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"The emperor needed the wealthier classes to help him run the empire. Senators in particular were the class he lived amongst and their attitude towards him tended to dictate how he would be portrayed in later histories."

- How Rome Fell, Adrian Goldsworthy

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America lost a further 467,000 non-farming jobs in June, pushing up the unemployment rate to 9.5%, a 26-year high.

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The Roman Empire did not fall quickly, but as part of a very slow process, and this should warn us against magnifying current events and their likely consequences on the long-term fortune of countries. Britain has been a fairly depressing place in the last decade or so. Ministers caught out in incompetence, corruption or blatant deceitfulness cling on to power like limpets, first denying everything, before finally apologising and expecting this to be enough. Bureaucracy and regulation continue to grow apace, while the basic efficiency of institutions declines, rendering them incapable of even the apparently simple tasks. Yet while the number of civil servants rises, the size of the armed forces shrinks at the very time they are more committed to serious campaigns. It would be easy to draw parallels with the Roman Empire in the fourth century. The self-righteous tone of so much government legislation certainly chimes with late Late Roman imperial decrees, as does the apparent failure of so much of this to achieve its aim. Such comparisons are unlikely to assist our analysis of the Roman Empire, and would be no more than the author indulging himself. Understanding the history must come first.

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A cartoon on RedState featuring John Mayer/ABC/Obama.

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Obama is clearly to the left of Europe. He sees himself more as multicultural prophet born out of the Third World, foe of colonialism, angry at past imperialism, skeptical of capitalism, eager to showcase his non-traditional ancestry and tripartite nomenclature. By coming from the West, but separating himself from the history of his own country, Obama has become a citizen of the world, who polls far higher, as intended, in the Middle East, than does his own country.

Source

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"Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

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(2) Chi-Comms and Times Get It, Obama Doesn't

The Federal Reserve is printing money from thin air, and the government is issuing trillions of dollars in new debt as it tries to spend its way out of the recession with a huge stimulus package, new lending programs, health care overhauls and automotive rescues.

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Judge Sotomayor has managed to take already liberal, redistributionist areas of the law and push them even further down the road in the direction of redistributing wealth to constituencies favored by government officials. The Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo case that governments can take private property and give it to developers as part of a general redevelopment plan that they rationally believe will benefit the public good.

But Judge Sotomayor went well beyond that, to hold that property owners have no legal redress even in the face of what legal commentators have called extortion, in Didden v. City of Port Chester. In that case, a developer told a property owner to either give him $800,000 or half his property, or he would seize it by having the Village of Port Chester condemn it. When the property owner refused, the developer promptly had the town condemn it and transfer it to him. Judge Sotomayor and two of her colleagues upheld this seizure against a constitutional challenge in an unpublished opinion.

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Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

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Every day one sees yet another shop being abandoned and boarded up; in London some local authorities are allowing charities and small groups to move into abandoned shop premises rather than let them become damp-ridden dumps. As this unfolds, members of Parliament are reported to have been claiming £18,000 for a bookcase and £6,000 for a wooden floor, while engaging in complicated “flipping” arrangements in which they received payments for switching homes every so often.

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Teachers and administrators, whether in universities or schools, have the duty and privilege to ensure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice. This requires that public witness to the way of Christ, as found in the Gospel and upheld by the Church’s Magisterium, shapes all aspects of an institution’s life, both inside and outside the classroom. Divergence from this vision weakens Catholic identity and, far from advancing freedom, inevitably leads to confusion, whether moral, intellectual, or spiritual.

This incident in the life of the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic Church, and the United States will not end with the passage of the weekend, or even when the talking heads stop chattering about it. In an interview with National Review Online last week, Archbishop Burke urged those who are concerned about what has happened at Notre Dame to let their views be known. (Some did just this on campus, with varying degrees of effectiveness and prudence.) Write Fr. Jenkins. Write Bishop D’Arcy, who did not attend the commencement exercises but did attend an on-campus protest. Write the Vatican.

You, who have devoted your lives to bearing witness to the love of Christ and the building up of his Body, know from your daily contact with the world around us how tempting it is at times to give way to frustration, disappointment and even pessimism about the future. In a word, it is not always easy to see the light of the Spirit all about us, the splendor of the Risen Lord illuminating our lives and instilling renewed hope in his victory over the world (cf. Jn 16:33).

Yet the word of God reminds us that, in faith, we see the heavens opened, and the grace of the Holy Spirit lighting up the Church and bringing sure hope to our world.

Big Labor’s investment in Obama pays off

Obama champions the SEIU’s top legislative priorities: expansive government health care (paid for with regressive sin taxes) and the Orwellian-titled “Employee Free Choice Act” to do away with private-ballot union elections in the workplace. (The initiative is “alive and well,” Stern said this week.) Obama has SEIU-blessed bureaucrats installed in every corner of his administration to carry out the agenda.

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Into a deep hole

The figures confirmed that the euro zone has been hit far harder by the global downturn than its rich-world peers (and largest export markets) in America and Britain. When spending in these countries dried up, because of scarce credit, they exported some of the pain to their suppliers. For that reason Germany has so far paid a higher price for its reliance on exports than the Anglo-Saxon countries have borne for their dependence on credit and rising house prices. Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, export-led manufacturers have been hit hardest.

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...the Obama people might think there's some sort of moral equivalence between Israel and Iran.

They don't think that at all. In their minds Israel is the colonial power oppressing the peaceful Muslims who just want to blow the infidel up in peace. Hussein Obama and the leftists know in their hearts that Israel and the U.S. need to be destroyed because they are the root of all evil.

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trough (noun) - a long, narrow, open receptacle, usually boxlike in shape, used chiefly to hold water or food for animals.

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Obama defends budget as deficit forecast surges
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast Friday the deficit could hit 1.845 trillion dollars this year under the Obama proposal, quadrupling the 2008 record shortfall.

The CBO said its latest budget deficit estimate for fiscal 2009, which ends on September 30, would amount to 13.1 percent of the country's total economic output.

China buying boosts gold to 3-week high
"China is protecting its huge currency risk by diversifying with gold as well as other currencies like the euro. This is prudent," said Frank Holmes, chief executive officer of U.S. Global Investors, which manages more than $2 billion in fund assets.

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