Arkady's Thoughts

Today is important insofar as it will serve as a pulse on where the nation is heading.  Some Tea Party favorites are poised to perform much better than polls suggested even as recently as a few weeks ago.  The following races are fascinating: NH Senate:   Despite Palin's endorsement of Kelly Ayotte the more attractive and fiscally responsible choice is clearly Ovide Lamontagne.  Frankly it is getting tiring to see Palin dominate the "tea party" landscape because Palin does not represent any Tea Party of mine.  Keep your social conservatism to yourself. Delaware Senate:  This one I wrote about earlier and despite Mike Castle being a typical RINO moderate Republican does not make it acceptable to vote for him.  Regardless of how insanely blue a state is constantly sending politicians hell bent on spending money we do not have is absurd. Christine O'Donnell defeats Mike Castle!!!  This is fantastic and simply means that even in deep blue De...

Things are getting mighty interesting in the race to fill Joe Biden's seat.  Conservative Christine O'Donnell is now capable of defeating Mike Castle in tomorrow' primary and according to PPP is actually in the lead !  This particular race has generated a lot of heated debate and arguments over the correct strategy going into November. In a nutshell, here is the situation.  Mike Castle is as probably as liberal as it gets and has the votes plus the ratings to confirm this accusation (cap and trade, stimulus, pork).  He is so liberal that calling him a RINO would probably boost his image among rank-and-file Republicans.  Christine O'Donnell, despite being a raging social conservative is strutting her fiscal conservatism and has gotten the endorsements of Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin. Here is the rub, in the latest Rasmussen poll it would appear that Castle has a very formidable lead against the Democrat Coons while O'Donnel is significantly behind.  Presu...

Austan Goolsbee's selection  is not a failure just because it is blatant nepotism, but because Austan is replacing Romer after she butchered the deficit with the monstrosity known the "stimulus package" despite the fact that Austan has been Obama's economic adviser since day one!  It does not require a giant mental leap to conclude that Austan's economic advising must have been taking place during the creation, writing and implementation of the stimulus.  So why would our president, whose job is it to staff positions properly, fill the role with exactly the same people that have failed us.  Why does he insist on pushing the Keynesian spend-to-stimulate approach despite it's demonstrable failure? Oh!  I know why, here it is... Goolsbee, 41, will succeed Christina Romer. A senior administration official said Goolsbee is a team player who can navigate the White House and is a skilled television interviewee who can help the president promote his economic ...

Although a double tap should have done it, yet Murkowski brushed aside Alaskan voters who chose Joe Miller and is now brushing aside Alaska's Libertarian Party .   First, let me be the first to say that the discussions over having Murkowski run on the Libertarian ticket went on for far too long.  How can a group representing constitutional limited government ever consider a porker like Murkowski?   That conversation should have lasted 2 minutes and gone something like this: Murkowski:  Hey guys, I am your best chance at winning a Senate seat ever - support me. Libertarian Party:  We are armed. No, but seriously, what was there to consider?  An insider politician supporting TARP and proudly announcing industry support due to her exceptional skill of shoveling pork into Alaska.  At that rate, Obama would make a great Libertarian candidate too. So what now?  Instead of acknowledging the political winds and the will of the Alaskan people, in...

One of Peter Orszag's first messages after leaving the public sector was to advise his former boss to extend the Bush cuts for two more years.  Ideally he would prefer to extend the cuts only for the middle class, but despite his liberal desires has come to a sober realization. Why does this combination make sense? The answer is that over the medium term, the tax cuts are simply not affordable. Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned. Talk about a rock and a hard place. So despite his Keynesian ways, Orszag admits that a tax increase (essentially what the expiration would amount to) would damage jobs.  His populist desires compel him to suggest we keep these cuts for the middle class only, yet he realizes  the wealthy keep this economy moving.  This is essentially a microcosm of the age-old debate between conservative and liberal thin...

The left's favorite Nobel prize winning liberal economist is busy on the propaganda trail in a vain attempt to bolster his own image.   Where shall we start?  It is no secret that Krugman is one of the most prominent and well known economists pushing for the Stimulus back in 2008.   With the architect of the Stimulus, Christina Romer, now admitting defeat - the left is mobilizing marketing forces to explain the failure. In Krugman's recent diatribe, our hero explains the failure and like a 5 year old school boy proudly announces " I told you !".  This little ego stroke points to a previous article where Krugman warns America that the Stimulus appears to be small and therefore could fail.   This is of course fascinating because central planning always fails, so Krugman positions himself in a very fortunate situation, he can always say "I told you" as a stimulus of any size will fail.  Yet, just two months before, he wrote on November 10, 2008 . So we...

Late breaking news, Tony Blair attempts to set the record straight by letting us know what he really believes about George W. Bush in this latest Politico piece .  As always, partisan hacks provide hours of amusement in the comment section and I encourage you to explore the banter in order to get a glimpse of the utterly pathetic state of intellectual discourse in this country. Other than the obviously superficial, is Tony Blair correct?  While the frenetic left relished in insulting Bush due to his perceived "stupidity" it largely pertained to his speaking and communication ability, see, they wanted an intellectual elite much like what we have right now in the White House.  Yet do you believe the hallmark of a great leader is one that communicates to the masses as opposed to an elite upper crust of society much like Hamilton once envisioned?  Sure Bush made a few speaking errors and may have waved to Stevie Wonder, but if the Bush haters cons...