Left Applauds Tea Party Decline

Dana Milbank: D.C. returns to business as usual - The Washington Post:

Ah, the cheering as the "Tea Party" fades, and Washington returns to "Business As Usual" where nobody bothers to read what they pass. The "gold old days" of having to "pass the bill to find out what is in it" are back with a vengeance.  By this time next year we will finally know more about what is in the Employer Mandate part of BOcare that was unilaterally delayed by His Worshipfulness BO.

Note that THIS IS GOOD! If the common folk paid too much attention to what was happening, then there might be a chance of them not being happy about this development.

I always like to see the accolades of the enemies of freedom buried in their attack bile:

This has similarities to what happened a few years after the Republican Revolution of 1994, when the revolutionaries began to act like the Democratic majorities they had deplored. Then, as now, the rebels left their mark; in this case, they succeeded in reducing non-entitlement spending at a rate not seen in decades. But comb through the $1.1 trillion “omnibus” spending bill, as the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has, and you’ll see a return to the old ways.

Get that??  The "rebels" DID "leave their mark"! (which Dana was castigating as throwing grandma off the cliff and strangling the poor stillborn economy back then, but never mind)  In the '90s that "mark" accounted for Slick Willy's vaunted "budget surplus" (were it an ACTUAL surplus, then the FICA account would contain some ACTUAL money rather than pure IOUs!).  This time around the HORROR of the "sequester" was going to "cripple the economy", now, as back in the '90s, it did the OPPOSITE and allowed some level of growth as well as REDUCING THE DEFICIT. Back in the '90s it was a reduction of the deficit in actual dollars, this time around it has suddenly become fashionable for Democrats to crow over deficit reduction as A PERCENTAGE OF GDP! 

As I've argued MANY times, the percentage path is REALLY the only way that counts. Comparing how many drinks I've had vs how many some 100lb woman has had is a useless statistic. Somebody that makes $250K a year buying a $50K car is MUCH different than someone that makes $25K a year buying a $50K car! 

But never mind. Democrats had been using ACTUAL deficit numbers to pound on W since his deficit as a % of GDP looked pretty good since the economy was GROWING! 

Move to BO, and we had a complete "cone of silence" fall over deficit numbers that shot up to an unprecedented $1.6T for a single years, with a numbers over $1T as far as one could see.  Suddenly the NYT and the rest of the media was IN LOVE with massive deficits. 

The numbers are still huge, but since the economy has showed some flickers of life, the "% or GDP" numbers HAD to start sounding better, so suddenly, we have headlines of "deficit improving!!!". 

We had an economy on life support with $1.6T deficits, so now we have an economy in a wheel chair with $1T deficits and it "looks better"!!!! 

At some point, we need an MSM that has SOME minor connection to reality rather than pure political bias colored glasses. 

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NRA Should Apologize to Joe Biden

Student Used Shotgun to Shoot 2 Students in Roswell, New Mexico, Cops Say - ABC News:

When the left does a "series of studies", or maybe "creates a model" (ala global warming) that "PROVES that Joe was right, shotguns are OK and "Assault Rifles" and "large magazines" are evil, and the NRA was 100% wrong and completely disingenuous that tragedies like Sandy Hook could be prevented by having armed people to quickly respond in the schools, then we will get headlines like above blared across every paper and media outlet in the country.

"The governor said a school staffer and an off-duty New Mexico State Police lieutenant who was dropping his child off at the school were instrumental in helping to end the active shooter situation before more people were injured."

As it is now, QUIT MAKING THIS HEADLINE NEWS!

Unfortunately way more kids than this die or are injured every day from car accidents, drug and alcohol, suicide, etc, etc.

We all know that shotguns have been around FOREVER, but a huge percentage of broken homes, drugging kids for any behavior issue, violent video games, shows and media, the idea that "nobody goes to hell, it is just over", instant celebrity for shooting your friends, etc, etc is somewhat new. Do we KNOW, "why now", NO ... but we DO know that shotguns are NOT new for goodness sake!!

It seems pretty obvious that our Sandy Hook gun vendetta against ARs and large magazines has not resulted in "safer schools". Is there any chance that we can admit that Joe Biden is an idiot, and the NRA was right and make sure that we have some screening of kids coming into schools that includes an armed officer?

Hello??? Do we want to do stupid politics, or do we want to save some kids?? I know BO and the gun grabbers are waiting with baited breath for some kid to use an AR or at least a high cap pistol so they can go off on another ban-mania, but isn't it just TOO obvious that will do NOTHING to solve the problem WHATSOEVER???? Do they have to make it THIS obvious that they care absolutely nothing for the lives of kids, they ONLY want to get control of those that avail themselves of the 2nd amendment!

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Bush Pal Arrested on Solicitation

Visits With School Pals Are a Touchstone on President’s Trips to Hawaii - NYTimes.com:

In April 2011, Mr. Titcomb was arrested on a charge of soliciting prostitution in a Honolulu sting operation, but the reunions with the president never stopped. Mr. Obama’s concern, Mr. Axelrod said, was for Mr. Titcomb, whose arrest was international news because he “happened to be Barack Obama’s friend.”

I'm sure you all recall this story that was INTERNATIONAL NEWS from 2011! (a google looks like it made Huffpo and maybe abc ... I'll bet one had to look pretty hard!). 

When we have a Republican in office, all their friends are scrutinized and so much as a wrong word from one of them is cause for a few days of media chastisement. Can you imagine W meeting with his "Choom Gang" for a few days on vacation? You know, the guys that he mentioned that he did a "lot of booze and weed, a little blow when you could afford it, but no smack"? 

Ya know, it WOULD be nice if a REAL president could get even 20% of the privacy and leeway to be a normal guy for a few days that this Luo Tribesman gets! 

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OMG There Was a TRAFFIC JAM!!

Christie, Clinton and Obama | RealClearPolitics:

Thomas Sowell does his usual brilliant and practical job of dissecting the Christie "Bridgegate" flap and contrasting it with the press treatment of Hillary and Obama.

He likes Christie far better than I do. He points out the obvious though, that someone with an "R" designation MUST be able to communicate, and they often are not. I find Christie to be a hopeless RINO, and I have a hard time imagining myself voting for him.

My view on "Bridgegate" is either:
A). He knew, he has now lied, and he ought to be gone.
B). He didn't know, which makes him clearly incompetent as a leader.

That is pretty much the same as my assessment on BO for Gun Runner, Benghazi, IRS, NSA, Shutdown "punish the public", etc. If one really listed them all, the blog gets too long.

I'm especially struck how when BO was obviously putting up unnecessary "Barrycades" and telling Park Employees to "make it as difficult has possible", the press was nowhere to be found.

Come on, we KNOW that the STANDARD of hardball Democrat patronage politics is "Punish your enemies, reward your friends". Just in case anyone has forgotten, here is admonishing Hispanic Voters to follow the maxim! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CJqD7F2pwA

So because that is how Democrats operate all the time, then it is OK, but when some RINO does it, then it is time to go on absolute full court press attack??

I guess so.


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Next Years Weather to 99% Confidence

What Catastrophe? | The Weekly Standard:

Good article that covers a brilliant and courageous actual scientist that raises the ire of the axis of Government - Climate Alarmist Industry (like Gore) - Government funded Academia.

Harvard scientist with great credentials, not cowed by the abuse and venom of the Warmist cabal.

"Because CO2 is invisible and the climate is so complex (your local weatherman doesn’t know for sure whether it will rain tomorrow, let alone conditions in 2100), expertise is particularly important. Lindzen sees a danger here. “I think the example, the paradigm of this, was medical practice.” He says that in the past, “one went to a physician because something hurt or bothered you, and you tended to judge him or her according to whether you felt better. That may not always have been accurate, but at least it had some operational content. .  .  . [Now, you] go to an annual checkup, get a blood test. And the physician tells you if you’re better or not and it’s out of your hands.” Because climate change is invisible, only the experts can tell us whether the planet is sick or not. And because of the way funds are granted, they have an incentive to say that the Earth belongs in intensive care."

For all the sophistication of some of the math and equipment involved, science is common sense. You make a hypothesis and you TEST IT, many times over many years and it MUST prove true again and again. If it does not, then it is FALSE, and must be modified. Karl Popper established that anything that is "scientific" is FALSIFIABLE! If it is "settled", then it IS NOT science, because actually science gains it power because it is ALWAYS ready to be shown to be in error!

Statists and other despots HATE common sense because it OFTEN shows that "the emperor has no clothes". Since any human majesty is ALWAYS imagined only, those that wish to be king have a vested interest in forcing to masses to see them as infallible and to be afraid to speak out against them.

As the title and the quote points out, while it is often true that one can see in RETROSPECT something very large that has happened over 100's or thousands of years -- like climate, geologic phenomenon, etc, it is entirely different to PREDICT those kinds of events in the future. We know that climate changes, meteors impact, volcanoes erupt, and earthquakes occur, but to PREDICT such happenings is completely different.

When an "expert" tells you that they can predict something 100 years in the future, they had better be VERY good at predicting a related event tomorrow!

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Is Weather More Extreme?

11 extreme weather records - CNN.com:

As part of the re-branding of "Global Warming" to "Climate Change", the Climate Nazis now regularly hammer us with "it's not the weather, it's the EXTREMES" as "proof of something bad happening so we ought to allow them to control our use of energy". Of course, exactly like anything else, they are not consistent on this ... as soon as they get some high temp numbers, they will talk "warming" again, but for now we are beaking cold records, so "extreme" and "change" are the pseudo science spin of the day.

A Quick summary of the 6 extreme records they point out in this article.

1. Coldest Temp - 1983
2. Hottest - 1913
3. Most Rain in one minute - 1956
4. Most Rain in 24 hours -1966
5. Biggest Hailstone - 1986
6. Longest Drought - 1913 to 1918

See a pattern? Like more records in the last 30 years, with even more records of recent? I sure don't. When data doesn't match your hypothesis, then your hypothesis is wrong. That would be science.

Since Climate "science" no longer follows that rule, it is not science at all. "Proven Science" is an oxymoron ... THEORY is as good as Science ever gets, meaning MANY cases of repetitive data that rigorously MATCHES a hypothesis. ONE case that does not match means that the theory needs to be improved. 

Climate and weather "change" are certain realities ... we observe them constantly. What is MISSING is a THEORY that gives us consistently accurate short term, and maybe eventually longer term REPEATEDLY CORRECT PREDICTIONS!! 

If I can accurately predict the weather next week to within a few tenths of a degree or inch of precipitation,CONSISTENTLY (like 99% accurate) you should start to be impressed. When I can predict it NEXT YEAR to similar accuracy, that will be a sign of real progress in understanding weather and climate. When I''m able to accurately predict the weather of the NEXT DECADE  (easily verified by waiting 10 years and then watching the weather for 10 years), within similar 10th - .5 of a degree accuracy, THEN (and ONLY THEN if it is science you want to do), should you start to believe that I may really be on to something, and can predict temperature to within a degree or so in a CENTURY!

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BO Taking YOUR Neighborhood

HUD’s Power Grab | The Weekly Standard

When limits on government are removed, there are no areas of your life that are exempt from it's mandates ... where you live, how you live, who lives next to you, etc.

HUD wants​—​to use the language of the new AFFH rule​—​more “fair housing choice” for more minorities. Specifically, it wants more affordable housing units built in mostly white communities​—​some 5,000 more. For those additional units to be built, more land would have to be zoned to accommodate them. And that means localities, which under the New York state constitution are empowered to make zoning decisions, would have to change ones still in force and, going forward, make ones that otherwise they would not make, under common zoning practices, which place limits on the size, type, height, and density of buildings.

Got that? You may have just invested a quarter million or so in a home in a settled neighborhood that you wrongly assume is likely to appreciate in value, or at least stay close to the same ... what is more, since you "know the neighborhood" you can always just live there!

WRONG! Do you not recall that this nation voted for CHANGE!! Why the very idea of such a neighborhood is RACIST! If your neighborhood is not "properly diversified" as decided by BO and his minions, then you may need to have a number of the homes razed, or possibly some "green space" converted to tall multi-family dwellings with the "proper" racial makeup to "get your community right".

No doubt, if you already "vote correctly", you can get an "exemption", since you obviously already have your "mind right", but if you have pulled an "R" lever in the last decade or so, you are a target!

These kinds of operations are huge winners for the BO operation:

1. It is a perfect way to punish areas that don't vote for you AND covert them into areas that DO vote for you by putting a large number of your constituents in high density housing there!
2. You force the locals that didn't vote for you anyway, to PAY to have their votes overshadowed by your supporters, PLUS the values of their properties are drastically lowered in the process. At a minimum they have less to give to the opposition, and ideally you may even impoverish them enough to force them into your camp. (BO loves the dependent, they know how to grovel)
3. It is one of the best of the unstated but obvious threats. "Right thinking" (left thinking) wealthy areas are exempted. Opposition areas are labeled RACIST! and their homes are devalued and their votes are watered down with big concrete high density housing loaded with Democrats reducing their political power. You win by teaching people how to vote if they want to keep the value of their homes, PLUS, you have TEETH ... if they stand up and make noise, you get to take them down for all too see and ANYONE that argues is clearly RACIST! 

"Community Organizer" / ACORN writ large! Hell, ACORN will be getting 5K Democrat votes out of every 500 person high density housing building, even in the off years! Saves time to ... they just absentee them in. No need to give people money, smokes or lottery tickets and bus them to the polls!


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Divided We Thrive?

Parting company:

I of course was raised like every other northern child to believe that the Civil War was a necessary scourge that "refined" America, rather than "the war of northern aggression" taught in the south. As time has gone by and I have studied more, I increasingly realize that the Civil War mortally wounded the America that our Founders created, and that America has been in the process of finally passing away now for 150 years.

The magic that was America was LIMITED GOVERNMENT, and at the Federal level, VERY limited government.

James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45: delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.” 

"States Rights" were not some evil thing, they were the "numerous and indefinite" rights, ESPECIALLY the kinds of rights that no doubt other states disagree with! We were intended to be more like Europe is now from a FEDERAL perspective ... a bunch of "separate countries" (states here), with a common currency, defense treaty, language and a FEW laws for interstate commerce.

The idea that Colorado allows legal pot is more to what the founders had in mind. Abortion being completely legal and liberal in some states, and not at all in others would be similar if we continued to follow the Constitution.

Gun laws would be a bit different, since the 2nd Amendment actually defines them as NOT a States Right. There would be good reasons to negotiate on issues like guns because secession would be a very real possibility, since everyone would be in agreement that a war to "preserve the union" was an extreme and very much NOT in keeping with the core idea of LIMITED GOVERNMENT!

This is way too long a topic to cover in a blog post, but I tend to agree with the linked article. It is time for essentially the center of the country to strongly consider going our own way. Leave the coasts and a few states like MN and IL tied to the massive debt and old school entitlements and form a new energy rich, growth oriented vibrant nation, unabashedly Christian (but still not having a state religion).

Let the NY, CA, IL centered "Socialist States" see how well their way goes. Perhaps in a few decades they will be bankrupt enough to seek reconciliation.



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Science, Humanism, Religion, Culture, Romney

MSNBC host apologizes after panel makes fun of Romney photo with black grandchild – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs:

Schadenfreude - pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Science has actually "proven" what we all already know (by brain scans and tricky questionnaires with eye movement / etc) . People are ALL prejudiced in MANY ways, and especially prejudiced to our own perspective. We like our family better, our group better, our race, our religion, our sports team, our type of car .... and on and on. One hopes they didn't spend to much on studying this, it is sort of like proving that men like to look at female bodies. Prejudice is built into our systems because it was, and to most degreed still is, extremely adaptive since it lets us simplify (sometimes OVERsimplify) a very complex world so we limited brain creatures can deal with it.  

Humanists like to revel in PARTS of  human nature. They love to reward sloth, they seriously love many forms of sexual perversion and drugs are absolutely wonderful. They hate prejudice against certain groups (Gays, Muslims, Blacks), but rather like it against Christians, Conservatives, and "stupid people". Oddly, this latter seems to actually extend to the mentally handicapped, as in the case of Sarah Palin's son Trig, whom they really enjoyed calling a "retard". 

Even a very amateur psychologist can see the problem with the Palin - Trig or Romney's black grandbaby case. The abject hatred of Palin / Romney washes over to their offspring, so the "humanists" say what comes to their mind. 

The true mark of "Progressives / Humanists" is INconsistency without concern, and a major part of the reason for that is that their creed demands they go against features that God gave them. For example, the Muslim religion demands their women run around in burkas and it's objective is for the whole world to live under Sharia Law in a global Muslim state.Violence being used to achieve this is encouraged and even demanded. The marrying of girls less than 10 years old is allowed,  gays are to be put to death (burning, stoning, or throwing from a high place are suggested) ...  to name a few things that you would assume that "liberals" would certainly find abhorrent. 

They do not. Islam activates their "pluralist mode", and they become giddy over things like Keith Ellison being elected the first Muslim in the US House, and the liberal mayor of Boston is fine with helping Muslims get a new Mosque, but goes nuts over Chick-fil-A.

When something like the black Romney grandbaby shows up, they act like humans, which humans tend to do from time to time, no matter what the strictures. Orwell understood the "humanist / progressive / statist / collectivist / liberal" impulses maybe best of all.  When you listen to a "liberal", just think of the exact opposite of what they are saying. When they say "liberal", they mean "everyone must be FORCED to think EXACTLY like me" ... only since they are completely inconsistent (man's natural state), that is more than a bit of a mess. 

A humanist HATES the truly natural (God given) human characteristics. Thus heterosexual drives are highly suspect, and normal teen interactions that could have formerly been handled by a good slap become "criminal sexual harassment", while same sex practices that are wired into the brain to be cringe-worthy are supposed to be celebrated. The book "The Righteous Mind" (written by a liberal scientist) pretty much proves (via brain scans) that even when "liberals" are celebrating those gay kisses, their brains are saying "yuck!" very loudly, 

"One of these things is not like the other things" is pretty much done by the snake brain inside our larger brains. If we are constantly on conscious guard, we MAY be able to avoid "saying the wrong thing", but we WILL think it ... at least for a few 10's of thousands of years, even if we make sure that people that notice differences in race are instantly removed from the gene pool. Ideally along with their offspring, if we want this to go away any time in the next few thousand years. How much of our difference discriminator DNA has to be removed before this works, and the subsidiary question of if the resulting creature is actually "human" ... but it MAY be possible to actually modify even human "wetware" if they work very hard at it ... likely even through eugenics.

Note this DOES NOT mean that "natural human behavior" is somehow sacred, it clearly is not. That is why religion is adaptive, and one wants to be very careful as to what religion. So the modern choices in the west are "statism / materialism / scientism", Christianity, Islam, Buddhism ... etc. Right now the quoted religion is "winning" in the west,  largely because it denies being a religion.. Religion is BAD, so since a new religion is what the powers that be  are promoting, it is not a religion!

But it is. When one walks around living in an abstract model worldview inside a brain that we don't understand, that model IS the territory! We don't have a choice but to live by a whole lot of faith, because we are not running around with an objective scientific instrument behind our eyes, we are walking around with a very dimly understood  set of cells doing electro-chemical operations that seem to produce "us" ... or that ineffable part of us that we call consciousness. 

Religion formerly gave us a good way to admit that we were all flawed and to allow for forgiveness and redemption. Now days, if you are a "liberal" and you "go too far" on a Sarah Palin or a Mitt Romney attack and maybe even have some "collateral damage", you can usually apologize and it is "no harm no foul" because "your heart is in the right place". If you are a Paula Deen, or a Phil Robertson, eventually (they keep trying to find some old tape to get him on), there is often no forgiveness ... you didn't "get your mind right", so now you have to pay!

That is one of the really good things about God. He doesn't change ... so you know what to count on. Now, with the "elite" believing that they are "god" and  busily deciding on venial or mortal sins by the second via #hashtag, it is a very uncertain universe! Even though schadenfreude is a sin, it is hard not to feel a little of it when the lefties are hoist on their own petard. 

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Stop and Frisk US Economy

Liberalism and Double Standards | Power Line:

Nice short and sweet on how liberals think at 50% arrest rate for Stop and Frisk shows it is a failure! If only their economic nostrums had that kind of success rate.

The "Wants more government", "More government" picture alone is worth the click.

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If You Shot Bigfoot, You Can Keep Him

Bigfoot: Man Rich Dyer Claims He Shot and Killed Bigfoot | TIME.com:

Anyone that bought the BO line about keeping your healthcare after the government makes all sorts of new requirements on the insurance, being forced to pay for conditions that you are not going to have (like pregnancy for guys / old women), requirements for insurance even if you have pre-existing conditions, etc, ought to find this extremely believable.

Bigfoot MAY exist ... it is impossible to prove a negative! Anyone with a brain KNEW that BO was lying all along!

OK, so the guy has lied before and has a vested interest in the Bigfoot story. Uh, well? Seems way close to the BO and healthcare story!

Oh, and BO thinks the BIGGEST issue is Income Inequality! I guess we are lucky he didn't think it was Global Warming!

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Daily Beast Discovers Aristocracy

The Smartest Book About Our Digital Age Was Published in 1929 - The Daily Beast:

I haven't read Ortega, although I'm vaguely familiar with some of his thinking ... there are ALWAYS more books that need to be read!

Just from going and perusing the very short review of "The Revolt of the Masses" on Wiki, it appears that The Daily Beast may have discovered "Transcendence / Aristocracy / Conservatism" without even realizing it! As is always the case with all our puny human minds, we find an "interesting tidbit", and we shove it into our own puny worldview.

Part of why they don't realize what they are reading is because the column is pretty clear that they don't really want to say what "elite" is ... today it is just a bunch of technocrats, politicians and entertainers that have no more connection to the long arc of human culture than the most plebeian man in the street in the 1800's (and often much less)!

In the last 30 years of at least doing SOME level of reading to understand how stupid I really am about the structure of the Western Civilization that begat the computers where I made my living, the internet where I do my reading/writing  and all the nice power devices with which I travel around and enjoy myself.

Lo, the Beast has discovered that "rule by mob" is likely not benevolent because they have to idea of "up and down" in culture ... as in God, The Aristocracy, The Government, The Guilds, The local churches, etc

If there is no "Up" in a culture, if the masses are everything and in power, then the goal becomes leveling, and the "level" tends to be LOW. Science, Technology and Politics are MECHANISM! As anyone who reads this Blog is well aware, there is NO meaning in mechanism! It is MEANS, not ENDS!

Perhaps it is a good sign that folks like the Beast are slowly coming to at least dimly see the danger in the tools talking over the shed ...

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Economic Malpractice and Overmedication

Times of Oman | News :: Bernanke urges more action to cement economic recovery:

Bernanke notices that productivity growth is "disappointing".

Bernanke said that an important factor holding back the economy was "disappointing" productivity growth. "The reasons for weak productivity growth are not entirely clear," he said.
He said it may be the result of the severity of the financial crisis that tightened credit conditions, inhibiting innovation, or may reflect longer-term trends unrelated to the recession. "Obviously, the resolution of the productivity puzzle will be important in shaping our expectations for longer-term growth." 

"Not entirely clear". If he looked closer, I bet he could notice that actual economic growth is "disappointing" as well.

The BO administration has showered the US economy with all the quack economic nostrums available to man, and then thrown in a few actions guaranteed to slow the economy (higher taxes), and doggone it! The damned patient just won't do what we want it to! Human kind is PROVEN to be warming the entire planet (avoid going outside, you will freeze), CERTAINLY we can manage our own economies to be guaranteed to grow!

Hubris is the core fault, the rest just grows from there. Humans have a constant illusion of control, and when that illusion is allowed to mess with something as complicated as the US economy, the results are always bad. Higher taxes never help. Not doing things like the Keystone, and slowing development of oil resources helps keep fuel prices artificially high is a general drain on the economy (as well as hobbling a major specific industry that could provide both productivity and growth!).

Forcing through a massive partisan, poorly designed and poorly implemented health law to very uncertainly nationalize 1/7 of the economy unsurprisingly has a dampening effect on the entire economy! The fact that changes are regularly illegally decreed directly by BO with no congressional involvement is enough in itself to tell the smart money to go elsewhere but the US.

Maybe worst of all, the extension of "childhood" for US young to 26-30 by government. A HUGE amount of the truly innovative new ideas, as well as just as importantly the willingness and even blindness to the likelihood of failure, coupled with the very real opportunity to get massively rich on start up companies (see Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Nike) has severely crippled the primary engine of productivity and growth generation through innovation in this country.

I could go on forever, but the big summary is essentially the "end of American Exceptionalism". It is NFL playoff time. People WANT to believe that "their team" is exceptional!!! Guess what, one of them will be in the end, and to a lesser degree, all those that did make the playoffs are more exceptional than those that didn't!

The "Vision of BO" is that America is just another big bureaucratic entity, similar to any country in Europe, but a little behind the times ... we need to trim off more of our aggression, have a better safety net, make sure any remaining nasty capitalists are heavily taxed and muzzled so they don't criticize the benevolent government (overturn Citizens United), generally level out out population by punishing the top and rewarding the bottom. Most of all, we need to insure that our people are more docile -- get rid of the "extreme right", and the "extreme Christians"  (thankfully, often a lot of overlap here).

Once we have achieved a nice bland, non-aggressive, less competitive, pluralistic (for all but Christians and Conservatives), and most of all, economically level nation, nirvana will have been reached! (oh yes, gotta get their guns as well!)

Yes, and if one compares that to what used to be America, the innovation and growth of any sort are going to be highly "disappointing".

Well, DUH!

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Cold Fact: The Model is not Reality

The BOcare Insurance Bailout

Charles Krauthammer: Stop the bailout, now - The Washington Post:

Good column by Charles pointing out another aspect of BOcare known from the beginning, but hidden in the massive bill.

Not only will you not be able to keep the insurance plans you have now, the Insurance companies will STILL go bankrupt trying to provide what is mandated even with vastly higher rates and deductibles.

So they built a Bailout into the bill to get the Insurance Industry on board ... a bailout that you the taxpayer are on the hook for, along with your higher premiums and deductibles!

The solution if Republicans are smart enough to follow the advice, repeal the bailouts as part of the debt ceiling and let the Democrats squirm. I'm betting the Republicans are too in bed with the Insurance companies to get it done, but it would be a good idea.

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