Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

Over the past several years, I’ve engaged in numerous debates with my liberal friends, and I think I’ve just about learned most of the tricks they pull at this late stage of the game. Here’s my short list of the “Favorite Nine”: 1) Attack The Messenger: Instead of addressing the argument that has been made, people using this method attack the person making it instead. This is particularly easy for many on the left who believe that almost everyone on the right is a racist, sexist, homophobic, Fascist, or some other horrible label.  2) The Bait & Switch: When a claim is made and your opponent refutes it, don’t try to respond, simply change the subject.  3) The Blitzkrieg: The goal here is blast your opponent with so many accusations that they can’t possibly respond.  4 ) Enter The Strawman: Tremendously exaggerating your opponent’s position and then claiming to fight against a position they don’t hold is always a great way to dodge the issues 5) History Will...

You’ll find plenty of blame to go around on this subject, but a little study shows that there were four or five major factors that caused the last big recession, and neither a single president or a single party can be blamed. First, the expanded mandate of Fannie and Freddie - The housing collapse can be traced back the Clinton administration’s pressuring of Fannie and Freddie to encourage more home buying. The Community Reinvestment Act — in which banks were encouraged to lend to people who normally would not be worthy of obtaining home loans — was especially pernicious. The Act had been around for a long time prior to Clinton, but the Clinton Administration turned a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities. This actually started way back in the Carter administration. Second, The FED kept interest rates too low for too long . Keeping interest rates artificially low led predictably to excessive credit a...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body, set up at the request of member governments. It was first established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 43/53. Its mission: "to provide comprehensive scientific assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity , its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences, and possible options for adapting to these consequences or mitigating the effects." Note carefully that the mission of the IPCC clearly states "climate change caused by human activity" as a foregone conclusion - before it even begins to do any scientific research! The chief characteristic which distinguishes a scientific method of i...

A graph titled 'Private Sector Job Creation' on the Obama-Biden campaign website… announces proudly that 4.4 million private sector jobs have been created over the past 28 months. But at the same point during the Reagan recovery, the economy had created 9.5 million new jobs.     Contrary to the Obama campaign's misleading claim of 4.4 million new jobs created, total jobs today are still half a million less than in January 2009 when Obama entered office.    The unemployment rate, which we were told would not exceed 8% if we enacted Mr. Obama's stimulus package…has never fallen below 8% during his presidency. The rate has averaged 9.2% since February 2009. After Bush's tax rate cuts were all fully implemented in 2003, the economy created 7.8 million new jobs over the next 4 years and the unemployment rate fell from over 6% to 4.4%. President Obama and his chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Alan Krueger, brag that private sector ...

Over the last 15 years, we've been told that human CO2 emissions would cause global warming to accelerate to new dangerous levels, and this "unequivocal" warming would generate fantastic, catastrophic climate change disasters - the IPCC's climate models told us this, and truth be told, they were absolutely and spectacularly wrong. As the U.S. has baked during the hot summer of 2012, the rest of the globe has been treading water, so to speak.  As the HadCRUT global temperature chart above shows, the large growth in atmospheric CO2 levels continues. Yet the 15-year trend of stable to a slight global cooling remains . This extended 180-month period of non-warming was not predicted by a single global climate model. The IPCC's climate models obviously have very serious, fundamental issues that can't just be 'tweaked' away. The most serious issue is their being CO2-centric, thus minimizing other factors (i.e., forcings) that influence temperatures an...

Socialism in Europe and in this country always starts the same way – promise people free health care and free retirement and free housing and whatever free stuff wins political favor and gets you reelected. This is what progressive liberals do and what Obama is doing. And people keep voting for them because they love "free stuff".  They don't care where the money comes from.  Some claim that the "rich" will pay for it all. But, the rich do not have enough money. They may have enough to pay for the very poor, but not for everyone. So, the socialists borrow the money. That way, they are still giving the populace free health care. But, at some point you can't borrow the money anymore because the people you are borrowing it from realize that they will never be paid back. This is the tipping point at which socialism fails. Past this point, you have to tax the people to whom you promised the "free" stuff in order to pay for their "free" s...

“Trickle down” is of course a disingenuous misnomer invented by the left to stigmatize conservative supply-side economic policies. It implies favoring the rich—that doing so will “trickle down” to everyone else. Nonsense. Conservatives don’t care any more or less about the rich than do liberals. The point for conservatives is not to help the rich, but to limit the harm done to incentives by tax policy so individuals have greater opportunities to become rich. President Obama misrepresents supply-side economics and then goes on to misinform his audience that it’s never worked. People are entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to their own facts.    Every time supply-side economic policies have been tried, tax rate reductions were applied to every income group — lower-income, middle-income, and upper-income alike — giving everyone a better shot at success. This is true regarding supply-side policies of the 1920s, 1960s, 1980s and 2000s. Economist Thomas S...

Romney is making this election about Barack Obama. Considering the current state of the economy, Barack Obama has a record that he simply cannot run on. This is why the "Generic Republican" did so well in the primary season polls against Obama.  Republicans are putting forward a contrasting vision, but the election is ultimately a referendum on Obama.  Romney is correctly focusing on that issue. Romney has a history of turning things around. With the economy still limping along, only a 63 percent labor force participation rate, and American debt dangerously spiraling out of control, this country absolutely must have a change in direction.  Fixing entities that are in trouble is exactly what Mitt Romney has spent much of his life doing. As CEO of Bain Capital, Romney oversaw the investment and renovation of numbers of struggling companies, with an 80% overall success rate.  He successfully led the effort to save the 2002 Winter Olympics, which...

1. Higher taxes lead to higher spending, not lower deficits . Evidence from Europe shows that politicians almost always claim that higher taxes will be used to reduce red ink, but the inevitable result is bigger government.  2. A value-added tax would be a disaster . The statists won’t be able to impose a European-style welfare state in the United States without first imposing this European-style money machine for big government. 3. A welfare state cripples the human spirit . 4. Nations reach a point of no return when the number of people mooching off government exceeds the number of people producing . The welfare state, unchecked, inevitably leads to fiscal collapse. One need only look to Greece to see this in action. 5. Bailouts don’t work .   Imagine how much better things would be in Europe if Greece never received an initial bailout. Much less money would have been flushed down the toilet and this tough-love approach would have sent a very positive message to...

First of all, this is just not true. Secondly, this makes an assumption that all conservatives are white. There are many black conservatives.   Are there racists in the Republican party? Sure, but no more than you’ll find in the Democratic Party. So, why are Republicans being constantly accused of racism? It’s a political strategy . If black Americans weren’t convinced that the GOP was racist, they’d probably break 70/30 or even 60/40 for the Democrats instead of 90/10 and that would be devastating to the left. That’s why the Democrats are desperate to shout "racism" at every possible opportunity. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or false because the political stakes are so high for the left. Thinking for oneself, loving your country, understanding and embracing the free market capitalist system, and loving your Constitution means you are not “black” but instead you are a "house negro" or a "token" for the Republican party.  ...