No Mosque At Ground Zero

 Forget the outrage -- it would be enough for me, but it isn't even 10% of the problem.

A whole lot of being human is about symbolism. Constructing this Mosque is designed to let the Muslim world know that we can be attacked and defeated. It memorialises a great Islamic "success", and shows that we are too decadent, foolish and confused to understand raw power.

This is an ACTUAL terrorist recruitment tool, not a fake one like Gitmo or Abu Girab.

Recruits like to see evidence that they can kick your ass, not that their ass is likely get beaten, locked up, and left to rot -- with a very long dry spell prior to any supposed virgin prospects.

How can we have liberals that go berserk over a Christmas tree but embrace a "religion" that condones the slaughter of those that disagree and the abuse of women in this life and the next -- for "diversity".

 The liberal hatred of America truly trumps all -- there really isn't any other explanation that even remotely makes sense.

Democrat Strategy 2010?

Andrew Alexander - Why the silence from The Post on Black Panther Party story?

Some folks seem to think the Democrats are going to lose big in 2010. I certainly hope they are right, but Democrats have "other options". Just imagine for a moment if this intimidation had been done by a guy in a KKK outfit in some black polling place and he was being given a pass by a Republican administration? What would I think of that? GOOD!!! Voter intimidation is just plain wrong. That ought to be an AMERICAN opinion, not a left or right opinion.

Sadly, we see that not only is the current administration willing to let past intimidation slide, they are also willing to tacitly encourage more of it by lack of enforcement and statements to that effect. Add to that the MSM being willing to soft pedal the story in the extreme, and we have one way to "turn the tide".

Here in MN we find that more felons voted in the last election than Frankens margin of victory -- a story of very close to zero interest to either the MN press, or the election authorities.

Add to this the millions and millions of questionable votes gained by ACORN and other "Community Organizer" groups, and we have a recipe for control of our elections by "other means". The exact methodology espoused by BO's chief mentor, Saul Alinsky.

Santa and Frank

Townhall - Santa and Frank

PJ O'Rourke does a much funnier version of the Democrats being Santa and the Republicans being god, but the effect is about the same. People in general, and especially post "New Deal" Americans love to get stuff under the assumption that "someone else will pay for it". Prior to Reagan, the Republicans always played the particularly bumbling Charlie Brown foil, and their unwillingness to constantly 100% fall on their butts to clean up the Democrats latest drunken spending orgy has brought the nation to what I believe to be beyond recovery -- in an time frame those of us 50 and older are likely to see.

We started scratching the surface of this grave with Teddy Roosevelt, took some big scoops out with Wilson, dug deep and wide with FDR, started lowering the casket with LBJ, shut the lid, folded the flag with Bush (love that bi-partisanship), and now BO is furiously pouring dirt in on the grave of the USA.

Sowell does a good job with the Lucy / Charlie Brown analogy though ... worth a read.

Respect For the Dead

Comparing Obama to Hitler: A Tea Party divided - The Week

A North IA billboard comparing BO to Hitler and Lenin had to be taken down as there were too many complaints of it being unfair to Hitler and Lenin.

Don't Underestimate BO

Charles Krauthammer - Obama's next act

Charles is one of the top minds around these days. A sobering but important article:

I have a warning for Republicans: Don't underestimate Barack Obama.

Consider what he has already achieved. Obamacare alone makes his presidency historic. It has irrevocably changed one-sixth of the economy, put the country inexorably on the road to national health care and, as acknowledged by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus but few others, begun one of the most massive wealth redistributions in U.S. history.

Republican's may do very well in congressional elections, but it is quite likely that the combination of BO and the MSM will turn that to his advantage in 2012. Much of "the worst that could happen" now HAS happened (multi-trillion deficits, health care takeover, pay-offs to unions/other interest groups, anti-business legislation) and America won't recover for decades, if ever.

The vast majority of Reagan's contributions -- quarter century of unprecedented economic growth, end of the USSR, are largely discounted. The Republican congress paid a heavy political  price for controlling the growth of government spending, and Slick Willie received the credit for the short stint of balanced budget due primarily to the .Net bubble.

The model is easy to see -- Hoover is considered the "cause of the depression", although he was just another "Progressive". FDR instituted a muddle of government policies, but the economy never turned around until WWII. Much of the competitive capability of the US has already been destroyed by the "Progressives" in the teens, late 20's, thirties, Johnston sixties, and now the final scoops of dirt are being thrown in on the grave by BO. Our media and academia LOVES "progressives". It might be better called "Progress in the destruction of America".

The once bright and proud "Shining City on a Hill", is essentially already "Canada South", or "Europe West" -- throw in immigration amnesty, and we are sort of "A Fascist Flavored Gangster Socialist State with a hint of Molson, Seal Meat and Salsa thrown in". The American left? They are PROUD to be "Canada South" or "Europe West" -- they found America to be "behind the times, hyper competitive (a bad thing for lefties), poor allocator of wealth (it ought to all be transferred to lefties) and just essentially "unfair". They have fixed all that.

Kill the Eagle -- we need a new national symbol. I'm thinking either "Road Kill" (maybe squashed Bald Eagle would be a good touch), or just a big Uncle Sam Pinata, where Uncle is a Mexican immigrant spewing inflated and useless dollars.

Bathtub Pumps Fail

Townhall - Walter E. Williams - A Failed Obama Hero

As I've said before, putting a pump in a 1/2 full bathtub to pump water from one end to the other is not going to make it run over.

The BushTax Cut Myth

Brian Riedl: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth - WSJ.com

Good summary, the very important part is even shorter -- "It's the Spending, Stupid"

Putting this together, the budget deficit, historically 2.3% of GDP, is projected to leap to 8.3% of GDP by 2020 under current policies. This will result from Washington taxing at 0.2% of GDP above the historical average but spending 6.2% above its historical average.

Franken, The Felon's Choice

FOXNews.com - Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds

There is absolutely no excuse for this clown being even CLOSE to having been elected -- but it is only fitting that illegal votes by felons may well have put him over the top. The shame we get to live with for six years and likely longer is proof that MN doesn't deserve to have a political voice!

Cracker Intimidation

RealClearPolitics - Team Obama Turns Blind Eye to Voter Intimidation

"Cracker, you are about to be ruled by a black man," one of the New Black Panthers told a white voter. They taunted others as "white devils." A black couple who served as Republican poll watchers said they felt endangered when the Panthers called them "race traitors."

Why would a Community Organizer prosecute a Black Panther intimidating voters with a 3 foot billy club at a polling station? He wouldn't ... thus showing that BO is much more a Community Organizer than a president. 

The Ryan Roadmap

Republicans should embrace Paul Ryan's Road Map | Washington Examiner

I need to look at this in a lot more detail, but I really like Ryan. Reagan ran on a lot more specifics in '80 than most politicians, won, did a lot of what he said, and the rest is history. in '94, "The Contract With America" gave the Republicans not just a victory, but a way to hit the ground running -- it was enough to get the runaway spending of the time under control, kick off a rally (that did turn out to just be a bubble), and give us a few quarters of surpluses -- not bad.

As the article points out, the political temptation is always to just run against unpopular opposition. Republicans MUST resist this temptation! Bush thought that "triangulation to the left", the inverse of which was masterfully executed by Slick Willie after his '94 spanking (uh, no, not a spanking administered by Slick to some young thing ... "the election, stupid!").

Triangulation was a DISASTER for Bush -- Republican voters don't like political games. They hated the Drug Benefit and other spending. The base lost faith. When Slick went along with a balanced budget in the late '90s however, plus NAFTA and Welfare Reform, moderates flocked to him, and a lot of the Republican base was less than excited to remove him for Dole -- the principles cut both ways with the same voters.

NOTE: Same thing for military -- you didn't see Republican protesters for Kosovo, or Clinton's ineffectual responses to terrorism or Saddam's activities, nor do you see them protesting Afghanistan or Iraq now. Democrats? Kosovo and Clinton's actions in the '90s were fine with them -- Democrat can even do some military stuff, makes them seem "butch". Ton's of war protest and angst over Gitmo when Bush was President -- BO elected, still in Gitmo, not hinting may not be able to get out? Not a problem. Iraq, Afghanistan? Nary a concern as long as their party is in the WH. POLITICS, not principle drive Democrats -- "consistency is not an issue".

If Republicans just run against the unpopular Democrats, they are just "the lesser of two evils" -- Democrats are FOR "hope and change" ... Republicans are "against -- so what. Here is a bit more of what a reasonable way to run a national race here might be:

As ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Ryan was able to get the Congressional Budget Office to run the numbers in his plan. CBO concluded the plan would "make the Social Security and Medicare programs permanently solvent [and] lift the growing debt burden on future generations, and hold federal taxes to no higher than 19 percent of GDP." Pretty impressive results, I'd say.

Mattress Economy

RealClearPolitics - Obama Economy Sends Americans to Their Mattresses

Short, direct, factual ... good article.

BO and the Democrats are very much on the way to achieving the kind of results that I and many others expected based on economic principles and history. Reality tends to be non-partisan. You reap what you sow -- Reagan changed the direction of the US 30 years ago, and we reaped over a quarter century of solid, world leading economic growth.

The Democrats took over congress in '06, and we began a left turn that became a hard left turn with BO's election in '08 -- and the reaping is already is already well under way.

BO Picks Fear Over Hope

Mark McKinnon: Obama’s New Politics of Fear - The Daily Beast

I find the Breast to be slightly left of the standard MSM, not as far over as HuffPo. I must say that left folks that are willing to stand up and admit that the Democrat and BO tactics are at best only as bad as the worst of Republican tactics is something that deserves strong applause. The ONLY way we cut the current disaster shorter than DECADES is to figure out that BOTH political partys are ROTTEN with "progressive / statist vermin, and it is CRITICAL that we clean out BOTH partys and agree on some AMERICAN principles -- the Constitution as WRITTEN, Individual life, liberty and the PURSUIT (not the gaurantee) of Happiness ... one CITIZEN, one vote ...

Begala recognizes there ain't much water left in the "hope" well, so the plan is to poison what's left.  ‘Cause the numbers don’t look so good.

The Liberal Economic Mind

RealClearPolitics - David Brooks' Neo-Hooverite Plea

The study of the liberal mind is one of my guilty pleasures. They are avid writers, often extremely emotional and direct in their prose, somehow, apparently certain that no bumble headed conservative could be peeking in the open windows of their minds -- one almost feels voyeuristic.

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has sounded the alarm on this in several recent columns - just as he warned that the initial Obama stimulus, while historically high, was inadequate to fully reverse the downturn that was the legacy of the Bush administration. Then as now, Krugman was pointed, not polite, in his criticism. And while the administration probably couldn't have passed a larger stimulus in 2009, it is today hard to deny
that the Nobel laureate accurately diagnosed the situation.

"It is today hard to deny"?  If the medieval barber calls for 2 quarts of blood to be let, but a mere two pints is let and the patient does not recover, does it become "hard to deny" that the barber was correct? To the liberal mind, yes. The fact that jobs and economic growth can be generated by government spending is MUCH more an article of faith to the liberal than a biblical young earth to a fundamentalist (derided later in the article). The fundamentalist is willing to allow a power and a universe to have power and majesty beyond the fundamentalist, the liberal is not -- HIS views MUST be correct.

The fact that Krugman can be prickly and Brooks is congenial can't be confused with the question of who is correct on the economic merits. Krugman clearly has that honor. Yet the Brooks position is on the verge of carrying the day, both across the Atlantic and in the midterms-wary policy debates in Congress. Last year's G-20 conference, led by Obama and then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, settled on a strategy of higher spending to spur demand and growth, to be followed by a fiscal tightening once the recovery was secure. This year's G-20, with a new Tory prime minister from Britain and German Chancellor Angela Merkel preaching Teutonic fiscal stringency, reversed field with a call to roll back spending.

Remember when the Europeans were totally right, along with BO, Shrum, the MSM and left that Iraq was a "lost cause"? How intelligent they were then, yet how stupid they are now that they deign to disagree with the holy economic writ of BO, Krugman and Bob. The entire world has been stupid for ages, for all that was ever required for economic success is the massive injection of huge sums of borrowed or printed money -- hopefully in concert with massive taxes on the most productive. Liberals have known this obvious truth forever, only complete fools can fail to see it.

First, Brooks denigrates "Demand Siders" for having too much trust in their models, which could "risk national insolvency." Never mind that the markets - with historically low yields on U.S. bonds - are telling us that American debt remains the safest investment in the world.

So, do we believe in markets or don't we? The stock market was over $14K ... until it wasn't. Then it was at like $6,500 ... then $11K. Guess what? ALL of those were a RELATIVE assessment of current and future values AT THAT POINT. What "historically low yeilds" means is that AT THE MOMENT, there isn't a better choice -- then there is, the markets will take those yields to historic highs just as quick.

For the medium and the longer term, as The Washington Post's Ezra Klein points out, simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule - instead of renewing them, as the supposed fiscal hawks in the GOP demand - would reduce the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years. But the same voices that oppose spending now to restore the economy will oppose asking for any sacrifice from those at the top, even in good times.

Only if you assume (as CBO does) that tax policy has no effect on the economy. That would mean that the people that pay the most in taxes are least affected by monetary incentives. Unsurprisingly, that turns out to not be the case which is why the CBO always vastly overestimates the "take" on a tax increase as well as the "cost" of a tax decrease.

The only answer that's coherent and convincing is to stimulate demand long enough and vigorously enough to restore business and consumer confidence, and move the nation back to full employment. But that won't work, Brooks opines, citing a New York Times-CBS poll showing that only 6 percent of Americans believe that the stimulus succeeded in actually creating jobs. He grudgingly allows that "maybe" this is wrong. Maybe? According to the Congressional Budget Office, as of the first quarter of this year, there were 2.8 million people at work because of the stimulus, economic growth was 4.5 percent higher than it otherwise would have been, and unemployment was 1.5 percent lower. Without that package, the country would have faced a longer, deeper recession - and perhaps a depression.

"The only answer that's coherent and convincing"? Usually, the "only answer" ... isn't. BO clearly stated that WITHOUT the stimulus, unemployment would go over 8% ... it went over 10% WITH it. When Bush made predictions that didn't come true, he wasn't just wrong, he was LYING -- but one thing was sure, the MSM would NEVER let us forget that his predictions were wrong. Actually, GOOD! They need to be exactly the same with BO. REMEMBER -- he was WRONG with his predictions about $800 Billion. Perhaps it would be wiser to question his pronouncements than to claim they are the ONLY answer that is "coherent and convincing". To you maybe, but then you are a closed minded liberal, more entrenched in your ideology than any young earth creationist.

What Smells Bad About BO

The Selective Modesty of Barack Obama - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

I think Charles hits precisely what reeks about BO each and every time I listen to him. I really don't mind arrogance -- surgeons, fighter pilots, generals, CEOs, sports heroes ... pretty much anyone that has to make quick or large decisions, especially with the lives of others is going to have to have a large ego at least bordering on arrogant.

The odd thing is that nearly always, that ego "boils over" -- "their" family, country, profession, business, etc. is held in a place of super esteem at least nearly as high as their own. It is only fitting after all that a "great man" would be the leader of a "great country", or the head of "the worlds best company/hospital/surgery department, etc". One might almost think that one is impossible without the other. Egos that large have no choice but to be associated with "the best" (as seen of course from the heights of their great egos).

One might have thought it impossible for a country to elect a leader so out of touch with the very nation that he leads. Even Hitler at least had a very high opinion of the German Nation and People. I look at BO and continue to have the nasty feeling that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot have been comfortably demonized for too long. Humanity has a nasty way of somehow being able to eclipse our past "worsts".

Some thing that bad could never happen here  -- yet I see the ACORNs, the voter intimidation, the machinations to control the election funds of others while he continues a constant campaign of his own and with the MSM's help, the blatant rewards and punishments of political allegiance with dollar figures never before breached, the blatant abuse of why we even have a Senate to take over our health care after the Brown election,  and most of all that self-superior, pedantic, tele-prompter read cadence, coldly manipulating mindless millions to some end that only BO, or some mystery behind the prompter really knows.

What would be the "final solution" of "hope and change"? A state where neither were needed? A state where neither were possible? A state where it was mandatory to "believe" ... in "hope and change"?

Short article, worth a read ... the last paragraph captures it for me.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama’s modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. But it is odd to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence — yet not of his own country’s.

Santa and Frank

Townhall - Santa and Frank

PJ O'Rourke does a much funnier version of the Democrats being Santa and the Republicans being god, but the effect is about the same. People in general, and especially post "New Deal" Americans love to get stuff under the assumption that "someone else will pay for it". Prior to Reagan, the Republicans always played the particularly bumbling Charlie Brown foil, and their unwillingness to constantly 100% fall on their butts to clean up the Democrats latest drunken spending orgy has brought the nation to what I believe to be beyond recovery -- in an time frame those of us 50 and older are likely to see.

We started scratching the surface of this grave with TR, took some big scoops out with Wilson, dug deep and wide with FDR, started lowering the casket with LBJ, shut the lid, folded the flag with Bush (love that bi-partisanship), and now BO is furiously pouring dirt in on the grave of the USA.

Sowell does a good job with the Lucy / Charlie Brown analogy though ... worth a read.