Thursday, November 29, 2012

Mencken's Statement, for Oyster Farm

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats"  --H L Mencken, quoted at AOSHQ in the masthead.

Yes.  Well.  Watch the video here.  See how the Park Service lies through its teeth, stopping only to think up MORE lies--or to lie about FOIA rejection-reasons, putting 30 people out of work permanently.

How Does Obozo Define "Success in Office"?

Cold Fury raises (again) the question that many of us have voiced before. 

Phrased as a statement, it's this:  to Obozo, national bankruptcy will be an accomplishmenta feature, not a bug.

...I’ve been railing about this for a long time now, and, to borrow from Walsh, it is inconceivable to me that so many of our supposedly smarter pundits seem not to get it: “success” does not mean the same thing to Obama as it does to the rest of us. He is precisely who and what we “unreasonable,” uncivil, immoderate types have been saying he was all along, to the extreme annoyance of the collegial class of politicians and opinion-makers. He is a socialist. He is a tyrant. He is not just un- but actively anti-American.

Umnnnhhhh, yah.  See the post immediately below to find more evidence (although Obozo is merely frosting the (D) cake baked by FDR and LBJ, with ingredients supplied by GWB and GHWB.)

With the bottom two quintiles having no rational economic interest in upward mobility, the heavy guns are now aimed exclusively at the third- and second- quintiles.  (It's conceded by all parties that the 1st quintile will never be touched, by the way.)

The Welfare State: Permanent

There's a nice graph at the link for the (D) innumerates among my readers.

The Perfessor's theory can be addressed another way, too.  Taxation is so significant at the ~$50-$70K income range that charitable giving is virtually squeezed out.  This is one of the reasons that the larger non-profits are having some troubles in the last couple of years (the other reason being the Obozoconomy, which is either dreadful or terrible.)

Anyhoo, for the bottom quintile--and the next-to-bottom quintile--there's no good reason to seek more income, and there are LOTS of reasons to avoid it.

Eating the Seed Corn? Hell No!! BURNING It!!

If the 10th Amendment was written for any reason at all, it was written to prevent EPA from existing.

National Council of Chain Restaurants is protesting the EPA’s ethanol mandate, warning that it is directly affecting the higher cost of food.

According to the New York Times, nearly half of the nation’s corn crop is now being used for ethanol, in spite of a devastating drought that hit the Midwest this summer.

Earlier this month the E.P.A. announced that they would not waive the corn based ethanol requirements even though the supply of corn had been affected by the drought.

What does Green Goddess Worship actually cost?

...According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study commissioned for the National Council of Chain Restaurants, corn prices are expected to rise by 27 percent by the time the mandates 2015 goals are met.

Uh-huh.  And since 'food prices are volatile,' the Feds will tell you that eating is 'not really a factor in cost-of-living indices.'

So STFU.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

"Tax for Thee but Not for Me!!": Buffett

Seems that Warren Buffett is far less generous to the tax-man with his OWN money than with that of others.

Shut up, Warren.

Mutiny Over McCain?

Seems that John McCain is just another Benthamite.

...Over the weekend, 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain said pro-life conservatives should state their position on abortion, then “leave the issue alone.” Elected officials, he indicated, should enact no new legislation to protect the unborn. 

He and a host of GOP consultants have suggested the party downplay or abandon social issues in light of the 2012 electoral loss

Nor is he alone.  The Rockefeller/GWBush bunch, often referred to as "country club Republicans" for good reason, have actively opposed pro-life Republicans whenever they could.  This strain of politicians is descended from the Benthamite pragmatists, who are not Conservative in any real sense of the word.

Romney happens to fall within that category as well, although (it seems) by default.  He really held no political principles except 'managerial' ones, although few question his personal bona fides.

Priebus has a very large challenge, indeed.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

You're Getting Boehned Again!!

The tanned, tanned, tanned John Boehner has a great plan for budget savings.  My plan--a better one-- is at the bottom of this post.

[Agriculture-Whore/Cong.] Frank D. Lucas has raised hopes that Congress might still be able to produce a multi-year farm bill soon ...Lucas says Speaker John A. Boehner has indicated that the billions of savings over 10 years that a farm bill provides makes it an attractive option for legislation to avoid a combination of budget sequester and across-the-board spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff.  --RedState quoting CQ

You're right.  I mentioned Boehner and haven't told you exactly how he's going to screw you.   Well, BOHICA, baby, here it comes!!

...The last farm bill, which was enacted in 2008, authorized $604 billion in spending.  The current House bill proposed by Lucas (HR 6083) authorizes $957 billion in spending extrapolated over 10 years.  Yet, this 58% increase is considered a cut in ‘Washington speak’ because the phony CBO baseline, which locks in Obama’s food stamp spending, projects $992 billion in spending.  Hence, passage of the farm bill, which locks in the record food stamp spending and creates new farm welfare programs, will be scored as a spending cut

This whole "cliff" thing is more of the same smoke-and-mirrors.  

My plan?  Shove all of Congress and the Executive Branch off the cliff. 

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Gun Control? Hah!!

Seems as though the Usual Suspects have pissed INTO the wind.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) reported in a national survey that in 1994, 44 million people, approximately 35% of households, owned 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Seventy-four percent of those individuals were reported to own more than one firearm. According to the ATF, by the end of 1996 approximately 242 million firearms were available for sale to or were possessed by civilians in the United States. That total includes roughly 72 million handguns (mostly pistols, revolvers, and derringers), 76 million rifles, and 64 million shotguns. By 2000, the number of firearms had increased to approximately 259 million: 92 million handguns, 92 million rifles, and 75 million shotguns. By 2007, the number of firearms had increased to approximately 294 million: 106 million handguns, 105 million rifles, and 83 million shotguns.  Cong. Research Svc quoted at Sipsey

Then Sipsey delivers the KO quote:

In military affairs, quantity has a quality all its own.

Heh.

HT:  Bob Owens

Friday, November 23, 2012

The "Mo' Money" Game

Here's how it works.

Gummint folks continually raise taxes and don't have the courage to vote for it. 

Taxpayers push back, take away the money-fountain.

Gummint folks steal money from "trust funds."

Taxpayers push back by dumping the thieves, get themselves NEW Gummint folks.

NEW Gummint folks piss and moan openly that they don't have enough money.

Taxpayers push back.

Gummint folks say "OK.  You don't want to give us mo' money, WE take away your stuff."

In the case at hand, Gummint folk are going to ignore the single-most-trafficked intersection in the entire State of Wisconsin.  Last time (when the thief was ruling) a bridge in that intersection started falling down.

Somehow, the phrase "Spend less elsewhere" never crosses the alleged "minds" of Gummint folks.

Maybe a 2x4 upside the head would help them think?




Thursday, November 22, 2012

The Remarkable Record of "Electable" Pubbies

Austin Ruse reminds us of the dirty Stupid Party secret:

...The fact is also that the GOP and conservative elite had their hat handed to them on Election Day. It was not just Akin and Mourdock who lost. Moderate and establishmentarians lost across the board. Heck, the Establishment pumped hundreds of millions into races where their candidate lost by the same spread as Akin lost to McCaskill. Thompson, Berg, Rehberg, Allen, Mack, and McMahon, all establishmentarians or moderates, all received tons of party or Rove cash, not an Akin among them, all gone, all defeated....

Oh, and Whats-His-Name from Massachusetts lost to Fauxcahontas, too.

Not to mention the Eminently Electable Romney.

ObozoCare Regs, Part the First

The first 330 pages of ObozoCare regs were emitted from the lowest orifice late on Tuesday night.

The first batch of new rules have long-expected provisions forbidding insurers to discriminate against patients who already have diseases such as cancer, asthma or heart disease…. HHS stuck with a proposal that allows insurers to charge the oldest patients three times as much as they charge a 21-year-old. And the rates can go up a little bit with every birthday. But smokers can be charged premiums that are five times higher under the new rules….JunkScience quoting NBC News

The Health Nazis.  Oh, yes, we can go there, and Junk Science provides the documentation:

Your body belongs to the nation! Your body belongs to the Führer! You have the duty to be healthy! Food is not a private matter! (National Socialist party, 1939)

Welcome to the Socialist miasma!

Reading Coulter Out: It's Overdue

Levin finally lowered the boom on the Blond Screecher.

Fact is Romney has done nothing for conservatism. I repeat, nothing. No leadership. No grassroots efforts. No major policy initiatives. Nothing. Reagan won two landslides. Romney won nothing. Cherry-picking facts Ann, in some strange cult-like obsession, fools no one. Same with your cheerleading for Chris Christie.

In the last couple of years, Coulter lifted her skirts far enough to reveal the Rockefeller tattoo.  And Levin called her on it.

About time.

HT:  Gateway

Black Swan Rules

Our friend Grim links with no excerpts.  There's a reason:  it's too tightly-written to be excerpted.

And it's worth the read.

The Most Important Question About Benghazi

Skirt-chasing and email-romances are silly distractions.

Let's go back to The MOST Important Question About Benghazi:  What happened to the rescue?  (Hint:  the C-in-C deliberately failed to issue the right order.)

Fortunately, this blog is on that like stripe on a skunk--and a skunk it is.

...There are a number of disparate timelines being floated by various sources (I’ve seen most or all of them), and sooner or later the truth will come out. ...

(Quoting a Fox News report):

The Pentagon says that the European-based team of rescuers landed at Sigonella air base at 7:57 p.m. on Sept. 12, more than 20 hours after the attack began and 40 minutes after the last survivor was flown out of Tripoli on a U.S. C-17 transport plane...The group ordered toward Libya was from the Charlie 110 Company, based in Stuttgart, Germany, but had been training in Croatia...

Military sources familiar with the orders given to the CIF team tell Fox News the CIF plane headed to Libya — not to first stage at Sigonella as the Pentagon timeline suggests....

...Multiple defense sources say that the plane did not have permission to enter Libya. That permission would have to be secured from the Libyans by the State Department.

Survivors of the attack at the annex say that they heard over the radio net that night that U.S. military assets were, “feet dry over Libya,” which would refer to assets crossing from sea to land and hovering. The Pentagon denies this.

That last graf corresponds with the testimony of an ex-SF operator who has stated that only the C-in-C can give 'cross border authority' to execute a mission.  In fact, without such an order, any SF action can NOT proceed.

Obama lied.  Four died--not counting Mexican civilians in his Gun Adventure Games.

Are "Responsible Adults" Against the Declaration?

A week ago, a local "responsible adult" radio pundit (on 620AM in the morning) inveighed against the 'secession petitions' which drew several hundred thousand signatories from--I dunno--about 30 States, maybe more, maybe less.  After all, "responsible adults" would never ascribe to this sort of language, right?

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Right.  They wouldn't.  

Ask "Why", and The Fallacy of "Equality"

Now and then it's useful to ask "why?", especially when dealing with Left-o-Tards.

Belvedere expounds:

...Science is not the ultimate explainer of Life. It is but one of the tools that help us reach a greater understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Science can now explain what happens chemically in your brain when you fall in love, but it will never answer why you did.

Also: The Left doesn’t want you to ask ‘Why?

Why? Well, if you do ask ‘Why?’, you start to think for yourself, because asking ‘Why?’ means you have a desire to seek an answer which involves invoking Reason, and to arrive at answer requires that you ask questions, which means you have to think for yourself, you have to invoke Free Will.

The Left doesn’t want you to think, but, rather, to accept their world view, their Ideology, unquestioningly.

OK, so what does that have to do with "equality"?  Russell Kirk spends a little time with the first real Conservative economist--a fellow named Mallock.

When it is scientifically considered, [...] the doctrine of equality will be exposed as a fallacy; for equality is the death of progress.  Throughout history, progress of every sort, cultural and economic, has been produced by the desire of men for inequality.  Without the possibility of inequality, a people continue[s] on the dreary level of bare subsistence...[f]or inequality produces the wealth of civilized communities; it provides the motive which induces men of superior abilities to exert themselves for the general benefit.

[The fundamental error of Socialists] is the labor theory of wealth, as expounded by Marx, who got its rudiment from Ricardo.  Labor....is NOT the cause of most of our wealth; unaided, labor produces merely a bare subsistence.  ..."Labor in itself is no more the cause of wealth than Shakespeare's pen is the cause of his writing Hamlet.  The cause is in the motives, of which labor is the outward index."  The principal motivator is inequality; and the principal producer of wealth is not Labor, but ability....

Ability, the chief productive faculty, is a natural monopoly:  it cannot be redistributed by legislation, though it may be crushed.....

So the next time some demi-socialist prattles on about "equality", ask him/her/it WHY "equality" is a benefit to the economy.  You won't get a coherent response, of course, but it will be fun to listen to the bumbling, bobbling, weaving, and ducking.

Lincoln on Thanksgiving Day

An excerpt:

...Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.--Freedom Line quoting Heritage (quoting A. Lincoln)

The Source of Abundance is not capitalism, nor socialism, nor any other "ism."  That's the lesson here.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

TSA Pervert Gets Boob-View of 17 Y/O

See, the guy was just 'patting her down' when the dress "accidentally" fell to her waist, see?

Whassabigdeal, anyway?

Now that they're Union-protected....

Leaky Leahy (D-Diapers) Goes All Statist-y

Saw this earlier, Ace has it (of course).

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law. 

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Revised bill highlights

Grants warrantless access to Americans' electronic correspondence to over 22 federal agencies. Only a subpoena is required, not a search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause.
Permits state and local law enforcement to warrantlessly access Americans' correspondence stored on systems not offered "to the public," including university networks.
Authorizes any law enforcement agency to access accounts without a warrant -- or subsequent court review -- if they claim "emergency" situations exist.
✭ Says providers "shall notify" law enforcement in advance of any plans to tell their customers that they've been the target of a warrant, order, or subpoena.
Delays notification of customers whose accounts have been accessed from 3 days to "10 business days." This notification can be postponed by up to 360 days.

Don't give me any crap about "Law Enforcement NEEDS This."  If they need it, they can prove it, and a judge can issue a warrant.

By the way, this warrantless/subpoenaless SuperSnooper authority will be granted to:

...Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission

...in addition to every Barney Fife in the country.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Health-Care Layoffs, Yup.

In the land of Obozocare, some things have to happen.

Like health-care layoffs.  But read all the way through this to find the stupid-dumbest twit....

In the largest staff reduction in its nearly 100-year history, Orlando Health is cutting up to 400 jobs starting immediately, hospital system officials announced Monday.

... The elimination of jobs will occur in two phases and represents a 2 percent to 3 percent reduction in the system's 16,000-person work force...Orlando Health officials called the cost-cutting moves necessary.
"Health-care reform mandates and changes in reimbursement structures for Medicare and Medicaid are forcing health-care organizations throughout the U.S. to confront new challenges," Sitarik said. "We must find better ways to deliver enhanced value to patients and lower the overall cost of care."

... "It's a challenging time for hospitals," said John Bigalke, senior partner of global health care for Deloitte, one of the nation's largest professional services firms.

Hospitals are looking at an $800 billion to $900 billion reduction in Medicare payments over the next 10 years, along with reductions in Medicaid payments, he said.

"As patients shift into insurance exchanges, payments will go down further. Meanwhile, they have to spend a lot of money on technology. They're under lots of pressure," Bigalke said.

Yup, there are changes.  But the very best part follows:

...Laura Goodhue, executive director of the health-advocacy organization Florida Chain, also questioned whether the layoffs were necessary. 

"I'm not sure why they're having layoffs now. And I'm not sure what they're referring to in regards to reduced payments," she said.

"As a result of the Affordable Care Act, more Floridians are going to have health coverage, not fewer, so there will be more paying Floridians in the system," Goodhue said.

Umnnhhhh, Laurie, honey, that money is NOT going to the hospitals, you ignorant s*&^.

Jackson, Jefferson, Hamilton, and War

Nice compact essay describing the differences and the effects from W R Mead

HT AOSHQ

The Luddites of Medicine

In case you haven't noticed, the usual suspects (read:  MSM and trial lawyers) have begun an assault on medical innovations.  We can call them Lefty Luddites.

...When Hughes was diagnosed with diabetes at age 12, the best option was a starvation diet and early death the likely outcome. A young Canadian doctor, Frederick Banting had an idea, closed his growing medical practice and collaborated with scientist Charles Best, Professor Macleod and Dr. Collip. The concept? Take pig pancreas and purify what came to be known as Insulin. The Eli Lilly Company of Indianapolis agreed to help and the rest is history. One bright idea from a young man prepared to take a chance. One senior scientist prepared to help, collaboration by others with different skill sets and a company prepared to risk capital and effort. Result? Game changing.

Other examples? How many do you want? Heart valves, dialysis machines, angioplasty, all the clever procedures now done with minimal invasion, countless diagnostic tests, numerous therapeutic drugs and on and on. Clinicians spotting an unmet clinical need, scientists who collaborated to solve a problem, financiers who took a chance, companies who invested time, money and resources. And patients who benefited. We are going to throw all of this away because, why, exactly? Because certain individuals think certain physicians might use undue influence to pervert medical therapies.

It's another case of projection, as is usually the case with the Left.  

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Gummint "Brains". Oh, Yah

Good thing that Gummint folks are smarter than regular people, eh?

 New Jersey Transit's struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy is being compounded by a pre-storm decision to park much of its equipment in two rail yards that forecasters predicted would flood, a move that resulted in damage to one-third of its locomotives and a quarter of its passenger cars.

That damage is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars and take many months to repair, a Reuters examination has found. 

And it wasn't the old crappy stuff they parked IN THE PATH OF THE FLOOD.  Nope:

 The Garden State's commuter railway parked critical equipment - including much of its newest and most expensive stock - at its low-lying main rail yard in Kearny just before the hurricane. It did so even though forecasters had released maps showing the wetland-surrounded area likely would be under water when Sandy's expected record storm surge hit. Other equipment was parked at its Hoboken terminal and rail yard, where flooding also was predicted and which has flooded before.

Here's a bet:  Chris Christie will be screaming his head off trying to get the replacement money from the Federal taxpayer.

"Industrial Policy" Goes Higher-Ed WIth Walker

Gov. Walker was speaking Out West and quoted ex-Gov. Jeb Bush:

'We shouldn't be paying for butts in seats; we should be paying for outcomes,' " Walker said. "In higher education, that means not only degrees but our young people getting degrees in the jobs that are actually open and needed today, not just the jobs the universities want to give us.

Umnmnnhhhh.....this isn't solid Conservative philosophy.  It's Utilitarianism, which gave birth to "industrial policy" in several (failed) states in the last 100 years or so.  Like, e.g., the Soviet Union.

The growth of the Higher Education Establishment has been predicated on that Establishment's ability to utilize marketing principles to slice and dice "education" into small segments.  Some are 'educated' to become teachers; some to be accountants, some to be engineers, some are doctors, some are agricultural engineers, others are artists.  Or so says their degree, anyway.  Shall we now have degrees in meat-cutting?  Wait-staffing? 

Meantime, the culture is lost.  One would think that a Republican, post-November '12, would notice that.

Anyhoo, that Education Establishment has also persuaded the public that everyone should have a college degree in order to be a Contributing Member of Society.  (I hasten to add that Industry is happy to have the State assume the burden of training their present or future employees; this is not entirely a one-sided phenomenon.)

And Walker's rhetoric suggests that the Education Establishment will know in advance what 'jobs are actually open and needed today.'  Because, after all, the Feds and the States have done such marvelous work in predicting the course of economic activity, right?

Let us remember that in 1960, everyone knew that the US auto industry would continue to dominate the world's automotive markets.  In 1960, everyone knew that computers were few, ultra-large, and horrifically expensive.  In 1960, everyone knew that telephones were attached to wires and couldn't operate without them.  And in 1960, everyone knew that the US wins every war it takes on.

One hopes that Governor Walker will politely but firmly reject the Industrial Policy view of "education" he has adopted at the behest of the Industrial folks, or at least re-examine the premises, before he commits taxpayer money to an 'enhanced' Education Establishment.

For example, the Governor could require that Educators force the little darlings to pass Western Culture 100, 200, 300, and 400 before they leave the ivy-covered walls to meet the New Statism.  Maybe the Industrialists will not be pleased--but we never agreed that 'what's good for GM is good for America,' either. 

  

Abhors Coulter, Sucks Up to Necrophilia Defender

If Vince Lombardi were still alive, the Prexy of Fordham would be hiding under his bed.

Just days after Fordham University’s president Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J. determined that conservative author Ann Coulter was too “hateful and needlessly provocative” to speak on campus, the University will tomorrow host the pro-infanticide ethicist Peter Singer to speak at a conference entitled “Conference with Peter Singer: Christians and Other Animals: Moving the Conversation Forward.”...

Singer is despicable--a slimebucket and a hoax.  But we don't hear McShane running his mouth, do we?

HT:  CMR

Are You Prepared?

Bob Owen lists the basics.

Floriduh, Still

There's more than a little 'discrepancy' here.  Again.  Floriduh.

Just as background, one precinct has 7 voters registered and yet recorded about 900 votes. That’s a 13,000 percent turnout.  Legal Insurrection

Far better than Milwaukee, hey.

Petraeus Was Set Up?

No real surprise that he was set up.  Benghazi happened to be the trigger--but then, it could have been anything else that was convenient.

...We now know that the existence of a personal relationship between Broadwell and Petraeus had been suspected and whispered about by his senior-level colleagues and by his personal staff in the military, who worried that it might become publicly known, since before the time that he came to run the CIA.

We also know that when he was nominated to run the CIA, that nomination was preceded by a two-month FBI-conducted background check that likely would have revealed the existence of his relationship with Broadwell. The FBI agents conducting that background check surely would have seen his visitor logs while he commanded our troops and would have interviewed his military colleagues and regular visitors and those colleagues who knew him well and worked with him every day, and thus learned about his personal life. That's their job.

And that information would have been reported immediately to President Obama and to the Senate Intelligence Committee, prior to Petraeus' formal nomination and prior to his Senate confirmation hearing.  Reason quoted at Cold Fury

Obozo was merely saving his trump card.

"Most Transparent Opaque Statist Ever"

There's the growing scandal of the Benghazi lies, of course.  Now it's 'a buncha people edited the story' so Dear Leader evades (temporarily) responsibility for leaving our people to die in the desert.

Then there's EPA.

A House committee has launched an investigation into whether EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used an email alias to try to hide correspondence from open-government requests and her agency’s own internal watchdog — something that Republican lawmakers said could run afoul of the law.

The science committee has asked Ms. Jackson to turn over all information related to an email account under the name of “Richard Windsor,” which is one of the aliases identified by a researcher looking into the EPA.

"Could" run afoul of the law?

How about DOES violate the law?

Oh--I forgot--the law is fo' suckas.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Like Beef? Chicken? Buy It Now!

Nothing beats ideology in the Obozo Administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency rejected a request to waive a mandate requiring more than 40 percent of the nation’s corn to be used for Ethanol.

The mandate, combined with this summer’s drought causing corn prices to skyrocket, severely hurts livestock producers due to high feed prices.

They'll start selling off beef cattle and chickens soon.  Then--next year--you'll see a big whammo in the price of beef and chicken.  

Friday, November 16, 2012

What A Gift Obozo Gave Us!!

One of Obozo's Gurus on Socialist Medicine studied the cost effects.

...Overall, Wisconsinites can expect healthcare costs to rise, though subsidies from the federal government may lessen the immediate impact of those higher costs. Just over 41% of Wisconsinites will see a premium increase of 50% or more, and the average Wisconsin health insurance consumer will see their premiums jump 30%.

Nice.  But that's not all!!

...Initially, the Obama Administration indicated to states that if they set up and ran the federally-mandate exchange they would be given significant control over the way it was run. Experts now say that is not the case. “The final word for all decisions within the exchanges, whether created by the states or the federal government, is in Washington,” writes Benjamin Domenech of The Heartland Institute.

You will comply, and you will like it. 

The End of the World As We Know It....

There are some who say that the re-election of SCOAMF began the end of America.

Nah.  It's a milestone, but there's always secession.

There is a far more significant End of the World event which occurred yesterday:

North Texas-based Hostess Brands, Inc. has decided to go out of business and liquidate its assets after failing to win back striking workers.

Read that again.

Yup.  It's the end.

Some of the brands' products include Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho-Hos, Fruit Pies and Wonder Bread.

Best stock up now; you just can't have a good old-fashioned secession/revolution without Twinkies in the backpack.

UPDATE:  The VC firm which closed it down is run by Democrats (pals of Richard Gephardt, no less.)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Remedial Civics 101 Needed Here

Egads.  This has to be the most inane statement evah! from a public official above the level of dogcatcher.

Chris Larson, the (D) Minority Leader:

...Look Sly, I think it’s important to uh- when people are talking about smaller government, I think people have to remember what the word government actually means. What kind of government do we have? We have a democracy. It’s an election by the community, by people within the neighborhoods who decide what they want to do as a collective on where they want to go with this state. So when you talk about reducing government, you’re talking about reducing democracy when you’re doing that. You’re reducing the ability of people to hold their electeds accountable and actually get a safety net when people are feeling down....MediaTrackers quoting Sly show

This is what passes for 'informed commentary' in the (D) community, eh?

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

So, Mr. Sykes...What About the Next Step?

Charlie Sykes ranted for an hour about some meaningless wonzoskoooshie about 'arresting sex perverts TSA granny-gropers'.

OK, we get the point.  Since it's criminal behavior sanctioned by D.C., it's not prosecutable.

Sure.

So, Charlie:  when the US Bishops--all 400++ of them--get escorted to holding cells by the U S Marshals, should right-thinking Americans say "Well, that's the Federal law, ya'know, and responsible adults don't interfere with the Feds in the course of their duties."

Hmmmmmmm???

After freedom of religion in that silly old First Amendment comes freedom of the press. right?


It Ain't Beanbag Any More

The country's Roman Catholic Bishops expect to be jailed in the next year--assuming that their lawsuits against The Mandate fail or are in the courts for a long time.

There is a 'secession movement,' albeit small, and perhaps merely tinsel.

"Prepper" retailing is growing to the point where they can afford national advertising.

Egads.

Then there's the undercurrent of conversation mentioned by Hillyer:


"I don’t know if we can survive another four years of this," people say. Or, "do you think we can survive four more years of this?" Even Bill Kristol, not prone to defeatism, speculated on what might happen "even if America can survive the next four years of Obama."  ...The words aren’t coming from alarmists. They come in face-to-face conversations, or in emails, or on the phone. They come from Washington, from New York, from New Jersey, from Minnesota, from Alabama, from New Orleans — from all over. Serious, ordinary people, some of whom live and breathe politics and some of whom pay almost no attention to current affairs, aren’t panicking or exaggerating. They are really worried about what this man in the White House will do now. And they’re really worried about whether America as we know it can survive.

Need a short list of reasons for the concern?  Well, here it is!!

...Barack Obama and his minions play for keeps. And they are playing for a vastly different America than the one with which we have been accustomed for 224 years of this constitutional republic. Fight a war in Libya without even asking for a congressional resolution? No problem. Appoint executive officers without Senate approval, when the Senate is still in session? Sure. Issue executive orders directly contrary to law, on multiple occasions? Of course. Refuse to enforce duly constituted laws? Check. Repeatedly question the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court? Check. Refuse to honor congressional subpoenas and legitimate Freedom of Information requests? Ignore court orders (about offshore drilling) so flagrantly that you are found officially in contempt of court? Insult or even abandon allies? Whisper to foreign leaders of traditionally adversarial lands that you will have "more flexibility" after re-election? Deliberately cover up deadly mistakes on the Mexican border and in North Africa? Check, check, check, check, and check.

Anent those last:  we don't think that The SCOAMF should rely too heavily on military support of his going-forward agenda on the domestic front--which brings me to this:

I mentioned the Bishops first for a reason.  If der Fuhrer Obama attempts to imprison them, the Bishops will not resist.

But there's no guarantee that the Faithful will roll over while  Obama's SS attempt to march them off.

In other words, Molon Labe!!

HT:  Belvedere


The Solution: More Gasoline on the Fire?

Pew is a reasonably centrist bunch.

Hispanics do feel that the economic system is “stacked against them” and they do “want stuff” like health care, college-tuition assistance, and other government benefits that might help them get ahead. According to Pew, while only 41 percent of Americans as a whole say they want a bigger government that provides more services, a whopping 75 percent of Hispanics do  --FreedomLine quoting P Beinart

So "Mo' Big Gummint" is Rubio's solution?


Lefty Consistency? Fuggeddaboutit

Carney is amused at the Left's inanity.

Liberal magazine Mother Jones has a very good article on the federal flood insurance program, which subsidizes people’s beachfront homes at taxpayer expense. The program has led to “below-market insurance rates that have permitted, if not encouraged, construction in flood zones.”

Yup.  It's stupid (but hardly the only Stupidity of Gummint.)

Next chapter:

Ray Lehmann at the free-market R Street Institute called for privatization of the flood insurance program. If private companies, rather than taxpayers, were insuring beach houses, the premiums would reflect actual risk. Development would be more sane.

Seems like a reasonable response, no?

No.

Ray Lehmann, co-founder of the R Street Institute, a mouthpiece for the insurance lobby (formerly a division of the climate-denying Heartland Institute), had another public prize in his sights. In Wall Street Journal article about Sandy, he was quoted arguing for the eventual “full privatization” of the National Flood Insurance Program, the federal initiative that provides affordable protection from some natural disasters—and which private insurers see as unfair competition.  --Carney quoting The Nation (N. Klein)

So the Lefty Nation magarag 'thinks' that privatization is a bad thing, despite Mother Jones' contention that Fed insurance is ALSO a bad thing.

So what does the Collective Hive really want?


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Friend in the FBI? Need Email Info? No Problem!!!

The Petraeus case keeps raising .........ahhh.......interesting.....questions.  Like, for example, under what authority did the FBI investigate cat-fight emails?

...The source reports that the emails did make one reference to Gen. David Petraeus, but it was oblique and offered no manifest suggestion of a personal relationship or even that he was central to the sender’s spite.
Kelley herself seemed mystified as to what was behind the emails, much less who sent them. 
“I don’t know who this person is and I don’t want to keep getting them,” she told the FBI, as recounted by the source. 
When the FBI friend showed the emails to the cyber squad in the Tampa field office, her fellow agents noted that the absence of any overt threats. 
“No, ‘I’ll kill you’ or ‘I'll burn your house down,’” the source says. “It doesn’t seem really that bad.”
The squad was not even sure the case was worth pursuing, the source says. 
“What does this mean? There’s no threat there. This is against the law?” the agents asked themselves by the source’s account.

Yah, so....if you don't like the emails you're getting, just press your pal in the FBI.  He'll find a law, someplace, somehow, which fits, and *problem solved*!!

 

News Blackout on Sandy Efforts?

Well, isn't this interesting.

Seems there's a news blackout on FEMA/Sandy efforts.

Why would THAT be the case?


Sunday, November 11, 2012

Si Vis Pacem, Pare Bellum

Following the recent election, some comments.

George Weigel:

The most inane insta-pundit commentary had it that the 2012 election “hadn’t really changed anything,” what with President Obama still in the White House, the House still in Republican hands, and the Senate still controlled by Democrats. The truth of the matter, of course, is that a great deal changed...

...The American culture war has been markedly intensified, as those who booed God, celebrated an unfettered abortion license, canonized Sandra Fluke, and sacramentalized sodomy at the Democratic National Convention will have been emboldened to advance the cause of lifestyle libertinism through coercive state power, thus deepening the danger of what a noted Bavarian theologian calls the “dictatorship of relativism.”

Religious freedom and civil society are now in greater jeopardy than ever, as what was already the most secularist and statist administration in history will, unfettered by reelection concerns, accelerate its efforts to bring free voluntary associations to heel as de facto extensions of the state.
Nothing changed? In a pig’s eye.

We are always optimistic, in the sense that Americans will simply not accept the growing Statism espoused and practiced by this Administration, and that inevitably, the hubris of Obozo will lead to a mistake on his part--a mistake so odious that it will topple his regime.

On the other hand, would Romney have been a cure?  Was Bush?  McCain?

...Mitt Romney made himself a better candidate throughout 2012, and for one brief, electric moment at the first debate, he seemed like a leader with vision, passion, and wit. But a recovery of American greatness — cultural, political, economic, diplomatic, and military greatness — was not the driving theme of the Romney campaign. Not knowing Mitt Romney personally, I can’t say whether this obviously decent and successful man simply lacked the understanding necessary to make the case for true American renewal, as distinct from the faux hope-and-change mantra that had seduced so many in 2008. But whatever Romney’s personal inclinations, many Republican campaign managers and consultants always seemed afraid of scaring the horses. Obama would be beaten, they insisted, on grounds of competence...

Didn't work out all that well, did it?  We can ask, then, if ANY Republican would have been a cure.  (Observe the specter of John Boehner kissing the ring of Obozo, reinforcing Weigel's point.)

James Schall, S.J.:

...The notion that some things, especially the important ones, should not fall within the jurisdiction of the state is no longer to be taken for granted. The state, with its main duties, the taking care of everyone, defines what is important from now on. One might say that our people coldly looked the Leviathan in its eyes. They did not flinch as he brought them into his body. These are dramatic observations, no doubt. We now wait to see what happens next. We have established who is in power. We will not pass this way again.

...This election was not an elections between two candidates whose vision of reality is the same or even reconcilable. The election was about whether a “new” idea of the state would replace the basic principles of the Founding of the country. Most of the directions of this “new” state—its nature and roots—were already described by Plato and Aristotle, but they knew them as disorders. The moral and political tendencies were visible in the first term for everyone to see. Now there is little reason to think such policies will not be carried out.

...The state is not only in the business of distributing wealth but in the business of informing us what we must do or hold to receive this largess. Little discussion of producing wealth comes up because the new state realizes that its security depends not on production but on distribution. It is perfectly comfortable with shortages as they generate more power for the state.

That, of course, is the elegant description of the small-ball play of school-boards and local taxaholics:  "If you don't give us more tax money, we will cut the police and fire departments and your children will be un-educated because we'll have 65 kids in each classroom....."

 ...In the end, I must ask myself: “Will these things come to pass?” Many of them have already come to pass. What is left is the completion of the state as the sole provider of moral, economic, cultural, and even religious goods. We have just witnessed a watershed election. The earliest years of the 21st century are rapidly seeing the logic of political and philosophical ideas that, in their origins, were deviations from the truth.

The bellum we face is, first of all, spiritual.  Only too late have we seriously prayed for our country--if at all.  Now is the time to begin, if you haven't already. 

Who Said This?

Found this at Barry's place:

“_____  __________ says that if we don’t run Chris Christie for President, then Romney will win the nomination and we’ll lose in 2012.

Yup.  Has a first and last name, uttered the prediction in early 2011 (!!), and ....well, it's obvious....has a crush-complex on RINO types...

So you guessed Ann Coulter?

You're right!

Let's hope that Wiggy has some leftover crow to send to poor, poor, Annie.

Benghazi Slime Oozing Out

Well, isn't THIS interesting?

...Broadwell was speaking at her alma mater, the University of Denver, on October 26. Her lecture, which is on YouTube under the title “Alumni Symposium 2012 Paula Broadwell,” now has added value, because based on the recent disclosures, it can now be assumed that she indeed knew exactly what it was that Petraeus knew about the attack.

Broadwell confirmed the reports on Fox News that the CIA annex asked for a special unit, the Commander in Chief’s In Extremis Force, to come and assist it. She also said that the force could indeed have reinforced the consulate, and that Petraeus knew all of this, but was not allowed to talk to the press because of his position in the CIA.

“The challenge has been the fog of war, and the greater challenge is that it’s political hunting season, and so this whole thing has been turned into a very political sort of arena, if you will,” she said. “The fact that came out today is that the ground forces there at the CIA annex, which is different from the consulate, were requesting reinforcements.

...Now, I don’t know if a lot of you have heard this but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner, and they think that the attack on the consulate was an attempt to get these prisoners back. It’s still being vetted...--PowerLine quoting Israel National News

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

"Whole New Meaning...."

You know the rest.

...To report the 400-page biography, Broadwell visited Afghanistan six times, spending a total of three months there. She embedded with the troops...

Yup.

The "Bucks Tax"

Some sports-pundit was yammering on TMJ the other night that 'if the Bucks were not "supported" by Milwaukee (that is, if taxpayers don't cough up mega-millions for a new arena), they would leave and the NBA will never grant another franchise to the town'.

That's an interesting line of thinking, no?

"Support" = "Spend Money on Them."  To the tune of a couple hundred million dollars.

The Metro Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce is leading the charge for a new tax.  This is the same bunch which supposedly favors small government and tax-reduction, right?  The same bunch which tells us that taxation reduces economic activity, right?  And that Governments should stick to the essentials, right?

I have searched every word of the Wisconsin Constitution and cannot lay my fingers on the passage which mandates an "arena tax."  Education?  Yup.  Justice?  Yup.  Documents and records?  Yup.

Professional sports support?

Nope.

Pink Ribbons vs. The Pill

There are lots of pink "breast cancer awareness" reminders out there, ain'a hey?

Here's something that they're not highlighting:

How often do doctors in America prescribe a Group One carcinogen – one recognized as a “definite” cause of cancer – to otherwise healthy patients?

Answer: as often as they prescribe the hormonal birth control pill.

This little-known fact about the pill was presented by Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a breast surgical oncologist and co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, who shared her expertise on the drug at the “50 Years of the Pill” conference in Washington, DC on Friday.

When is it ever right to give a group one carcinogen to a healthy woman?” she asked the audience. “We don’t have to take a group one carcinogen to be liberated.”

There has been a 660% increase in non-invasive breast cancer since 1973.  The World Health Organization identified the hormonal b/c pill as a Group One carcinogen.

That ain't just a co-incidence.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Astounding Victory of Obozo

Gee.  There's a lot of ...something.... going on here.

...here's a story that the MSM will quietly bury: St. Lucie County in Florida had a 141% turnout on election night. President Obama also managed to win 99% of the votes, according to the numbers, in various districts in Broward County.

...In polling locations in Philadelphia where Republican observers were thrown out, Mr. Obama received once again over 99% of the votes cast. In Cleveland, he received 99.8% of the votes in 44 districts, and he benefitted from 108% turnout from eligible voters in one county in Ohio...

We were similarly surprised at the turnout in the City of Milwaukee, by the way, reported to be 87%.

HT:  McCain

Thought-Piece for Saturday

It's not hard to figure out who gave this speech; it may be a bit more challenging to determine who wrote it.  But it's just as true now as it was then.  An excerpt:

...For the object of the Communists is to reduce human nature to the material elements alone. And the object of thinking Americans and their allies is to preserve and strengthen the spiritual elements of human nature. The material conception of man and the spiritual conception of man cannot be reconciled. For this reason I have said that only through victory will we secure ourselves. More than a century ago, Abraham Lincoln declared that this nation cannot endure half free and half slave. Today that solemn fact is true of the world.

Between Communists and men who believe in a transcendent order there can be no enduring compromise; for Communists will not tolerate religious belief, unless they find it so weakened and tamed that it seems harmless; and men who discern natural rights will never be able to live under Communism. This eternal hostility was expressed far better than / can put it by a brilliant and God-fearing American for whom I have great personal admiration, a man who lies buried here in the chapel at Notre Dame: Orestes Brownson. Only a few months after the Communist Manifesto was published, Brownson--who had been a radical in his youth--denounced as heresy the philosophy of Marx and the sociologist ideology in general.

Brownson saw at the outset that Marxism was a political substitute for religion, caricaturing Christian doctrine. And Brownson knew that the terrible power of this ideology could be resisted only by true religious understanding--and by willingness to sacrifice for the enduring things. With a gift almost prophetic, Orestes Brownson declared that the struggle of the future would be between Socialism and Christianity. In 1962, the fate of humankind is in the balance, and this contest seems to draw toward judgment.

The competition between the Communists and what we call the "Free World" is clearly not being decided by living-standards or even by the big battalions. The issue will be determined by power of conviction: the conviction of men who fear and love God, or the conviction of materialists who detest anything higher than themselves. And if our faith and our culture are to prevail, we must tale our stand forthrightly on certain moral truths and ancient ways
.

Friday, November 09, 2012

Holder's Border Patrol Selling Guns to Bandits?

This one stretches credulity, but it's based on "sworn testimony."

According to Mexican magazine Revista Contralinea, the testimony comes from a protected government witness and former hitman, who cooperated in the prosecution of a Sinaloa Cartel accountant by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office. The testimony details a series of battles fought by a group of cartel members attempting to drive out rival gangsters from territory in Mexico’s desert west. To do it, the group sought weapons from the U.S., including at least 30 WASR-10 rifles — a variant of the AK-47 — allegedly acquired from Border Patrol agents.

If true, it could reignite the debate over Operation Fast and Furious, the last time U.S. authorities allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican gangsters. Two days after the election, Attorney General Eric Holder — who had been at the center of allegations surrounding the scandal — is now talking like he might not stay with the administration for much longer. “That’s something I’m in the process now of trying to determine,” Holder said Thursday. “I have to think about, can I contribute in a second term?”

Though we don’t know if the informant, who goes by the pseudonym “Victoria,” is telling the truth about gangsters getting guns from the Border Patrol.

Given Holder's track record, it's entirely possible that the Border Patrol closed their eyes while the guns 'walked' into Mexico.  I'm not so sure that BP actually delivered the damn things.

Boehned Again, Chapter 2,355

The ever-tanned Boehner will have flip-flopped even more than Romney before the end of 2013.

House Speaker John Boehner, the highest ranking Republican in Washington, has declared, “ObamaCare is the law of the land.” 

ABC’s Diane Sawyer asked Boehner if he would continue to try to repeal the health care bill in the president’s second term. 

“I think the election changes that,” Boehner replied. “It’s pretty clear that the president was re-elected. ObamaCare is the law of the land.” 

He added that there “may be parts of it that we believe need to be changed,” but he had made “no decisions at this point” whether to rescind those specific provisions

Perhaps he needs another good cry, too.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Inside Story of Romney's Data SNAFU

This is--in a way--hilarious, particularly if you remember the old "Systems and Processing" moniker.  Why?  Because it proves that nothing ever changes with those guys, no matter WHAT you call it.

Project ORCA is a massive undertaking – the Republican Party’s newest, unprecedented and most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 presidential election.

Oh?  Well, here's someone who actually volunteered to work with it:

Pretty much everything in that sentence is false. The "massive undertaking" is true, however. It would take a lot of planning, training and coordination to be done successfully (oh, we'll get to that in a second). This wasn't really the GOP's effort, it was Team Romney's. And perhaps "unprecedented" would fit if we're discussing failure.

The whole dismal story is at the link.  And yes, you will laugh your cynical laughs.

Datapoint: "Covered" Employment

Interesting statistic here.

According to the BLS, the economy added 4,951,000 since January 2009. In the same timeframe, uncovered employment rose by 6,573,468! The difference is 1,622,468.

Got that?


133% of the jobs created since January 2009 are not covered. Employment rose by less than 5 million while uncovered employment rose by over 6.5 million.



VERY loosely, "covered" employment allows for unemployment compensation in case of losing the job.  "Uncovered" employment is--again, loosely--self-employment.


Another sign of what is a very, very, weak recovery.

Lakeshore Lamenting

Here, in one-and-the-same post, Lakeshore manages to achieve cognitive dissonance.

I love Tommy Thomp­son, I respect Tommy Thomp­son, but how the hell his cam­paign made lit­tle to no effort in out­reach with young peo­ple is going to haunt me for a while.  18 year old col­lege fresh­men were 4 when he was last on the bal­lot.  The first time I could vote in 1998, was the last time he ran statewide.

His team did lit­tle to intro­duce him to a demo­graphic he prac­ti­cally helped edu­cate while also hop­ing “I’m Tommy Thomp­son, remem­ber me?” could carry the day.  Clearly, it didn’t.

Yah, Tommy was a disappointment.

So, having told us that Spend-and-Bond, Big Gummint Tommy was a "didn't." Lakeshore goes on to mention Akin:

Thanks Mis­souri Repub­li­cans and Tea Party Pin-head purists.

Which is it, Lakeshore?  Wisconsin pin-head/purist Big Gummint Pubbies, or "pinhead purists"?  Are you telling us that Hovde should have been the nominee up here?  Fitzgerald?  Neumann?

In fact, the weaker candidate(s) lost.  "Purist" or RINO, they lost.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Aristotle: Subsidiarity, Virtue, and the Good State

Grim begins with Aristotle's Politics.

...He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved.  ...
The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas 'companions of the cupboard,' and by Epimenides the Cretan, 'companions of the manger.'

So.  The first unit of any civilization is the family.

...But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled 'with the same milk.' And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the barbarians still are.

The second is the village--or in Ari's case, more or less the extended family.

...When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal
.

The third is the State.

Here's an interesting side-observation:

...And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the. "Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, " whom Homer denounces- the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.

Telling, no?

There's more.  But the summary provided by Grim is sufficient:

Aristotle's politics is linked to his ethics:  a state is righteous to the degree that it permits and encourages virtue in the individual.  The point of a good state is to permit a good man to live a good life.

Anent that, recall Ari's golden three:  Goodness, Truth, Beauty.  Ergo--what is not "true" ipso facto cannot be "good."  Christ re-formulated that 'three' into this:  Way, Truth, Life.  Logically, then, what is against Life is not True, nor Good; what is against "Way"--or 'road'--is not, either.  "Way" is crucial to a righteous State--and that's what the fight is all about.


Turnout? What "Turnout"?

Who was doing doobies in the RNC?

Barack Obama had nearly 10 million fewer votes last night than in 2008.

But it was enough to win.


Fewer Republicans turned out to vote for Mitt Romney


Mitt won only 57 million votes.


In 2008 John McCain had nearly 60 million votes.

Barone, et al, who thought that Obozo could not get the vote-totals of '08 were correct. 

But the RNC "gurus" who predicted a large Mitt-turnout were wrong.

"Wronger" is the real term.

The Old George Will Was Correcter

We mentioned a couple of days ago that George Will had predicted a Romney victory.

Maybe he should have recalled his 1976 scrivenings.

If nature is not as bountiful, or men’s capacities as equal, as once was assumed, then equality must be forced on men. That is a paralyzing thought for liberals, whose philosophy derives its name from the word liberty.

Conservatives are comparably disarrayed. True conservatives distrust and try to modulate social forces that work against the conservation of traditional values. But for a century, the dominant conservatism has uncritically worshiped the most transforming force, the dynamism of the American economy. No coherent conservatism can be based solely on commercialism, but this conservatism has been consistently ardent only about economic growth, and hence about economies of scale, and social mobility. These take a severe toll against small towns, small enterprises, family farms, local governments, craftsmanship, environmental values, a sense of community, and other aspects of humane living.--quoted at RedState

That is, more or less, the distillation of Conservative political thought since Edmund Burke.  Obviously, we once again distinguish "Conservative" from "Republican."  (For that matter, Burke was not the first to voice it, but let's not quibble.)

Oh, by the way, just for Margaret Farrow and her followers:

...in four years let’s not go with the “he’s the most electable” argument. The most electable usually aren’t.

Thanks for Tommy, Margaret!  /sarcasm

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Say WHAT, Obozo??

The pResident spoke to 10,000 or so yesterday in Madistan.  In all likelihood, 5,000 of them were members of MTI who were "sick" for the day.

Anyhoo,...

On the final full day of campaigning in the 2012 race for the White House, President Obama is being blasted for a speech he gave in Madison, Wis., a speech his opposition calls “delusional.”

“We tried our ideas. They worked. The economy grew. We created jobs. Deficits went down,” Obama said Monday.

Really?  REALLY?

In which solar system does the pResident live?

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Chris Christie: Impotent Windbag

While he's occasionally fun to listen to, he's really an impotent windbag.

Despite the IBEW’s statement to the contrary, as well as Chris Christie’s assurances that non-union workers are welcome, it appears the IBEW throughout the New Jersey and New York areas are attempting to make sure that non-union crews become unionized before being allowed to assist in recovery efforts.

“I’ve been on the phone with PSE&G [Public Service Electric and Gas Company], JCP&L [Jersey Central Power & Light] and the union, and they’ve all absolutely promised me they would never turn away a single worker whether they were union or nonunion, and I wouldn’t allow it,” Christie told reporters

Bullshit, Chris.

A business coordinator at a power company in western Georgia told The Daily Caller Friday afternoon that workers from his electric-utility employer were not permitted to help restore power to New York consumers because they would not join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).  --Daily Caller via RedStates

Whaddya 'spect from New Joisey, anyhow?  Straight-shootin'?

SCOMAF's EPA to Nuke Citizens Soon

They know that the party's over.

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

No new coal-fired power plants?  No problem!!  Use wood, or old rags, or maybe hydrogen derived from water.  Who needs water, anyway?

What WILL happen is that new powerplants will burn natgas.  Nice--until the price of natgas rises to meet the new demand, which will be significant.  And of course, the Manhattan estimate does NOT include the cost of unintended consequences--which WILL occur.

The End of SCOAMF

Krauthammer, Barone, George Will, and Romney's political guru are all saying the same thing.

Not less than 300 EV's for Romney--including Minnesota (!).

When the Wisconsin State Urinal flips, the Fat Lady has sung, folks.

The Job-Eating ObozoCare Monster

It's worse than you think.

...I spoke with Steve Ferguson, CEO of the Cook Group, founded in the back room of a family house in 1963 with a $1,500 loan, and now the world's largest privately-owned medical-device company with 8,000 U.S. employees. It makes some 16,000 different devices, most of them small items such as catheters, stents, wire guides and other products that help patients avoid major surgery. Such advances represent phenomenal progress for the quality of patients' lives.

Ferguson said the 2.3% tax on gross revenues equals, for Cook, about 15% of earnings. Added to a base corporate income tax rate of 35% and state taxes of 6%, the total tax rate exceeds 50%. Pitted against places like Ireland, with a total business tax of 12.5%, an American medical-device company faces acute competitive disadvantages.

"We were looking to build five new plants to employ about 300 people each," Ferguson said. "Now we've had to put them on hold, to see what will happen with this tax."

FIFTEEN PERCENT of EBT!!!!

Not to mention what "medical devices" are taxed:  stents, wire-guides, asthma inhalers....

So.  Not only is Obozo "exporting jobs," he's increasing the cost of medicine, already.  This, while the Liar-in-Chief claims to be "reducing" the cost of medicine.

The guy is a one-man bubonic plague.  

The Sauds, Obama, and The Press

A fly-by comparo.

...As one Middle East expert put it to me: “Jews disturbing the Dome of the Rock fits into an anti-Western narrative, so Muslims can cope with that. The Saudi destruction of Mecca doesn’t fit into that narrative, and so there’s virtual silence.” Something worth bearing in mind, perhaps, when you wonder why the murder of Muslims by Muslims in Darfur or Syria provokes only limited outrage in the Islamic world....

From Lewis Carroll:

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

The Press's Master(s) have the money and the threats.  That's all.


Anent the "Poll" Post

Oh, by the way--and related to the 'poll' post below--here's an overseas observation which deserves reading.  HT:  ColdFury

...The way to reconcile the similarities and the differences between Bush and Obama is to see both as guardians of the New Deal tradition – with varying degress of enthusiasm and very different personalities. America still lives with mythic, traumatic and nostalgic memories of the 1930s, when Franklin D Roosevelt saved capitalism from the Great Depression.... If Bush was Roosevelt Lite, Obama was Roosevelt Max Strength. His 2008 electoral coalition was pure New Deal: the marginalised, the organised and the educated coming together to outnumber the reactionary and the red of neck. In office, Obama did what Democrats had often promised to do but never succeeded. Real healthcare reform, millions added to the welfare rolls and finally – finally!– someone prepared to take on the Catholic Church.

The problem was that the moment when the hardcore Roosevelt fans finally got the keys to the candy store was the exact moment when it had run out of candy. The money was gone and the economy exhausted. The New Deal order didn’t cause the recession, but it did limit America’s ability to recover from it. The creation of a warfare/welfare state consensus under both Republicans and Democrats lumbered the federal government with crippling levels of debt.

...Today, the real revolutionaries are the Tea Party, who have hijacked the Republican Party and turned it into an imperfect (and often reluctant) vehicle for a return to the fundamentals of Americanism: small, constitutional, limited government. To do this, they had to reject the politics of both Obama and Bush – and Mitt has slowly caught up. There was a significant moment in the second debate when a citizen asked Romney how he would distinguish himself from George W Bush. Romney said, “President Bush and I are different people, and these are different times.” He cited differences over aid to small business, balancing the budget, energy policy and relations with China. Remarkably, Obama then jumped in to defend Bush. (!!!!!!!!)

We've said it a million times; the Statist Pubbies (like, e.g., GWBush, GHWBush, and Tommy Thompson) are dinosaurs.  They are formidable beasts with tons (heh) of momentum--but no gas left in the tank.

Is Romney a convert to Conservatism?  Not likely.  But given the composition of the House, he may be dragged, kicking quietly, to the right place.

I Hate Polls. Here's The First and Last Post on 'em

The newsies can't get enough of this "poll" stuff.  To normal people, it's almost as bad as the zillion-and-fifty flyers and phone calls.  So this is my first, last, and only post about polls.

Both McCain and Vox happen to agree with Silver on this small statement:

My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him.

McCain on a poll in Ohio (leading off with Ed Morrissey's statement):

all you need to know is this: the D/R/I is 38/29/32.  In 2008, the exit polls showed a split of 39/31/30, and in 2010 36/37/28.”

Stop for a second and think about that: What this poll is telling us is that partisan ID has shifted 2 points toward Democrats since 2008, which was the best year for Democrats since LBJ won a landslide in ’64.

Vox:   ...If Romney does win, the only possible conclusion is that the state polls must be biased....

An 2008-like (D) affiliation?  Puhleeeeeeze.