Was nothing like what happened under Fast’n’Furious. But expect the defenders of the administration to attempt to continue the “they did it too!” defense.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
I Am Barack Obama
…and I am the one percent.
[Update a few minutes later]
If you think that someone else should pay your tuition because you want them to pay your tuition, and that’s your opinion — you’re just putting it out there, you might be a fleabagger.
Think Things Can’t Get Worse?
Think again. As long as the people who put these economically ruinous policies in place remain in power, they’re likely to.
[Update a couple minutes later]
How government spending impoverished us all. I think that the GDP is indeed a very flawed way of assessing the state of health of the economy. If we had a better measure, the notion that WW II ended the Great Depression wouldn’t make much sense at all. It simply set the stage for the recovery in the late forties, once we returned to sane economic policies after fifteen years.
The Iranian Assassination Attempt
Just demonstrates once again that our fearless leaders are clueless about Islam:
The Iranian government was making a statement, one it continues to make, and one which the Obama administration is incapable of hearing: the Iranian government does not perceive international law or any Western-based institutional system as legitimate. This is the same statement that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, made when he pleaded guilty in a Detroit court of attempting to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight. Abdulmutallab claimed that he was not guilty under Islamic law, and was only pleading guilty because he was in an American courtroom governed by American law.
This was the mindset of Yasser Arafat, when in the wake of having signed the Oslo accords, he hastened to tell Arab audiences — in Arabic — that he had in actuality signed the Peace of Mecca, the peace Mohammed signed with the Koresh tribe.
Weeks ago, the Egyptian government withheld protection of the Israeli embassy from a bloodthirsty mob until President Obama himself directly intervened with the Egyptians. Prior to that moment, the Egyptian government was perfectly content to ignore its legal obligation to protect a foreign embassy, even when it meant the embassy personnel would be slaughtered.
The authentic voice of the Arab Spring is not seen in the MSM hype or the Obama administration depiction of democracy breaking out in Tahrir Square, but in the rape of journalist Lara Logan. The charade of the Arab Spring is revealed in the brain-splattered head of a Coptic Christian, who was one of dozens of Christians purposely crushed by military vehicles as they repeatedly sped through the crowd mauling demonstrators.
The Christians are protesting the burning of churches, a conflagration unleashed with the rise of Egypt’s Arab Spring and the ascension of the Muslim Brotherhood. The face of the Arab Spring, so lauded by this administration and the MSM, is revealed in pictures of rank and file soldiers joining with the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, who were brutally attacking the Christian demonstrators that the soldiers were supposed to protect.
In another indulgence of fatuous behavior, President Obama asked both sides to exercise restraint.
As I said, it’s like the idiot principal who suspends both the bully and the bullied for “fighting.”
October 14th
A day that should live in infamy:
Hank Paulson’s bloodless banking coup demonstrated that a nearly all-powerful government which believes it is untouchable can and will do anything once it gins up enough of a crisis atmosphere. Paulson’s putsch gave cover to the long list of heavy-handed actions which have followed during the Obama administration, from arbitrarily changing the pecking order in bankruptcy, to preventing nonunion manufacturing plants from opening, to defying direct court orders, to Dodd-Frank’s attempt to permanently keep the government in banks’ boardrooms — and much, much more.
This, too, is what fascism looks like.
Signs Of Decline
You know your city has become a hellhole when…
The War On (Some) Drugs
This by itself should be reason enough to end it, because this type of corruption is almost inevitable.
If Not Mitt, Who?
Is he really inexorable?
I spent last night’s Republican debate trying to imagine scenarios where Mitt Romney loses the G.O.P. nomination for president. Rick Perry gets bitten by a radioactive Lincoln-Douglas debate champion and develops a sudden facility for public argument? A long-lost codicil to the Constitution is discovered, in which the Founding Fathers endorse the 9-9-9 tax plan? Utah renames itself the Republic of Deseret and secedes from the Union, forcing Romney to make a tragic choice between his religion and his country? Or, perhaps most unlikely of all — Jon Huntsman is embraced by the Tea Party and pulls off a surprise upset in Iowa?
Those scenarios aside, right now these debates feel like spring training for Romney: A warm-up period for the general election, in which he can stretch and exercise and experiment with his pitches with no fear of suffering a significant defeat.
A depressing thought. The only possibility of avoiding him I can imagine (short of something tragic), is if the anti-Mitters get so determined that they embrace Newt, with all his quirks. At least, that’s how desperate I am. Though I supposed I shouldn’t count Cain out completely. He does seem to be the Reagan in the race in temperament, if not foreign-policy acumen.
[Update a few minutes later]
On the other hand, maybe the conventional wisdom about what it takes to win is wrong.
A Real Jobs Plan
I don’t disagree with any of this, but it’s incomplete. Off the top of my head, where is repeal Sarbanes-Oxley?
A Libertarian Hangs Out On Wall Street
A front-line report from Tim Carney:
While much of the occupiers’ anger at the “banksters” was typical talk about “greed,” the gripes almost always included something about undue influence. Anthony Hassan, an out-of-work construction worker from Norfolk, Va., sounded a common note, pointing out that bailed-out banks “take some of the money we’ve given them, and they hire lobbyists.” An organic farmer who traveled down from Vermont who called himself Mack (and would not give me his full name) said “we’re at a point where the people with the most money have the most influence.”
They’re right. It does undermine our democracy and harm our economy when hiring a former Senate majority leader, for instance, can be the best investment a company ever makes. Wealthy special interests do dictate policy too much, regardless of which party is in power. I don’t know who made the sign under which I slept Sunday night, but I agreed with its thrust: “Separation of Business & State.” The back read “I can’t afford a lobbyist.”
My agreement with these folks went no further, however, than a common diagnosis of the problem. Their proposed solutions — more campaign finance restrictions and curbs on the freedom of firms to lobby — showed disregard for the freedom of speech. They also don’t seem to understand that getting government more involved in the economy always gets business more involved in government. Outside the small minority of Ron Paul supporters at the park, none of the occupiers saw smaller government as the answer to cronyism and corporatism.
Hard for people who want handouts to be for smaller government. In that, they are diametrically opposed to the Tea Party.