Uh oh. The One’s favorability rating is finally inverting.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Phone Harassment Bleg
I got an email from a friend:
I am fairly at my wits’ end (short trip, I know). Perhaps you have someone reading your blog who can help. The situation is this:
Since early July, my company has been getting about four or five calls a day from #209-382-7432. When the phone is answered, an ear-splitting howl comes out of the earpiece. Nothing else. If one calls that number, it’s a robot answering for free magazine subscriptions.
I called the phone company. The “harassing calls” department says you have to have a police incident number before they can trace the call, and they will not inform you of who is placing the call, only law enforcement. So I called the county sheriff, got an incident report, and called the phone company back. For a month we reported all harassing calls. The phone company then called us and said “Yes, you are being harassed and we have notified your local law enforcement.” (Note that they did not tell the harasser to stop.) But the sheriff can’t do anything because the 209 number is not in my county. I have not seen the incident report because it’s not my business. No I am not making that up.
The harassing calls department at AT&T is bloody useless. AT&T does not care if you are being harassed. It’s not their problem and they will hang up on you if you ask them why not. And they will not return phone calls asking for clarification.
So I called our attorney. He suggested I call the FBI. I did. The FBI said they do not deal with harassing phone calls, try calling the FCC. The FCC hasn’t a clue what I am talking about, and why don’t I complain to AT&T?
Do you sense my level of frustration here? My people are being harassed daily and I can’t get anyone to take me seriously. Can anyone who reads your blog help? Have any advice, or knows of another avenue to pursue? I’m lost.
I’ve no idea, but maybe some reader does.
The Never-Ending Emergency
Thoughts on the growing abuse of supplemental spending.
The Upcoming NASA House Hearing
Some thoughts from Tea Party in Space.
Some Commercial Crew Questions For NASA
I have a lengthy post up over at Open Market on today’s developments.
Want Less Inequality?
Stop subsidizing schools and universities. The whole system really is a disaster.
An All-Purpose Editorial
Frank J. has already written the New York Times campaign editorial for them:
And then there’s [Republican nominee]‘s opinion [Republican nominee view 2]. It’s almost hard to believe. He/she is basically proposing to set the rights of [protected group] back one hundred years. How can someone in this day and age actually argue [Republican nominee view 2]? This is once again thinking that is stuck in the past and won’t continue to move the country forward like President Obama has done. Plus it’s well known that [talking point on Republican nominee view 2].
As for the economy, what has [Republican nominee] proposed? [Republican nominee proposal for the economy]. You have to be kidding me. It’s a lopsided tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor and the elderly. Obviously, [Republican nominee] is beholden to the unreasonable, extreme views of the Tea Party. His/her ideas are nothing like the balanced approach Obama has proposed with [Obama economic proposal, if available]. Only that approach will continue the progress Obama has already made.
One has to wonder about the intelligence of someone who would believe such radical views as [Republican nominee view 1] and [Republican nominee view 2] and has an economic plan of [Republican nominee proposal for the economy]. People used to question Bush’s intelligence in jest, but at least he was educated at Yale and Harvard and thus had some wisdom about the world. [Republican nominee], on the other hand, is truly a dunce, as we’ve seen with such statements as [gaffe 1] and [gaffe 2]. Does anyone really think [demeaning nickname for Republican nominee] stacks up against the intelligence and poise of President Obama?
And some of the things [Republican nominee] has said that aren’t outright stupid are quite scary. Like when he/she said [Republican nominee statement using the words “black” or “dark” — just something that could be argued to be racist; be creative]. This is obviously a dog whistle to rally people who have a problem with the American president being black. And then he/she said [Republican nominee statement about religion, such as praying to God for guidance]; [Republican nominee] obviously doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state and wants to make this country a theocracy. America doesn’t need its own Taliban.
I’m sure they’ll appreciate it — it will save them a lot of work. You’d think they might be a little concerned about how predictable they are, though.
That Should Put Him Over The Top
Mitt Romney has landed the crucial Jimmy Carter endorsement.
Nice ROI
Solyndra spent about two million on lobbying for a half a billion in loan guarantees. And the money went to Democrats. Your money. Your involuntary campaign donation.
This is a perfect example of why the government shouldn’t be in the business of helping business. It’s an inherently corrupting process.
[Update a few minutes later]
Solyndra, the logical end point of Obamanomics:
No wonder many Democratic strategists predicted their party’s 2008 landslide win would usher in a generation of political dominance. Obamanomics, essentially, would divert taxpayer dollars to the Green Lobby – and then into the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party. This is what crony capitalism is really all about: politicians enriching favored businesses, who then return the favor. Or maybe it’s the other way around, Who cares, really. It’s an endless, profitable loop for both.
Note how Goldman Sachs is always involved, as well. I would hope that Obamanomics has been thoroughly discredited by now. But based on the continuing defense of some commenters here, probably not.
[Update a couple minutes later]
A doomed quest:
President Obama’s campaign tour for another half-trillion-dollar stimulus will not work for a number of reasons, and one of them is terrible timing. As he tries once again to assure the public that government agencies can take borrowed money and translate it into shovel-ready jobs, four facts drown out the effort. The Solyndra bankruptcy disaster is a sort of open-sore advertisement not to do these things. The special elections in New York and Nevada suggest that the voters are not receptive to the idea that more federal debt means more private sector jobs. The European meltdown daily shows the world the terrible wages of massive public debt. And the current Republican primary campaigning is reminding the public that nearly $5 trillion in borrowed money between 2009 and 2011 was an abject failure. Consequently, the vocabulary of that misguided effort — euphemisms like “stimulus,” “shovel-ready,” “investments,” and “infrastructure” — now provokes laughter rather than applause.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s going to take many painful years to undo the damage that all of these big spenders, Republicans and Democrats alike, have done to the economy.
[Update early afternoon]
The myth of nonpartisan civil service:
…this career civil servant is concerned that a default coinciding “with the 2012 campaign season” could hurt the president’s reelection effort. That is his biggest worry, not what is in the best financial interests of the American people. As Lachlan Markay writes over at the Heritage Foundation, “The Administration was essentially letting the 2012 campaign dictate decisions on the federal government’s financial involvement with Solyndra. They were not responding to normal profit-and-loss signals.”
Which is why the government shouldn’t be making these decisions.
The EU
If Bernanke tries to bail out the Eurocrats by printing money, expect a revolt that made previous Tea Party rallies look like Sunday picnics.
[Update a few minutes later]
Don’t even think about it:
In the days leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, then French Finance Minister (now IMF Managing Director) Chistine Lagarde told then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson that he could not allow Lehman to fail. The ramifications would be catastrophic, she said. She was mostly right.
Three years later, it will be Angela Merkel talking to President Obama,Treasury Secretary Geithner and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke with exactly the same message. The United States government and the Federal Reserve must come to the rescue of the Eurozone or the ramifications will be catastrophic. And she will say that she needs roughly $1 trillion in financial guarantees and liquidity support. That’s the number that will calm the markets.
She will do this publicly (it will be leaked to the FT or the NYT) because (a) she wants to maximize the pressure on the US to ride to the rescue and (b) she wants the blame to fall elsewhere in the event that the “situation” goes haywire.
And there will follow perhaps the defining moment of the Obama Presidency. If Obama goes forward and provides all or part of the $1 trillion guarantee, he will likely cut his own political throat in so doing. If Obama declines to go forward and provide all or part of the $1 trillion guarantee, he will likely preside over the second massively destabilizing financial panic in four years, thus insuring a second Great Recession, thus cutting his own political throat.
It’s not like he has the unilateral power to do it anyway. Bernanke is nominally independent (particularly since he just got reappointed) and there’s no way he’d get it through Congress. I wonder if Merkel doesn’t understand what powers an American president does and doesn’t have?