Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings on the HealthCare debate, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great HealthCare offensive against the citizens? I'm not sure. Our government did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected when the two bills must be reconciled. The fight against the Public Option could well fall, with a terrible loss in American tax dollars, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our elected representatives' stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the debate, and it is doubtful that our citizen forces can be defeated across the breadth of the HealthCare DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.
On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that our government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on our freedom to make our own choices. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in the individual states and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that this bill will not add anbother dime to the deficit and end the longer war of attrition, and that the Socialists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of HealthCare is to end in a stalemate. This winter's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to restriction of our choices, the increase of taxes, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred billion more American tax dollars to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
This is George M.F. Washington. Good night.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
A question about the Afghanistan surge
What happens to Obama's popularity when he announces in 2011 that the pullout he promised is not going to happen... and believe me when I tell you that it won't. It can't.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
I see morons... in Los Angeles
So I'm listening to a report on local LA radio about the city's efforts to get guns off the streets by trading people gift certificates to local stores for their guns, and I hear audio of some lady saying "I can't wait to get this SUCKA out of my house!"
Well isn't that special? I sincerely hope that there's no video to go with that audio... otherwise I would like to nominate this woman for "most likely to get her dumbass robbed before the end of the year" honors.
Well isn't that special? I sincerely hope that there's no video to go with that audio... otherwise I would like to nominate this woman for "most likely to get her dumbass robbed before the end of the year" honors.
Know what's awesome?
Ever since Obama started sucking (since roughly January 21st) the number of hopey-changey Facebook updates I've had to endure has dropped dramatically!
Even the Obamatons can't bring themselves to spin this disaster away.
EPIC WIN!
Even the Obamatons can't bring themselves to spin this disaster away.
EPIC WIN!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Health Care Thoughts
My quick thought on the pending health care legislation and why it's bad. No, I'm not going to get into all the myriad of arguments that people offer against it nor am I going to spend time refuting every last argument for it.
Instead, I'm going to point out one little thing that makes this the wrong time to do anything about overhauling and putting the government in charge of health care.
The government is running a huge deficit and it is a deficit that we must eventually pay down. Now, like it or not, that means there is probably going to be some kind of tax increase when the economy gets rolling again.
However, if you raise taxes to pay for the health care bill, you then can't tap those people for more money in order to pay down the deficit. Except judging from the Obama Administration's behavior, they think that they can tap those people again and again with no consequences.
In fact, I think we need to look at the Clinton years to see the best case scenario for this. Health care legislation was defeated. By 1994, the Republicans took over the House. During the subsequent years, we had a combination of income taxes increases (but a decrease on capital gains taxes) and spending cuts. In the last two years of the Clinton presidency, we ran a surplus each year and not a deficit. Now, technically, we were still running a deficit because thanks to a change in the budget accounting rules during the LBJ administration, the government counts social security money as revenue and not as expenditures.
But overall, the deficit was reduced.
If health care legislation had passed, there is no way that the tax increases could have paid down the debt as they would have been paying for a new national health care plan.
And if this health care bill passes now, with $1 trillion in new spending, we will get the worst of all worlds: tax increases, increased spending, and higher deficits.
Not really the hope and change I'm looking for.
Instead, I'm going to point out one little thing that makes this the wrong time to do anything about overhauling and putting the government in charge of health care.
The government is running a huge deficit and it is a deficit that we must eventually pay down. Now, like it or not, that means there is probably going to be some kind of tax increase when the economy gets rolling again.
However, if you raise taxes to pay for the health care bill, you then can't tap those people for more money in order to pay down the deficit. Except judging from the Obama Administration's behavior, they think that they can tap those people again and again with no consequences.
In fact, I think we need to look at the Clinton years to see the best case scenario for this. Health care legislation was defeated. By 1994, the Republicans took over the House. During the subsequent years, we had a combination of income taxes increases (but a decrease on capital gains taxes) and spending cuts. In the last two years of the Clinton presidency, we ran a surplus each year and not a deficit. Now, technically, we were still running a deficit because thanks to a change in the budget accounting rules during the LBJ administration, the government counts social security money as revenue and not as expenditures.
But overall, the deficit was reduced.
If health care legislation had passed, there is no way that the tax increases could have paid down the debt as they would have been paying for a new national health care plan.
And if this health care bill passes now, with $1 trillion in new spending, we will get the worst of all worlds: tax increases, increased spending, and higher deficits.
Not really the hope and change I'm looking for.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Is feckless Liberalism a precondition for the rise of Facism?
Glenn Reynolds posts this story which reports that a large percentage of British voters would consider voting for the "far right" party and says while it may not be a precondition, it's certainly a building block.
I'm taking the comparison one step further and adding this story about an NPR reporter forced to apologize profusely for comparing Obama's attack on Fox News as "Nixonian."
And to take it even one more step downrange... I hope I need not point out the Hitler-esque figure currently building up an army and a nice stash of nuclear weapons somewhere off on England's Eastern front.
Weird times we're living in.
I'm taking the comparison one step further and adding this story about an NPR reporter forced to apologize profusely for comparing Obama's attack on Fox News as "Nixonian."
And to take it even one more step downrange... I hope I need not point out the Hitler-esque figure currently building up an army and a nice stash of nuclear weapons somewhere off on England's Eastern front.
Weird times we're living in.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Guess what newsmedia... I don't care about Balloon Boy
And furthermore, I hope it WAS a scam because I love it when you guys get suckered. Of course the downside is now poor ole CNN is so upset that they got scammed that they're going to run coverage of this family 24/7 for the next three weeks to shame them and prove how powerful the media backlash can be when they've been wronged.
But it's having no effect on me because whenever I see another Balloon Boy story on TV, I change the channel. CNN... you got taken for a ride... and I love it. Whether or not you're able to extract your pound of flesh in revenge does not interest me.
Spend all the time you want trying to stoke outrage amongst your viewership, but it won't work. Turns out we don't like you very much and it's kinda funny when you get taken for a ride.
We're rooting for Balloon Boy.
But it's having no effect on me because whenever I see another Balloon Boy story on TV, I change the channel. CNN... you got taken for a ride... and I love it. Whether or not you're able to extract your pound of flesh in revenge does not interest me.
Spend all the time you want trying to stoke outrage amongst your viewership, but it won't work. Turns out we don't like you very much and it's kinda funny when you get taken for a ride.
We're rooting for Balloon Boy.
On Rush Limbaugh and the St. Louis Rams
I actually feel bad for Rush on this issue. I don't think he's done anything that should prevent him from being able to own a team in the sport that he loves. Being a fan of Mr.Limbaugh's, I know how much the game means to him and I know that owning an NFL franchise would have been as exciting for him as anything he's even done in his life or career.
That he's being prevented from doing so because of his politics is sad more than anything else, but it's also alarming. And those of us who are Conservatives should take note of what's being done to Mr. Limbaugh and prepare ourselves for the fact that it will one day happen to us as well, even if it's not on such a large and public scale.
But here's what this incident is not. It is not, as some claim, a free speech issue. Rush Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants, and to the extent that he says what he says on a high wattage radio broadcast antenna funded by large corporations, he has done so quite successfully.
But there is a misunderstanding among Americans that freedom of speech also means freedom from the consequences of that speech.
It does not.
If Michael Richards wants to get up on a stage in New York and scream the N-word at his audience, he should NOT, under any circumstances, be hauled of to jail for doing so. But if those actions effectively end his career, then, as they say, dems da breaks.
And if you want to walk down a busy New York street with a sign that says "The Holocaust was a myth" I will go to the mat to protect your right to do so, but I will also laugh my ass off when someone walks up and punches you in the schnozz... because you will deserve it.
Now, I do not believe that Rush is a racist. The evidence to the contrary is simply overwhelming and the quotes that have been used to label him are made-up. But it is also a fact that Rush, as an extremely successful Conservative voice, has pissed off a large number of very powerful Liberals. And when Liberals decide to take a Conservative down, they almost always do it by crying "RACISM!!!"
And so they have in this case. They are way off base on the charge, as they often are, but they control the outlets and they determine what voices get heard, and now that the overwhelming voice America has heard on this subject has been the one shouting racism, a large enough number of Americans have begun to believe it... and so Rush had to go.
I hope Rush fights the charge. He was wronged, and those who wronged him should pay as big a price as Rush can impose upon them. But I will not cry foul. Amercians are always going to be quick to believe a charge of racism levelled at a Conservative, and that's just the way things are. Frankly, I'd rather carry that burden than the burden Liberals face... that they'd rather tax and spend above all else, and that they wouldn't pick up a weapon in their own defense even if it meant the lives and honor of their own families.
Few things are more unforgivable to me than being a coward. And no one will ever accuse Rush of that.
But Freedom of Speech and the resonsibility to face the consequences of that speech goes both ways.
So Roger Godell and the NFL want to stake out the position that Rush Limbaugh is too divisive to own an NFL franchise... that his behaviour has been so beyond that pale that it damages the reputation of a fine and noble institution like the National Football League.
Does Rush's behaviour rise to a standard beyond that which should be acceptable for an NFL owner?
I don't know... but here's the problem for the NFL... now we are going to find out.
Conservatives, with Rush cheering them on from his corner, are going to dig into the background of every single man, woman, or child who owns so much as a dime's worth of interest in any of the 32 NFL teams and we are soon going to find out every single offensive thing those people have ever done or said in their entire lives.
I don't know how long the assault will last, but it's already started with folks like Fergie finding themselves under the microscope. It's going to be incredibly embarrasing for the NFL... but you know what, just as the NFL has a right to deny ownership to whomever they decide is not fit to own a franchise, they must also face the consequences of the decisions that they have every right to make.
And here those consequences come.
So Mr. Godell, to you I say... I hope it was worth it.
That he's being prevented from doing so because of his politics is sad more than anything else, but it's also alarming. And those of us who are Conservatives should take note of what's being done to Mr. Limbaugh and prepare ourselves for the fact that it will one day happen to us as well, even if it's not on such a large and public scale.
But here's what this incident is not. It is not, as some claim, a free speech issue. Rush Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants, and to the extent that he says what he says on a high wattage radio broadcast antenna funded by large corporations, he has done so quite successfully.
But there is a misunderstanding among Americans that freedom of speech also means freedom from the consequences of that speech.
It does not.
If Michael Richards wants to get up on a stage in New York and scream the N-word at his audience, he should NOT, under any circumstances, be hauled of to jail for doing so. But if those actions effectively end his career, then, as they say, dems da breaks.
And if you want to walk down a busy New York street with a sign that says "The Holocaust was a myth" I will go to the mat to protect your right to do so, but I will also laugh my ass off when someone walks up and punches you in the schnozz... because you will deserve it.
Now, I do not believe that Rush is a racist. The evidence to the contrary is simply overwhelming and the quotes that have been used to label him are made-up. But it is also a fact that Rush, as an extremely successful Conservative voice, has pissed off a large number of very powerful Liberals. And when Liberals decide to take a Conservative down, they almost always do it by crying "RACISM!!!"
And so they have in this case. They are way off base on the charge, as they often are, but they control the outlets and they determine what voices get heard, and now that the overwhelming voice America has heard on this subject has been the one shouting racism, a large enough number of Americans have begun to believe it... and so Rush had to go.
I hope Rush fights the charge. He was wronged, and those who wronged him should pay as big a price as Rush can impose upon them. But I will not cry foul. Amercians are always going to be quick to believe a charge of racism levelled at a Conservative, and that's just the way things are. Frankly, I'd rather carry that burden than the burden Liberals face... that they'd rather tax and spend above all else, and that they wouldn't pick up a weapon in their own defense even if it meant the lives and honor of their own families.
Few things are more unforgivable to me than being a coward. And no one will ever accuse Rush of that.
But Freedom of Speech and the resonsibility to face the consequences of that speech goes both ways.
So Roger Godell and the NFL want to stake out the position that Rush Limbaugh is too divisive to own an NFL franchise... that his behaviour has been so beyond that pale that it damages the reputation of a fine and noble institution like the National Football League.
Does Rush's behaviour rise to a standard beyond that which should be acceptable for an NFL owner?
I don't know... but here's the problem for the NFL... now we are going to find out.
Conservatives, with Rush cheering them on from his corner, are going to dig into the background of every single man, woman, or child who owns so much as a dime's worth of interest in any of the 32 NFL teams and we are soon going to find out every single offensive thing those people have ever done or said in their entire lives.
I don't know how long the assault will last, but it's already started with folks like Fergie finding themselves under the microscope. It's going to be incredibly embarrasing for the NFL... but you know what, just as the NFL has a right to deny ownership to whomever they decide is not fit to own a franchise, they must also face the consequences of the decisions that they have every right to make.
And here those consequences come.
So Mr. Godell, to you I say... I hope it was worth it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Obama says he's looking at any way to create jobs
At least that's the headline that screams at me from the front page at The Drudge Report.
But of course it's not true. There is one very specific way of creating jobs that Obama is not only not looking at, it's something he would never even think to consider.
The one thing he could do to create jobs is to cut corporate, payroll, and income taxes. That would leave more money in the hands of the individuals and companies who actually create jobs in America and put less mooney in the hands of Government agents... who mostly just stifle job creation.
One problem with that. Cutting taxes for a Democrat is like Kryptonite to Superman.
Meanwhile... tick tock tick tock...
But of course it's not true. There is one very specific way of creating jobs that Obama is not only not looking at, it's something he would never even think to consider.
The one thing he could do to create jobs is to cut corporate, payroll, and income taxes. That would leave more money in the hands of the individuals and companies who actually create jobs in America and put less mooney in the hands of Government agents... who mostly just stifle job creation.
One problem with that. Cutting taxes for a Democrat is like Kryptonite to Superman.
Meanwhile... tick tock tick tock...
Friday, October 2, 2009
Blame It On Rio
So it seems that President Obama's trip to Copenhagen to secure the 2016 Summer Olympics has failed. In fact, Chicago was the first city eliminated in a process that ultimately saw Rio come out on top. Congratulations to Rio!
What does this mean for President Obama? It means he risked the cache of being the leader of the free world to try to secure an Olympic games for his former cronies in the city of Chicago. And he lost. You never risk presidential cache on something where the outcome is in doubt. That would be like a prosecutor asking questions and not knowing the answers the witness is about to give (sure that happens in movies all the time, but in real life, not so much).
Perhaps this will get President Obama refocused on things that really matter to this country - like the unemployment rate that keeps rising, the fact that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon (and doesn't care what we think about it), and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Mr. President, will you actually stand up and start governing rather than just campaigning? I suspect this is why he decided to go to Copenhagen. It felt like a campaign event since he was going to there to make a speech and talk about why the people should choose him, I mean, the city of Chicago, to host the Olympics.
Instead, it was a giant waste of taxpayers money. Unfortunately, that seems to be par for the course these days in Washington.
What does this mean for President Obama? It means he risked the cache of being the leader of the free world to try to secure an Olympic games for his former cronies in the city of Chicago. And he lost. You never risk presidential cache on something where the outcome is in doubt. That would be like a prosecutor asking questions and not knowing the answers the witness is about to give (sure that happens in movies all the time, but in real life, not so much).
Perhaps this will get President Obama refocused on things that really matter to this country - like the unemployment rate that keeps rising, the fact that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon (and doesn't care what we think about it), and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Mr. President, will you actually stand up and start governing rather than just campaigning? I suspect this is why he decided to go to Copenhagen. It felt like a campaign event since he was going to there to make a speech and talk about why the people should choose him, I mean, the city of Chicago, to host the Olympics.
Instead, it was a giant waste of taxpayers money. Unfortunately, that seems to be par for the course these days in Washington.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Why private insurance cannot survive the public option
And no, it's not for the reasons you think.
The Republican line on the Public Option is that it will crowd out Private Insurance carriers because they won't be able to compete against an entity that can print its own money and has access to a potentially unlimited pool of tax dollars.
This is, in a word, horseshit. On this point at least, President Obama and I agree. And frankly, if the Republicans are going to push the idea that the free market will save the economy and not government intervention, then they should try to show a little more confidence in that free market... don't you think?
The American free market is the best in the world and we can compete with anyone, anywhere, anytime... sure would be nice to hear someone on the Republican side say this every now and then.
Now it IS true that the government plan will be cheaper... it will, in fact, be free (as much as anything that drains money out of your paycheck in the form of taxes CAN be free anyway). And it's pretty hard to compete on price when one side provides the service for free... but private companies will always be able to compete on quality.
We all know that when Obama says there will be no rationing and no lines under Obamacare, that he is absolutely 100% full of shit. We KNOW it. And I for one have no intention of ever turning over my health care needs to a government agency. I will always go out and pay for quality care delivered when and how I want, by a profit-driven company, on my terms...and million of my fellow Americans will join me.
We already have a precedent for this... it's called education. Government provided education in America sucks and gets suckier with each passing day. Millions of American families are willing to spend outrageous amounts of money to send their kids to private schools even though at the same time, their tax dollars are taken from them to pay for a free Public Option.
They choose quality over price every single time.
And they will do the same for Health Care.
Imagine the TV spots...
"Tired of waiting for six hours in the cinderblock lobby of the Bureau of Social Health Issues to see a doctor who graduated at the bottom of his class at the Rocko Clubbo School of Medicine? Log on to KaiserPermanente.net and take a look at all the high quality plans we offer. We guarantee you'll see a doctor within 30 minutes or your visit is free."
Which is why Obama simply cannot, and will not, allow private iunsurance companies to continue to offer high quality private plans.
Because when the stories of six hour waits and denials of procedures start to leak out, and they will, people will freak out... millions will leave the public option for private plans and those who remain will, by definition, be the poorest and sickest among us who cannot afford to leave a lower quality, though free, public service.
But in this world where quality healthcare has been re-defined as a "right", what does it mean if the wealthy can get great high quality convenient care on their own terms while the poor are corralled into cattle call waiting rooms for substandard care?
It won't happen. It CAN'T happen. It is the entire promise of Obamcare... that no one will be better off than anyone else.
And that's why private insurance companies must be eliminated. As long as they exist, Americans who work hard and are successful will refuse to allow themselves to be forced into a government definition of "equality."
And we can't have that, can we?
The Republican line on the Public Option is that it will crowd out Private Insurance carriers because they won't be able to compete against an entity that can print its own money and has access to a potentially unlimited pool of tax dollars.
This is, in a word, horseshit. On this point at least, President Obama and I agree. And frankly, if the Republicans are going to push the idea that the free market will save the economy and not government intervention, then they should try to show a little more confidence in that free market... don't you think?
The American free market is the best in the world and we can compete with anyone, anywhere, anytime... sure would be nice to hear someone on the Republican side say this every now and then.
Now it IS true that the government plan will be cheaper... it will, in fact, be free (as much as anything that drains money out of your paycheck in the form of taxes CAN be free anyway). And it's pretty hard to compete on price when one side provides the service for free... but private companies will always be able to compete on quality.
We all know that when Obama says there will be no rationing and no lines under Obamacare, that he is absolutely 100% full of shit. We KNOW it. And I for one have no intention of ever turning over my health care needs to a government agency. I will always go out and pay for quality care delivered when and how I want, by a profit-driven company, on my terms...and million of my fellow Americans will join me.
We already have a precedent for this... it's called education. Government provided education in America sucks and gets suckier with each passing day. Millions of American families are willing to spend outrageous amounts of money to send their kids to private schools even though at the same time, their tax dollars are taken from them to pay for a free Public Option.
They choose quality over price every single time.
And they will do the same for Health Care.
Imagine the TV spots...
"Tired of waiting for six hours in the cinderblock lobby of the Bureau of Social Health Issues to see a doctor who graduated at the bottom of his class at the Rocko Clubbo School of Medicine? Log on to KaiserPermanente.net and take a look at all the high quality plans we offer. We guarantee you'll see a doctor within 30 minutes or your visit is free."
Which is why Obama simply cannot, and will not, allow private iunsurance companies to continue to offer high quality private plans.
Because when the stories of six hour waits and denials of procedures start to leak out, and they will, people will freak out... millions will leave the public option for private plans and those who remain will, by definition, be the poorest and sickest among us who cannot afford to leave a lower quality, though free, public service.
But in this world where quality healthcare has been re-defined as a "right", what does it mean if the wealthy can get great high quality convenient care on their own terms while the poor are corralled into cattle call waiting rooms for substandard care?
It won't happen. It CAN'T happen. It is the entire promise of Obamcare... that no one will be better off than anyone else.
And that's why private insurance companies must be eliminated. As long as they exist, Americans who work hard and are successful will refuse to allow themselves to be forced into a government definition of "equality."
And we can't have that, can we?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ted Kennedy RIP
Ted Kennedy was probably the most influential US Senator ever, with the exception of LBJ.
However, that does not make up for his shortcomings as a human being. Ted Kennedy had a serious problem with alcohol, womanizing, and the truth. One only needs to google "Chappaquiddick Incident" and see what comes up.
But forgiveness is a hallmark of the Catholic faith, and as a fellow Catholic (probably the only thing Ted Kennedy and I had in common), I forgive him for his shortcomings. I hope that he finds some peace in the afterlife, peace which surely seemed to have eluded him in this life.
However, that does not make up for his shortcomings as a human being. Ted Kennedy had a serious problem with alcohol, womanizing, and the truth. One only needs to google "Chappaquiddick Incident" and see what comes up.
But forgiveness is a hallmark of the Catholic faith, and as a fellow Catholic (probably the only thing Ted Kennedy and I had in common), I forgive him for his shortcomings. I hope that he finds some peace in the afterlife, peace which surely seemed to have eluded him in this life.
KennedyCare
Dems to America... "Ted Kennedy wanted us to pass healthcare reform, so stop raising reasonable objections to a boondoggle program, shut up, and do what we say... because if you don't it will rain... and those raindrops will be Ted Kennedy's tears as he cries in Heaven because of what you did."
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Tom Ridge: Useful Idiot
So Tom Ridge becomes the latest useless government bureacrat to discover previously unknown reservoirs of courage at, coincidentally, the exact moment where they decide to try and sell a book... following in the proud tradition of "great" men like Richard Clarke and Scott McClellan
Let's all take a minute to review the resume of this completely ordinary and unexceptional public servant as he gets ready to tell us about all the awful things he saw George Bush do, even as he found himself simply unable to do or say anything about it.
After a mere 22 months (I've taken longer to read stereo instructions) on the job as the totally ineffectual head of a disaster of an agency, Tom ran off to accept a 6-figure salary to sit on the board of HOME DEPOT. Now recall that HOME DEPOT lobbied vigorously in support of open borders through the 8 years of the Bush administration... and gee, it just so happens that those of us who supported cracking down on security at the border believed that Tom Ridge did everything he could at every single turn to keep those borders open, even to the detriment of his President's popularity.
I'm sure that's all just a coincidence though.
Meanwhile, I can't wait to hear the story of how Tom Ridge courageously stood up to Bush Administration attempts to use Terrorism warnings to help him win the 2004 election by not saying anything at all and keeping the story to himself so that he could finally tell it when it could prove most profitable to him... the day he releases a book.
What a courageous man... what a brilliant man of integrity...
What a douche.
The good news is that, as a human, Tom Ridge is so brain-numbingly dull, that even hardcore 9/11 Truther Libs won't be able to bring themselves to actually read this paperweight.
Let's all take a minute to review the resume of this completely ordinary and unexceptional public servant as he gets ready to tell us about all the awful things he saw George Bush do, even as he found himself simply unable to do or say anything about it.
After a mere 22 months (I've taken longer to read stereo instructions) on the job as the totally ineffectual head of a disaster of an agency, Tom ran off to accept a 6-figure salary to sit on the board of HOME DEPOT. Now recall that HOME DEPOT lobbied vigorously in support of open borders through the 8 years of the Bush administration... and gee, it just so happens that those of us who supported cracking down on security at the border believed that Tom Ridge did everything he could at every single turn to keep those borders open, even to the detriment of his President's popularity.
I'm sure that's all just a coincidence though.
Meanwhile, I can't wait to hear the story of how Tom Ridge courageously stood up to Bush Administration attempts to use Terrorism warnings to help him win the 2004 election by not saying anything at all and keeping the story to himself so that he could finally tell it when it could prove most profitable to him... the day he releases a book.
What a courageous man... what a brilliant man of integrity...
What a douche.
The good news is that, as a human, Tom Ridge is so brain-numbingly dull, that even hardcore 9/11 Truther Libs won't be able to bring themselves to actually read this paperweight.
Your government is lying to you...
No this is not another "curse that Obama and his lousy healthcare plan" post... though I could certainly throw one of those together in about four-and-a-half seconds if asked to do so.
No this is a story about something that happened to me last Saturday... it's a story of a casual lie told by a local government that I think has huge implications in a world where our current government seems intent on controlling more and more aspects of our daily lives. It was a relatively small thing to be sure, but as they say, the devil is in the details, and once you tell the first little lie, it almost always gets easier to tell the next bigger one. Especially if you have a government title and access to tax dollars to back you up.
I've been living in Los Angeles for 16 years, having come (as many of us do) from some other part of the country. As a result, I tend to get a lot of visitors who come to see L.A. for the first time. In all those years I have perfected a four hour driving tour of all the major sites in L.A. It's a pretty great tour, if I do say so myself.
So last Saturday, I had some folks in from a southern state, which shall remain nameless, and we were headed up to the Hollywood Sign, which is the third stop on my tour.
There's really only one way to get up there... you take a little turn off a main road and wind your way up through a pretty ritzy neighborhood called Beachwood Canyon. So on this day as I made my turn onto the steep road that makes its way up to the sign, I noticed that someone had installed a road sign at the turn that read "no access to Hollywood sign."
Now I'm here to tell you, that sign is 100% pure weapons-grade horseshit. Not only is there access to the sign from that road... it's the ONLY access road that takes you up to the sign.
Here's what I think happened. Some rich asshole, or collection of rich assholes got together and decided, you know what, we don't like it when people drive up our pretty little private street on their way to the Hollywood sign. Let's go to our city councilman with a petition, and possibly some thinly veiled threats of lawyers in Armani suits and ask them to install a sign that tells people a blatant lie... that they can't get to the Hollywood sign by using this street.
And just as it is with all the lies that are being told about how great Obamacare will be, it doesn't really matter that we're sort of breaking a cardinal rule... that government should always try to be as truthful as possible to the people it serves... because a larger good is being served by the lie.
And the infuriating thing is some dickweed government bureaucrat actually acquiesced to this nonsense. In order to get these squeaky wheels (aka rich assholes) out of his or her office, they agreed to put up a flagrantly false official city street sign on a public road.
Think about the implications of that for a moment. Because some jerkweed doesn't like tourists driving down "his" road, a sign meant to provide drivers with up-to-date information about road conditions and other important information, but which in this case features 100% false information, was placed on a city street.
I cannot tell you how pissed off this made me. I mean for one thing, it's just flat-out dangerous. Forget for a minute that if there's ever a serious emergency and people are looking for specific ways to drive here or there to get to safety, in this case they are receiving inccorect information from at least one official city sign... think about the slippery slope implications for a minute.
At least one bureaucrat has decided to move his own moral compass to "it's OK to put up a sign that is a lie in order to protect the peacefulness of a rich douchebag's quiet little street." But now that the compass has been moved, who is to say it can't be moved again? What else might this bureacrat, or one of his coworkers upon hearing about this, be willing to do if only the right (read: rich or influential) people "ask" him or her to do it.
Maybe I'm the only sane person left in this godforsaken city, but I think the implications are absolutely terrifying.
No this is a story about something that happened to me last Saturday... it's a story of a casual lie told by a local government that I think has huge implications in a world where our current government seems intent on controlling more and more aspects of our daily lives. It was a relatively small thing to be sure, but as they say, the devil is in the details, and once you tell the first little lie, it almost always gets easier to tell the next bigger one. Especially if you have a government title and access to tax dollars to back you up.
I've been living in Los Angeles for 16 years, having come (as many of us do) from some other part of the country. As a result, I tend to get a lot of visitors who come to see L.A. for the first time. In all those years I have perfected a four hour driving tour of all the major sites in L.A. It's a pretty great tour, if I do say so myself.
So last Saturday, I had some folks in from a southern state, which shall remain nameless, and we were headed up to the Hollywood Sign, which is the third stop on my tour.
There's really only one way to get up there... you take a little turn off a main road and wind your way up through a pretty ritzy neighborhood called Beachwood Canyon. So on this day as I made my turn onto the steep road that makes its way up to the sign, I noticed that someone had installed a road sign at the turn that read "no access to Hollywood sign."
Now I'm here to tell you, that sign is 100% pure weapons-grade horseshit. Not only is there access to the sign from that road... it's the ONLY access road that takes you up to the sign.
Here's what I think happened. Some rich asshole, or collection of rich assholes got together and decided, you know what, we don't like it when people drive up our pretty little private street on their way to the Hollywood sign. Let's go to our city councilman with a petition, and possibly some thinly veiled threats of lawyers in Armani suits and ask them to install a sign that tells people a blatant lie... that they can't get to the Hollywood sign by using this street.
And just as it is with all the lies that are being told about how great Obamacare will be, it doesn't really matter that we're sort of breaking a cardinal rule... that government should always try to be as truthful as possible to the people it serves... because a larger good is being served by the lie.
And the infuriating thing is some dickweed government bureaucrat actually acquiesced to this nonsense. In order to get these squeaky wheels (aka rich assholes) out of his or her office, they agreed to put up a flagrantly false official city street sign on a public road.
Think about the implications of that for a moment. Because some jerkweed doesn't like tourists driving down "his" road, a sign meant to provide drivers with up-to-date information about road conditions and other important information, but which in this case features 100% false information, was placed on a city street.
I cannot tell you how pissed off this made me. I mean for one thing, it's just flat-out dangerous. Forget for a minute that if there's ever a serious emergency and people are looking for specific ways to drive here or there to get to safety, in this case they are receiving inccorect information from at least one official city sign... think about the slippery slope implications for a minute.
At least one bureaucrat has decided to move his own moral compass to "it's OK to put up a sign that is a lie in order to protect the peacefulness of a rich douchebag's quiet little street." But now that the compass has been moved, who is to say it can't be moved again? What else might this bureacrat, or one of his coworkers upon hearing about this, be willing to do if only the right (read: rich or influential) people "ask" him or her to do it.
Maybe I'm the only sane person left in this godforsaken city, but I think the implications are absolutely terrifying.
Holy crap!!!!
"According to last month's IMF report, general government debt as a percentage of GDP will rise from 63 percent in 2007 to 88.8 percent this year and to 99.8 percent of GDP next year."
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The return of Viet Nam... in the face of a Health Care debate
There were a lot of Apocryphal moments in the saga that was the American intervention in Viet Nam.
Most people remember only a few... Walter Cronkite's declaration of stalemate in the wake of the Tet Offensive perhaps. Or maybe it's the photograph of a young girl naked and burned from head-to-toe running from an American napalm attack.
One of my personal favorites has always been the twisted logic on evidence in the famous quote given to AP reporter Peter Arnett by an Air Force Colonel who said that in order to save a village it became necessary to destroy it.
That one quote and its bizarre snake-eating-its-own-tail internal logic came to symoblize the futility of the entire effort.
And I feel like we've had a similar moment here in the debate over Obamacare. No one has yet said it in quite this way, but it seems to me that Obama is saying to us...
"In order to increase the number of choices available to you, we have to decrease the number of choices available to you"
Much as the Colonels' comment on the destruction of a village helped end our war in Viet Nam... this unspoken truth about Obamacare ought to end our self-destructive pursuit of a Government run Health Care System once and for all, as well.
Most people remember only a few... Walter Cronkite's declaration of stalemate in the wake of the Tet Offensive perhaps. Or maybe it's the photograph of a young girl naked and burned from head-to-toe running from an American napalm attack.
One of my personal favorites has always been the twisted logic on evidence in the famous quote given to AP reporter Peter Arnett by an Air Force Colonel who said that in order to save a village it became necessary to destroy it.
That one quote and its bizarre snake-eating-its-own-tail internal logic came to symoblize the futility of the entire effort.
And I feel like we've had a similar moment here in the debate over Obamacare. No one has yet said it in quite this way, but it seems to me that Obama is saying to us...
"In order to increase the number of choices available to you, we have to decrease the number of choices available to you"
Much as the Colonels' comment on the destruction of a village helped end our war in Viet Nam... this unspoken truth about Obamacare ought to end our self-destructive pursuit of a Government run Health Care System once and for all, as well.
Are You F--king Kidding Me?
I cannot believe the stupidity and outright deceptions of this Los Angeles Times op-ed by Neve Gordon.
Israel is an apartheid state and the only way to save Israel is to boycott it?
I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
This guy is seriously off his rocker.
Perhaps if the Palestinian leaders recognized Israel's right to exist, stopped calling for the destruction of Israel as a state, and stopped firing rockets at Israeli citizens, the Israeli government might be willing to have meaningful discussions that could lead to a two state solution and peace in the region.
I hope Neve Gordon enjoys being a useful idiot of the Palestinian cause.
Israel is an apartheid state and the only way to save Israel is to boycott it?
I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
This guy is seriously off his rocker.
Perhaps if the Palestinian leaders recognized Israel's right to exist, stopped calling for the destruction of Israel as a state, and stopped firing rockets at Israeli citizens, the Israeli government might be willing to have meaningful discussions that could lead to a two state solution and peace in the region.
I hope Neve Gordon enjoys being a useful idiot of the Palestinian cause.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Choice and Competition in Health Care
Well, since the poll numbers for Obamacare show support for a public option dropping like a stone, the White House has regrouped and is now attempting to sell their plan as "choice and competition" in health care. And how does President Obama believe he can bring choice to health care? Does he want to relax the regulations that prohibit people from buying insurance across state lines? No, despite the thousands of insurance companies already doing business in the United States, he feels that the best way to bring competition and choice is through a government owned public option. Only a man who has spent his entire life and government and never worked in the private sector could believe that government will bring choice and competition to the table.
Using his logic, we need government owned gas stations to bring choice and competition to people who buy gas. We need government owned grocery stores to bring choice and competition to people who shop. We need government owned car companies to bring choice and competition to people who buy cars. Oh, wait, we already have that in GM.
This whole thing about choice and competition only being available through a public plan is deceptive and dishonest. I am actually surprised that instead of responding substantively to the views being presented to the administration through ordinary citizens at town hall meetings, the administration continues to ignore them and press forward with its plan to overhaul the entire health care system. They haven't changed their plan at all. They've simply changed their message to choice and competition.
People are freaking out about the deficit and their own financial situation, the last thing they want is another government program that adds to the national debt. Despite what most in this current administration believe, the American public isn't stupid, especially the middle class. They instinctively know that if something like this goes through, it won't only be the rich paying for it, they'll be paying for it as well.
And they're not buying it.
So by all means Democrats, go ahead and pass something purely on party lines which includes higher personal tax rates, higher corporate taxes, penalties for businesses that don't provide insurance, and a value added tax. Good luck in 2010 running with that on your resume.
Using his logic, we need government owned gas stations to bring choice and competition to people who buy gas. We need government owned grocery stores to bring choice and competition to people who shop. We need government owned car companies to bring choice and competition to people who buy cars. Oh, wait, we already have that in GM.
This whole thing about choice and competition only being available through a public plan is deceptive and dishonest. I am actually surprised that instead of responding substantively to the views being presented to the administration through ordinary citizens at town hall meetings, the administration continues to ignore them and press forward with its plan to overhaul the entire health care system. They haven't changed their plan at all. They've simply changed their message to choice and competition.
People are freaking out about the deficit and their own financial situation, the last thing they want is another government program that adds to the national debt. Despite what most in this current administration believe, the American public isn't stupid, especially the middle class. They instinctively know that if something like this goes through, it won't only be the rich paying for it, they'll be paying for it as well.
And they're not buying it.
So by all means Democrats, go ahead and pass something purely on party lines which includes higher personal tax rates, higher corporate taxes, penalties for businesses that don't provide insurance, and a value added tax. Good luck in 2010 running with that on your resume.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Whoa whoa who, not so fast there Ace!
Accordng to Drudge, Obama is NOT dropping the Public Option. He's going to double down and do it without any bi-partisan support...
Uh... he can't possibly be THAT dumb can he? I mean don't get me wrong, this is the best possible scenario for us Republicans going in to 2010... but jeez, the ego on this guy... he just can't stand to not get his way, can he?
I mean hell we did everything but beg him to do this. I just can't believe he's actually falling for it!
Amazing.
Uh... he can't possibly be THAT dumb can he? I mean don't get me wrong, this is the best possible scenario for us Republicans going in to 2010... but jeez, the ego on this guy... he just can't stand to not get his way, can he?
I mean hell we did everything but beg him to do this. I just can't believe he's actually falling for it!
Amazing.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
So you're bummed out by the latest defeat of socialized health care...
Well I know how you feel. Back during Bush's first term I was excited to hear him vow to take on the disaster that is Social Security... well it was you socialized healthcare/retirement types who killed my dream of being able to control more of my own retirement funds back then, so I'm only too happy to return the favor here in 2009.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
If Palin is so stupid, how did she beat the brilliant Obama in the healthcare debate?
Taranto lays it out here.
I want to pull one of my liberal friends aside and say to them, seriously, you don't REALLY like this plan right? You're only supporting it because you know a failure here badly hurts Obama's presidency, right? Please tell me that's what's going on.
I want to pull one of my liberal friends aside and say to them, seriously, you don't REALLY like this plan right? You're only supporting it because you know a failure here badly hurts Obama's presidency, right? Please tell me that's what's going on.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Obama's latest teachable moment...
Comes to us from the flameout of the Cash For Clunkers program.
The damned thing went belly up in 4 days. Burned through a billion dollars in cash. Turns out when you give something valuable (i.e. cash) away for free (or virtually free) an awful lot of people sign up to receieve it.
I'm not here to debate the merits of pulling older cars off the market so they can be replaced by newer cars that pollute less. Or to argue whether or not those new car sales constitute a needed economic stimulus. Maybe they do.
What I'm here to point out is the more important reality that a program designed to give something of value away ran out of that something in 4 days.
And what I'm wondering is... might this episode have implications for what Obama wants to do with a government run health case system?
Health care is both highly in demand and quite valuable. What do you imagine will happen if Government suddenly begins giving it away for free?
The damned thing went belly up in 4 days. Burned through a billion dollars in cash. Turns out when you give something valuable (i.e. cash) away for free (or virtually free) an awful lot of people sign up to receieve it.
I'm not here to debate the merits of pulling older cars off the market so they can be replaced by newer cars that pollute less. Or to argue whether or not those new car sales constitute a needed economic stimulus. Maybe they do.
What I'm here to point out is the more important reality that a program designed to give something of value away ran out of that something in 4 days.
And what I'm wondering is... might this episode have implications for what Obama wants to do with a government run health case system?
Health care is both highly in demand and quite valuable. What do you imagine will happen if Government suddenly begins giving it away for free?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
HA! Econ Advisor cites Google search as evidence of recovery.
These guys really are a bunch of clowns. I don't know about you, but the very first thing I did after reading this ridiculous story was go to Google and search for "economic depression."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sotomayor
I keep getting asked if Sotomayor should be confirmed. The answer is obviously yes. Republicans need to learn the lesson that elections matter. We've thrown away two opportunities to win Presidential elections in my lifetime... nominating Bob Dole in 1996 and then McCain in 2008, and we've paid dearly both times.
The President gets a wide berth, in my opinion, on the judges he nominates to the bench. If his own party wants to argue the point and say no, then fine. And Harriet Meiers was a great example of a party not simply lying back and taking it when their guy makes a bad choice (The Dems could learn something from that, but they won't because nothing is more important than managing the image of The One).
But as long as the nominee has a very basic legal and intellectual qualification for the bench, and Sotomayor clearly does, then that nominee should be confirmed no matter how much he or she sucks. And believe me, it's hard to think of a collection of opinions I would disagree with more than the Sotomayor rulings that have been highlighted during this process.
So she should be confirmed unanimously, and we should learn our lesson about not screwing around.
That said, those who would argue the Republicans shouldn't take the opportunity to show the country why Sotomayor sucks are just crazy. Not only do we have a responsibility to ourselves to remind our own poiticians and voters why elections matter, but we owe it to the country to make sure that every stone is overturned before anyone, ANYONE, is confirmed to sit in one of the most powerful seats in the most powerful government on Earth.
The President gets a wide berth, in my opinion, on the judges he nominates to the bench. If his own party wants to argue the point and say no, then fine. And Harriet Meiers was a great example of a party not simply lying back and taking it when their guy makes a bad choice (The Dems could learn something from that, but they won't because nothing is more important than managing the image of The One).
But as long as the nominee has a very basic legal and intellectual qualification for the bench, and Sotomayor clearly does, then that nominee should be confirmed no matter how much he or she sucks. And believe me, it's hard to think of a collection of opinions I would disagree with more than the Sotomayor rulings that have been highlighted during this process.
So she should be confirmed unanimously, and we should learn our lesson about not screwing around.
That said, those who would argue the Republicans shouldn't take the opportunity to show the country why Sotomayor sucks are just crazy. Not only do we have a responsibility to ourselves to remind our own poiticians and voters why elections matter, but we owe it to the country to make sure that every stone is overturned before anyone, ANYONE, is confirmed to sit in one of the most powerful seats in the most powerful government on Earth.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
John Mellencamp: Epic Fail
“I don’t think people fought and gave their lives so that some guy can sit in his bedroom and be mean. I don’t think that’s what freedom of speech is,” he continued. “Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people. But somehow it’s turned into ‘I can be an asshole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.’ It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech."
Would it be piling on to point out that I think he's being an asshole and should be forced, preferably by an agent of the Government, to shut up?
Would it be piling on to point out that I think he's being an asshole and should be forced, preferably by an agent of the Government, to shut up?
Monday, July 6, 2009
If I want to know what Republicans are running for Governor of California...
I have to read about it in the Washington Post.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
More dishonest reporting on the gun issue
At this point I think we have to assume these journalists are doing this intentionally, it just happens too often.
See if you can follow the tortured logic this reporter uses in a desperate attempt to make his facts fit the accepted narrative, that evil US gun smugglers are fueling drug-related gun battles all across the Western Hemisphere.
The opening paragraph lets us know what the reporter is going to try and show us.
"KINGSTON, Jamaica – Ships from Miami steam into Jamaica's main harbor loaded with TV sets and blue jeans. But some of the most popular U.S. imports never appear on the manifests: handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates."
But of course you just know that if you read the piece with a discerning eye, he's not going to prove anything of the sort. That's why I clicked on the headline when I logged on to Yahoo this morning.
Check this out...
"Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose origin can be traced, 80 percent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforcement officials have said in interviews with The Associated Press."
Isn't there a crucial piece of information missing from this sentence? Isn't it a piece of information without which, you can't possibly make the assertion the reporter makes in his opening paragraph?
"Of those whose origin can be traced."
Well how many is that? What if they can only trace the origin of 10? That would mean only 8 guns a year come from the United States. And if that's the number, it hardly seems worth an entire AP article. Now maybe it's more than 10, but the article doesn't say, and so we don't know. It's at least as likely that the number is 10 as it is that the number is all 1,000 isn't it?
And while we're at it... what about that 1,000 number. I'm getting that number from this sentence.
"The volume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that end up in the hands of drug cartels — Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year."
If you say "fewer than 1,000" I think it's fair to assume that the actual number is something like 9,467. And the reporter HAS to know that this is exactly what his readers will assume. But you have to read four paragraphs deeper into the piece to get to this sentence.
"But they have a long way to go. Jamaican authorities have confiscated only 100 guns coming into ports in the last five years, along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. That in turn is just a fraction of the 700 or so weapons confiscated on the streets each year."
So while it's technically correct that 700 is "fewer than 1,000", it's also true that 700 is a lot closer to 500 than it is to 1,000. That's one hell of an exaggeration, no? The reporter ignore a 30% error between what the actual number is, and what he wishes it was, the much scarier figure of 1,000, and just prints the scary number... even though he reveals it to be false later on in the same damned piece.
Increasing gun control measures is serious business. If you want to support the idea that US gun owners and sellers should be subjected to increased regulation an surveillance, that's fine. It's a free country. But this is one of those issues where you owe it to the world to make your argument with accurate facts backing them up. And to use a powerful platform like the AP to flat-out lie about the issue does more harm to your argument than good.
I don't know who Mike Melia is, but this is shamefully biased reporting, and he should be ashamed of himself.
See if you can follow the tortured logic this reporter uses in a desperate attempt to make his facts fit the accepted narrative, that evil US gun smugglers are fueling drug-related gun battles all across the Western Hemisphere.
The opening paragraph lets us know what the reporter is going to try and show us.
"KINGSTON, Jamaica – Ships from Miami steam into Jamaica's main harbor loaded with TV sets and blue jeans. But some of the most popular U.S. imports never appear on the manifests: handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates."
But of course you just know that if you read the piece with a discerning eye, he's not going to prove anything of the sort. That's why I clicked on the headline when I logged on to Yahoo this morning.
Check this out...
"Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose origin can be traced, 80 percent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforcement officials have said in interviews with The Associated Press."
Isn't there a crucial piece of information missing from this sentence? Isn't it a piece of information without which, you can't possibly make the assertion the reporter makes in his opening paragraph?
"Of those whose origin can be traced."
Well how many is that? What if they can only trace the origin of 10? That would mean only 8 guns a year come from the United States. And if that's the number, it hardly seems worth an entire AP article. Now maybe it's more than 10, but the article doesn't say, and so we don't know. It's at least as likely that the number is 10 as it is that the number is all 1,000 isn't it?
And while we're at it... what about that 1,000 number. I'm getting that number from this sentence.
"The volume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that end up in the hands of drug cartels — Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year."
If you say "fewer than 1,000" I think it's fair to assume that the actual number is something like 9,467. And the reporter HAS to know that this is exactly what his readers will assume. But you have to read four paragraphs deeper into the piece to get to this sentence.
"But they have a long way to go. Jamaican authorities have confiscated only 100 guns coming into ports in the last five years, along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition. That in turn is just a fraction of the 700 or so weapons confiscated on the streets each year."
So while it's technically correct that 700 is "fewer than 1,000", it's also true that 700 is a lot closer to 500 than it is to 1,000. That's one hell of an exaggeration, no? The reporter ignore a 30% error between what the actual number is, and what he wishes it was, the much scarier figure of 1,000, and just prints the scary number... even though he reveals it to be false later on in the same damned piece.
Increasing gun control measures is serious business. If you want to support the idea that US gun owners and sellers should be subjected to increased regulation an surveillance, that's fine. It's a free country. But this is one of those issues where you owe it to the world to make your argument with accurate facts backing them up. And to use a powerful platform like the AP to flat-out lie about the issue does more harm to your argument than good.
I don't know who Mike Melia is, but this is shamefully biased reporting, and he should be ashamed of himself.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Oh the irony....
Sending a man to do a man's job.
Obama sends USS John McCain to intercept North Korean ship.
UPDATE: From a writer friend of mine who e-mailed "meanwhile the USS Obama (A Kayack) is taking on water off the coast of Iran."
Obama sends USS John McCain to intercept North Korean ship.
UPDATE: From a writer friend of mine who e-mailed "meanwhile the USS Obama (A Kayack) is taking on water off the coast of Iran."
Thursday, June 18, 2009
"If the Old World comes here, where does the New World have left to go?"
Brilliant piece by Stephen Green who continues to be one of the great voices of the young, hip conservative movement in America.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
In solidarity
Changed the background colors on the blog to green.
Here's to Ahmadinejad... may you be kicked in the yarbles by the feet of a thousand protesters, both literally and figuratively.
Here's to Ahmadinejad... may you be kicked in the yarbles by the feet of a thousand protesters, both literally and figuratively.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Iran not as smart as we thought
Iran wants a nuke. We (and Israel) don't want them to have one. But they're really close. All they need is time and space.
And they just gakked an opportunity to buy a little bit of both. And they gakked it because they're stubborn... stubborn on a scale even the worst George W Bush hater never could have imagined George himself could be.
They just couldn't stand to let the world think they were giving in to the United States... even if they really didn't even mean it.
Think about it. The Americans elect a young good looking President preaching a new openess to dealing with recalcitrant regimes like Iran. What Iran needed to get that time and space, was to give this new young President a reason to lay off them for a while.
And this new young President needed something from Iran. He needed to show that his new kinder gentler way of doing things was yielding results. If he could have gotten that, he would have given Iran time and space.
Now along comes a reform candidate who isn't really a reform candidate at all, to challenge Ahmadinejad for the Presidency. Now we all know the Iranian President carries no real power, and anyway, this supposedly more moderate candidate is really no more moderate than the current President... he's just a little less obnoxiuos in public.
Alll the Mullahs had to do, was let this "reform" candidate win, and the ENTIRE world would have said "LOOK! The Iranians are being reasonable... let's ley off them for a while."
TIME.
And if Israel, who are just itching to bomb the Iranian nucvlear facilities before they go live, had gone ahewad and bombed anyway, the entire world would have said "How dare you Israel... they were coming around. They dumped Ahmadinejad. They were changing. You should have just left them alone."
SPACE.
But now Ahmadinejad has won, and nothing at all has changed. And on some day in the near future, we will wake up to find that Israel has bombed Iran and most of the world will find itself at war.
All because the Mullahs couldn't stand it that the world might look at them and think that they actred out of weakness. Not even for one second could they stand that.
The Iranian government is not half as smart as we've worried they might be.
And they just gakked an opportunity to buy a little bit of both. And they gakked it because they're stubborn... stubborn on a scale even the worst George W Bush hater never could have imagined George himself could be.
They just couldn't stand to let the world think they were giving in to the United States... even if they really didn't even mean it.
Think about it. The Americans elect a young good looking President preaching a new openess to dealing with recalcitrant regimes like Iran. What Iran needed to get that time and space, was to give this new young President a reason to lay off them for a while.
And this new young President needed something from Iran. He needed to show that his new kinder gentler way of doing things was yielding results. If he could have gotten that, he would have given Iran time and space.
Now along comes a reform candidate who isn't really a reform candidate at all, to challenge Ahmadinejad for the Presidency. Now we all know the Iranian President carries no real power, and anyway, this supposedly more moderate candidate is really no more moderate than the current President... he's just a little less obnoxiuos in public.
Alll the Mullahs had to do, was let this "reform" candidate win, and the ENTIRE world would have said "LOOK! The Iranians are being reasonable... let's ley off them for a while."
TIME.
And if Israel, who are just itching to bomb the Iranian nucvlear facilities before they go live, had gone ahewad and bombed anyway, the entire world would have said "How dare you Israel... they were coming around. They dumped Ahmadinejad. They were changing. You should have just left them alone."
SPACE.
But now Ahmadinejad has won, and nothing at all has changed. And on some day in the near future, we will wake up to find that Israel has bombed Iran and most of the world will find itself at war.
All because the Mullahs couldn't stand it that the world might look at them and think that they actred out of weakness. Not even for one second could they stand that.
The Iranian government is not half as smart as we've worried they might be.
Friday, June 12, 2009
San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsome....
Planning to fine people who throw away scraps of food. Worse, he's going to direct trash collectors to go through your garbage to see if you're guilty!
First of all, I can't believe we're considering electing this guy Governor... does anyone think that what California really needs is more fees, fine, taxes, and regulations? Not to mention all the new public employees they'll have to hire to carry out those fines.
Second... once you start fining every little individual action a person might engage in over the course of the day, and PAYING certain citizens to spy on their fellow citizens... it's not exactly a big leap from fines to jail time... and from there it's just one more tiny step to 1984.
"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1"
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
All 1984 quotes taken from this site.
First of all, I can't believe we're considering electing this guy Governor... does anyone think that what California really needs is more fees, fine, taxes, and regulations? Not to mention all the new public employees they'll have to hire to carry out those fines.
Second... once you start fining every little individual action a person might engage in over the course of the day, and PAYING certain citizens to spy on their fellow citizens... it's not exactly a big leap from fines to jail time... and from there it's just one more tiny step to 1984.
"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1"
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
All 1984 quotes taken from this site.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Maybe this is a stupid question...
But wouldn't it be better for the environment in the long run if we all continued to drive our older gas-guzzling cars than for us to all get rid of them in favor of a new fleet of cars that will cost millions of tons of resources to produce and will only save us a couple of miles per gallon per car?
And since all those gas-guzzlers will wind up on the streets of Central and South America anyway... what's really being saved?
Just asking.
UPDATE: Oh, well that explains everything... (can you see my eyes rolling?)
And since all those gas-guzzlers will wind up on the streets of Central and South America anyway... what's really being saved?
Just asking.
UPDATE: Oh, well that explains everything... (can you see my eyes rolling?)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Quote of the day
From Krauthammer, writing a review of Obama's National Security speech about how he's really, seriously, NOT doubling down on Bush's policies, even though we all know he is...
"The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. "
"The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. "
The California Experiment Has Failed
I live in California and tuesday the voters went to the polls and voted on 6 propositions, 5 of which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said were absolutely essential to keep the state from failing into bankruptcy. I was happy to vote against all 6 of them.
Well, those 5 went down to overwhelming defeat. Nevermind that those propositions were poorly worded and wouldn't really fix the problem: overspending by the politicians. Prop 1A was particularly bad even though it claimed to create a cap on spending and a "rainy day" fund except that fund could be raided on sunny days.
The simple fact is that in 1999, the budget for the state of California was $75 billion, the first year that Gray Davis took office. By 2002, it was at $104 billion. Last year, it was at $145 billion. That's a 92% increase in 10 years. That means that spending increased double over the rate of inflation and population growth. If we had just held spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth, we'd be looking at at $15 billion surplus this year rather than the $42 billion deficit we have.
Yet according to Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, the voters are the problem and the politicians are the solution. Get rid of the 2/3rds majority to raise taxes, get rid of term limits, and get rid of Prop 13 which limits property taxes.
No where in his article does he make any reference to the increased spending of the politicians as a problem. In fact, he doesn't mention spending at all. He seems intent on blaming this squarely on the voters and holding them accountable.
Let's contrast that with the op-ed from the San Diego Union Tribune. It doesn't blame the voters. It places the blame at the feet of the politicians, which is where is belongs. They were the ones that decided to increase spending beyond inflation plus population growth, not the voters.
California as an experiment has failed. By trying to go to "green" energy, our energy costs are the highest in the nation except for Hawaii because we refuse to drill for oil off our shores or build nuclear power plants. As a result, we have to import the majority of our energy. We have a severely regressive tax code with a effective rate of 9% (if you make over $45,000) and a 10% rate for millionaires (which I still think it high but at least they're making a million dollars.) Compare that with New Hampshire where their 6% rate kicks it at $335,000. Last year, more people left the state than moved in. Where did they go? To lower tax states like Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. We have spent and spent as if the good times would never end and now that they have, the politicians blame us and want more.
Sorry, I'm not having any of it.
This wouldn't be nearly as worrisome if President Obama's plan for the nation didn't look a lot like California: raise taxes on the "wealthy" (those making over $250,000), invest in green energy jobs (but no money for nuclear which emits zero CO2 into the atmosphere), and "cap and trade" carbon emissions (which is another energy tax).
They say as California goes, so goes the nation. If I were the rest of the nation, I'd be very afraid right now.
Well, those 5 went down to overwhelming defeat. Nevermind that those propositions were poorly worded and wouldn't really fix the problem: overspending by the politicians. Prop 1A was particularly bad even though it claimed to create a cap on spending and a "rainy day" fund except that fund could be raided on sunny days.
The simple fact is that in 1999, the budget for the state of California was $75 billion, the first year that Gray Davis took office. By 2002, it was at $104 billion. Last year, it was at $145 billion. That's a 92% increase in 10 years. That means that spending increased double over the rate of inflation and population growth. If we had just held spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth, we'd be looking at at $15 billion surplus this year rather than the $42 billion deficit we have.
Yet according to Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, the voters are the problem and the politicians are the solution. Get rid of the 2/3rds majority to raise taxes, get rid of term limits, and get rid of Prop 13 which limits property taxes.
No where in his article does he make any reference to the increased spending of the politicians as a problem. In fact, he doesn't mention spending at all. He seems intent on blaming this squarely on the voters and holding them accountable.
Let's contrast that with the op-ed from the San Diego Union Tribune. It doesn't blame the voters. It places the blame at the feet of the politicians, which is where is belongs. They were the ones that decided to increase spending beyond inflation plus population growth, not the voters.
California as an experiment has failed. By trying to go to "green" energy, our energy costs are the highest in the nation except for Hawaii because we refuse to drill for oil off our shores or build nuclear power plants. As a result, we have to import the majority of our energy. We have a severely regressive tax code with a effective rate of 9% (if you make over $45,000) and a 10% rate for millionaires (which I still think it high but at least they're making a million dollars.) Compare that with New Hampshire where their 6% rate kicks it at $335,000. Last year, more people left the state than moved in. Where did they go? To lower tax states like Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. We have spent and spent as if the good times would never end and now that they have, the politicians blame us and want more.
Sorry, I'm not having any of it.
This wouldn't be nearly as worrisome if President Obama's plan for the nation didn't look a lot like California: raise taxes on the "wealthy" (those making over $250,000), invest in green energy jobs (but no money for nuclear which emits zero CO2 into the atmosphere), and "cap and trade" carbon emissions (which is another energy tax).
They say as California goes, so goes the nation. If I were the rest of the nation, I'd be very afraid right now.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
I wonder why that is?
While reading a fascinating account of the dire straits that Ohio finds itself in now that a significant number of its most productive citizens have chosen to flee the state's soaring taxes and declining services, I noticed an interesting passage.
When I attended grade school in the Mesozoic Era (actually the 1960s), we learned that the Buckeye State had eight cities (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown) with populations greater than 100,000, the most in the country. We also knew that Cleveland, at 876,000, was the eighth largest city in the U.S. (Schools were strangely focused on facts in those days, weren’t they?)
Today, Youngstown (down over half) and Canton have populations of less than 80,000. Cleveland will probably be below 400,000 soon. All of the others except Columbus, the state’s capital, have declined severely.
What sticks out to you in that passage?
For me it was "All of the others except Columbus, the state’s capital, have declined severely."
Think about THAT for a minute. Why might the state's capital city be the only city bucking the trend of declining population?
It's actually quite simple to figure out. The state's problem is expanding government. State government is becoming larger and larger and is siphoning off larger and larger amounts of what is produced by the state's most productive citizens.
And that's why you see the state capital growing while the rest of the state is strangled to death. The state's most productive citizens are fleeing the state altogether, while the least productive (Lobyists, Politicians, State govenment workers) are running to Columbus to suck off the ever-growing government teet.
How long you think that's gonna last? How long can that wealth transfer sustain itself if those who pay into the system are crying uncle and heading for greener pastures?
A lot of other states might be about to find out.
When I attended grade school in the Mesozoic Era (actually the 1960s), we learned that the Buckeye State had eight cities (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown) with populations greater than 100,000, the most in the country. We also knew that Cleveland, at 876,000, was the eighth largest city in the U.S. (Schools were strangely focused on facts in those days, weren’t they?)
Today, Youngstown (down over half) and Canton have populations of less than 80,000. Cleveland will probably be below 400,000 soon. All of the others except Columbus, the state’s capital, have declined severely.
What sticks out to you in that passage?
For me it was "All of the others except Columbus, the state’s capital, have declined severely."
Think about THAT for a minute. Why might the state's capital city be the only city bucking the trend of declining population?
It's actually quite simple to figure out. The state's problem is expanding government. State government is becoming larger and larger and is siphoning off larger and larger amounts of what is produced by the state's most productive citizens.
And that's why you see the state capital growing while the rest of the state is strangled to death. The state's most productive citizens are fleeing the state altogether, while the least productive (Lobyists, Politicians, State govenment workers) are running to Columbus to suck off the ever-growing government teet.
How long you think that's gonna last? How long can that wealth transfer sustain itself if those who pay into the system are crying uncle and heading for greener pastures?
A lot of other states might be about to find out.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
A teaching moment?
So I'm watching NFL draft coverage and they keep running a promo for an upcoming episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (how those two things go together is for someone else to explain).
In this promo, Teri Hatcher finds a handgun lying on a coffee table and picks it up with two fingers by the butt of the weapon, as if she were picking up a dirty diaper.
It's my contention that most of the fear of guns people have comes from the fact that those who are afraid of them simply don't know anything about them. What makes a gun dangerous is not its existence, but rather that fact that too many of the people who come into contact with firearms either don't know how to safely handle them, or are dead set on doing something illegal with them.
And picking one up with two fingers by the butt of the weapon is NOT a safe way to handle a firearm.
Rather than show Hatcher prissily picking up a weapon practically shaking with terror at its very existence... couldn't this have been a "teaching moment" instead? What if she'd picked up the weapon like it's supposed to be held, dropped the magazine, racked the slide, cleared the chamber, confirmed it was not loaded and set it back down on the table?
That's the safest thing she could have done. Picking it up like a rotten banana peel taught no one anything, excpet to push the idea that guns are something to be terrified of, no matter the circumstances in which you happen upon one.
In this promo, Teri Hatcher finds a handgun lying on a coffee table and picks it up with two fingers by the butt of the weapon, as if she were picking up a dirty diaper.
It's my contention that most of the fear of guns people have comes from the fact that those who are afraid of them simply don't know anything about them. What makes a gun dangerous is not its existence, but rather that fact that too many of the people who come into contact with firearms either don't know how to safely handle them, or are dead set on doing something illegal with them.
And picking one up with two fingers by the butt of the weapon is NOT a safe way to handle a firearm.
Rather than show Hatcher prissily picking up a weapon practically shaking with terror at its very existence... couldn't this have been a "teaching moment" instead? What if she'd picked up the weapon like it's supposed to be held, dropped the magazine, racked the slide, cleared the chamber, confirmed it was not loaded and set it back down on the table?
That's the safest thing she could have done. Picking it up like a rotten banana peel taught no one anything, excpet to push the idea that guns are something to be terrified of, no matter the circumstances in which you happen upon one.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Escalation!?
So I'm reading this article about putting armed guards on US shipping running through the areas where pirates have been operating lately, and I see this quote:
"Joe Cox, president of the Chamber of Shipping of America, cautioned that deploying armed guards aboard cargo ships could escalate violence if pirates expect a gunfight."
Dude... during the last attempted hijacking, the pirates fired automatic weapons and RPGs at the crew. After the crew barricaded themselves in the engine room, the pirates poured it on, literally trying to blow them out of their barricaded redoubt with more explosives...
... and this was an attack on an unarmed crew who did not fight back.
RPGs, automatic weapoons, and explosives... how much more, exactly, could the violence be escalated?
They should put this Joe Cox guy in charge of security on college campuses.
"Joe Cox, president of the Chamber of Shipping of America, cautioned that deploying armed guards aboard cargo ships could escalate violence if pirates expect a gunfight."
Dude... during the last attempted hijacking, the pirates fired automatic weapons and RPGs at the crew. After the crew barricaded themselves in the engine room, the pirates poured it on, literally trying to blow them out of their barricaded redoubt with more explosives...
... and this was an attack on an unarmed crew who did not fight back.
RPGs, automatic weapoons, and explosives... how much more, exactly, could the violence be escalated?
They should put this Joe Cox guy in charge of security on college campuses.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Democrats have a major branding problem
So I was driving around at lunch listening to Mason and Ireland on ESPN radio. Now, I have no idea what Mason and Ireland's politics are, but given that they are media figures in Los Angeles (even if that media is sports talk radio), I think it's safe to assume they are not Republicans.
But anyway... they were having a conversation about Twitter. Nothing political about the conversation at all. Mason was saying he enjoys Twittering to his fans. Ireland took the opposite position, saying he enjoys getting Tweets, but hates actually sending them out.
Mason said "So you're a Democrat?"
Ireland replied "what do you mean?"
"I mean, you like to take but you don't like to give."
And Ireland burst out laughing. And not condescending sarcastic laughter either, this was a big ole rib shaking belly laugh.
If I were a Democrat looking forward to the election, and I heard this exchange, I think I would have felt a little chill crawl down my spine.
But anyway... they were having a conversation about Twitter. Nothing political about the conversation at all. Mason was saying he enjoys Twittering to his fans. Ireland took the opposite position, saying he enjoys getting Tweets, but hates actually sending them out.
Mason said "So you're a Democrat?"
Ireland replied "what do you mean?"
"I mean, you like to take but you don't like to give."
And Ireland burst out laughing. And not condescending sarcastic laughter either, this was a big ole rib shaking belly laugh.
If I were a Democrat looking forward to the election, and I heard this exchange, I think I would have felt a little chill crawl down my spine.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
More Waterboarding Please
So according to a Justice Department memo dated May 30, 2005 the use of enhanced interrogation techniques - including waterboarding - on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed aka KSM, caused him to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.
As a resident of Los Angeles, I say "more waterboarding please."
As a resident of Los Angeles, I say "more waterboarding please."
Where Does the Buck Stop?
In another nuanced (bulls**t) statement about interrogation techniques, President Obama leaves open the possibility that the people in the Bush Administration who wrote the "torture" memos could be prosecuted.
Are you friggin kidding me??!!
What are you going to prosecute them for? Giving an opinion you disagree with?
Obama won't prosecute any of the CIA interrogators who waterboarded KSM, but he'll leave it up to the Attorney General to see if wants to prosecute the people who gave their opinion as to whether certain techniques were legal?
This is a very dangerous president that Obama will be setting if he allows Attorney General Holder to prosecute the author of those memos. How is a president supposed to ask for the unbiased and open opinions of his staff if that staff knows that what it writes in the memo could lead to prosecution? This isn't members of the Third Reich writing about the systemic plan to exterminate the Jews. These are professional lawyers in the justice department giving their opinion on whether certain interrogation techniques are legally acceptable.
I'm betting there is no "The buck stops here" sign on Obama's desk as there was during President Truman's time in the Oval office.
Are you friggin kidding me??!!
What are you going to prosecute them for? Giving an opinion you disagree with?
Obama won't prosecute any of the CIA interrogators who waterboarded KSM, but he'll leave it up to the Attorney General to see if wants to prosecute the people who gave their opinion as to whether certain techniques were legal?
This is a very dangerous president that Obama will be setting if he allows Attorney General Holder to prosecute the author of those memos. How is a president supposed to ask for the unbiased and open opinions of his staff if that staff knows that what it writes in the memo could lead to prosecution? This isn't members of the Third Reich writing about the systemic plan to exterminate the Jews. These are professional lawyers in the justice department giving their opinion on whether certain interrogation techniques are legally acceptable.
I'm betting there is no "The buck stops here" sign on Obama's desk as there was during President Truman's time in the Oval office.
Why campaign statements matter
Remember the final Presidential debate? John McCain came out swinging, having decided that the place to hit Obama was on earmarks. He had a good argument, having accepted no earmarks himself, he pointed out that Obama was one of the top three pigs in the Senate pork pen.
Obama's defense was, let's face it, lame. He said, "well come on now guys... in the grand scheme of things, $8 billion dollars is nothing!!!"
Uh-huh... so now, why am I supposed to be impressed that he's going to cut 100 million from the budget in the next 90 days? Isn't that 1/80th of the number Obama already told us was "no big deal"... I mean I suck at math, but I know a turd when I see it.
Again, I'm not an Obama supporter, so perhaps my opinion doesn't matter. But you have to assume that some of the more middle-of-the-road marginal supporters out there are eventually going to notice that his presidential statements have absolutely no relationship to what he was telling us as a candidate.
A lot of people used the word "mandate" and "landslide" to describe Obama's victory last Novemeber, but the truth is that the result was a lot closer than Obama would like to consider, and I wonder how many moderate defections he can realistically withstand before his chances for re-election start to look murky?
UPDATE: Paul Krugman agrees with me.
Obama's defense was, let's face it, lame. He said, "well come on now guys... in the grand scheme of things, $8 billion dollars is nothing!!!"
Uh-huh... so now, why am I supposed to be impressed that he's going to cut 100 million from the budget in the next 90 days? Isn't that 1/80th of the number Obama already told us was "no big deal"... I mean I suck at math, but I know a turd when I see it.
Again, I'm not an Obama supporter, so perhaps my opinion doesn't matter. But you have to assume that some of the more middle-of-the-road marginal supporters out there are eventually going to notice that his presidential statements have absolutely no relationship to what he was telling us as a candidate.
A lot of people used the word "mandate" and "landslide" to describe Obama's victory last Novemeber, but the truth is that the result was a lot closer than Obama would like to consider, and I wonder how many moderate defections he can realistically withstand before his chances for re-election start to look murky?
UPDATE: Paul Krugman agrees with me.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
You might be an asshole if...
You are commpelled to look for the negative in something that's making millions of people happy.
Check out this guy...
While most of the world is falling in love with a dowdy, but plucky, British singer who sang her heart out and won over a thoroughly hostile crowd... this guy can't help pointing out that she's not the greatest singer the world has ever seen.
Gee... thanks dude. If you are THAT dsperate to be a negative nancy... why don't you crawl off under a rock someplace where you won't harsh the buzz of the rest of us who are just trying to enjoy oursleves.
What a douchebag.
Check out this guy...
While most of the world is falling in love with a dowdy, but plucky, British singer who sang her heart out and won over a thoroughly hostile crowd... this guy can't help pointing out that she's not the greatest singer the world has ever seen.
Gee... thanks dude. If you are THAT dsperate to be a negative nancy... why don't you crawl off under a rock someplace where you won't harsh the buzz of the rest of us who are just trying to enjoy oursleves.
What a douchebag.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Awesome rant!!!!
I attended a Tax Party protest, and will hopefully have a chance to write a few thoughts about the experience for this space, but in the meantime, check out this fantastic Obama rant.
This one is pretty good too!
This one is pretty good too!
Sunday, April 12, 2009
A big "well done" to the SEALS
That's some good shootin' lads... I'd buy you a beer if I was allowed to. Hopefully your actions will make the next batch of pirates think twice.
U-S-A! U-S-A!
U-S-A! U-S-A!
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Americanization of Emily
I was alerted to the existence of this film by a short interview Robert Osborne did with Clint Eastwood on the subject of James Garner... who stars in the film alongside Julie Andrews. Clint mentioned that in the film Garner delivers one of the great monologues about America and its relationship with Europe.
The movie totally delivers... but as you watch it, try to imagine modern Hollywood producing a movie where a character says something like this...
"You American haters bore me to tears, Ms. Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town."
Amazing... and even better when Garner delivers it.
Interesting to note that the movie was written by Paddy Chayefsky and you can see a lot of the fantastic satirical writing that would be the hallmark, 12 years later, of his most brilliant screenplay, NETWORK.
UPDATE: Also, the film features one of the best end credits I've ever seen. Three actresses are credited with playing "THREE NAMELESS BROADS."
The movie totally delivers... but as you watch it, try to imagine modern Hollywood producing a movie where a character says something like this...
"You American haters bore me to tears, Ms. Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town."
Amazing... and even better when Garner delivers it.
Interesting to note that the movie was written by Paddy Chayefsky and you can see a lot of the fantastic satirical writing that would be the hallmark, 12 years later, of his most brilliant screenplay, NETWORK.
UPDATE: Also, the film features one of the best end credits I've ever seen. Three actresses are credited with playing "THREE NAMELESS BROADS."
I guess I'm the only one not surprised...
I see that much of the Conservative Punditry is up-in-arms about a survey that shows that only 53% of Americans surveyed say Capitalism is the best economic system...
Now tell me please why everyone is so shocked by this number. "It's way too LOW!" they say. No it isn't. It's exactly the ratio we ourselves have created. Think about it for a second.
There are about a million different ways to get rich in this country, and not one of them is easy. They all take hard work and dedication. And frankly, most of the country, let's say 47% of them, simply are not up to it or aren't interested for one reason or another.
I work in one of the most competitive parts of one of the most competitive businesses in this country. I work 14 hour days, take work home on the weekends, and I haven't been to Happy Hour in 15 years. I do these things because I want to be successful and I'd also like to be rich. I'm letting an industry kick my ass every single day because I see a tremendous upside in it if I keep at it long enough.
It's what I've chosen to to... it's a trade off. And most Americans are simply not interested. A significant portion of the American public have chosen a different path, a different bargain. They work hard and they are industrious, for sure, but they go home at 5 and they don't think about work at all from Friday night to Sunday morning. They have time for family, Church maybe... Maybe they've chosen a career that doesn't pay well but that has a high degree of social value like a teacher or prosecuting attorney. These people DO go to Happy Hour, they enjoy the hell out of their weekends, and they save up enough for a beach house to retire to, and two weeks on the shore every July.
And yet the media tells them every day that they're missing out on something. Everyone on TV and in the movies is rich. In the movies, every cop drives a vintage, cherry muscle car. All the women are New York advertising execs or newspaper columnists living in gigantic mid-town apartments. On TV every single day our President and Vice President foment the worst kind of class warfare... even going so far as to suggest that the rich are "unpatriotic" because they don't willingly give up more than the 50% of their incomes they already pay in taxes.
But even as they watch these things on TV, an awful lot of our fellow countrymen know that they have made as much money as they will ever make. They are as rich as they will ever get. And the disparity between what they have, and what the media and our government has convinced them that they deserve, is wide and deep.
Beacause the Government and the media have told our fellow Americans that whatever their failings are, they are not their own fault. The world is not fair. Our Economy is not fair. They were cheated somehow. And after years and years of hearing this, they have begun to believe it. they have begun to believe that they SHOULD have everything they see on TV, and that if they don't it is because someone is to blame.
And so they are angry. They want to punish someone rich. And you know what would do that? Socialism. It may not make THEM rich... scratch that, it will absolutely NOT make them rich... but what it might do, is pull all those undeserving rich folks who probably cheated or inherited or stole their way to prosperity back down to Earth.
Socialism might doom us all to mediocrity, but it might also cure that nagging jealousy that too many Americans are, apparently, carrying around like so much luggage.
Not much of a trade-off in my opinion... but then I'm one of the 53% who voted for Capitalism, so I'm probably not the guy to ask.
UPDATE: I woke up this morning to find this article at the top of the Yahoo home page... "HOW TO FIND A LOW STRESS JOB".
Check out a few quotes from the piece.
"Hate time pressure?"
"Prefer a shot work-week?"
"Want freedom from the bottom line?"
If those are your chief concerns when considering a new career, then you need to know that you will never get rich. People get rich by putting themselves on the line, and being on the line is incredibly stressfull. But if that's not your thing, that's fine, I respect the choice, believe me, there are a lot of stressful things about my job that I hate. But remember that it is a choice YOU made, so if you wake up fifteen years down the road and think to yourself, "I wish I'd made more money". Remember that our Constitution guarantees only equality of opportunity, not of outcome... the rest is up to you. So don't suddenly start voting for people who want to "spread the wealth around" by taking away what I've made for myself because you feel some sense of regret about where your choices have brought you.
Or if you do, at least have the courage not to claim that you're voting that way out of a sense of "fairness." There is no fairness in this world, there are only choices and consequences.
Now tell me please why everyone is so shocked by this number. "It's way too LOW!" they say. No it isn't. It's exactly the ratio we ourselves have created. Think about it for a second.
There are about a million different ways to get rich in this country, and not one of them is easy. They all take hard work and dedication. And frankly, most of the country, let's say 47% of them, simply are not up to it or aren't interested for one reason or another.
I work in one of the most competitive parts of one of the most competitive businesses in this country. I work 14 hour days, take work home on the weekends, and I haven't been to Happy Hour in 15 years. I do these things because I want to be successful and I'd also like to be rich. I'm letting an industry kick my ass every single day because I see a tremendous upside in it if I keep at it long enough.
It's what I've chosen to to... it's a trade off. And most Americans are simply not interested. A significant portion of the American public have chosen a different path, a different bargain. They work hard and they are industrious, for sure, but they go home at 5 and they don't think about work at all from Friday night to Sunday morning. They have time for family, Church maybe... Maybe they've chosen a career that doesn't pay well but that has a high degree of social value like a teacher or prosecuting attorney. These people DO go to Happy Hour, they enjoy the hell out of their weekends, and they save up enough for a beach house to retire to, and two weeks on the shore every July.
And yet the media tells them every day that they're missing out on something. Everyone on TV and in the movies is rich. In the movies, every cop drives a vintage, cherry muscle car. All the women are New York advertising execs or newspaper columnists living in gigantic mid-town apartments. On TV every single day our President and Vice President foment the worst kind of class warfare... even going so far as to suggest that the rich are "unpatriotic" because they don't willingly give up more than the 50% of their incomes they already pay in taxes.
But even as they watch these things on TV, an awful lot of our fellow countrymen know that they have made as much money as they will ever make. They are as rich as they will ever get. And the disparity between what they have, and what the media and our government has convinced them that they deserve, is wide and deep.
Beacause the Government and the media have told our fellow Americans that whatever their failings are, they are not their own fault. The world is not fair. Our Economy is not fair. They were cheated somehow. And after years and years of hearing this, they have begun to believe it. they have begun to believe that they SHOULD have everything they see on TV, and that if they don't it is because someone is to blame.
And so they are angry. They want to punish someone rich. And you know what would do that? Socialism. It may not make THEM rich... scratch that, it will absolutely NOT make them rich... but what it might do, is pull all those undeserving rich folks who probably cheated or inherited or stole their way to prosperity back down to Earth.
Socialism might doom us all to mediocrity, but it might also cure that nagging jealousy that too many Americans are, apparently, carrying around like so much luggage.
Not much of a trade-off in my opinion... but then I'm one of the 53% who voted for Capitalism, so I'm probably not the guy to ask.
UPDATE: I woke up this morning to find this article at the top of the Yahoo home page... "HOW TO FIND A LOW STRESS JOB".
Check out a few quotes from the piece.
"Hate time pressure?"
"Prefer a shot work-week?"
"Want freedom from the bottom line?"
If those are your chief concerns when considering a new career, then you need to know that you will never get rich. People get rich by putting themselves on the line, and being on the line is incredibly stressfull. But if that's not your thing, that's fine, I respect the choice, believe me, there are a lot of stressful things about my job that I hate. But remember that it is a choice YOU made, so if you wake up fifteen years down the road and think to yourself, "I wish I'd made more money". Remember that our Constitution guarantees only equality of opportunity, not of outcome... the rest is up to you. So don't suddenly start voting for people who want to "spread the wealth around" by taking away what I've made for myself because you feel some sense of regret about where your choices have brought you.
Or if you do, at least have the courage not to claim that you're voting that way out of a sense of "fairness." There is no fairness in this world, there are only choices and consequences.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Team America World Police Foreign Policy In Effect
North Korea, after telling the world that they would indeed test a long range missile, and having the world leaders warn them that it would be a violation of UN policy, launched the missile anyway. I guess the good news is that according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials, the first stage of the rocket fell into the waters between Korea and Japan, while the two other stages, and its payload, landed in the Pacific Ocean.
So North Korea's missile technology is not exactly 21st Century.
But here's the bad part. This is President Obama's statement from his speech in Prague about the launch.
"North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long-range missile," Obama said. "This provocation underscores the need for action — not just this afternoon at the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."
So what does President Obama suggest? From his White House statement:
We will immediately consult with our allies in the region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of the U.N. Security Council to bring this matter before the Council. I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and to refrain from further provocative actions.
It reminds me of this scene from TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE.
I guess the Obama Administration is determined to practice the policy of "We will become very, very angry with you and we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are."
This would be laughable if it weren't actually serious you know.
So North Korea's missile technology is not exactly 21st Century.
But here's the bad part. This is President Obama's statement from his speech in Prague about the launch.
"North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long-range missile," Obama said. "This provocation underscores the need for action — not just this afternoon at the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."
So what does President Obama suggest? From his White House statement:
We will immediately consult with our allies in the region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of the U.N. Security Council to bring this matter before the Council. I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and to refrain from further provocative actions.
It reminds me of this scene from TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE.
I guess the Obama Administration is determined to practice the policy of "We will become very, very angry with you and we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are."
This would be laughable if it weren't actually serious you know.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Obama's poker tell
I've decided that whenever you hear Obama say "Let me be absolutely clear..." you can be sure that the very next sentence will be 100% false.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Best. Response. Ever.
Just came up with a fantastic response to the green advisor to British PM Gordon Brown who is suggesting that the UK must drstically reduce its population in order to avoid a climate disaster.
"After you, sir"
"After you, sir"
Will Obama Ever Take Responsibility For Anything?
Judging from President Obama's presee conference last night, he's never going to assume responsibility for the Federal Budget. This is his response to Chip Reid's question about the federal budget.
"I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them."
The last time I checked, the Democrats have been in control of Congress since January 2007 which means that no budget could have been passed without at least some of them going along with it. Yet no reporter called him on it. For a man who keeps stressing that we need to assume greater responsibility in our lives, he certainly isn't acting like it. This budget just kicks the can down on the road to the next generation of Americans.
I guess Obama will continue to blame Bush for as long as he can, especially since he his new ideas are simply old ideas consisting of higher taxes on the rich and cuts in defense spending.
I also find it disingenuous that President Obama continues to repeat that this budget does not represent the same tired ways that got us into this mess. Well, nobody is proposing a budget like that, not even the Republicans. Say what you want about President Clinton, and I have my quibbles with him, but the man could at least govern and had executive experience and knew that you need bi-partisan legislation on certain aspects. He even had a little humility as well.
I don't think Obama has any humility. I think he just listens really well, so that people feel that they've been heard, and then he goes off and does what he was going to do in the first place. I think his statement during the stimulus bill "negotiations" of "I won so I'm going to trump you on that" is more representative of his viewpoint than all the speeches about how important bi-partisanship is in Washington. I was really hoping Obama would be smarter than this but so far, my worst fear - that all he can do is read a speech off a teleprompter - has been confirmed.
"I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them."
The last time I checked, the Democrats have been in control of Congress since January 2007 which means that no budget could have been passed without at least some of them going along with it. Yet no reporter called him on it. For a man who keeps stressing that we need to assume greater responsibility in our lives, he certainly isn't acting like it. This budget just kicks the can down on the road to the next generation of Americans.
I guess Obama will continue to blame Bush for as long as he can, especially since he his new ideas are simply old ideas consisting of higher taxes on the rich and cuts in defense spending.
I also find it disingenuous that President Obama continues to repeat that this budget does not represent the same tired ways that got us into this mess. Well, nobody is proposing a budget like that, not even the Republicans. Say what you want about President Clinton, and I have my quibbles with him, but the man could at least govern and had executive experience and knew that you need bi-partisan legislation on certain aspects. He even had a little humility as well.
I don't think Obama has any humility. I think he just listens really well, so that people feel that they've been heard, and then he goes off and does what he was going to do in the first place. I think his statement during the stimulus bill "negotiations" of "I won so I'm going to trump you on that" is more representative of his viewpoint than all the speeches about how important bi-partisanship is in Washington. I was really hoping Obama would be smarter than this but so far, my worst fear - that all he can do is read a speech off a teleprompter - has been confirmed.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Laugh of the Day
Best thing I've heard all day about the President Obama / Treasury Secretary Geithner "new and improved" rescue plan for the economy:
An analyst on CNBC just said that the Geithner plan ought to be called the "Collateralized Rescue Asset Plan" just for the acronym.
I'd be laughing harder if we weren't in such a serious situation.
An analyst on CNBC just said that the Geithner plan ought to be called the "Collateralized Rescue Asset Plan" just for the acronym.
I'd be laughing harder if we weren't in such a serious situation.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Check out the current Drudge headline
"Obama will call for increased oversight of 'executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies' as part of sweeping plan to 'overhaul financial regulation', NY TIMES reporting Sunday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing... "
That sound you're hearing is the sound of thousands of brilliant future Wall Street executives frantically changing their majors.
Smart move Barry.
I mean seriously... we're all getting punk'd right? Any minute now he's going to call a press conference to say "just kidding"... right?
That sound you're hearing is the sound of thousands of brilliant future Wall Street executives frantically changing their majors.
Smart move Barry.
I mean seriously... we're all getting punk'd right? Any minute now he's going to call a press conference to say "just kidding"... right?
Something to keep you up at night
We were told by our government that without massive Federal bailouts, firms like AIG would collapse, and along with them, the entire economy. And yet now we find ourselves in a situation where, because of the way our government has behaved over the course of the last two months, firms like AIG are either refusing or returning their bailout cash.
Assuming our government was telling us the truth (and here I'll pause a second for you to get your giggles under control), there's only one inescapable conclusion to be reached from all this information.
These firms are volunterily choosing to face death rather than get into business with the Federal Government. What an unbelievable indictment of the decision-makers in Washington.
Assuming our government was telling us the truth (and here I'll pause a second for you to get your giggles under control), there's only one inescapable conclusion to be reached from all this information.
These firms are volunterily choosing to face death rather than get into business with the Federal Government. What an unbelievable indictment of the decision-makers in Washington.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Shep Smith goes Howard Beale on Congress
I was going to write a post wherein I go Howard Beale on Congress and their AIG hearings. Turns out Shepard Smith of Fox News did that yesterday. So rather than write my post, I'm going to post his video since I couldn't have said it better myself. Enjoy!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
North Koreans can't make pizza
Apparently.
10 years? 10 YEARS!?!?
That's just embarrasing. I'm fairly sure the Obama Adminstration could have gotten this done in 8 years... tops! And 7 of those years would have been spent searching for a cabinet-level secretary to run the whole program who WASN'T also a tax cheat.
My favorite quote is this one:
"Last year a delegation of local chefs was sent by Kim to Naples and Rome to learn the proper Italian techniques after their homegrown efforts to mimic Italian cuisine were found by Kim to contain "errors."
I just love that... "errors." Thank god Communism hasn't been completely banished from the Earth, else what would we do for comedy?
10 years? 10 YEARS!?!?
That's just embarrasing. I'm fairly sure the Obama Adminstration could have gotten this done in 8 years... tops! And 7 of those years would have been spent searching for a cabinet-level secretary to run the whole program who WASN'T also a tax cheat.
My favorite quote is this one:
"Last year a delegation of local chefs was sent by Kim to Naples and Rome to learn the proper Italian techniques after their homegrown efforts to mimic Italian cuisine were found by Kim to contain "errors."
I just love that... "errors." Thank god Communism hasn't been completely banished from the Earth, else what would we do for comedy?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
1/20/09 - End of an Error
Remember that stupid bumper sticker? I hated it because it was petty and not at all constructive. I thought that if you were willing to wear one of those you are probably the kind of person who sticks their fingers in their ears and starts screaming every time a conservative starts speaking lest ye have your innocence sullied by contrary ideas.
So anyway the point is, I would never go to the extreme step of printing (much less wearing) a button or bumper sticker like that, but I did just come up with a really funny answer to that most obnoxious of liberal sentiments, and so I present it here, for your amusement only, in a place where, let's be honest, hardly anyone will ever see it.
1/20/13 - End of an Obamanation
So anyway the point is, I would never go to the extreme step of printing (much less wearing) a button or bumper sticker like that, but I did just come up with a really funny answer to that most obnoxious of liberal sentiments, and so I present it here, for your amusement only, in a place where, let's be honest, hardly anyone will ever see it.
1/20/13 - End of an Obamanation
More AIG Bonus Nonsense
So it seems that Congress and President Obama are still up in arms over these contractually obligated AIG bonuses. Know what would have better - and was something I favored back then over the bailout but my Senators ignored me - was a managed and orderly Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Know what happens to contracts in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy? They can be rewritten! So these Senators and Representatives who are screaming bloody murder about these bonuses would not have had to pay them if they'd let or forced AIG into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
This is a prime example of why government should not be allowed to run anything in the private sector. Larry Kudlow has a great column about that today. I myself am outraged that Congress is so outraged at the bonuses when they consistently spend and spend and spend taxpayer money themselves and think nothing of it. And then they want to raise taxes so that they can spend more of our money. They would not strip the earmarks out of the last spending bill which total somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 -$18 billion, yet they are throwing a hissy fit over $165 million. The hypocrisy on display is just stunning. If they were so outraged at their own wasteful habits, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.
Senator Chris Dodd (D) wrote the amendment to the stimulus bill that placed no limits on bonus compensation for firms that took taxpayer money. And now he's predictably outraged. Well, Senator, then maybe you shouldn't have been the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from AIG.
And their latest solution - from people like Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Claire McCaskill - is that if those AIG employees don't give back that money, well, they're going to pass a bill that targets those specific employees and taxes that money right back to the Federal government. At least, that is their plan. This is real proof that universities in America are not doing their job in educating people about the US Constitution and what it says. Check out Article One, Section Nine, Clause Three.
That section reads "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
What is means is that you cannot pass a law after the fact and make an act that was legal into an illegal act and then punish those persons who were acting legally at the time. That section specifically forbids Congress from doing what they are proposing to do - punishing specific people at a specific company after the fact.
What the f**k is going on in Washington, DC? Is there anybody in charge anymore who actually knows the rules?
It's my opinion that if you help run your company into the ground, you don't deserve a bonus. However, what they are now attempting to do to recover those bonuses is illegal. And maybe I'm in the minority on this one but the US Constitution is the law of the land. You can't violate it this blatantly.
This is a prime example of why government should not be allowed to run anything in the private sector. Larry Kudlow has a great column about that today. I myself am outraged that Congress is so outraged at the bonuses when they consistently spend and spend and spend taxpayer money themselves and think nothing of it. And then they want to raise taxes so that they can spend more of our money. They would not strip the earmarks out of the last spending bill which total somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 -$18 billion, yet they are throwing a hissy fit over $165 million. The hypocrisy on display is just stunning. If they were so outraged at their own wasteful habits, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.
Senator Chris Dodd (D) wrote the amendment to the stimulus bill that placed no limits on bonus compensation for firms that took taxpayer money. And now he's predictably outraged. Well, Senator, then maybe you shouldn't have been the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from AIG.
And their latest solution - from people like Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Claire McCaskill - is that if those AIG employees don't give back that money, well, they're going to pass a bill that targets those specific employees and taxes that money right back to the Federal government. At least, that is their plan. This is real proof that universities in America are not doing their job in educating people about the US Constitution and what it says. Check out Article One, Section Nine, Clause Three.
That section reads "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
What is means is that you cannot pass a law after the fact and make an act that was legal into an illegal act and then punish those persons who were acting legally at the time. That section specifically forbids Congress from doing what they are proposing to do - punishing specific people at a specific company after the fact.
What the f**k is going on in Washington, DC? Is there anybody in charge anymore who actually knows the rules?
It's my opinion that if you help run your company into the ground, you don't deserve a bonus. However, what they are now attempting to do to recover those bonuses is illegal. And maybe I'm in the minority on this one but the US Constitution is the law of the land. You can't violate it this blatantly.
Monday, March 16, 2009
AIG Bonuses
So now Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama are hopping mad over the $165 million in contractually obligated, performance based, bonuses given to certain AIG employees over the weekend. In fact, President Obama has ordered Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner to explore all legal avenues for getting that money back. Unfortunately, President Obama and the rest of Congress has no one to blame but themselves for this mess. As a member of the Senate in September 2008, Obama voted yes on TARP. There were no strings attached in TARP. It basically gave the Secretary of the Treasury czar like powers to bail out the financial system.
So now they're mad that $165 million of the taxpayers money is going to bonuses. Mr. President, $165 million is such a miniscule amount of the money that you've given AIG. Perhaps when you were in the Senate, you could have fought for some conditions under which companies had to abide by if they took taxpayer money. But you didn't.
Perhaps you also could have shown the same outrage when the $410 billion spending bill hit your desk last week filled with about $18 billion in earmarks. Instead of vetoing the bill, you signed it and rationalized that $18 billion was such a small number considering the final total of the bill. Well, according to that logic, you need to suck it up this week and stop pretending to be outraged at $165 million out of the $90 billion you've already given them. And if you try to take back that money, those employees will sue you. Can't wait to see that public relations nightmare.
So now they're mad that $165 million of the taxpayers money is going to bonuses. Mr. President, $165 million is such a miniscule amount of the money that you've given AIG. Perhaps when you were in the Senate, you could have fought for some conditions under which companies had to abide by if they took taxpayer money. But you didn't.
Perhaps you also could have shown the same outrage when the $410 billion spending bill hit your desk last week filled with about $18 billion in earmarks. Instead of vetoing the bill, you signed it and rationalized that $18 billion was such a small number considering the final total of the bill. Well, according to that logic, you need to suck it up this week and stop pretending to be outraged at $165 million out of the $90 billion you've already given them. And if you try to take back that money, those employees will sue you. Can't wait to see that public relations nightmare.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Quote of the day
George Will on the underlying financial assumptions in Obama's ridiculous budget.
"Growth supposedly will cut the deficit in half -- growth and the $1.6 trillion "saved" by first assuming, and then "canceling," a 10-year continuation of the surge in Iraq. Why, one wonders, not "save" $5 trillion by proposing to spend that amount to cover the moon with yogurt and then canceling the proposal?"
"Growth supposedly will cut the deficit in half -- growth and the $1.6 trillion "saved" by first assuming, and then "canceling," a 10-year continuation of the surge in Iraq. Why, one wonders, not "save" $5 trillion by proposing to spend that amount to cover the moon with yogurt and then canceling the proposal?"
Friday, March 6, 2009
Is The Stimulus Really Working?
President Obama took to the campaign trail, um, I mean the road today to speak (with his teleprompter of course) to a group of 25 police recruits who's jobs were "saved" by the stimulus.
"For those who doubt the success of the recovery plan, I ask them to talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children" as a result of it," Obama said, also citing nurses, firefighters and police officers as among those helped by the plan.
"I ask them to come to Ohio to meet the 25 men and women who will soon be protecting the streets of Columbus because we passed this plan," he said. "I look at their badges today and know we did the right thing."
The police recruits will take their jobs thanks to a $1.25-million cash infusion from the recently passed stimulus package, a slice allotted after Mayor Michael Coleman personally pleaded his city's case to the White House.
Of course, if you read the whole article, you notice this little nasty bit of fine print.
The money Obama delivered will cover the officers' salaries for one calendar year, but police officials aren't sure where the funding will come from for next year's pay. They've halted all recruit training for the time being.
So by his own words, President Obama has said his stimulus package will save or create up to 4 million jobs. So, by my calculation, that's only 3,999,975 more jobs to go. Better get cracking Mr. President.
"For those who doubt the success of the recovery plan, I ask them to talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children" as a result of it," Obama said, also citing nurses, firefighters and police officers as among those helped by the plan.
"I ask them to come to Ohio to meet the 25 men and women who will soon be protecting the streets of Columbus because we passed this plan," he said. "I look at their badges today and know we did the right thing."
The police recruits will take their jobs thanks to a $1.25-million cash infusion from the recently passed stimulus package, a slice allotted after Mayor Michael Coleman personally pleaded his city's case to the White House.
Of course, if you read the whole article, you notice this little nasty bit of fine print.
The money Obama delivered will cover the officers' salaries for one calendar year, but police officials aren't sure where the funding will come from for next year's pay. They've halted all recruit training for the time being.
So by his own words, President Obama has said his stimulus package will save or create up to 4 million jobs. So, by my calculation, that's only 3,999,975 more jobs to go. Better get cracking Mr. President.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
A victory for sanity
Happened to catch the first episode of a new season of America's Top Model last night (don't judge me)... and they spent a good portion of the episode interviewing all the models. One of the young women got up on stage and announced that she is a conspiracy theorist. When asked to explain, she went on a 90 second rant about how FDR engineered the attack on Pearl Harbor as an excuse to declare war.
Thankfully, she was later dismissed from the show.
I have to admit to being surprised... I'm not sure that, were Bush still President, she wouldn't have been kept around just for the inevtiable "Bush is evil" rant.
Regardless, America's young women won't be subjected to her diseased ramblings for the next three months, and for that, at least, we can be thankful.
Thankfully, she was later dismissed from the show.
I have to admit to being surprised... I'm not sure that, were Bush still President, she wouldn't have been kept around just for the inevtiable "Bush is evil" rant.
Regardless, America's young women won't be subjected to her diseased ramblings for the next three months, and for that, at least, we can be thankful.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Obama's "let them eat cake" moment.
From the President's press conference on the economy yesterday.
"The stock market is story of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day-to-day," Obama said. "And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."
Obama said he is not measuring policies against "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market," but by whether lending is flowing more freely, businesses are investing and the unemployed are going back to work."
What amazing tone-deafness you've got there Mr. President. I mean are you kidding me!? First of all, we have not see "bobs up and down"... we've seen one bob, and that bob has been down... WAY down for the entire Obama Presidency. and to call the greatest destruction of personal wealth in world history a "day-to-day gyration" is not just stupid, it's insulting.
And another thing... the market is not a "tracking poll" you collossally arrogant Prick, it's people's money! Their life savings in many cases.
This is money that people were counting on Mr. President, and it's gone... maybe forever. At least behave like you understand that, even if you don't.
UPDATE: Jim Cramer's response is devastating.
"The stock market is story of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day-to-day," Obama said. "And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."
Obama said he is not measuring policies against "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market," but by whether lending is flowing more freely, businesses are investing and the unemployed are going back to work."
What amazing tone-deafness you've got there Mr. President. I mean are you kidding me!? First of all, we have not see "bobs up and down"... we've seen one bob, and that bob has been down... WAY down for the entire Obama Presidency. and to call the greatest destruction of personal wealth in world history a "day-to-day gyration" is not just stupid, it's insulting.
And another thing... the market is not a "tracking poll" you collossally arrogant Prick, it's people's money! Their life savings in many cases.
This is money that people were counting on Mr. President, and it's gone... maybe forever. At least behave like you understand that, even if you don't.
UPDATE: Jim Cramer's response is devastating.
We're Financing a Different Bridge to Nowhere
Hey, so the first funds of the stimulus money have just been spent. Want to know where?
Somewhere in Tuscumbia, Missouri.
Where?
Tuscumbia, Missouri. Population 218. Yes, population 218.
Clearly, this is a great use of federal stimulus funds (insert dripping sarcasm here).
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if someone shows up at the White House and tries to sell President Obama the Eiffel Tower. Given how he's been spending the taxpayer money, he'd probably buy it.
Somewhere in Tuscumbia, Missouri.
Where?
Tuscumbia, Missouri. Population 218. Yes, population 218.
Clearly, this is a great use of federal stimulus funds (insert dripping sarcasm here).
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if someone shows up at the White House and tries to sell President Obama the Eiffel Tower. Given how he's been spending the taxpayer money, he'd probably buy it.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Obama Declares War . . . on American Business Owners
Now that I've had a chance to digest President Obama's speech to Congress last week and read up on his budget proposal, it's pretty obvious to conclude that Obama has declared war on American business owners. The only thing missing from his pseudo "State of the Union" speech was him pulling out Mr. Moneybags from Monopoly with his top hat and monocle and hanging him in effigy right there on national television. It is stunning to see how much contempt Obama has for American businesses. According to him, they are all greedy and evil, and contribute nothing to society except misery for common man.
I happen to think that CEO's have lately been focused on short term gains rather than long term results. This must change and the pay schedule for CEO's must change in order to get them refocused on long term results, rather than just the share price of next quarter. But President Obama is forgetting, or maybe he never learned it, the basic principle of capitalist economy - the government creates no wealth. There is nothing they do to actually create money. The private sector creates money. They create jobs. The government then taxes the private sector in order to have money to actually run itself.
President Obama seems to be thinking that if we just expand government, everyone in America will have a job. Of course, that will never work. Anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows that won't work.
Has President Obama noticed that every time he or his Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner open their mouths, the stock market responds by dropping? Have they not realized that despite the passage of the stimulus bill and the TARP I & II bailouts, the investor class doesn't like what it's hearing? President Obama, do you think that maybe your policies are causing this to happen?
This is certainly change, but not the kind I can believe in.
I happen to think that CEO's have lately been focused on short term gains rather than long term results. This must change and the pay schedule for CEO's must change in order to get them refocused on long term results, rather than just the share price of next quarter. But President Obama is forgetting, or maybe he never learned it, the basic principle of capitalist economy - the government creates no wealth. There is nothing they do to actually create money. The private sector creates money. They create jobs. The government then taxes the private sector in order to have money to actually run itself.
President Obama seems to be thinking that if we just expand government, everyone in America will have a job. Of course, that will never work. Anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows that won't work.
Has President Obama noticed that every time he or his Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner open their mouths, the stock market responds by dropping? Have they not realized that despite the passage of the stimulus bill and the TARP I & II bailouts, the investor class doesn't like what it's hearing? President Obama, do you think that maybe your policies are causing this to happen?
This is certainly change, but not the kind I can believe in.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Things it would have been nice to know... YESTERDAY!!!
Or even four months ago...
REUTERS: "Bailouts may worsen Recession"
Well it's nice to know that Reuters has finally figured out how an economy works, but this is another crack in the armour of those "layers of fact-checking" we always hear are so important in the news business.
I don't have to be a journalist to be unsurprised at how the market is reacting to Obama's bailout fever... but I guess it helps.
REUTERS: "Bailouts may worsen Recession"
Well it's nice to know that Reuters has finally figured out how an economy works, but this is another crack in the armour of those "layers of fact-checking" we always hear are so important in the news business.
I don't have to be a journalist to be unsurprised at how the market is reacting to Obama's bailout fever... but I guess it helps.
Friday, February 27, 2009
I'm fairly alarmed here...
Has anyone else noticed that American casualties in Iraq experienced a significant upswing in the month of February?
The overall number of deaths is the same, but the number of soldiers killed by hostile fire almost doubled. Obviously we need a larger sample to arrive at any serious conclusions, but I'm really nervous about the possibillity that the insurgents spent the last few months lying in wait hoping for an Obama Presidency whose relative pacifism they could challenge.
Man I really hope I'm wrong. I have a lot of friends in harm's way.
The overall number of deaths is the same, but the number of soldiers killed by hostile fire almost doubled. Obviously we need a larger sample to arrive at any serious conclusions, but I'm really nervous about the possibillity that the insurgents spent the last few months lying in wait hoping for an Obama Presidency whose relative pacifism they could challenge.
Man I really hope I'm wrong. I have a lot of friends in harm's way.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
REMINDER: We were promised a net spending cut
Will this be another broken promise? Certainly looking that way out of the gate.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Only one comment on Obama's speech last night...
I've been conditioned by 30 years of movies from FOOTLOOSE to V FOR VENDETTA to expect that when oppressive confiscatory Government came, it would come from the Right...
Imagine my surprise to be here in 2009 listening to THAT speech.
Bad times coming my friends.
Imagine my surprise to be here in 2009 listening to THAT speech.
Bad times coming my friends.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
On this week's episode, Obama learns a lesson
Preach doom and gloom and you get swooning marktes and the lowest Dow since 1997. Talk in hopeful terms about a possible near-term recovery, and what do you get?
Happy markets!
Fancy that. Another lesson learned (I hope) by the rookie.
Happy markets!
Fancy that. Another lesson learned (I hope) by the rookie.
Cuz I'm a silver lining kind of guy...
What's the upside of a nasty recession? Well for one thing it could wind up being a stake in the heart to the self-destructive con that is the global climate change panic.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Party Like It's 1997
The Dow dropped to 7115 today, it's lowest level since 1997. While that in and of itself is scary, this is the line from the AP story that really put it in perspective.
It's as if the decade's dot-com surge, collapse and subsequent recovery never occurred.
Woah. That's heavy man.
I suppose if President Bush were still in power, the MSM would be blaming him. Actually, they're still blaming him even though he's no longer president.
At what point will the MSM wake up and realize that this is President Obama's problem and that he's only making it worse between his pessimistic prognostications about the economy and his economic policies.
Maybe it's unfair to declare someone a failure this early into their administration but geez, this is really starting to look like amateur hour at the Improv.
It's as if the decade's dot-com surge, collapse and subsequent recovery never occurred.
Woah. That's heavy man.
I suppose if President Bush were still in power, the MSM would be blaming him. Actually, they're still blaming him even though he's no longer president.
At what point will the MSM wake up and realize that this is President Obama's problem and that he's only making it worse between his pessimistic prognostications about the economy and his economic policies.
Maybe it's unfair to declare someone a failure this early into their administration but geez, this is really starting to look like amateur hour at the Improv.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
When idealism crashes head-on into reality
Every now and then a story comes along that perfectly crystalizes the gap between what some of the idealists on the far Left believe about reality, and actual reality.
Let me introduce you to the story of Kirsten Brydum.
Kirsten was a utopian radical from where else but California. And Kirsten got it into her head that she would travel the country in search of other like-minded radicals who would use their passion and idealism to literally change the world.
Ultimately, her quest took her to New Orleans.
Before I tell you what happened to Kirsten take a minute to look at a photograph of the place in New Orleans where she decided she would stay.
For those of you who don't know New Orleans, that's the infamous Lower Ninth Ward, which despite the amazing comeback much of the city has experienced, remains a ghost town. There is still no power or water, many of the residents have not returned and may never return. And the only folks you're likely to run into are, shall we say, extremely dangerous.
But Kirsten wasn't concerned. Why should she be? She was here to bring down the very Capitalist system that was oppressing these people. She held the poor and downtrodden in her heart and mind. She only wanted to show them the way to a better world. Surely anyone she ran into in this awful place would be able to tell that there was something different and special about her. Why should she fear them? And so she rode a bicycle into the Lower Ninth at 1:30 in the morning wearing a bright sundress and flip flops.
Her body was found a week later. Despite all her idealism and her belief that he passion and willpower could change reality... someone shot her in the face four times.
So why am I posting this story here? Because it makes me think about Obama's foreign policy team. Remember the guy who got eaten by the Grizzly Bears he was studying? Or Tim McCanlies... the back-to-nature minimalist memorialzed in Jon Krakauer's book INTO THE WILD? All these people refused to acknowledge fundamental realities about the world they lived in... and all of them were killed because of it.
Obama and his foreign policy team seem set to make the same mistake. They seem to genuinely believe that the only reason why we are at war with radical Islam, or in an oil-related tiff with the Russians, or battling the space and nuclear ambitions of the Chinese and North Koreans is because those enemies have not been approached with a big enough smile, or pure enough intentions, or a long enough list of concessions, or a big enough Harvard-educated vocabulary.
What I fear is that they are going to learn the same lesson Kirsten learned. That when you roll into a dangerous neighborhood with nothing but flip-flops, a smile, and a heightened sense of your own importance... reality sometimes punches you in the neck.
And the problem is, if Obama does turn out to be a Presidental version of Kirsten Brydum, it's not Obama who will wind up paying the price... it's us.
Let me introduce you to the story of Kirsten Brydum.
Kirsten was a utopian radical from where else but California. And Kirsten got it into her head that she would travel the country in search of other like-minded radicals who would use their passion and idealism to literally change the world.
Ultimately, her quest took her to New Orleans.
Before I tell you what happened to Kirsten take a minute to look at a photograph of the place in New Orleans where she decided she would stay.
For those of you who don't know New Orleans, that's the infamous Lower Ninth Ward, which despite the amazing comeback much of the city has experienced, remains a ghost town. There is still no power or water, many of the residents have not returned and may never return. And the only folks you're likely to run into are, shall we say, extremely dangerous.
But Kirsten wasn't concerned. Why should she be? She was here to bring down the very Capitalist system that was oppressing these people. She held the poor and downtrodden in her heart and mind. She only wanted to show them the way to a better world. Surely anyone she ran into in this awful place would be able to tell that there was something different and special about her. Why should she fear them? And so she rode a bicycle into the Lower Ninth at 1:30 in the morning wearing a bright sundress and flip flops.
Her body was found a week later. Despite all her idealism and her belief that he passion and willpower could change reality... someone shot her in the face four times.
So why am I posting this story here? Because it makes me think about Obama's foreign policy team. Remember the guy who got eaten by the Grizzly Bears he was studying? Or Tim McCanlies... the back-to-nature minimalist memorialzed in Jon Krakauer's book INTO THE WILD? All these people refused to acknowledge fundamental realities about the world they lived in... and all of them were killed because of it.
Obama and his foreign policy team seem set to make the same mistake. They seem to genuinely believe that the only reason why we are at war with radical Islam, or in an oil-related tiff with the Russians, or battling the space and nuclear ambitions of the Chinese and North Koreans is because those enemies have not been approached with a big enough smile, or pure enough intentions, or a long enough list of concessions, or a big enough Harvard-educated vocabulary.
What I fear is that they are going to learn the same lesson Kirsten learned. That when you roll into a dangerous neighborhood with nothing but flip-flops, a smile, and a heightened sense of your own importance... reality sometimes punches you in the neck.
And the problem is, if Obama does turn out to be a Presidental version of Kirsten Brydum, it's not Obama who will wind up paying the price... it's us.
Dukes of Moral Hazzard
A reader comment from the Wall Street Journal in response to the Op-Ed "Dukes of Moral Hazzard."
I made a mistake. I got a mortgage that didn't overextend me and probably bought the right piece of property so it's not going upside down. As a reward I get to pay for TARP I, TARP II, the stimulus plan, mortgage nationalizations, bank nationalizations, and the AIG nationalization. What all else Obama will think up to punish me?
I couldn't have said it better myself.
President Obama is rewarding bad behavior while he engages in reckless spending and a doubling of the fiscal year debt in only 4 weeks on the job. I don't think that's the hope and change people were expecting.
I made a mistake. I got a mortgage that didn't overextend me and probably bought the right piece of property so it's not going upside down. As a reward I get to pay for TARP I, TARP II, the stimulus plan, mortgage nationalizations, bank nationalizations, and the AIG nationalization. What all else Obama will think up to punish me?
I couldn't have said it better myself.
President Obama is rewarding bad behavior while he engages in reckless spending and a doubling of the fiscal year debt in only 4 weeks on the job. I don't think that's the hope and change people were expecting.
Friday, February 20, 2009
No better reason to vote Republican in 2010
Remember how we were all laughing about the fact that a significant portion of the Spendulus Bill won't be spent for several years? Remember how we tried to point out that if the expenditure is so urgently needed, why is so much of it pushed off two, three, or six years into the future?
Well the joke's on Obama.
By not spending all the money right away, he's given the Republicans their rallying cry for 2010!
Vote for us and 60% of the pork money in that bill you hate will never be spent!
I smell a landslide.
Well the joke's on Obama.
By not spending all the money right away, he's given the Republicans their rallying cry for 2010!
Vote for us and 60% of the pork money in that bill you hate will never be spent!
I smell a landslide.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Abject Failure
So how is President Obama's new style of "We'll Lend a Hand if You'll Unclench Your Fist" foreign policy going towards Iran?
Iran now holds enough uranium for a nuclear bomb.
Gee, wasn't Iran supposed to love us now that George W. Bush is out of office?
I'm still waiting to feel the love.
It's clear to me that this guy, our current President, just doesn't get it. You can't apologize to Iran. President Clinton already tried it and they laughed in his face.
And the problem with Iran gaining a nuclear bomb isn't that it will set off an arms race in the Middle East, which is what Obama thinks is the worst case scenario (which basically proves he just doesn't get it). No, the problem with Iran gaining a nuclear bomb is that Iran will now have a nuclear bomb! This is a country whose leaders have said that Israel is a stinking corpse and needs to be wiped off the map.
Do these sound like people you can negotiate with? Good Lord man, wake up!
Iran now holds enough uranium for a nuclear bomb.
Gee, wasn't Iran supposed to love us now that George W. Bush is out of office?
I'm still waiting to feel the love.
It's clear to me that this guy, our current President, just doesn't get it. You can't apologize to Iran. President Clinton already tried it and they laughed in his face.
And the problem with Iran gaining a nuclear bomb isn't that it will set off an arms race in the Middle East, which is what Obama thinks is the worst case scenario (which basically proves he just doesn't get it). No, the problem with Iran gaining a nuclear bomb is that Iran will now have a nuclear bomb! This is a country whose leaders have said that Israel is a stinking corpse and needs to be wiped off the map.
Do these sound like people you can negotiate with? Good Lord man, wake up!
Another 300 Billion!?!?!?
OK so now Obama is going to write a 300 billion dollar check to keep people from losing homes they can no longer afford.
Let's forget for a moment whether or not a significant portion of those who would receieve assistance from this program are irresponsible or not. All I'd like to see is a little consistency from our President.
If he's going to rail against irresponsible CEOs and place government restrictions on how much executives can make if they work for a company that receives Federal bailout money... shouldn't there be some sort of similar punishment for homeowners who receieve a taxpayer bailout?
I'm thinking something like a ding on the credit rating and being banned from applying for or receiving a home loan for five years.
That seems fair to me... and more importantly... it's consistent with the President's previous stand on regulating bailout receivers.
UPDATE: Oh and after 6-plus bailouts, going all the way back to the very end of the Bush administration, I'm still waiting for a bailout to come along that I actually benefit from... as opposed to, say, just get to pay for. This is the curse of being a responsible guy in Obama's America.
Let's forget for a moment whether or not a significant portion of those who would receieve assistance from this program are irresponsible or not. All I'd like to see is a little consistency from our President.
If he's going to rail against irresponsible CEOs and place government restrictions on how much executives can make if they work for a company that receives Federal bailout money... shouldn't there be some sort of similar punishment for homeowners who receieve a taxpayer bailout?
I'm thinking something like a ding on the credit rating and being banned from applying for or receiving a home loan for five years.
That seems fair to me... and more importantly... it's consistent with the President's previous stand on regulating bailout receivers.
UPDATE: Oh and after 6-plus bailouts, going all the way back to the very end of the Bush administration, I'm still waiting for a bailout to come along that I actually benefit from... as opposed to, say, just get to pay for. This is the curse of being a responsible guy in Obama's America.
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