Keep this column until April 2013. In the accompanying table, you will see two forecasts for federal debt-related items: the official Congressional Budget Office's forecast (which is close to the Obama administration's) and a pessimistic forecast (mine). No forecast is perfect, but it is likely that I will be closer to the mark than the CBO/administration because my assumptions are more realistic. The Federal Reserve will be under continuing pressure to keep up "quantitative easing," i.e., printing money. This is likely to result in a continuing fall in the dollar, which will cause inflationary pressures to grow, and/or a continuing fall in real wages, as has been the case in recent months. If the administration and Congress were suddenly to reduce spending enough to reduce the deficit from roughly 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 3 percent, the Fed could stop printing money and inflationary pressures would ease. But that is not going to happen.

The Main Enemy:  Islamism Chapter III: The Ideology of Radical Islam How did all the recent advances of Islamism, which we summarized in Chapter II, come to pass with little notice in the space of just a few decades? It is, of course, true that dogmatic orthodoxy and extremism, including its most violent forms, is nothing new in Islam and that Moslem history is replete with movements and individuals who have tried to impose their version of Islamic orthodoxy on fellow Moslems. Yet the actual practice of Islamic societies, as shall be shown in the next chapter, has been considerably different, in that sharia law, despite being paid lip service to on a regular basis, was seldom applied to governance except as family law. Contemporary Radical Islam, on the other hand, though seeking religious legitimization in sharia and age-old Islamic dogma, is a modern phenomenon that has more in common with totalitarian revolutionary movements than with any kind of transitory "Islamic revival" as many have argued. Understanding its Nazi/Communist totalitarian ideological nature and its modus operandi as a highly organized revolutionary movement is essential for comprehending the nature of the threat it poses and designing a strategy to defeat it.

Born poor in 1847, Thomas Alva Edison was a wealthy man when he died in 1931.  I suspect President Barack Hussein Obama would have disapproved of Mr. Edison, because he made his money -- great gobs of money -- in the private sector. Thomas Edison's inventions made him a rich man.  I don't begrudge him that, because he enriched my life, and the lives of hundreds of millions of others. Barack Obama does.  He says people who want to keep most of what they earn are "greedy."  But aren't the truly greedy those who think they've a right to stick their hands into other people's pockets, to live well at the expense of their neighbors?  It is Mr. Obama's redistributive greed that is destroying wealth creation and impoverishing us all.

It's Good Friday!  My wife and I always personally celebrate Good Friday, because that was the day we met almost three decades ago.  It sure was a good day for us! Sunday, of course, is Easter, a celebration of renewal, rebirth, and resurrection.  The Resurrection itself was 1,978 years ago (33 AD).  Today, America is being crucified on a Cross of Debt, and Congress will soon be faced with a choice to resurrect her or let her die. By the time the House returns from "Spring Recess" on May 2nd, federal spending will have exceeded the debt ceiling.  Expect to see a tsunami of enemedia scare stories predicting an apocalypse if the House doesn't cave and vote to raise it - such as this one in Politico. The article encapsulates all the outright lies of the parasite class:  "the full faith and credit of the United States" hangs in the balance, the House GOP will "plunge the nation into default" if it doesn't cave, blah blah. This is willful lying.  The federal government will continue to have plenty of tax revenue to service its old debt, to pay the military, but not for, say, Planned Parenthood or the EPA.  What really will "send global markets into a tailspin" is if the debt ceiling is raised and Uncle Sam continues his fiscal insanity. So here we are, the moment has arrived, and it's ironic that it comes at Eastertime.

The Main Enemy: Islamism Chapter II:  The Nature of the Threat Whether it is called radical Islam, Islamism, Salafism, or Islamo-fascism, the adversary we face, even as we often refuse to identify it for what it is, is clearly on the march. The reason we fail to see that is because its objective is not terrorism, but the imposition of an uncompromising totalitarian interpretation of Islam worldwide by means of proselytism, subjugation, and violent jihad as need be. Purely terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, which rely on terrorism as a first and only resort, however murderous, are a rather marginal factor in this essentially ideological struggle, and the fact that we have bestowed on them the status of principal enemy has prevented us from really understanding the nature of this war. So let's be clear on the real nature of the threat.