As you know, I follow college football … so have it, I’ll be in the kitchen whipping up appetizers and listening in.

When Governor Perry stated in his first GOP debate that Social Security was a monstrous lie on young people, he was excoriated from all sides in a manner reminiscent of the depiction of Paul Ryan pushing a wheelchair-bound grandma off a cliff.

However, we need take pause and consider what is happening in Italy and Japan that is just a few blocks ahead on the road America is currently traveling.

The war on the young is led “by cadres of elderly men, content to manage decline” and exacerbated by younger generations, who don’t seem to know what’s going on or understand the gravity of the financial situation that will hit them in the future. Luke Johnson, writing in the FT, describes the Italian and Japanese version of this trend.

Neither country has renewed itself because vested interests have failed to take the tough decisions. Their traditional cultures have not caught up with modern lifestyles. The male bureaucrats, policymakers and bankers who run all the important institutions must be forced to take radical steps to unleash the energy and imagination of their young, because in both countries they are very pessimistic. Many cannot obtain the job security and standards of living their parents took for granted. Traditional employees enjoy cast-iron protections, so companies are reluctant to create such positions. So, only temporary or part-time work is available for most newcomers to the workplace. Consequently, young Japanese and Italians pursue increasingly cautious lifestyles. Nearly 80 per cent of unmarried Japanese between the ages of 18 and 35 live with their parents. The ratio is nearly as high in Italy.

Such unadventurous living means people do not grow up, and do not take risks – such as having children or starting a business. Meanwhile, their parents bask in comfortable retirement, busy consuming their considerable savings.

Both nations are burdened by weak leadership, over-regulation, feeble productivity growth and a lack of economic dynamism – despite plenty of natural ingenuity and ambition. It appears that the vitality of Italy and Japan is being sucked out of their cultures by deteriorating demographics, high taxes, the burden of caring for elderly relatives and a youthful cohort with a diminished sense of self-confidence or optimism.

America has pushed itself down the road to being a “risk-averse” society, encouraged in no small part by its litigious response to life’s smallest disappointments. Laws, regulations, codes and all many of rules of such Byzantine complexity have arisen to freeze and prevent the vast majority of any competitive challenges to entrenched interests.

In a society that punishes grade-school children who set up lemonade stands, why should we be surprised “children” remain home with their parents until 30?

Nah, what for?

Facing a feeble economy, a falling approval rating, and a stubbornly-high unemployment rate, the pressure is on for President Obama to “do something” to get business activity back on track and Americans back to work. So in an address to the nation last Thursday, the President announced a new plan he thinks will do exactly that. Among the proposals, only a few have a chance of passing through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives: to conservative lawmakers, “stimulus” is a dirty word. But fortunately for the President he can proceed with one plan – a mortgage refinancing program that will cost taxpayers $600 million – entirely without Congressional approval.

[...]

…this continues a troubling habit we’ve seen from President Obama: circumventing Congress and the legislative process in order to implement major policy decisions by executive fiat.

Ah, so what.  The kingship of unfulfilled progressive promises need no more concern itself with the way life-enriching law and policy should be written in the US than the US itself evidently does.  And the media?  The media who found issue with Dubya’s flight suit find issue with an emperor slashing his way through the former constitutional republic?  You mean that truth-speaking to power?

Me, I just think this all nicely completes the school of thought that says that whether actual or claimed, a successful mandated function is probably a fine mandated function … and you can just imagine the hogs lining up for this latest round of mandated garbage money creation.  Plus it indirectly warrants and is warranted by clockwork presidents single-handedly putting America Back to Work™ every five or ten years, using the same trough.  That’s what I call timely public service avoiding national emergencies.  #Handy!

Which could just codify nicely into a handy, cut-to-the-chase, decks-clearing new Amendment.

protein wisdom replies: “Tell you what: you can do away with your debt ceiling the minute all of us can do away with being forced to send you our money.

“If it’s your own money you want to spend without limit, have at it. But were I you, Rep. Johnson, I wouldn’t spend it all on a pair of water wings for Guam. Trust me, you don’t have that kind of cash, and besides, it’ll stay afloat all by its own self.”*

Beth Shaw, Resourceful Earth News:

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) recently wrote a letter to the EPA urging the agency to halt the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. The Alaskan copper and gold mine project has been in limbo for more than three years – with $120 million spent to research how to have minimal impact on the surrounding environment near Bristol Bay. Once it has been officially proposed, the Pebble site will have to go through 67 federal, state, and local agencies for approvals and permits.

If this isn’t stringent enough, I don’t know what is. Now, Cantwell won’t even let the process work. She is changing the game altogether by moving to preempt the environmental review process the EPA put in place. The consequences couldn’t be more serious if Cantwell succeeds in her efforts. If she succeeds, ANY Natural Resource Extraction in the United States will not be safe from the EPA and radical environmentalists.

As Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski wrote, a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project will expand the powers of the EPA and “could have widespread and unintended consequences for any development project, including airports and other infrastructure.” Cantwell’s actions make a mockery of the federal environmental review process and leave Americans even more dependent on foreign sources to meet our needs for natural resources and energy. More American jobs will be lost and it will be another blow to our already shaky economy.

Here’s how you can join us in fighting for America’s energy independence:

Email Senator Cantwell’s office here.
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspapers.
Sign the petition and use hash tag #GivePebbleAChance on Twitter.
Use your blog, Facebook and Twitter to let your friends know what is happening under the radar!
Get more information at Resourceful Earth News including how to contact Senator Maria Cantwell. You can also get more information about this important issue here. Sign our twitter petition. Please retweet the article using the hash tag #GivePebbleAChance. Contact information for Sen. Cantwell is here.

Surprise! China is beginning to place conditions on bailing out over-extended western countries.

Some call this blackmail. I call it “what the fuck did you expect? These people have ‘population control’ and gulags, for Chrissakes!”

Frankly, I like mine better.

Jon Huntsman. Who apparently is running for President. On the GOP ticket!

Honestly, who knew?

Meanwhile, every time it seems Americans are getting fed up enough to get off their couches and survey the political landscape with an unjaundiced eye, they backslide into Hope and Change and the empty promises of an empty suit. Obama leads Perry 46-39 (Rasmussen). Last month, before entering the debates, Perry held a lead of 44% to 41% over Obama.

Romney holds a 3 pt advantage over Obama, but he did get the fiercely sought after Jimmy Carter endorsement, so there might be an artificial bump built in to Romney’s numbers.

Most discouragingly, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. I note this as I remind you all that something like 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax, and Obama’s latest jobs plan is an effort to permanently raise taxes on the productive class to keep that 47% happy and well fed on the dole.

I’d quote de Toqueville here, but really, why bother? The math is what the math is. The window of opportunity to pull back from the end state of a free market capitalist society built upon the idea of individual rights and equitable justice is all but closed.

“So here’s the question: Is it cruel to hire or promote someone to a job they could never conceivably be qualified for?”

Dead at 31

Until you’ve seen a special photograph, Craig Wilson says you don’t know the whole story of Rick Perry’s HPV vaccine decision.

“She’s happy as hell. I mean, she is just unbelievably ecstatic,” Wilson said. “Here she is on a beautiful ranch somewhere, riding on a motorcycle, which she’s never really done, with the governor of the state of Texas.”

The guy driving the motorcycle is Governor Rick Perry. The young woman on the back is Houstonian Heather Burcham, who was at that moment just 31 years old and a few months away from dying of cervical cancer.

Heather said in an interview prior to her death, “I feel like I’m not going in vain, because I can tell others about it.” [...]

Long after the order was rescinded and Perry lost the political fight, they kept talking. Heather had Perry’s personal cell phone number and he invited her for a day at a friend’s ranch.

Wilson, a friend of Heather’s, recalled, “It was a great day, one of the great days of her life. She loved the whole thing.”

Months later, when the end was near for Heather, Perry quietly snuck into Houston and sat by her bedside. No press, no statement — just the governor and one of his 21 million constituents.

When Michelle Bachmann channeled David Axelrod and smeared Perry by suggesting he was motivated by filthy lucre, Perry could have easily (like so many politicians do) brought up the story of Heather Burcham.

He didn’t.

That’s what integrity looks like. Sorry Bachmann lost hers.

h/t Kathleen McKinley