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By Gregory Taggart, April 20, 2011 9:14 pm

Brazil has experienced so many failed coming out parties, that many people in the know are wary that the economic boom currently taking place in Central and South America’s largest country and strongest economy–and one of the four BRICs–will fail as well.

I don’t think so. This time it’s for real. I could point to all kinds of economic indicators to support my position. Instead, I’ll direct you to a YouTube video. But first, a little background.

Three years ago–February 2008 to be exact–my wife and I traveled to Brazil, her for the first time, me for my first visit since my two-year mission to that beautiful country back in 1971-73. I spent most of my time in Rio, though I also served in Vitoria, Espirito Santo, and in Joao Pessoa, Permanbuco. Janet and I spent 10 days in Rio. Among other things, we toured the Theatro Municipal, a beautiful building inspired by the Paris Opera of Charles Garnier. Though its previous beauty was obvious, the Theatro was in terrible condition due to years of neglect.

Today I was on the phone with Pedro Casotti of Rio Negocios, Rio’s business development agency. I asked him about the Theatro. “Were they ever going to refurbish it?”

They had already, he told me. I’d wondered about that ever since I’d read that President Obama gave a speech in the Theatro earlier this month. After we hung up, I searched YouTube for a video of the Theatro. What I discovered tells me that this time Brazil’s resurgence is for real. Watch the video. I think you’ll agree.

https://vimeo.com/79126905

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By Gregory Taggart, April 17, 2011 6:07 pm

Barack Obama is back, and the press–in the person of Jonathan Alter–is carrying his water, again. In a column titled Republican Horror Movie Sequel Hits Theaters Alter breathlessly warns Republicans to

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

And why? Because of that speech BO gave last this week at George Washington University. You know, the one universally panned as not serious, awful, presidential politicking at its worst? Yeah, that one.

So why is Alter experiencing that special tingle? Well, for one, BO’ s a great story teller. I agree, but then I’m thinking of story in the sense that the man says whatever is to hand, whether it’s true or not. When his lips move, well, my antennae go up. I don’t think that’s what Alter meant.

The other think that’s ginned up the good columnist is that idea that

Most important, the president stressed the fundamental American values of fairness and compassion.

In other words, we’re back to Joe the Plumber talk–redistribution.

A highlight of Alter’s piece for me was his admission that Democrats are given to demagoguery. In taking his swipes at Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, Alter writes,

Older, independent voters that Republicans won in 2010 will despise the Ryan plan once it filters down to them. A Democratic war cry of “They’re killing Medicare!” isn’t demagoguery this time. It’s true.

No, in fact it’s not true and Democratic talk like this continues to be demagoguery, especially given the fact that they refuse to offer a plan of their own with any specifics in it. Exactly how would they deal with Medicaid and Medicare, plans that Alter in one breathe says are “wildly popular” yet “must be reformed”?

As he admits, we’ll get no help from the Annointed One.

The president offered few specifics about how to save $4 trillion over 12 years beyond letting the tax cuts for wealthy expire in late 2012. That won’t be enough. But teeing up tax cuts for the rich as a campaign issue will clearly help the Democrats, as it did in 2008.

Yeah, that should scare Republicans. Drag out the hoary ghost of campaigns past, the “tax cuts for the wealthy” meme. If this is BO’s game, it brings to mind this game:

He’ll not win this time, not throwing like that. I’m not sure our fawning press will manage to carry that ball over the plate.

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By Gregory Taggart, April 7, 2011 9:29 am

Without comment.

Okay, with one comment: Are you kidding me?

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By Gregory Taggart, February 14, 2011 10:41 pm

No lift lines here:

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By Gregory Taggart, February 12, 2011 2:49 pm

Ann Althouse isn’t.

The movie trailer for Atlas Shrugged is out. Atlas Shrugged Part I, I mean.

It is a pretty thick book after all–I guess.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 12, 2011 12:48 pm

Last August, Stephen Prothero, a religion professor at Boston University and a blogger on CNN, wrote two different posts about the Mormon reaction to a Muslim group’s efforts to build a mosque at Ground Zero. The first lamented the fact that some prominent Mormons–Mitt Romney and Harry Reid–had both spoken against the mosque. So had Glenn Beck. Prothero was particularly disturbed that Romney had done so (through a spokesperson) because he had been so impressed by Romney’s religion speech during the most recent presidential campaign and because of Romney’s experience with the opposition to the Boston Temple. (Prothero, by the way, seems to have a good grasp on Latter-day Saint history.) He writes,

As I wrote in my 2007 piece on this speech, for Romney, the moral of this history lesson was clear:

Americans today should rise above religious bigotry, not least by evaluating presidential candidates on the basis of their credentials instead of their religious tradition. After all, Romney said, “Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.”

These were the words that came to me when Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin and other Republican leaders started to double down on the anti-Islamic rhetoric.

I thought that Romney, as a Mormon, might speak out passionately for the First Amendment. I thought he might remember how the founder of his religion, Joseph Smith Jr., was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob. I thought he might recall how the U.S. government brought down much of its coercive power against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

Apparently not. According to a statement released on August 10 by his spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom, “Governor Romney opposes the construction of the mosque at Ground Zero. The wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda compel rejection of this site.”

The second discussed Senator Hatch’s position, which was captured by Salt Lake City’s Fox News 13:

Prothero’s reaction to Romney’s and Hatch’s statements prompted me to think about what my stance on the proposed mosque was back then. I realized that I disagreed with Romney. My stance was then and is now similar to Hatch’s: it would be a nice gesture if the mosque’s proponents chose to build elsewhere out of respect for what happened on 9/11; however, I recognize and support their 1st Amendment rights to build where they are planning to build.

I have a long memory, a memory that extends back to the persecution of my Church in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a memory of recent times when people in Boston, Billings, Denver, and places north and south, east and west, opposed the building of a Mormon temple–always for allegedly non-religious reasons. That opposition was a predictable as the rising sun was an irony that always escaped the protestors.

I suspect that religious bigotry imbues most of the opposition to the mosque as well. I don’t think Romney is bigoted. I do think he is in a rush to the Right, however, in his pursuit of the presidency. I have defended him in the past from the flip criticism that he flip flops a lot. I’ll take a flip from anybody if it demonstrates that they’ve learned something. However, too much pandering is not a good thing. I’ll be watching him closely, as I will Hatch, now that he’s pursuing the Tea Party vote.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 11, 2011 10:15 pm

If you haven’t heard of the Kahn Academy, this is as good an introduction as you’ll find.

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By Gregory Taggart, February 11, 2011 9:44 pm

I showed this video on Quantitative Easing to my American Government students last night prior to our scheduled showing of the movie Absence of Malice. It’s a little over 7 minutes long. By minute 3 they were laughing out loud. It may be the first time they understood economics, something Amity Shlaes discusses in her Forbes piece, Economics by Cartoon.