Throughout the history of this country playing the role of a global power, the United States has faced down threats of fascism and communism. The country is now in the throes of a war against terrorism.

However, on ABC's Nov. 22 "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," a panel consisting of Washington Post columnist George Will, Liz Cheney of Keep America Safe, University of California, Berkeley professor Robert Reich and Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of The Aspen Institute, warned the next ideological battle facing the country is that which China practices - an authoritarian market society or authoritarian capitalism.

"For 37 years, every administration has bet, since Nixon went to China, on a theory, and the theory was that capitalism, market economy, which requires a judicial system to enforce promises, which are called contracts, needs a vast dissemination of information and decision-making that capitalism by its mores and working would subvert the regime, that you could not have an authoritarian market society," Will said. "It's the Starbucks fallacy. It turns out to be a fallacy, that if the Chinese have a choice of coffees, they'll want a -- they'll demand a choice of political candidates. We may be wrong. It could be you can have an authoritarian system."

Now that former CNN host Lou Dobbs has been freed of his duties with his former network, he has been making the rounds on other networks - Fox News "The O'Reilly Factor," Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and now with his long-time rival's show CNBC's "The Kudlow Report." 

One of the issues debated among a panel consisting of Dobbs, host Larry Kudlow, former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and CNBC CME Group reporter Rick Santelli on Nov. 19 was the issue of wage stagnation - which Dobbs blamed on outsourcing, immigration policy and technological advancement.

"I believe that the issue of unemployment in this country and job creation fundamentally will have to be taken on as a matter of government policy," Dobbs said. "It will also have to be taken on as a matter of business leadership. As to the idea that wages have been stagnant in this country for 35 year, point of fact, we have to understand what the causes are."

Video Below Fold

Former Clinton Labor Secretary and current Obama economic adviser Robert Reich believes healthcare legislation currently being debated on Capitol Hill "won't offer most Americans any appreciable decline in the cost of their health insurance nor clear improvement in the efficiency or quality of the health care they receive."

Contrary to what President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and their media minions are shamefully telling the public, the current bill results in "extra costs [that] will be borne by those Americans who will be required to buy insurance but won't qualify for federal assistance, along with Medicare beneficiaries who will be paying more and receiving less."

Maybe more importantly given Friday's announcement that the nation's unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October, Reich believe's President Obama is doing America a disservice by focusing all his attention on healthcare reform instead of trying to create jobs.

Although Reich posted this at his blog on Sunday, I could find no major media references to his rather startling commentary (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

Robert Reich has finally responded to the audio of him telling "brutal truths" to an audience at Berkeley which your humble correspondent chronicled here in NewsBusters on Tuesday. Here are the gems delivered up by Reich as to what he claims an honest  candidate for president would say about health care if he didn't worry about getting elected:

"We're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die." 

"...I am going try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people but that means you,  particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people...you're going to have to pay more."

"...What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents."

So what was Reich's excuse for these assertions? Why he was "taken out of context." Here is Reich making his claim on Wednesday:

Paging Congressman Alan Grayson! Here is a quote that validates what you said about those EVIL Republicans:

"We're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die."

Aha! So it turns out that Grayson was right when he said "Republicans want you to die quickly."  Only one "little" problem here. That quote did not come from a Republican. In fact it came from the very liberal former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who is now an economics adviser for Barack Obama.

Former Clinton Labor Secretary and current Obama economic advisor Robert Reich was laughed at Friday for claiming "the stimulus package is the thing that is actually keeping the economy up, keeping people employed."

In a discussion on CNBC about the larger than expected September job losses reported Friday by the Labor Department, Reich was explaining to hosts Melissa Francis and Lawrence Kudlow how things would be much worse if not for the stimulus package.

He also implied that things won't get better until healthcare is reformed.

In the middle of this absolutely absurd statement, Francis and Kudlow appeared to look at each other with the former breaking out into laughter and the latter doing his best to hold it back (video embedded below the fold):

Hours after the Senate Finance Committee rejected the public option as part of the proposed health care “reform” plan, CNN’s Campbell Brown couldn’t seem to find any conservatives to discuss the vote on her program on Tuesday. Her discussion segment brought three liberals to the table- former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich, Roland Martin, and senior political analyst Gloria Borger.

Brown first turned to Borger, who flatly stated that she thought the public option is dead: “I think it’s pretty dead, Campbell. I think it’s safe to say that right now it looks like it’s a goner.” The analyst continued that “the President has to settle for something less- something that may be a down payment on a public option, if the insurance companies don’t behave themselves. So, I think the President’s going to have to settle for less, and I think he’s signaling that he will settle for less.”

Leave it to George Will to perfectly explain in just two words all the recent accusations by Democrats and their media minions that anti-government sentiment sweeping the nation is caused by racism.

Liberal McCarthyism.

Delicious.

Fortunately for those not understanding the reference, Will explained further when the Roundtable discussion on Sunday's "This Week" turned to all the recent pronouncements of racism directed at anyone having the nerve to challenge President Obama's agenda (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

"I’ve always been struck by how -- and it’s not too strong a word -- how obsessed the President and the White House are with Fox News."

So said ABC's George Stephanopoulos during the Roundtable segment of Sunday's "This Week."

I kid you not.

With an on-screen chyron shockingly asking, "Free Media Ride For Obama?" the former member of the administration exceedingly paranoid of what it declared was a vast right-wing conspiracy actually discussed with his guests the fawning coverage the current White House resident is getting from the press.

Marvelously, George Will, for the second week in a row, did not disappoint (video available here, partial transcript follows): 

For the second time in a week, CNBC's Rick Santelli faced down one of the standard-bearers of liberalism.

First, he explained to Huffington Post editor and founder Arianna Huffington on the March 31 "Squawk Box" that markets are more efficient in correcting economic hardship, in the banking and housing sectors. On CNBC's April 3 "The Call," Santelli took on University of California at Berkeley economics professor and former Secretary of Labor for President Bill Clinton, Robert Reich.

According to Reich, the agreement brokered between President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders - to give the International Monetary Fund (IMF) $1.1 trillion - was positive and should be celebrated.

On Friday, NewsBusters asked, "When Will Media Blame Economy and Bear Market on Obama?"

Don't expect Bill Clinton's former labor secretary Robert Reich to ever do so, for in an article published at Salon Thursday, the UC-Berkeley professor claimed "every major policy that led to this collapse occurred under George W.'s watch."

Not only that, but the man who recently told Congress that jobs created by the economic stimulus package shouldn't only go to "white male construction workers" also declared, "Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy, ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity."

Readers are warned to proceed with caution before going any further, for Reich was loaded for conservatives and wasn't taking prisoners:

Who cares if we're like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, careening in his pickup toward the brink of the rock quarry?  At least we're moving fast!

That seemed to be Claire Shipman's logic in urging speed in the implementation of the stimulus plan. The ABC correspondent made her curious comment today during the roundtable segment of This Week.

CLAIRE SHIPMAN: Don't you think that, I mean as George [Will] said, given that nobody knows the outcome, it seems as though the most important thing is speed here.

Will made the logical response.

The Obama economic adviser who doesn't want infrastructure "stimulus" spending to only benefit "white male construction workers" is angry at Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michelle Malkin for having the nerve to report his racist remarks the mainstream media compliantly boycotted for several weeks.

In an open letter posted at his blog Saturday, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich accused the trio of "manifestly distorting [his] words and pulling them out of context."

Ironically, Reich used as his character reference the George Soros-funded Clinton front-group Media Matters for America which on a daily basis manifestly distorts people's words and pulls them out of context (h/t Michelle Malkin):

While most mainstream media outlets continue to ignore racist statements made by Obama economic adviser Robert Reich two weeks ago, CNN's Lou Dobbs not only played them for his viewers Friday, but also pointed out the absurdity of the comments as well as the shameful way the press boycotted them.

Despite Reich's January 7 remarks about stimulus spending and "white male construction workers" having been revealed Thursday morning by a number of conservative websites including NewsBusters, Dobbs was one of the few "journalists" who seemed offended enough about what was said to shed some light on the subject (video embedded below the fold courtesy our dear friend MsUnderestimated):

A rather astounding statement was made a few weeks ago by an economic adviser to Barack Obama that went completely ignored by America's press: "I am concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, that these jobs [hopefully being created by government spending] not simply go to high skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers."

Such was uttered by Robert Reich, the former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor, during a January 7 House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee meeting attended by high-ranking Democrats including Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Despite huge attention given this hearing from a wide range of press outlets not one mentioned Reich's racist comments (video and partial transcript below the fold):

Challenged by George Will during This Week of March 30th, liberal economics professsor Paul Krugman looks nervously to liberal economics professor Robert Reich. Krugman was one of four liberals at the round-table versus the sole conservative, Will.

Have a look at the screencap from today's This Week, then please answer this serious question: has ABC no shame? How does the network justify a round-table consisting of four liberals against one conservative?

Let's review the batting order:

• Robert Reich: Clinton's former Labor Secretary comes from the leftward reaches of the Dem party. He's a co-founder of the liberal American Prospect magazine.
• Paul Krugman: Like Reich, a very liberal professor of economics, and a NYT columnist.
• Donna Brazile: Dem activist, Gore 2000 campaign manager.
• George Stephanopoulos: The show host was a senior political adviser to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and later became Clinton's communications director.
• George Will: conservative columnist and [since we're talking batter order and this is Opening Day after all] baseball aficionado.

View video here.

Previous Post: Part 1 -- Evaluating EPI's "Stagnant Wage" Claims

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The first sentence of CNN/Money's Labor Day report entitled "GDP Growth Not Reaching Paychecks" certainly had entertainment value (bold is mine):

The economic expansion that began six years ago has failed to benefit most workers, according to a report from the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, released Monday.

Clearly, CNN/Money blindly accepted at face value this description found at EPI's "About" page:

The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy.

Interesting. I can call myself "the world's fastest human," but that doesn't make me that person.