Amid the controversy over Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime In America” Super Bowl commercial, a glaring question remains: if Chrysler is back on top and so strong, then why hasn’t it repaid taxpayers the $1.3 billion it still owes them?

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” said Republican strategist Karl Rove. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

Already, Democrats have begun co-opting the “It’s Halftime In America” meme, and President Barack Obama’s campaign team has already signaled that “saving” Detroit and the American auto industry will be a central campaign theme in Mr. Obama’s 2012 reelection bid. Indeed, in June 2011, Mr. Obama proudly declared:
Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency–and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule. And this week, we reached a deal to sell our remaining stake. That means Chrysler will be 100 percent in private hands.

We take no view on whether the administration’s efforts on behalf of the automobile industry were a good or bad thing; that’s a matter for the editorial pages and eventually the historians. But we are interested in the facts the president cited to make his case.

What we found is one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan.

Read More at Big Government By Wynton Hall, Big Government

If there were any doubt as to whether this administration is waging a war on religion, it should have disappeared by now.

The administration has ordered — without congressional input — that most health insurance plans cover preventive services for women, including recommended contraceptive services without charging a co-pay, co-insurance, or a deductible. That would include sterilization and emergency contraception, colloquially known as the morning after pill.

The federal government — actually just one branch of the federal government — ordering private companies to offer services at a certain price goes beyond the pale of decency in a free society. By itself, such an order would merit strong backlash from the people.

But it gets worse.

The order forces religious entities, ones that might have a moral aversion to birth control, to provide (i.e. pay for) this insurance for their employees.

Read More at Western Journalism By Thomas Lucenter, Western Journalism

Ronald Wilson Reagan, America’s 40th president, was born on Feb. 6, 1911. His presidency left America prouder and stronger and better. And his economic policies ushered in a Long Boom, as this chart from the Joint Economic Committee (via the Heritage Foundation) shows:

And if anything, those numbers tend to understate the Reagan record given the complete and total economic mess he inherited. As former U.S. senator from Texas Phil Gramm recently noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

But, in fact, the 1981-82 recession was deeper and unemployment was higher. Moreover, the 1982 recovery was constrained by a contractionary monetary policy that pushed interest rates above 21%, a tough but necessary step to break inflation. It was also a recovery that required a painful restructuring of American businesses to become more competitive in the increasingly globalized economy. By way of comparison, our current recovery has benefited from the most expansionary monetary policy in U.S. history and a rapid return to profitability by corporate America.

Former WSJ editor Robert Bartley nicely sets the scene in his book The Seven Fat Years:

In the years before 1982, democratic capitalism was in retreat. Its economic order seem unhinged, wracked by bewildering inflation, stagnant productivity, and finally a deep recession. The diplomatic and military initiative lay with Communist totalitarianism, which proclaimed inevitable ideological victory and could send crowds into the European streets to protest efforts to offset its own shiny new missiles and tanks. Economic confusion and a sense of futility sapped the morale of the Western people’ leaders talked of a “malaise” in America and “Europessimism” across the Atlantic.

I love that line about “economic confusion and a sense of futility.” Reagan brought economic enlightenment and hope. Even many of his critics have been forced to admit this. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson said,”The latter half of the 1980s, historians will recognize, has been an economic success story.” And this from Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, “It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth.”

Read More at The American By James Pethokoukis, The American

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday’s better-than-expected jobs numbers were “encouraging,” but that Americans “shouldn’t settle” for an unemployment rate that remains above 8 percent.

“After several years of bad jobs news, we are finally seeing some good news in today’s jobs report,” Cantor said in a statement. “These numbers are encouraging, especially for those millions of Americans out of work, but we should aim even higher. We shouldn’t settle, we can do more, this is America.”

The economy added 243,000 jobs in January, far more than economists expected, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised November’s and December’s numbers higher.
The unemployment rate is now down to 8.3 percent, the same as it was during Obama’s first full month in office in February 2009.

In Cantor’s Friday statement, he continued to press the GOP message that the government stands in the way of economic growth in the private sector.

Read More at The Hill By Jonathan Easley, The Hill

At the same time as the Obama administration is heralding a strategic “pivot” towards Asia and the growing threat of Chinese military modernization, the U.S. Navy continues to put on a brave face in the middle of a growing readiness crisis. While not new, this alarming trend was highlighted again this week when Navy officials announced that, for the second time in seven months, the USS Essex, a Marine Corps amphibious assault ship, has failed to meet a commitment at sea due to equipment failure or maintenance issues.

The Navy’s No. 2 wasn’t understating the problem when he told Congress last year: “The stress on the force is real. And it has been relentless.”

This is not an isolated occurrence. A high operational tempo over the past decade has put an incredible strain upon all of America’s military. As fewer ships spend less time at home making repairs, regular wear and tear takes a heavy toll. In fact, in 2011, nearly one quarter of the entire surface fleet failed inspection. The Navy has 22 cruisers in service and every one of them has cracks in the aluminum superstructure. Meanwhile, half of the Navy’s deployable aircraft are not combat ready and engines aboard two F/A-18s have caught fire aboard ships underway.

While the Navy has shrunk by 15 percent since 1998, it has deployed a relatively constant number of ships at sea at any given time. Between two major wars in the Middle East, a third in Libya, anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, disaster relief in Asia, and maritime deterrence in the Western Pacific, the U.S. military has increasingly been asked to do more with less.

The USS Essex was supposed to take part in Cobra Gold—a joint exercise with Thailand—before it had to back out due to mechanical problems. In many ways, this incident can be seen as a metaphor for the entire shift to Asia. On paper, it sounds like a smart and forward thinking policy—it even involves allies and burden-sharing. What’s not to love?

Read More at The American By Mackenzie Eaglen, The American