Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obama’s Fascist Economy

September 21, 2011 Rand Simberg 16 Comments

Observations over at The American Thinker:

A key characteristic of the reality of fascist thinking is rampant cronyism and corruption. Certain capitalists, wishing to ingratiate themselves with the state, are willing to fund the election of those in power in exchange for favorable government contracts and avoidance of regulatory wrath. Recently, much of Wall Street, Hollywood, the unions, major companies such as General Electric, and the super-wealthy such as Warren Buffett are willing to sleep with those in power and be used as props in any propaganda campaign initiated by the Obama regime.

The Obama administration has, through the Justice Department and other agencies, behaved exactly as many quasi-fascist regimes in the past — almost all of whom have been governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect themselves and their friends from accountability.

The term “fascism” has been redefined by the horrendous acts of Mussolini and Hitler, actions spurred by their megalomania and nationalism. However, the economic philosophy that is fascism is alive and well and being pursued in the United States by those whose desire it is to control the people of the country and reinforce their domestic power base, not to conquer the world. Yet the pursuit of the same tenets that motivated Franklin Roosevelt has prolonged and exacerbated the current economic disaster facing the United States.

Sadly, the crony capitalism inherent in the Senate Launch System is part of it. It’s bipartisan.

Political Commentary

Corruption In The Drug War?

September 21, 2011 Rand Simberg 6 Comments

This is just shocking:

Dutton and Gonzales said small aircraft regularly drop drug loads on ranches or other properties along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that some U.S. law officers escort the loads to the next stop.

The two whistle-blowers said that drug cartels have managed to obtain computer access codes to U.S. surveillance systems that let them see where and when Border Patrol agents are monitoring the border.

They also alleged that drug cartels have given big donations to politicians, which are unreported, to influence appointments of key law enforcement officers.

Why, it’s almost as though outlawing non-coercive personal activity makes it more lucrative and inherently corrupting.

[Update a while later]

The death toll in Mexico as a result of “Fast and Furious” is now up to two hundred. Really, this was an act of war.

[Update a few minutes later]

As the body count grows, so does the cover up:

After reiterating that every law enforcement agent that has been asked about Operation Fast and Furious has said that there is no way that it could have been a viable law enforcement operation, I asked Chairman Issa if there was any evidence of another reason for the implementation of Operation Fast and Furious and the other alleged gun-walking operations.

“This was dumb, it was useless, and it was lethal,” was the soundbite most of us will take away from the call in answer to that question, but his longer answer — which I regret I do not have a transcript of — is far more telling.

Nothing in his response could be construed to mean that Rep. Issa thought Operation Fast and Furious was a legitimate law enforcement operation. And if it does not appear to have been implemented as a legitimate law enforcement operation, then we are left with the possible alternative that the goal of the operation was both illegitimate and unlawful.

Issa put it rather bluntly: “The administration wanted to show that guns found in Mexico came from the United States.”

Even if they had to deliver them themselves.

Business, Economics, Humor, Political Commentary

Compassionate Conservatism

September 20, 2011 Rand Simberg 11 Comments

Frank J. takes pity on politicians:

I have to admit: I laughed the first time Obama said he was going to “pivot to jobs.” And the second time. And the third time. But by the sixth time, it was getting pretty sad.

And when he proposed his new “jobs bill,” he was so earnest about it that I found myself rooting for the poor guy. It’s just a desperate mishmash of ideas — like he knows that one button on the keyboard starts a program, so he’s going to mash all of them with his palm — and as funny as it is, I’m starting to worry that his blundering like this is getting in the way of people who actually do create jobs (namely, business owners and such).

So this has gone on long enough. I know some people don’t feel any sympathy for the politicians; much like reality-show contestants, they selected themselves for this mockery. Still, this is no way to treat fellow human beings or even lawyers.

Plus, what if eventually the politicians become so frustrated that one of them says, “I have a brilliant idea! Let’s drop an atomic bomb on our own country! The rebuilding it will require will create lots of jobs! We’ll call it the ‘Nuclear Deal.’” It wouldn’t even be their dumbest idea. (Actually, has anyone read through Obama’s entire proposal yet to make sure that’s not in there?)

That would be the Paul Krugman plan.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obama’s Self Love

September 20, 2011 Rand Simberg 3 Comments

…and what it means for his political future. Not good things, I think.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

But Other Than That, It’s Great (Part Two)

September 20, 2011 Rand Simberg 22 Comments

The president’s tax plan defies economics. Again, how does that distinguish it from any of his other plans?

[Update a few minutes later]

The great Obama carthasis:

After Obama, I don’t think there will be any more John Kerry or Al Gore sermons about the superior Europe model either. A disarmed, undemocratic, insolvent, shrinking, and increasingly polarized continent is now a model of what the United States should not be. There simply have been too many California as Greece stories for any politicians to advise us with the old admonition: “But In Europe, they….”

Obama thought that he would replicate the EU paradigm. He would bring in properly certified technocrats from academia or government like Chu, Geithner, Goolsbee, Holder, Orszag, Romer, and Summers to oversee massive new regulations and taxes that would dictate from on high how the ignorant masses must be protected from everything from cheap gas to old-style light bulbs. In less than three years, they all proved far more ignorant about what makes America work than the local car dealer, welder, or farmer. After Obama, Americans will not be fooled for a generation or so into thinking that a Harvard PhD or Berkeley professor “really” knows that borrowing is prosperity, that gas should cost as much as it does in Europe, and that the more we pay millions to regulate, the more the vastly fewer who produce make us all prosperous. (And given Obama’s mysterious silence about the undergraduate record at Occidental and Columbia that won him a scholarship to Harvard Law, we won’t take seriously any more the usual liberal critique of supposedly weak-minded conservative candidates who, based on their leaked undergraduate transcripts, could not get As decades ago in college.)

I hope that the current disastrous presidency turns out to be a blessing in disguise, by finally exposing all the mythology of the left, and inoculating us against such insanity for at least a generation.

[Update a few minutes later]

Tax the rich, just not my rich:

Menendez, Lautenberg and Kirsten Gillibrand support eliminating some or all of the Bush tax cuts. Schumer said the $250,000 limit is unacceptable since it will hit the metropolitan area disproportionately because of the high cost of living here.

“$250,000 makes you really rich in Mississippi but it doesn’t make you rich at all in New York and there ought to be some kind of scale based on the cost of living on how much you pay,” Schumer said.

So, Senator, if we should adjust taxation for areas with higher cost of living, why should there be a single federal minimum wage for the whole country?

[Update a few minutes later]

The president’s plan is all tax hikes and no cuts. What a shocker.

[Update a few more minutes later]

Barack Obama, home alone:

Ron Suskind quotes former administration official Larry Summers complaining: “We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.”

Put aside the misbegotten nostalgia for Bill Clinton, whose new status as an elder statesman wipes from memory his bouts of reckless immaturity. The Summers comment (subsequently denied, of course) stands as the best summation of the current occupant of the White House, who constantly congratulates himself on his high-minded leadership without exercising any.

Wasn’t this the guy who mused that he’d make a pretty good chief of staff? I’m trying to figure out what he’s good at, other than being a con man.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

AP Fact Check

September 20, 2011 Rand Simberg 17 Comments

No, Obama and Buffett are peddling a myth when they claim that secretaries pay more taxes than their bosses. No surprise — Obama has spent much of his life peddling myths, with great success, to fools.