rise (as Mr Piketty suggests it does).

This disagreement is partly a problem of definitions. Capital in Mr Piketty’s book includes forms of wealth, such as land, that would not figure in economists’ models of production; his rate of return is the pace at which such wealth grows rather than the benefit to firms of investing it. Mr Piketty’s data appear to justify this approach: in the past, at least, the rich have been able to shift resources into higher-yielding forms of wealth when over-investment slashes the return. Mr Piketty also argues that the return on capital can be propped up by technology, which could lead to new ways of substituting machines for people.

A third category of criticism focuses on whether Mr Piketty overstates the extent to which the future is likely to resemble the past. Mr Cowen wonders whether r, however defined, is likely to continue to be higher than the rate of economic growth. Writing in the National Review, Jim Pethokoukis predicts that the same excessive pessimism about economies’ capacity for growth that sank Marx’s prophecies would also undermine Mr Piketty’s.

In a similar vein, some critics question the parallel between today’s wealth (which is mostly the product of soaring labour incomes) and that of the “idle rich” of the 19th century, living off inheritance. The long-run relationship between r and g has little to do with the fortunes accumulated by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

Mr Piketty acknowledges the point, but does not let it distract him from his broader emphasis on the long-run returns to wealth. That is not an absurd decision. Some fortunes, like Warren Buffett’s, seem a confirmation of the contention that r is greater than g. Mr Piketty rightly points out that self-made riches may become tomorrow’s family fortune, given the propensity of wealth to perpetuate itself.

The book’s final section, on how policy should respond to rising inequality, has provoked the most disagreement. Mr Piketty’s proposal for a global tax on wealth is widely written off as politically impossible (which he concedes). Critics like Mr Cowen and Greg Mankiw, an economist at Harvard University, argue that his recommendations are motivated by ideology more than economics.

“Capital” does give unduly short shrift to conservative concerns. Mr Piketty glosses over the question of whether attempts to redistribute wealth will weaken growth. He also assumes, rather blithely, that growing inequality leads to instability. Yet that is not always the case: many democracies have managed such challenges without upheaval. Given the mass of data Mr Piketty has assembled, he might profitably have analysed in what circumstances inequality generates conflict. Then again, the success of his book, and the ever-expanding commentary it has provoked, will doubtless inspire others to do so soon.

From the print edition: Finance and economics

Of course I never expect any real objectivity from Eleanor Clift.  I only bother to post this crazy piece to highlight how the left simply refuses to recognize and criticize a cover-up just before an election.   Just outrageous.  It really is like mafia.  Simply bribe voters with taxpayer money and we have half the population agreeing to ignore this:

*******Eleanor Clift

05.15.14

My Benghazi Scandal

I may be under fire from conservatives for saying Ambassador Stevens wasn’t murdered in Benghazi, but I’m not backing down. Here’s why I said what I did.

After getting hammered by the right for remarks I made on the McLaughlin Group last weekend, I’d like to put what I said into the context that my critics omit. My information came from a former ambassador who lamented that complex and chaotic events in Benghazi are being way oversimplified. He pointed out that Ambassador Chris Stevens died of smoke inhalation in the safe room of a CIA outpost, that he wasn’t murdered in the sense that word is normally used. I thought this was an appropriate observation and still do, despite the hysteria my saying so has ignited on the right.

There is shared blame for the fact that Stevens wasn’t properly guarded and defended, but the chaos of that night and the days following stemmed from herculean efforts to keep the CIA’s involvement secret. Stevens was a very brave and assertive ambassador. He knew the language and the people, and he took risks he shouldn’t have. The former ambassador whose views I relied on believes that Stevens was in Benghazi to confront the CIA about prisoners they were holding and interrogating at the outpost. He speculates the attack on the facility was to free the prisoners.

If these are the kinds of questions that the select committee examines, maybe it will be a worthwhile exercise.

In the meantime, for perspective, I urge everyone to read Jane Mayer’s article “Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi,” which recounts a series of terrorist attacks in Beirut beginning with the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in April 1983, when 17 Americans, including seven CIA officers, were among the 63 killed. In October 1983, a truck filled with explosives rammed a Marine compound, killing 241 unarmed Marines in their sleep. Next was the torture and murder of the CIA station chief in Beirut, followed by yet another bombing of a U.S. outpost in September 1984, two months before the presidential election.

No administration is immune to tragic events in troublesome spots in the world, and not every tragedy is a scandal.

A House investigation of the Marine barracks bombing found “very serious errors in judgment” and recommended additional security measures around the world. When the September ’84 bombing occurred nearly a year later and the security was not yet in place, Democrats did not see it as an opportunity to score political points. Instead they accepted President Reagan’s explanation that repairs take time: “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.”

Today no one in either party would accept such a benign explanation for a lapse in security, nor should they. But no administration is immune to tragic events in troublesome spots in the world, and not every tragedy is a scandal. Poking around for partisan gain in what lawmakers now know were clandestine activities for answers to questions that for the most part have already been answered is the scandal

GM, what do you think?

Can we banish or send her on a long vacation to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elba

?

We need to rid the world of her where she can do no further harm.

Escaped slavery with others by hijacking a gun boat and dressing up as whites and sailed out of Charleston harbor.
Served for the Union as a civilian advisor and met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 helping to convince the President and Sec of War Stanton to allow Blacks to fight for the Union.
Later became a Republican Congressman and served several terms.

Wrote legislation that led to the first *mandatory* public schools in the country.

Wrote legislation that would have essentially provided for racial integration of the military but it was never "considered" roghly 80 years before the military was integrated.

Gotta love the next quote from him.  How times have changed:  


Smalls identified with the Republican Party, saying it was

"The party of Lincoln which unshackled the necks of four million human beings." In his campaign speeches he said, "Every colored man who has a vote to cast, would cast that vote for the regular Republican Party and thus bury the Democratic Party so deep that there will not be seen even a bubble coming from the spot where the burial took place." Later in life he recalled, "I can never loose [sic] sight of the fact that had it not been for the Republican Party, I would have never been an office-holder of any kind—from 1862—to present."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls

Fits Hillary's narrative doesn't it?   Butchery in Africa.  Who knew?  How convenient:

http://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-kidnapping-nigeria-bringbackourgirls-184944658.html

"BARAQ THREW IT AWAY"

He would see it in his political interests that the mission is not a long term success.  Fits the Democrat/Socialist Party narrative.

No coincidence.

A Republican trying to silence Drudge and Hannity?  Wow.  Is this an example of the Washington "Establishment" steamrolling conservatives OR just Democrat politics?:

http://www.fec.gov/members/goodman/goodman_bio.shtml

Doug writes,

"President Obama's magnificent political success can be attributed to one main cause:  weak opponents."

No doubt Republican candidates are all with flaws. 

But we are up against a very antagonistic media.

We are up against a very antagonistic educational class.

We are up against racial and gender and class politics.

We are up against buying of votes that cold hard taxpayer cash can buy.

Worse, "establishment Republicans" certainly are part of the problem.

Doug I hope your are right and I am wrong.   I think it is too late. 

Saddam,

" I like to call a spade a spade" when speaking of Zionists and Americans.  Just not himself or his sons.

Bush thought Iraqis would be dancing in the streets when we rid them of this monster.  Some Iraqis felt that way.  But not enough.   How many Iraqis died since then 100K?

Our country did a glorious deed.  Our troops are heroes to the World.  And look at the thanks we get.  Look at the Democrat Party twisting this for political gain.

Disgusting and sad.

Agree with two previous posts.  I am very pessimistic that it is already too late.  The left is winning big.
We have immense corruption in government, wall street and the rest.  We hear about "1% ers" when it suits the left's political purposes.  The answer is always to tax the rich and buy votes with the cash.  Obamster reduced funding for the FBI for white collar crime.  And yet the illegals get more legal help than the rest of us:


******Administration to pledge equal education for illegal immigrants
 .

By Benjamin Goad - 05/07/14 02:27 PM EDT

The Obama administration announced Wednesday it would issue new guidance requiring U.S. schools to provide equal education to all children, regardless of their immigration status.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are expected to detail the proposal Thursday morning during a conference call with reporters.

The Justice and Education departments sought through 2011 guidance to ensure equal treatment for children living in the U.S. illegally in accordance with the Supreme Court’s 1982 Plyler vs. Doe ruling, which prohibited a school district from charging illegal immigrants extra tuition fees.

“The Obama administration continues to receive reports that school districts are adopting policies and practices that have the effect of discouraging, and in some cases preventing, undocumented children and children from immigrant families from enrolling in public schools,” the Justice Department said in announcing the follow-up guidance. “The new guidance is intended to help address these issues.“

The updated guidance is intended to help schools understand their responsibilities under Plyler vs. Doe and other federal civil rights laws..

Read more: http://thehill.com/regulation/205484-administration-to-pledge-equal-education-for-illegal-immigrants#ixzz318lrFiIR
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

The hILL is already out along with Obamster on the talk circuit turning this into the her image of girl power.  Of course this is horrific.  Along with all the other horror stories that come out of Africa as long as I can remember.   Black on Black crime.  Remember Bush I going into Somalia for humanitarian reasons?

But she seizes on this to change the topic from Lewinsky and it fits her gender twist.  IF 200 Black boys were murdered she would have been silent.

Typical Clinton change the story, twist to her political game and benefit and the journalist MSM do everything to give HER free press.  Why is it her opinion even matters now on this?

Ten more years of the Clintons....

My 2 cents again.  I think E cigarettes are a great idea.  A patient told me he uses one without the nicotine and flavored which helps with the "habit" part of smoking: 


*******U.S. e-cigarette experiment inspires new medical device

Reuters
By By Toni Clarke 2 hours ago
 
Electronic cigarette vaporizers Cera and Luna by Thermo-Essence Technologies are pictured in San Carlos

(L-R) Electronic cigarette vaporizers Cera and Luna by Thermo-Essence Technologies are pictured in San …
By Toni Clarke

(Reuters) - When Noah Minskoff's mother died of lung cancer in 2007, e-cigarettes were just entering the U.S. market. Minskoff, who had just started medical school in Utah, wondered whether the devices might have saved his mother's life by helping her quit smoking. Later, he sent some samples to his boyhood friend Nathan Terry, a mechanical engineer, and asked for his opinion.

Terry, who was working in Germany for the French industrial firm Areva, took apart the products to see how they were made. What he found disturbed him: at the heart of the devices were heater wires of unknown quality wrapped around bundles of glass fibers and surrounded by steel wool, silicon, plastic, tape and adhesives.

Wires between the heater, circuit board and batteries were connected with lead solder and also housed in tape and plastic. Everything was close to the heat source, meaning consumers were at risk of inhaling fiber and metal particles as well as toxic fumes from hot plastic and lead.

"There were red flags everywhere," Terry said.

Still, he liked the concept and decided to design a version of his own, avoiding the use of fiberglass, plastic and solder and sourcing his materials entirely in the United States. In 2009 he reunited with Minskoff in California and formed a company, Thermo-Essence Technologies, to sell the product.

At $300 a piece, the e-cigarette serves a niche market, albeit one with a loyal following among medical marijuana patients and smokers looking for a high-end e-cigarette. As many as 30,000 have been sold.

But what began as a quest to develop a better e-smoke has broadened into an ambitious effort to design a new medical device: an inhaler that delivers measured doses of nicotine to help people quit smoking. The technology could also eventually be used as an abuse-resistant delivery device for other drugs, including opioid painkillers.

If successful, the inhaler could become the first new smoking-cessation product to emerge from the e-cigarette field and would compete with products such as GlaxoSmithKline Plc's nicotine gum and Pfizer Inc's antismoking drug, Chantix.

A STARTUP WITH BIOTECH FUNDING

To develop the inhaler, Terry formed a second company, Minusa LLC, which is based in Newtown, Connecticut. Minskoff left Thermo-Essence for family reasons and is not involved in Minusa. Terry himself is leaving Thermo-Essence, which is currently being sold, to concentrate on Minusa.

The new company obtained initial funding from Michael Breede, a commercial real-estate-turned-biotech investor whose father suffered from drug and alcohol addiction and who is eager to see an abuse-resistant painkiller device.

"This is in my wheelhouse," he said. "I think we can put a serious dent in this problem."

When Terry developed his e-cigarette he assumed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would begin regulating the industry, as it has recently done, proposing a ban on sales to people under the age of 18 and requiring companies to register. Later it could impose product standard and quality controls.

Terry wanted to create a product that would pass any FDA inspection. He used a pure metal wire wrapped around a rod made from magnesia-stabilized zirconia, a highly durable ceramic material. Instead of meshes, tape and plastic he used novel porous ceramics and surgical-grade alloys, and instead of soldering parts together he connected them mechanically, fitting components together like Legos to complete the circuits.

He built on that design to create his drug-delivery device, known as Envi, a single-user, tamper-resistant, metered-dose inhaler.

Envi is about the size of a short cigar and comes with a spare in a case the size of a deck of playing cards.

The nicotine or other drug will come in a sealed cartridge that the patient will insert into the inhaler. To activate the device, the user will have to enter a code. The inhaler will be programed to deliver a certain amount of drug and then turn off.

When the device is returned to the case, which is required after each dose to activate it for the next dose, data on the patient's usage will be downloaded and available to be viewed electronically by the prescribing physician.

"It will only let you take your prescription," Terry said. "It will log your usage and transmit it in real time, and make it easier for the doctor to monitor and interact with the patient."

BUILDING A BETTER INHALER

Terry, 37, who grew up on an organic farm in Ohio to "hippy commune" parents and studied mechanical engineering at the University of Idaho, faces multiple challenges.

Inhalers are typically more expensive to develop than pills, and ensuring patients get the right dose is more complicated.

"I can see a lot of barriers, but the idea is certainly interesting," said Dr. Ben Forbes, a Reader in Pharmaceutics, broadly the equivalent of a U.S. professor, at King's College London who specializes in inhaled medications.

There needs to be a good reason to target a drug to the lungs, Forbes said. Drugs that are inhaled may work faster than pills, so a device that offered quick pain relief in an abuse-resistant form would be "brilliant" if it could be produced economically, he added.

"Changes in inhaler technology have been very incremental over the years, so maybe something like this would have a place."

In the meantime, big tobacco companies are developing alternative nicotine products they hope one day will carry a "modified risk" of harm. Some are dispensed through an inhaler.

Unlike Terry's smoking-cessation device, which he plans to file with the FDA's drug division, these products would be marketed as less risky alternatives to smoking and be processed through the FDA's tobacco division.

However smokers end up using the new products will be the subject of intense research by the FDA.

Terry believes he is creating a product that will survive any market configuration. Minusa has a long way to go, and human trials may be two years off. Eventually he hopes to partner with a big drug company.

"I think we can change how drugs are delivered."

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Prudence Crowther)

"If the left didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all."

Good point.  No standards at all except what suits them.  Either personally or with their progressive agenda.

Sorry Doug.  As much as I wish you are right I beg to differ......

"And Geffen, who gave Obama his first big Hollywood fund-raiser in 2008 and broke with the Clintons because he felt they lied “with such ease, it’s troubling,” now says he will “absolutely” support Hillary in 2016, calling her “an extraordinary, smart, accomplished woman.”

This country is so screwed.  Barring an unforeseen event or events the Republican party which by the way also does NOT represent me, but is closer to my values, has NO chance of defeating this *machine*.  The machine is far greater than the Clintons themselves.  It truly is remarkable how all Crats consistently fall into line when needed.  Just remarkable.
Any semblance of honesty or ethics is right out the window.  Lock step Jack footed boots; in lock step, and marching forward:

****Maureen Dowd

42 and 45 Overpower 44
MAY 3, 2014

Maureen Dowd  
WASHINGTON — THE First Family is all over the news, discussing the management of the economy, income inequality, raising the minimum wage, the vicissitudes of press coverage and the benefits of healthy eating.

Everywhere you look, the Clintons rule.

Bill popped up on the front page of The Times giving a speech at his alma mater, Georgetown University, in which he defended his economic policies and chastised the press for its tendency to create a “storyline” that doesn’t match reality. (Sort of like the storyline the Clintons created about Monica Lewinsky being a delusional stalker.)

Hillary’s Apache dance with the press is detailed in the new issue of Politico Magazine, a piece that got a lot more buzz than the news the White House was excited about on Friday: a sharp drop in the unemployment rate.

Chelsea is serenely smiling from the cover of Fast Company for a story on how “the product of two of the most powerful brands in the world” is “carving out her own identity — by joining the family business,” as vice chair in charge of shaping up the tangled finances of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Her impending baby is being treated with enormous fanfare and exhaustive political analysis, like America’s answer to Britain’s bonny Prince George.

Obamaworld was even paranoid that Hillaryland would hijack the B-list festivities associated with the annual White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend.

The former and future Democratic regime is clearly itching to get back in the saddle and relieve a president who is stalled on every front, and who never really got any joy from working the joystick of power or appreciated the value of the carrot-stick approach that helped Lincoln and L.B.J. bend history.

Both President Obama and Hillary have recently referred to leadership as a relay race. And if a fatigued and fed-up Obama looks ready to pass the baton early, the ravenous and relentless Clintons look ready to grab it — and maybe give him a few whacks over the head with it.

Obama’s reign has become increasingly bloodless, and while the Clintons are not new blood, they do convey more vitality than the formerly electrifying politician in the White House.

Things have now reached the point where it feels as though 42 and 45 have already taken over the reins of Washington power from 44, who is fading Snapchat-fast.

The Clintons now have Obama, as one top Democrat said, “totally at their mercy” because they “take the oxygen out of the room.”

Hillary’s stock is so high — almost as high as her speaking fees — that in The Daily Beast, Tina Brown urged the front-runner to skip the campaign and simply go straight to becoming “post-President.”

Just to make the Clintons feel completely at home as they ramp up to the restoration, there is even a congressional investigation spurred by the vast right-wing conspiracy.

House Speaker John Boehner announced Friday that he would call a vote to set up a select committee to look into the Benghazi debacle, and whether Congress was misled by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama administration.

As Slate’s Dave Weigel tweeted, “The nice thing about having a Benghazi select committee is you can roll it over into the Hillary presidency.”

Many of those who aroused the Clintons’ opprobrium and well-known taste for vengeance by supporting the rookie Barack Obama in 2008 thought they were headed to a fresh era in politics, moving past the gnarly braiding of the personal and political that led to chaos in the Clinton era.

But the Clinton machine, once described by David Geffen as “very unpleasant and unattractive and effective,” has a Rasputin resilience. And now those who broke away are in the awkward position of having to make nice with the woman they helped vanquish.

Samantha Power recently said that she regretted calling Hillary a “monster” and offered her new view: “She just brings such rigor and conviction to everything she touches.”

Claire McCaskill, who endorsed Obama in 2008 and said she didn’t want her daughter near Bill Clinton and confided to a friend that she was nervous to be alone in an elevator with Hillary, announced in June that she is “Ready for Hillary.”

Caroline Kennedy, whose endorsement in 2008 comparing Obama to her father was pivotal, told NBC’s Chuck Todd: “I would like to see her run if that’s what she wants to do. I think she would be great.”

The will take a 42 and 45 anytime over a 41, 43 and 45.
There's just enough time for Barry to resign, make Joe president and show Bill and Hill he door.
 
Geffen might note the Clinton's still lie at ease, but next to Obama, they sound like saints. Come to think of it, Richard Nixon was a saint...
 
 And Geffen, who gave Obama his first big Hollywood fund-raiser in 2008 and broke with the Clintons because he felt they lied “with such ease, it’s troubling,” now says he will “absolutely” support Hillary in 2016, calling her “an extraordinary, smart, accomplished woman.”

Elizabeth Warren, who criticized Hillary in a 2003 book for an unprincipled stand on a bankruptcy bill, siding with the big banks she needed to bankroll her political career, lets Hillary off the hook in her new book.

Leon Panetta, who served as chief of staff for Bill Clinton and secretary of defense for Obama, told The Times that Obama had not yet defined America’s 21st-century role in the world.

“Hopefully, he’ll do it,” Panetta said, “and certainly, she would.”

The president who dreamed of being “transformative” seems bummed, and that’s bumming out Americans.

But when you talk about batting singles, you’re just asking to be overshadowed by the next big draft pick. If you’re playing small ball and you’re articulating your diminished expectations, it’s only natural that someone is going to fill the void.

Some Obama aides get irritated when Hillary distances herself from Obama and when her advisers paint her as tougher than Obama, someone who wouldn’t be afraid to drop the hammer and sickle on Vladimir Putin.

And some in Obamaworld think she could have skipped her $200,000-plus speeches to Goldman Sachs and helped the stumbling president make his push on health care, given that the push was focused on moms and kids, an area of interest for the woman who would be the first woman president.
Continue reading the main story  239Comments
But they were hoisted on their own petard. It was the lone-cat President Obama who ignored the usual practice in politics — dancin’ with those who brung ya and dismantling your bitter rival’s machine — and encouraged the view of Hillary as the presumptive nominee over his unfailingly loyal vice president, Joe Biden. Three of his key political advisers — Jim Messina, Jeremy Bird and Mitch Stewart — have gone to super PACs supporting Hillary.

David Plouffe, the president’s former top political adviser, said Hillary could call him for advice and told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that “there’s very little oxygen” for another Democrat to challenge her.

As Obama has learned, to his dismay, there’s now very little oxygen for him, too.
 
A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 4, 2014, on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: 42 and 45 Overpower 44. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe  

I only post this liberal propaganda because of this line:

"The Republican "more drilling brings the price down" argument clearly isn't working. It is, however, making oil companies a hefty profit at our taxpayer-subsidized expense."

I have to ask, since when does the left give a crap about taxpayers.  Leave it up these people and our taxes would be substantially higher.  Yet here he tries to sound like he is protecting taxpayers. 

******Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva Become a fan
Co-chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus

'Drill, Baby, Drill' Has Failed -- And Now We Can Do Something About It
 

 Posted:  05/02/2014 11:18 am EDT    Updated:  05/02/2014 11:59 am EDT   

 In the next few weeks, Congress will decide the country's Fiscal Year 2015 funding priorities. A lot is riding on whether we fund necessary environmental, clean energy and reclamation programs or leave them to wither. I'm hoping we do the right thing.

It's important to know the context. Americans paid an average of $3.57 for a gallon of gasoline last year. Compare that to the $2.40 per gallon average in 2009. The Republican "more drilling brings the price down" argument clearly isn't working. It is, however, making oil companies a hefty profit at our taxpayer-subsidized expense. We need a better national strategy.

This year President Obama requested about $6.9 billion for clean energy technology programs at the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. Many parts of his proposal are smart investments in our environmental future. Unfortunately, the administration wants to accelerate the already rapidly expanding exploitation of domestic oil and gas fields. This would do grave damage to our already heavily stressed climate.

How stressed? Last month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a series of reports finding once again that human activities are the leading cause of higher atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) levels and a warming climate. The reports find that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes have contributed 78 percent of total GHG emissions since 1970. The scientific community expects the volume to double -- some even say triple -- by 2050.

Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues have other things on their minds. In the guise of being worried about the economy, they have introduced a number of bad bills to allow oil and gas companies to drill and frack wherever and however they please. This won't help the consumer. Since 2008 oil production from federal lands and waters has gone up 7 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Despite that dramatic increase in extraction, gas prices haven't gone down since 2009.

More oil and gas activity adds more CO2 to the atmosphere, causing our climate to get warmer. The scientific consensus on those questions is overwhelming. The only debate today exists in professional climate change denial circles. If my conservative colleagues are concerned about the country we leave our children, my question is this: Is our environmental debt out of control? Is it time for us to scale it back?

Solving environmental degradation and curbing climate change are not easy tasks. But I believe we have the chance to do what's right for our future now, without waiting. We need to curb the carbon dioxide emissions already polluting our atmosphere; just as seriously, we need to start making sustained investments in a cleaner future. Part of the president's proposed budget would address this, especially through increased renewable energy production investments and through the Climate Action Plan.

Republicans keep arguing for sequestration as the only way to reduce the deficit. I think they're wrong, but their argument raises an important question: When you see a problem, when is it time to stop contributing to it? When is enough enough? When Congress finalizes the FY2015 budget, I hope my colleagues bear in mind the need to start chipping away at the environmental debt we're leaving our children. Coming generations of Americans will judge us harshly if we continue to pollute our atmosphere in the name of short-term profits, especially when there's a better way.

This post is part of a series from the Safe Climate Caucus. The Caucus comprises 38 members of the House of Representatives who have committed to ending the conspiracy of silence in Congress about the dangers of climate change. For more information, visit the Safe Climate Caucus website and like the Safe Climate Caucus on Facebook.*****

"Either way, Q1 is in the rear-view mirror and real GDP is set to accelerate sharply in Q2."

I told you.  Growth at minus 01%.   No biggy.   Oh growth is set to accelerate big time next quarter.

Sorry.  Yeah this guy happened to be right the last couple of years.  He is still a horses ass. 

Government could be even more corrupt than private organizations.  Nothing in this piece surprises me.  I have patients who are Federal employees who have told me stories.

I have witnessed cover-ups first hand at the Copyright Office.

Very few watchdogs exist and from what I see they are up against people who may know more but fear for their jobs and will "sacrifice" or "get involved" to become a whistleblower,  massive backscratching among managers, bribery,  and agency lawyers who are more concerned about covering up the agencies problems for reputational reasons then rooting out illegal/unethical activity.

 

Wesbury will talk down the deterioration of growth and say it is at least not yet anything to woryy about but something just to keep an eye on.  He will then spew his usual rant about how the economy is hunky dory, etc. 

What Race Preferences Hide

Mona Charen
By Mona Charen April 25, 2014 3:00 AM
   
Sonia Sotomayor is a wonderful role model. Truly. Through hard work, brains and rare self-discipline at an early age, she was able to overcome poverty and family dysfunction to become what she is today. She was diagnosed at the age of 7 with Type 1 diabetes, and because her father was an alcoholic and her mother a full-time nurse, it fell to her to manage the daily insulin injections and testing that are part of the required treatment. The image, in her memoir, of a small girl dragging a chair to the stove so she could sterilize her syringes before school is poignant indeed.

Any person attempting to overcome hardship can look to Sotomayor for inspiration. But as she demonstrated in her long, impassioned dissent in the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the experience of benefiting from race preferences has left her prickly and defensive on the subject. As others, including her Supreme Court colleague Justice Clarence Thomas, have argued, that kind of gnawing insecurity is one of the consequences of preferences. Others are never sure if you've achieved your position entirely on merit, and neither are you.

Sotomayor's argument rests entirely on a fallacy — that lowering admission standards for certain minority applicants is the only possible response to concerns about racial and ethnic disparities in American life. "Race matters," she scolded again and again in her dissent. Actually, she went further and argued that a Michigan constitutional amendment that explicitly forbids racial discrimination amounts to racial discrimination.

The contention that white, Asian and other students should be disadvantaged because of discrimination against blacks that ceased decades before they were born is facially unjust. Under the regime of preferences, the white child of a poor waitress from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who would be the first person in her family to ever attend college, will have to get SAT scores about 300 points higher (depending upon the school) than the black daughter of a dermatologist from Beverly Hills, California. An Asian student would have to score even higher, because that minority is, according to those who insist on counting by race, "overrepresented."

Admissions officers at selective schools pretend they are offering opportunity to "underserved" minorities, but in reality, they are simply lowering standards for already-privileged students with the preferred skin tone. Ninety-two percent of blacks at elite colleges are from the top half of the income distribution. A study a decade ago at Harvard Law School found that only a third of students had four African-American grandparents. Another third were from interracial families. The rest were children of recent immigrants from Africa or the West Indies.

Should mixed-race students get half a preference? Should their scores be 50 percent higher than students with two black parents? These are the kinds of absurdities our current system presents.

Racial and ethnic preferences are unjust — reason enough to abandon them — but there are other reasons as well. They serve to perpetuate, rather than combat, racial stereotypes. They encourage gaming the system (as when Elizabeth Warren claimed to be Native American). They permit students from certain groups to coast in high school knowing they will get an automatic golden ticket to college. They encourage intergroup resentment. They result in what Stuart Taylor Jr. and Richard Sander have rightly called "mismatching" students — so that all but the very top minority students wind up attending schools that are a little out of their league. This, in turn, causes more minority students to abandon demanding majors like science and technology (so necessary for the economy's flourishing), and to drop out in numbers far higher than other students. Black students are about a third more likely than similarly qualified other students to start college, but less likely to finish.

When California outlawed racial preferences in 1996, preference advocates predicted apocalyptic consequences. Instead, as Taylor and Sander reported, "Black and Hispanic students improved their academic performance, stuck more successfully to (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors, and graduated at stunningly improved rates."

Dropping preferences is not harmful to minority students; it's beneficial. It should not be the end of the story, though. The gap in achievement between some minority groups and others can and should be addressed. Contra Sotomayor, it's not so much that "race matters" as that schools matter. The shame of the nation is that poor children continue to be so trapped in terrible schools. That is the disgrace that race counters cloak.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

I don't often post off of Drudge because I figure we all can see it easily but I think this video highlights the crucial problem facing "America" today.   It shows quite clearly the wrapped hatred of the liberals for our country and how they love to foster hatred, anger, jealousy, envy, racism, and the blame someone else game to garner support for more centralized governmental power.   This is the central issue we face in America IMHO.   Who is going to win this debate.  Unfortunately, as long as big gov keeps buying votes 40% will not even listen to the debate.  They won't care.  They just want subsidies paid for by others.  ("The rich")  Always the "rich".

The closest people able to respond to the socialist view are some talk show hosts and a few others like VDH etc.  I still have not heard one well known politician deal with this effectively.  We have no  mouth piece in politics.   No one represents many of us.   I liked Santorum's points on the 2016 Presidential thread that I posted a few days ago. 

www.deadline.com/2014/04/hot-trailer-dinesh-dsouzas-america/

One can notice that there is a pattern change around 10Am to trading though it could go up or down, but something does happen 1/2 hour in.

With regards to the LA Clippers owner's reported "racist rant" that I understand was intended to be a private conversation between him and his girlfriend I see California is a "two party" state.  We have no information who taped this conversation or released it.  He did not post it online.  Perhaps he said it at a public game but he expected this to be a private conversation.  Even if his girlfriend was the one who taped it, in Kalifornicata both parties have to be privy thus he could sue and it violates state law as well:

*****Recording Phone Calls and Conversations
 
If you plan to record telephone calls or in-person conversations (including by recording video that captures sound), you should be aware that there are federal and state wiretapping laws that may limit your ability to do so. These laws not only expose you to the risk of criminal prosecution, but also potentially give an injured party a civil claim for money damages against you.

From a legal standpoint, the most important question in the recording context is whether you must get consent from one or all of the parties to a phone call or conversation before recording it. Federal law and many state wiretapping statutes permit recording if one party (including you) to the phone call or conversation consents. Other states require that all parties to the communication consent.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to tell which law applies to a communication, especially a phone call. For example, if you and the person you are recording are in different states, then it is difficult to say in advance whether federal or state law applies, and if state law applies which of the two (or more) relevant state laws will control the situation. Therefore, if you record a phone call with participants in more than one state, it is best to play it safe and get the consent of all parties. However, when you and the person you are recording are both located in the same state, then you can rely with greater certainty on the law of that state. In some states, this will mean that you can record with the consent of one party to the communication. In others, you will still need to get everyone's consent. For details on the wiretapping laws in the fifteen most populous U.S. states and the District of Columbia, see the State Law: Recording section. In any event, it never hurts to play it safe and get the consent of all parties to a phone call or conversation that you intend to record.

Who must give permission to record a telephone or in-person conversation?

Federal law permits recording telephone calls and in-person conversations with the consent of at least one of the parties. See 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d). This is called a "one-party consent" law. Under a one-party consent law, you can record a phone call or conversation so long as you are a party to the conversation. Furthermore, if you are not a party to the conversation, a "one-party consent" law will allow you to record the conversation or phone call so long as your source consents and has full knowledge that the communication will be recorded.

In addition to federal law, thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted "one-party consent" laws and permit individuals to record phone calls and conversations to which they are a party or when one party to the communication consents. See the State Law: Recording section of this legal guide for information on state wiretapping laws.

When must you get permission from everyone involved before recording?

Eleven states require the consent of every party to a phone call or conversation in order to make the recording lawful. These "two-party consent" laws have been adopted in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington (Hawai'i is also in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in a private place). Although they are referred to as "two-party consent" laws, consent must be obtained from every party to a phone call or conversation if it involves more than two people.  In some of these states, it might be enough if all parties to the call or conversation know that you are recording and proceed with the communication anyway, even if they do not voice explicit consent. See the State Law: Recording section of this legal guide for information on specific states' wiretapping laws.

Can you record a phone call or conversation when you do not have consent from one of the parties?

Regardless of whether state or federal law governs the situation, it is almost always illegal to record a phone call or private conversation to which you are not a party, do not have consent from at least one party, and could not naturally overhear. In addition, federal and many state laws do not permit you to surreptitiously place a bug or recording device on a person or telephone, in a home, office or restaurant to secretly record a conversation between two people who have not consented.

Federal law and most state statutes also make disclosing the contents of an illegally intercepted telephone call illegal. See the section on Risks Associated with Publication in this guide for more information.

What if you are recording the activities of the police or other government officials in public?

Special considerations apply when recording police officers or other public officials.  You may have a constitutional right to openly record the activities of police and other officials in public, so long as you do not interfere with those activities or violate generally applicable laws.  For more information, see the section on Recording Police Officers and Public Officials.

Ulysses S. Grant's Lifelong Struggle With Alcohol
 
Originally published by America's Civil War magazine.  Published Online: June 12, 2006 

Despite Ulysses Simpson Grant's stature as one of the leading figures in American history, many mysteries remain about the man.1 Throughout his lengthy career Grant battled accusations that he was overly fond of the bottle, but did his alleged excessive drinking make him an alcoholic? For that matter, did he really drink that much more that the average man of the nineteenth century?

There was some precedent for alcohol abuse in Grant's family. Noah Grant, Ulysses' paternal grandfather, who came from a prominent New England family and had served in the Continental Army throughout the Revolutionary War, turned to alcohol after the death of his first wife. His alcohol consumption became so uncontrollable that it led to his financial ruin and premature death. Noah Grant's addiction became so bad that after the death of his second wife he abandoned his son, Jesse.2

Because of Noah's failure, Jesse Grant was forced at a very young age to make his way in the world alone, toiling as a laborer on local farms until he eventually found work at the home of Ohio Supreme Court Justice George Tod.3 His exposure to Tod's lifestyle and his memories of his father's destructive alcoholism bred in Jesse a fierce determination to succeed in life.4 At age sixteen, Jesse apprenticed himself to a tanner to learn a trade and soon began a business of his own. Eventually, through hard work and good business sense, Jesse became successful, and married Hannah Simpson in 1821. On April 27, 1822, not long after the couple settled in Ohio, their first son, Ulysses, was born.5 Even with continued business success and the birth of four more children, Jesse and Hannah Grant remained dedicated to the ideal of earnest labor and education. Both were stern and intolerant of those who were not willing to work hard and stay sober.6

Driven by his belief in hard work and desire to see his son succeed–and no doubt impressed with the austerity of a military education–Jesse Grant procured an appointment to the United States Military Academy for Ulysses. At West Point, Grant received passing grades but did not revel in the Spartan military lifestyle. Like many other young cadets, Grant became exposed to alcohol, but there is no evidence that he overindulged during his time there.7

In early nineteenth-century America alcohol consumption was an accepted facet of everyday life. Many Americans consumed liquor because they believed it was nutritious, stimulated digestion, and relaxed the nerves. Liquor was also consumed to help wash down food that was often poorly cooked, greasy, salty, and sometimes even rancid.8 By 1830, the annual per capita consumption of alcohol by Americans had climbed to more than five gallons.9 The small, professional army that Grant joined as a second lieutenant after his graduation in 1843 mirrored this widespread societal use of alcohol.

After graduation Grant was assigned to the Fourth Infantry Regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, outside St. Louis. While there, he had an opportunity to become familiar with the family of his West Point roommate, Frederick Dent. During one of his visits to the Dents, Grant met Frederick's sister Julia. A relationship soon developed between Ulysses and Julia, with Grant spending as much time as possible with the young lady. These visits frequently caused Grant to be late for dinner at the post's officers' mess. Interestingly, the fine for being late to dinner was one bottle of wine.

The presiding officer for the mess was Captain Robert Buchanan, a rigid disciplinarian who enforced the rules with a stiff impartiality. The fourth time Grant was late returning to the post, Buchanan informed him that he would again be fined the requisite bottle of wine. Grant, who had already purchased three bottles of wine for the mess, had some words with Buchanan concerning the fine and refused to pay. This trivial confrontation was the beginning of a long-running feud between the two.10

Grant received a reprieve from his unpaid mess bills when rising tensions with Mexico caused his regiment to be transferred to Texas. The Fourth Infantry became involved in military operations against Mexico in 1846 and became one of the most heavily engaged regiments of the war.11 Even so, the regiment also experienced all of the boredom, inactivity, and drinking that was a feature of any army on campaign. It was during such lulls that Grant was known to drink with his peers.12 However, these episodes were confined to moments of boredom and monotony and were common among many of his fellow officers. Grant emerged from the Mexican War with two brevet promotions, a solid reputation, and a bright future.

Following the war and a brief period of occupation duty in Mexico, Grant returned to St. Louis and married Julia on August 22, 1848.13 After his honeymoon, Grant began his Regular Army duties. His first posting was to the isolated garrison at Sackets Harbor, New York, where Grant learned garrison duty was a far cry from his adventures in Mexico. While at Sackets Harbor, he was one of many officers who coped with the inactivity of peacetime by cycles of frequent drinking. Worried about his increasingly heavy drinking, Grant joined the Sons of Temperance in the winter of 1851 and became an active participant in the temperance movement. During the remainder of his stay at Sackets Harbor, his involvement with the Sons of Temperance seemed to alleviate the urge to drink.14

Grant's next post, Detroit, Michigan, took him away from the moral support of the Sons of Temperance and reintroduced him to the heavy drinking that was a feature of army life. Grant soon began to confront accusations that he drank too heavily. One of these accusations arose when he brought charges against Zachariah Chandler, a local storekeeper. Like most merchants, Chandler was often too busy minding his store to take the time to clear the ice from the sidewalk. One night, while passing in front of Chandler's home, Grant slipped and fell on the ice and injured his leg. He angrily filed a civil complaint against the storekeeper. During the subsequent court case, Chandler said in reference to Grant, 'If you soldiers would keep sober, perhaps you would not fall on people's pavement and hurt your legs.'15 Grant won his complaint, but the case grabbed the attention of the military community in St. Louis and only fed rumors among the officers that Ulysses S. Grant was overly fond of the bottle.

In the spring of 1852 Grant's regiment was ordered to Fort Vancouver, Oregon. After leaving Julia and his children with his in-laws in Missouri, Grant traveled to New York City for transport to Panama via the steamship Ohio.

Grant, then serving as the Fourth's quartermaster and responsible for many of the logistic matters that were involved in transporting an infantry regiment, shared quarters with J. Finley Schenck, the captain of Ohio. Schenck later said that Grant was a diligent worker and would continue to conduct his duties after Schenck had gone to bed. The captain remembered that Grant would come in and out of the cabin throughout the evening to drink from whiskey bottles kept in the liquor cabinet.16 This pattern continued until Ohio arrived in Panama. However, from the time of his coming ashore in Panama to his arrival at Fort Vancouver, Grant was kept so busy with his military responsibilities that he had no time to be idle, and there were no further problems with drinking reported.

Not long after arriving at Fort Vancouver, however, Grant began to battle the boredom and loneliness that came with prolonged separation from his family. Like other officers at the post, Grant turned to the bottle to help pass the time, and many men stationed at the fort later recalled seeing him drink.

Unfortunately for Grant, his small stature and frame ensured that he would start to show the ill effects of alcohol after only a few drinks. Grant's reputation was further tarnished because he had a tendency to be intoxicated in front of the wrong people. One of those who witnessed his drinking while at Fort Vancouver was future general George B. McClellan. Becoming intoxicated in the presence of officers like McClellan, considered to be among the Army's best and brightest, spread the question of Grant's drinking habits to increasingly important people within the Army.17

In September 1853 Grant was transferred to Fort Humboldt, California, to fill the captaincy of the Fourth Infantry's Company F.18 He was to find the fort more foreboding than any other post he was assigned to during his pre-Civil War career. Since the fort was located in an isolated area of northern California, Grant's military life became slow, tedious, and monotonous. He watched his subordinates do most of the routine work and the Indians in the area remained peaceful. Things were so boring that Grant spent much of his time at Ryan's Store, a local trading post that served liquor.19

The time that Grant passed at Ryan's did not go unnoticed by Fort Humboldt's commander, Lt. Col. Robert Buchanan. This was the same Robert Buchanan with whom Grant had argued at Jefferson Barracks many years previously. Buchanan still harbored a strong dislike for Grant. He used his position as the post commander to make life unbearable for the captain and helped spread rumors that Grant was intemperate.20

Made miserable by Buchanan and missing his family, Grant began to consider resigning his commission. One night he imbibed more than usual, and when he reported for duty the next day, he appeared to still be intoxicated. Buchanan became furious and put Grant on report for drunkenness while on duty, instructing him to draft a letter of resignation and to keep it in a safe place. After a similar instance of late-night drinking a short time later, Buchanan requested that Grant sign the letter of resignation he had drafted earlier or he would be charged with drunkenness while on duty.21

Facing a court-martial, Grant decided that it was time to resign. On April 11, 1854, he sent his signed letter of resignation to the secretary of war.22 Grant had served in the Army for fifteen years, performed well, and gained valuable experience. During those fifteen years, he had occasionally indulged in periods of drinking, but these generally had been confined to social occasions or when he had little to occupy his time and was separated from his family. There is no indication that prior to his resignation Grant drank more than was typical for a man of the time. Unfortunately, Grant incautiously allowed others to see him when inebriated, and he left the Army with a reputation as a heavy drinker.

With Colonel Buchanan, Fort Humboldt, and his army career now behind him, Grant turned his attention to farming. For three years he tried to make a living from the land before giving up in 1858. After the failure of the farm, he unsuccessfully attempted a number of jobs, and was eventually forced to return to his father's home and work in the family tanning shop in Galena, Illinois.23

Despite such disappointments, Grant was content. Reunited with Julia and busy with the demands of supporting his family, he had neither the time nor the inclination to drink and was able to lead a sober life.

After the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the former army officer proffered his services to the recently appointed commander of Ohio's militia, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. When he did not get a response from McClellan, who no doubt remembered Grant from Fort Vancouver, Grant offered his services to Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon in St. Louis. Again, he received no response.24 Evidently, Grant was haunted by his reputation as a drunk.

Frustrated, Grant returned to Galena to help process paperwork and muster local volunteers into service. Although he had hoped for a regimental command, this time spent mustering in raw recruits was important–it brought him to the attention of Congressman Elihu B. Washburne. Realizing his capability as a soldier and organizer, Washburne persuaded Illinois Governor Richard Yates to appoint Grant colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Infantry Regiment. The Twenty-first had been a problem regiment, but Grant quickly brought discipline to the unit and turned it into an effective fighting force. Having proven his ability as a colonel, Grant was promoted to brigadier general in July 1861.25

Grant then went to see Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont, commander of the Army's Western Department, hoping to obtain a command in Missouri. Most members of Fremont's staff wanted him to ignore Grant, but Major Justice McKinsty, Fremont's aide, argued on Grant's behalf. Grant got the position, and it proved to be the break he needed. He rapidly moved through a series of departmental commands, and in early 1862 led the Tennessee expedition that forced the capitulation of Forts Henry and Donelson, vital Southern strongholds on the Tennessee River.26

While his victories at Henry and Donelson earned Grant higher command, they also carried the accusations of his drinking to a wider audience. Reporters and officers jealous of Grant's fast rise, as well as disillusioned civilians, used the perception of Grant as a drunkard in an attempt to explain the horrific losses suffered at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862.

Shocked by the casualties of what up to that point was the war's bloodiest battle, many newspaper reporters wrote articles critical of Grant's command. These criticisms fed the rumors that Grant, who many believed had been forced from the Army because of his love of the bottle, had been caught drunk and off guard by Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnston's surprise attack.

The losses suffered by both sides at Shiloh had more to do with the nature of nineteenth-century warfare than the nature of Grant's relationship with liquor, but rumors of his affection for spirits now became generally accepted. Those who were jealous of Grant's success helped spread the rumors. While it was true that Grant had begun to drink again after avoiding alcohol in the years before the start of the war, there are no reported incidents of him drinking excessively prior to the start of the Vicksburg campaign in late 1862. Major John Rawlins, a close member of Grant's personal staff who took it upon himself to keep Grant temperate, went to great lengths to defend Grant against accusations that he had been drinking during the battle.

Despite the persistent rumors of his Shiloh drunkeness, Grant pressed on. In November 1862 he began his campaign to capture the Mississippi River port of Vicksburg, the key to Southern control of the river. Unable to quickly defeat the Confederate forces, by May 1863 Grant had been forced to begin a protracted siege of the city. It was during this lengthy siege, and while he was again separated from his family for a prolonged period of time, that the most well-documented instances of Grant's drinking took place.

The first occurred on May 12, 1863. Sylvanus Cadwallader, a newspaper reporter who had attached himself to Grant's staff and was following the progress of the campaign, was sitting in the tent of Colonel William Duff, Grant's chief of artillery, carrying on a casual conversation. Suddenly, Grant stepped in. Duff pulled out a cup, dipped it into a barrel that he had stored in his tent, and handed the cup to Grant. Grant drank the contents and promptly handed the cup back to Duff. This procedure was repeated two more times, and Grant left the tent. Cadwallader then learned that the barrel contained whiskey. Duff had been ordered by Grant to keep the barrel handy for his exclusive use.27

Less than a month later, Cadwallader recounted the most infamous tale of Grant's drinking during the war. It began on June 3 during an inspection tour to Satartia, Mississippi, on the Yazoo River. The siege was agonizingly slow, and Grant had been separated from Julia since April. To alleviate his boredom, he had decided to travel up the Yazoo. During his trip, Grant encountered the steamboat Diligence carrying Cadwallader downriver from Satartia. Grant decided to board Diligence, and according to Cadwallader: 'I was not long in perceiving that Grant had been drinking heavily, and that he was still keeping it up. He made several trips to the bar room of the boat in a short time, and became stupid in speech and staggering in gait. This was the first time he had shown symptoms of intoxication in my presence, and I was greatly alarmed by his condition, which was fast becoming worse.'28 For the next two days, Cadwallader tried unsuccessfully to stop Grant from drinking and did his best to keep him from trouble. By the time Grant finally arrived back at his headquarters, he had sobered up.29

The final incident occurred in July after the surrender of Vicksburg when Grant traveled to New Orleans to discuss operations with Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks. On September 4, Grant, Banks, and their respective staffs rode out to review the troops stationed in New Orleans. Banks had given Grant a large, untamed charger as a gift, and Grant elected to take the horse on the inspection. The animal proved very spirited, and following the inspection Grant had the horse moving at a fast gallop on the return trip into the city when the horse lost its footing and fell, severely injuring the general. Almost from the moment that the unfortunate beast slipped, rumors began circulating that the general had been drunk during the ride. However, there was never any evidence to prove that an intoxicated Grant caused the horse to fall.30

From the New Orleans incident until the end of the war in April 1865, there are no stories of Grant's drinking to excess. Rumors of alcohol abuse continued to hound him, but no evidence suggests that Grant ever repeated his bender of June 1863.

While the severity of Grant's drinking problem was clearly magnified by rumor, it does seem clear from his drinking that Grant had inherited some of his grandfather's fondness for the bottle. Yet, unlike his grandfather, Grant was largely able to control his drinking thanks to the help of people close to him and his own willpower and sense of duty.

Grant seemed to experience his greatest temptation to drink during long periods of inactivity or when he was away from his family. When he became commanding general of the Army, he was able to bring Julia and his oldest son to his headquarters. Julia had always been Grant's strongest supporter in his battle with alcohol, and with her present, Grant stayed sober.

By today's standards, Grant could be considered an alcoholic, but he was able to control his addiction. As Grant biographer Geoffrey Perret explained: 'The entire staff, as well as most of Grant's division and corps commanders, was well aware of his drinking problem. [Brig. Gen. John A.] McClernand tried to make capital out of it and one or two other officers expressed their disgust at Grant's weakness, but to the rest, it did not matter. A few were alcoholics themselves, but the main reason it was tolerated was that when Grant got drunk, it was invariably during quiet periods. His drinking was not allowed to jeopardize operations. It was a release, but a controlled one, like the ignition of a gas flare above a high-pressure oil well.'31

Grant learned how to cope with his addiction to liquor by learning when he could take a drink. Although difficult at times, Grant was able to control his sickness and rely on his ability as a natural leader to achieve victory on the battlefield. As historian James McPherson explained: 'In the end…his predisposition to alcoholism may have made him a better general. His struggle for self-discipline enabled him to understand and discipline others; the humiliation of prewar failures gave him a quiet humility that was conspicuously absent from so many generals with a reputation to protect; because Grant had nowhere to go but up, he could act with more boldness and decision than commanders who dared not risk failure.'32 Consequently, Grant was able to overcome personal failures and adversity and become a well-respected and adored man in later life.

1 Lyle W. Dorsett, 'The Problem of Ulysses S. Grant's Drinking During the Civil War,' Hayes Historical Journal (hereinafter referred to as Problem), vol. 4, no.2 (1983): 37.

2 Ibid., 39.

3 Geoffrey Perret, Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President (hereinafter referred to as Soldier & President), (New York: Random House, 1997), 7.

4 Ibid., 7.

5 Ibid., 9.

6 Dorsett, Problem, 39.

7 Mark Grimsley, 'Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Times, a Special Issue,' (hereinafter referred to as Life and Times) Civil War Times Illustrated, February 1990, 21.

8 W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press 1979), preface.

9 Ibid., 8.

10 William Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935; reprint, New York: Frederick Unger Publishing Co. 1957), 10­11.

11 Grimsley, Life and Times, 24.

12 Dorsett, Problem, 39.

13 Grimsley, Life and Times, 24.

14 Gene Smith, Lee and Grant: A Dual Biography (hereinafter referred to as Lee and Grant) (New York: McGraw Hill Co., 1984), 64.

15 William E. Woodward, Meet General Grant (New York: H. Liveright, 1928), 125.

16 Charles G. Ellington, The Trial of U.S. Grant: The Pacific Coast Years, 1852-1854 (hereinafter referred to as Trial) (Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1987), 170; Perret, Soldier & President, 92.

17 Perret, Soldier and President,100.

18 Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters (New York: Library of America, 1990), 139.

19 Ellington, Trial, 178.

20 Laura Ann Rickarby, Ulysses S. Grant and the Strategy of Victory (New York: Silver Burdett Press, 1981), 45.

21 Smith, Lee and Grant, 65.

22 William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981), 55.

23 Dorsett, Problem, 42.

24 Grimsley, Life and Times, 27.

25 Stewart Sifakis, Who Was Who In The Civil War, vol. 1, Who Was Who in the Union: A Biographical Encyclopedia of More Than 1500 Union Participants (New York: Facts on File, 1988), 161.

26 Bruce Catton, Grant Moves South (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1960), 38.

27 Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years With Grant, ed. Benjamin P. Thomas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), 71.

28 Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years With Grant, ed. Benjamin P. Thomas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1955; reprint Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, 1996), 103.

29 Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years With Grant, ed. Benjamin P. Thomas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1956), 102­10.

30 Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1968), 22­5.

31 Perret, Soldier & President, 262.

32 James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom