He owes his escape from poverty to the work ethic and the values his mom drummed into him -- and to Chic-fil-A french fries, Tim Scott says. His single parent mother often worked 16 hour days as a nurses assistant "cleaning up other people's feces," so Tim and his brothers would have food in their bellies and clothes on their backs. As a freshman in high school in North Charleston, Tim Scott couldn't afford to buy a sandwich at Chic-fil-A.  But he'd often make a meal of the fries at a restaurant near the movie theater where he worked part time.  One day the restaurant's owner struck up a conversation.  John Moniz became Tim Scott's mentor. "My mother taught me how to shoot for the stars, but he taught me how to think it through," Mr. Scott said. "It's about thinking your way out of poverty."  Having a job is good, John Moniz told Tim.  But creating jobs is better.  After college, Tim Scott started his own insurance agency. 

It was, said the business correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, "akin to pot-smoking pagans driving the Mormons out of Utah." Rick Newman was referring to the votes last Tuesday (12/10) which made Michigan -- birthplace of the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters -- the 24th right to work state. Organized labor wouldn't have suffered this stunning defeat if union bosses hadn't tried to amend Michigan's constitution to forbid any restrictions on their power.  Their hubris led to their downfall -- a fate the ancient Greeks would instantly recognize -- and a huge win for the people of Michigan.

Most of us learn -- eventually -- from experience.  That's the hard way.  We'd avoid a lot of pain if we learned more from the experience of others. To learn from the experience of others is the reason why we study history.  But history isn't taught much any more in our public schools, or in our colleges and universities.  It shows. History doesn't ever repeat itself, exactly.  But as Mark Twain noted, it rhymes.  History rhymes because people the world over are more like than unlike each other, and because people haven't changed all that much over the millennia.  We have the same virtues and the same vices as the ancient Greeks and Romans.  The same passions motivate us.  So we make essentially the same mistakes, over and over again. In an earlier column, I mentioned a favorite poem, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," by my favorite poet, Rudyard Kipling.  To those who don't study history, it must seem eerie how, writing in 1919, Kipling captured the essence of the Obama administration.

The average cost of a year at a public university last year was $17,131, according to the College Board.  For a year at a private college, the average cost was $38,589.  Most of the middle class would already be priced out, were it not for the federal student loan program, which is of far greater benefit to faculty and staff.  Student debt has increased 74 percent since the 2008 recession began, according to a Citibank study, but only about half of recent graduates have found jobs.  There are as many student loan debtors as adults with bachelor's degrees. The 90 day delinquency rate on student loan repayment has "gone parabolic."  If the economy falls back into recession next year, soaring defaults will skyrocket. The college bubble is about to burst.  When it does, the carnage will be awesome - and so will be the opportunities to reform higher education and liberal dominance of it.

What will happen if we go over the fiscal cliff? That depends on which "fiscal cliff."  The term has been applied to two very different economic events: Journalists now are calling what will happen in January if Democrats and Republicans in Washington don't make a budget deal this month the "fiscal cliff:"   The combination of its tax hikes and spending cuts will send unemployment back above 9 percent, and the economy into recession, the Congressional Budget Office forecast. That's bad.  But if the economy falls over this "fiscal cliff," it's likely only to sprain an ankle, or maybe crack a rib.  If the economy goes over the much higher cliff to which the term originally referred, it'll be in a coma.

Here's a fascinating fact that ought to be guiding budget negotiations: Since the end of World War II, federal tax revenues from all sources have averaged 19.6 percent of the gross domestic product, according to a study by the American Institute for Economic Research. Who gets taxed how, and by how much are important questions which have moral implications, and can have profound economic consequences.  But however high tax rates rise, revenues rarely -- and barely -- exceed 19 percent of GDP. If no matter how tax laws are changed, tax revenues will fall somewhere between 19 percent and 20 percent of GDP, the only way to increase tax revenue significantly is to grow the economy.  So changes in tax policy should be judged by how the change would affect economic growth, since only this will make a significant difference in revenue. Thus, the GOP in Congress whould compromise on taxes only if the Dems....

Some Americans benefit from Obamanomics.  Campaign "bundlers" for President Barack Obama have received, on average, $21,000 in federal loans and grants for every dollar they contributed, said Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute.  (A"bundler" gathers donations from many different individuals and presents the candidate with a lump sum.) The president's supporters who aren't crony capitalists will discover shortly Obamanomics isn't so good for them. Lets's count up the ways they are screwed.

His only experience in federal office before becoming president was a single term in the House of Representatives.  Two years before his election, he lost a race for the U.S. Senate.  Why do I write about Abraham Lincoln at the start of a column about my favorite Congressman?  Because Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., won't be my favorite Congressman much longer.  He was narrowly defeated for re-election, in large part because of chicanery (i.e., Dem vote fraud) in St. Lucie County. National Democrats hope this will be the end of him, politically.  If conservatives are smart, it will be just the beginning.

Before Nov. 6, I thought only governments could spend so much money to such little effect. Republicans spent about $1 billion on Election  2012.  For bupkes. If fewer than half a million votes in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Colorado hadn't been stolen, Mitt Romney would be taking the oath of office Jan. 20.  When you lose so narrowly within the Democrat margin of fraud, defeat can be blamed on many things.  Mr. Romney might have won if: Yet the bigger takeaway for me from Election 2012 is how shrewd leftists were to concentrate on gaining control of our most important cultural institutions.  It took time, but the payoff has been huge.  Liberals and those further left dominate our public schools, colleges and universities, Hollywood, and the news media.  The deck was stacked against Republicans.  Conservatives can break the liberal stranglehold on our culture  --but only if we wise up.  If, a few years ago, conservatives had invested just one percent of what was blown this year on campaign advertising on building conservative cultural infrastructure, Mitt Romney might now be president-elect. 

It's taken a soap opera to get the network evening news broadcasts to take an interest in what happened in Libya on 9/11/2012.  Better late than never.  Three days after Barack Hussein Obama was safely re-elected, Gen. David Petraeus, the CIA director, resigned.  The reason, he said, was his affair with Paula Broadwell, 40, his biographer. We didn't learn about the affair until election day, the White House claims. This strains credulity.  Gen. Petraeus apparently lied when he testifed about Benghazi to the House Intelligence Committee Sept. 13.  Why?  His testimony was behind closed doors, so security couldn't have been the reason.  Was he being blackmailed? The most important questions have nothing to do with sex.  Let's ask them.

Defeat fosters introspection, which is good, and recriminations, which are bad. All Republicans agree the GOP must change to be competitive in future elections.  But few agree on what should change. No good can come from forming a circular firing squad. The GOP lost across the board.  Bad candidates lost.  So did good candidates.  Moderates lost. So did Tea Party favorites.  Republicans lost in blue states, purple states, even in some red states. Republicans didn't lose because they compromised too much or too little, were too strident or too milquetoast.  They lost because 38 percent of the voters were Democrats, just 32 percent Republicans.  That Mitt Romney came as close to winning as he did with a D+6 electorate is remarkable.  But weep not for the GOP.  Weep for America.  Catastrophe looms.

When property damage, lost business, and the extra expenses of families who have to live in hotels are added up, Hurricane Sandy is expected to cost between $30 billion and $50 billion.  That would make it the second most expensive storm in history, after Katrina, which cost $108 billion.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinates U.S. disaster relief efforts with state and local governments, and private charities such as the Red Cross. In Sandy's the immediate aftermath, politicians -- and the CorruptMedia -- pronounced themselves well pleased with the government's response. That opinion isn't shared in many hard hit communities.  The government's response is being called Fakakta FEMA in Staten Island.

At the time he and Glen Doherty were killed by a mortar round some seven hours after the assault on the consulate began, Tyrone Woods was shining a ground laser designator on the mortar position. The former Navy SEAL wouldn't have done that unless he were "painting" a target for an aircraft, because if the terrorists had cell phones with night vision capabilities, they could see the laser beam, and trace it back to his location. Mr. Woods' repeated requests for military assistance were turned down, according to "sources who were on the ground in Benghazi," Fox News reported Friday (10/26).  Whoever did so could be accomplices to the muder of Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, diplomat Sean Smith, and Ambassador Chris Stevens.

The Navy needs more ships, Mitt Romney said in Monday's (10/22) debate.  It has fewer now than in 1916. Barack Hussein Obama pounced.  "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed," he said, his voice dripping with contempt.  In the spin room, journalists laughed and applauded.  Liberals imagine themselves to be intellectually and morally superior to conservatives. They stopped laughing when they realized how the Navy and shipbuilding are very important in southeast Virginia.  With his wisecrack, the president kissed the state goodbye. It isn't just in Virginia where Mr. Obama's fortunes are plummeting. When Missouri isn't a swing state, but Minnesota is, Democrats are in trouble, big time.  It's hard to see now how the president can mount a comeback. So what are those three beautiful words?

In the final presidential debate last night (10/22), Mitt Romney made me think of Nathanael Greene (1742-1786). Most historians think Greene was, after George Washington, the best American general in the Revolution (if you don't count Benedict Arnold, who was the best on either side, and -- of course -- on both sides). Greene won despite losing every battle he fought.  He won by focusing relentlessly on his strategic objectives. Most pundits say President Barack Hussein Obama won last night's debate.  But his victory was Pyrrhic.  Like Greene, Romney understands that it's not winning a particular battle that counts -- it's winning the war.

I thought Mitt Romney was splendid last night.  Not perfect, of course.  There's a consensus among conservative commentators that he flubbed an opportunity on Libya.  He did ramble some, but I think it was "moderator" Candy Crowley's intervention that kept him from landing a more solid blow. Otherwise, Romney rumbled.  He was confident, knowledgeable, likeable.  He was assertive without being aggressive.  Both in what he said and in body language, he was more presidential than Zero.  This is why I don't buy the near consensus among the punditocracy that this debate was a draw.  Obama was much better than he was in Denver, but he was still the lesser man on the stage.  He was aggressive where Romney was assertive; he filibustered where Romney was direct and concise; he was nakedly partisan, and he shrank back in the moments when Romney asserted alpha male status. The alpha male highlight was Romney shutting Zero down when Zero tried to interrupt him:  "You'll get your chance in a moment. I'm still speaking."  Zero shrank right on camera and slunk back to his stool.  Here's the video clip:

President Barack Hussein Obama has raised more money than any candidate ever. Much it has come from overseas, according to the Government Accountability Institute, a private think tank.  It's illegal to solicit contributions from foreigners, but citizens of China, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Egypt have been asked to contribute to Obama, the GAI found.  Illegal contributions, facilitated by probably deliberate lax security, have flooded into the Obama campaign.  The administration is spending billions on schemes of dubious legality to conceal both the impact of its policies on Medicare Advantage, and on employment in defense industries.  All three would rank among the greatest campaign finance scandals ever. But if you get your news from ABC, NBC, CBS or CNN, you may not have heard of any of them. Nor would you know Obama campaign aides in four states have helped people register to vote illegally. Add to this Fast & Furious, the Solyndra "green energy" scam, and so very much more.  Has there ever been in our nation's history a more crooked and corrupt president than the one we are suffering under today?  The answer is no.  Not even close.

"We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan," President Barack Hussein Obama said in his acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention Sept. 6. "Al Qaida is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead." Five days later, on 9/11/2012, Islamists murdered our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans and destroyed our consulate in Benghazi.  In an attack on our embassy in Cairo the same day, the mob pulled down the American flag, burned it, and raised the black flag of al Qaida on the embassy flagstaff. Al Qaida also was behind attacks on our embassy in Yemen Sept. 13, and Tunisia Sept. 14, said Thomas Joscelyn of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "The path to defeat" more appropriately describes Mr. Obama's foreign policy.

Mitt Romney's dominance in the first presidential debate was so clear cut, President Barack Hussein Obama's admirers in the news media couldn't spin it away.  Romney won, 46-22, in CBS' instapoll of viewers.  In CNN's flash poll, it was Romney 67, Obama 25. Conservatives were ecstatic, liberals dismayed. MSNBC's talking heads looked as if "someone shot all their dogs," tweeted a writer for National Review. The best the spinners could spin was there was no "game changing" moment.  Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard dampened conservative glee a little when he recalled that Mr. Mondale was the winner in his first debate with President Reagan. "The triumph on one night by Mondale led nowhere," Mr. Barnes said.  "Romney needs to keep in mind that victory in one debate and victory on November 6 are two different things." Mr. Barnes should have reflected more on why Mr. Mondale's superior performance did him no good. This Romney-Obama first debate was indeed a "game changer."  Here's why:

My formative experience in politics came at age 16, when I ran the Goldwater campaign in Columbia County, Wisconsin, because the senior party wanted nothing to do with him.  I was sure Barry would win because... because I wanted him to. As you may recall, Barry didn't win.  Ever since, I've been able to distinguish pretty well between what I'd like to have happen in an election, and what I think will happen.  I haven't been wrong about the outcome of a presidential race since 1964. President Barack Hussein Obama is cruising toward re-election, most polls indicate. The signs I read say different.

It may be a scandal too big for the news media to cover up.  * * * * The man chiefly responsible for the video President Obama blames for Middle East violence has been arrested on a parole violation.  The video may have been an Islamist provocation. * * * * Zero is farting away the victory in Iraq, says the chief military correspondent of the New York Times. * * * * The president had no time to meet with foreign leaders at the UN, but made time for an appearance on "The View."  If it seems as if Zero is just mailing it in these days, that may be exactly what the slacker-in-chief is doing. * * * * Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion last year to staff, house, transport and entertain President Obama and his family last year.  Britain's royal family cost British taxpayers just $57.8 million. * * * * An old column by the former father in law of de facto White House chief of staff Valerie Jarrett explains why Zero bows to Saudi princes. * * * * Even Howard Dean conceded Dingy Harry Reid has a credibility problem after Mitt Romney disclosed how much tax he's paid.

The war in Afghanistan effectively ended last week.  We lost. The last of the surge troops President Barack Obama sent to Afghanistan were quietly withdrawn.  They did not leave in triumph: Taliban guerrillas dressed in U.S. Army uniforms attacked Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan, Sept. 14, destroying 8 Marine Harrier jump jets.  It was our greatest loss of aircraft since the Vietnam war. Two British and four American soldiers were killed by Afghan policemen the following Saturday and Sunday.  After these attacks, NATO suspended most joint operations with Afghan security forces. “We’re to the point now where we can’t trust these people,” a senior military official told NBC’s Pentagon correspondent.

Why do history, common sense, and election fundamentals say one thing, the polls and pundits something very different? The clue is in the column I wrote in July on Charlie Brown Conservatives.  We know the news media are biased, but we haven't grasped - or internalized - how breathtaking mendacious they've become.  We keep expecting Lucy to hold the football.  They're counting on that.

In 1970, our schools, from kindergarten on, were the envy of the world.   In the four decades since, per pupil spending in the public schools, adjusted for inflation, has increased 250 percent.  College tuition has risen four times faster than inflation. But today we lead the world only in spending per pupil.  We trail far behind our major international competitors in student achievement.  The U.S. is the only OECD country where young adults haven't learned more than their parents were taught in school. In earlier columns, I've shown how little our children learn even in college, and how this blights their futures, harms the economy, and threatens the viability of our democratic institutions. "So what would you do?" several TTPers have asked.  Here's what.

The Democrats and Republicans have held their national conventions.  The most important election since 1980 - perhaps since 1860 - is now just 60 days away. The polls show a tight race.  In the RealClear Politics average of polls yesterday, it was Obama 46.7, Romney 46.7. "It's going to remain tight as a tick," White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe predicted yesterday. The sour mood and the frantic spinning of liberal journalists suggests something different. Only twice in the age of television has a party's national convention actually hurt its electoral prospects.  The convention we saw in Charlotte this week may be the third. "Barack Obama leaves the Democratic National Convention here with a commanding position in the race for president," wrote Ben Smith of Buzzfeed. Mr. Smith either is spinning furiously, or is delusional.  Among political pros, there is a technical term for an incumbent president who polls in the mid-40s two months before the election.  That term is "toast."

Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago? "Absolutely," said Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for President Barack Hussein Obama.  "By any measure the country has moved forward over the last four years."  She overlooked these measures, which only a true moonbat could:

We're likely to learn much more about what may be the biggest scam in history because a blustering bully has had his bluff called. Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University created the famous ‘hockey stick' graph, which purports to show that global temperatures soared in the 20th Century after having been stable for 900 years. According to it, the Medieval Warm Period (about AD 800 to 1400), and the Little Ice Age (about AD 1600 to 1850) never existed.   He's a complete fraud, but he's gotten away with it because his threats of lawsuits intimidated those who said what he is.  He's not getting away with it any longer.

"America is a land of second chances, and I gather you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it," said Artur Davis, who in Denver in 2008 seconded the nomination of Barack Hussein Obama for president, and served as co-chairman of his campaign. Last night (8/28), Artur Davis spoke again at a national political convention.  But this time he was in Tampa with the Republicans, where he explained why he is supporting Mitt Romney for president.  His speech was fabulous -- the video of it in full is below for you to enjoy. Mr. Davis said not a word about race.  But more than the role he played in the president's last campaign, it is his race that makes Artur Davis the most significant of disillusioned Obama supporters.

We must rein in this rogue agency before it destroys our economy, two recent decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia make clear. The Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its statutory authority when it issued rules that would shut down many coal-fired electric utilities and industrial plants, the appeals court ruled Tuesday (8/21). The EPA's rules are "without basis in the Clean Air Act or its implementing regulations," the court said.  "Absent a claim of constitutional authority (and there is none here), executive agencies may exercise only the authority conferred by statute, and agencies may not transgress statutory limits on that authority." The EPA is abusing its authority to advance a political agenda, not to protect the environment. It does far more harm than good.  It needs to be abolished.

President Barack Hussein Obama, campaigning in Ohio today (8/21), attacked the budget Rep. Paul Ryan proposed last year for cutting federal funds for grants and loans to students. He's a friend of education, but "putting a college education within reach for working families doesn't seem to be a priority" for either Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, snarked Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama has indeed been a friend to those who run our colleges and universities.  But he's been no friend at all to young people who've been paying Cadillac prices for the educational equivalent of a Yugo. Our higher education system is being run by shysters supported by our Shyster-in-Chief -- and the con they are running on college students is criminal.

In the infamous Mediscare ad, someone who looks like Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI, pushes an old woman in a wheelchair over a cliff.  It was, said PolitiFact, "the 2011 Lie of the Year." Expect to see that ad often now that Rep. Ryan is on the GOP ticket.  This pleases MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, who said it's the ad he likes most in this campaign. The ad and Mr. Matthews' fondness for it epitomize the Democrats' strategy for re-electing President Barack Hussein Obama.  They assume senior citizens are greedy and stupid, that keeping their government benefits as is is more important to them than the welfare of their children and grandchildren. Democrats assume also seniors will just take their word for it that Republicans plan to cut their benefits. They'll make no effort to determine the facts.  It'll be disastrous for Democrats if they do, and here's why.

Now we know:  Mitt Romney will paint with bold colors, not pale pastels. No politician knows more about our fiscal woes than Rep. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, and no politician can explain them better.  But he brings much more to the ticket than nonpareil economic expertise. Paul Ryan is a full spectrum conservative.  His views differ little from those of Sarah Palin.  But his warm, friendly, low key style makes him harder to demonize.  Yet no one gets under the president's skin more than does Paul Ryan. Conservative Web sites linked all weekend to the Youtube video of Rep. Ryan's evisceration of Obamacare during a meeting at the White House in February, 2010, and Mr. Obama's nonplussed reaction. Despite Mr. Ryan's manifest and manifold virtues, however, the best thing about his selection is what it tells us about Mitt Romney.