Shut Up and Give Us Your Money

Wisconsin’s lessons for the left and the right - The Washington Post

EJ Dionne says it pretty straight. The problem with Citizens United is that only the left is really supposed to have Free Speech. As for the 1%, they are supposed to only have a right to shut up and let the lefties take their money to squander as they see fit.

The Golden Goose needs to learn how to not be honking as it is killed for those golden eggs -- the left doesn't cotton to any noise!

Of course EJ HOPES that the the right will be "arrogant" -- such would be funny if it was not so sad. I'm sure that the left is just about to foreswear the use of Hollywood stars for massive fundraising.

This is a huge problem for democracy in a post-Citizens United world. A few billionaires can amplify their voices far above those of other citizens.

Walker's Policies Work. Recall Him??

How much should you pay for how much government? - chicagotribune.com

We have the clearest test that could possibly be had coming up in WI on Tuesday. As this article outlines -- Walker's policies have worked to save the WI taxpayers money without cutting services. He has turned a projected deficit into an actual surplus, and business is migrating to WI from neighboring states.

Meanwhile, while outraged, the union folks are paying less for their better benefits than comparable folks in the private sector. What's more, freed from the State acting as bagman for the union and collecting dues, union membership is down significantly. When people are given a choice on paying for the services of the union, most opt out.

Will people support Walker and give us a little bit better chance to avoid the path of Greece, Italy, Spain  and California? or will they remove him from office and turn WI back to the path of union control and runaway spending?

Tuesday is a critical day for both WI and America.

BO: Drone Warrior

Barack Obama: Drone Warrior - The Washington Post

Excellent article from Charles, I heard a segment on this from NPR. We all have our biases, but there is something about the completely different reaction here that is just chilling.

 BO is completely aware that he can get POSITIVE press out of his "toughness" as he plays judge and jury to remote assassination. W weighs options, consults congress (even though some, like Pelosi try to weasel out of that), has specific legal findings on the line between "torture" and "enhanced interrogation", and is called a "war criminal" by the same folks that now have positive words to say about remote assassination.

The old question used to be "how would YOU like to be Waterboarded" ? Of course, our own SEALs are all Waterboarded during their training -- which is part of the reason it was not considered torture. There are A LOT of parts of SEAL training that are pretty much "torture".

OK, how would you like to have you and possibly your family slaughtered  by a remote drone? How would you compare THAT to you being captured and waterboarded for information -- of course with the chance that maybe you AREN'T a terrorist?

I don't have a problem with BO as president making decisions for SOME assassinations, but I do have a big problem with bypassing information and possibly killing innocents because of a primarily politically driven "we don't "torture"" policy. We don't "torture", but we do execute without any interrogation, process, etc??

I also don't understand how to really deal "civilly" with liberals on this issue when it seems that their positions are completely politically rather than good good of the country / national security based.

If liberals have some "strong humanitarian sense" that had them out protesting and screaming obscenities about W, where has that "sense" gone now that BO is in the WH if it is just not thinly veiled partisan politics??

Another Wreckovery Summer?

Q1 GDP revised downward to 1.9% « Hot Air

Seems like back in '04, the economic numbers would always come in "worse than expected" with a lot of heavy commentary, then quietly get "revised upward". Now the disappointing numbers slink in with little comment and the downward revisions are darned near state secrets.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/30/news/economy/gdp/index.htm there is a link to a decent example -- 4th qtr DOWN to 4.2% from 8.1% ...but just really not that good, with Democrats complaining about lack of jobs. Wow, they and the MSM seem A LOT more sanguine about some actually rotten economic numbers right now.

Back in the dim dark ages of '04, 250K+ jobs being added a month was a "jobless recovery" -- now there is a term one really doesn't hear much of in the MSM these days. Maybe that is because it is really tough to call it a "recovery" with a straight face even if you are staunchly in the tank for BO.

Oh, and GREAT NEWS!!! Before tax corporate profits are UP, but after tax they are DOWN!! Now there is something that the left really ought to be cheering about -- more money in the Feds coffers and less in the pockets of evil business and investors! That ought to teach them. Marvelous!

Our National Adolesence

Peter Pan vs. Wendy - HUMAN EVENTS

Very worth the read, good imagery.

One is reminded of "If you aren't a Democrat at 20, you don't have a heart. If you are not a Republican by 40, you don't have a brain".

 More to the point, you are still "wishing and hoping" if you are a Democrat ... or maybe "blaming and throwing a tantrum". Either way, there is "reality" -- we are born, we work hard, then we die, or there is "fantasy" -- life is one big joyful bowl of cherries completely taken care of by somebody else with nothing but never ending irresponsible "fun" for us.

Those that have moved to reality realize that actually we are created to find joy in reality, even (especially?) a reality that includes physical death and spiritual eternity. Fantasy? Well, it has the danger of going the way of Jim Morrison, John Belushi, etc ... "nothing really matters anymore". Rewards for actual success are really fun.  The fake world where "we are all special" turns out to be so fake that the prime objective of a lot of "fun" is merely escape.

Go Wendy!!

A BO Defector Profile in Courage

One of Obama’s Earliest Supporters Defects | Power Line

I hope Artur Davis has a Kevlar character -- mostly the MSM will try to ignore him,  but if he sticks his head up too much, they are going to do their best to DESTROY him. Can't have a former Democrat rising start, black man leaving the Democrat Plantation on BO!!

This guy has COURAGE!!

Mittens is a Unicorn

Prove Mitt's not a unicorn, group says in satirizing 'birthers' - CNN.com

Ok, I think the unicorn theory is a bit less likely than the not born in Hawaii theory -- since even BO's official bio for his first book said he was  born in Kenya http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/18/Media-Refuses-Coverage-Obama-Kenya-Lit-Agency but at least both being a unicorn and not being a US citizen are dis-qualifiers for being president. Unlike the views of a commanding officer on your pilot skills 35 years earlier.

The MSM finds the idea that some group would keep pushing on a story about BO to be "completely ridiculous", however even when Dan Rather lost his job over forged documents relative to W's time as a pilot in the TX Air National Guard, the MSM took a decent shot at "fake but true". However, the constitution doesn't say that your commanding officer had to like your work in order to be president.

I realize that the MSM has the power to hammer on a story about W's guard service day in and day out and since it was almost certain to be a close election, they may well have been able to swing the tide had they found some true smoking gun of a story. It is certainly clear that they were trying hard.

Now in the case of BO, they could care less if he was born in Kenya, was a Muslim, dealt coke, pot or whatever, went to Columbia or not -- whatever. They LIKE BO ... so since he is their guy, they think anyone questioning him in any way is "silly".

This is easy to understand, I'm just surprised that more people don't.

Harvard Business vs Harvard Law

Niall Ferguson: Why Wall Street Should Win the Battle With Obama - The Daily Beast

Worth the read.

 If it wasn't for business, the Lawyers and Politicians starve just like the rest of it. FOOD is a profit!! Whining over how to divide it up at $1K an hour is law/politics.

The Moon Landing Was a Hoax!

Barack Obama, Fiscal Conservative! | Power Line:

and BO is a fiscal conservative.

Sadly, this needs to be read and understood because there are people foolish enough to believe it or to just repeat it in an attempt to muddy the extremely clear.

At the core of this idiocy lies the misconception that the president sets the budget, which is of course completely untrue -- CONGRESS sets the budget, always has and always will at least until the left fully succeeds in destroying the Constitution.

Understand this fact, and both the "Reagan deficits" and the "Clinton Surpluses" become much more understandable.

The insanity of "BO as a fiscal conservative" is also fully exposed.

'via Blog this'

Fauxahontis and Barry

Mark Steyn: Eternally shifting sands of Obama’s biography | obama, ever, white - Opinion - The Orange County Register

 As The Fordham Law Review reported, "Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995."

Why not? She DID submit a recipe to the "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook -- a crab dish, very authentic OK Cherokee fare!

This is a great column that covers the truly insane levels of Gatsbyesque self-creation that we have come to. BO was pretending he was from Kenya a lot longer than he was pretending he was from Hawaii!! As Fitzgerald pointed out, we are really all essentialists --  "it is the story that counts". I doubt if 1% of the people that voted for BO really care if he was born in Hawaii, Kenya or a test tube in Beijing. Something like half our population has crossed the Rubicon of post-modern social constructionist relativism where "truth" is precisely what you decide it is.

When everyone is entitled to their own truth, reality tends to be very mundane by comparison. Can we  be far from BidenWorld?

A delegation of college students visited the White House last week, and Vice President Biden told them: "You're an incredible generation. And that's not hyperbole, either. Your generation and the 9/11 generation before you are the most incredible group of Americans we have ever, ever, ever produced."

No Flame for Current Plame

Remembering Valerie Plame | Power Line

The whole Plame affair was very lame ... Joe Wilson actually reported that Saddam DID try to get Yellowcake from Niger -- er, or maybe little souvenir trinkets, the OTHER export from Niger. Plame was not an undercover field agent, but rather commuted to Langley every work day.

But the MSM and the rest went all-in on the story.

As this column points out, BO outs a true double agent -- British no less, and the US MSM could care less, although the Brits and some other allies are a bit miffed. Oh, and we let Al Quaeda know a whole bunch of stuff there was no reason to spill.

It is still generally an MSM world -- if BO actually doing damaging leaks helps him get elected, SUPER. If it turns out that W didn't even have any leaks on a topic that wouldn't matter if he did in his SECOND TERM  -- well, no matter. From an MSM POV, a story taking down a Republican doesn't have to be real, timely, or true in any sense whatsoever -- "damaging" is good enough.

Politics Is a Lie, Buy Gold

RealClearPolitics - Big Lies in Politics

Excellent column.  I'm not sure how one would question the truth of this. No matter what FDR or LBJ or BO tells you, there is STILL no free lunch. The net result, inflation, so BUY GOLD ...  not a ton of gold, but some -- and some TIPs and some offshore stocks. Oh, and note to self -- get those seeds for the gun cabinet!

Dimon’s Déjà Vu Debacle - NYTimes.com

Dimon’s Déjà Vu Debacle - NYTimes.com

First, speculation and hedging are part of life -- individual, corporate and government life,  like death, gravity and the passage of time, we can modulate them and work around them but we really can't regulate them.

A hedge is when you buy insurance ... or even a better analogy, when you rent rather than buy in hopes the price of houses goes down. Your profit would be the difference between the lower cost you can buy the home for and the cost of the rent, tax implications, etc. Of course if housing prices go up (what happened to Morgan), then your loss is the difference between what you could have bought the home for earlier and the eventual price you paid, PLUS the rental cost, tax implications, etc.

Speculation is what you do when you buy a home, a stock, land, or anything. It is why deflation is so scary -- for even consumables, people will wait to purchase during deflation in hopes that the priced will be lower, which can collectively lead to A LOT of waiting! Not good in a "consumer society".   If you buy something big like home/property on credit hoping it will rise in value, then you can end up being "underwater" on your loan if the price falls by more than your downpayment -- the condition home buyers found themselves in as home prices went down.

Right now we are in the biggest world wide government spending / borrowing bubble of all time, and guys like Krugman are screaming BUY!!!, while the Tea Party and to some degree Romney and Paul Ryan are saying SELL!! What is the "right answer"??

Well, historically, "what can't go on, doesn't". Wow, look, the market has blown through all projections, maybe it will just keep going up!! There is only so much land, it will ALWAYS go up in value! House prices can only rise! When things are at record highs, there is more "downside risk", at record lows, less downside risk, more upside opportunity.

Krugman will confidently tell you "Government is different, it doesn't need to obey any of the laws of supply / demand / finance / reality ... it can just "print money". That is why Confederate Currency, the Iraqi Dinar and the old Weimar Republic German Mark are in such "high value" today.  Ever hear "homes are different", "land is different", "this stock is different",  "this market is different" ??? If not, please just listen a bit harder

So, I may not have a Nobel Prize in Economics, but I'll bet that what goes up comes down -- and in cases other than buggy whips and horse shoes and of course bankrupt companies where they will never come back because of obsolescence / failure, what goes down comes back up (eventually). Energy, stocks, homes, gold, governments, labor -- will always be around, the values will just fluctuate.

"Too big to fail" ISN"T ... even in the case of government, and there is no such thing this side of heaven as "risk free". Trying to claim there is is just foolin mother nature ... and she doesn't stay fooled for long. Of course, we could go the way of Orwell's 1984, the USSR, North Korea, etc where we just define down to be up, peace to be war, love to be hate, marriage to be gay, and tell everyone that is the truth or shoot them.

NYT Explains Economic Fall and Gay Marriage in two Paragraphs

The Age of Innocence - NYTimes.com

This is one of the reasons why Europe and the United States are facing debt crises and political dysfunction at the same time. People used to believe that human depravity was self-evident and democratic self-government was fragile. Now they think depravity is nonexistent and they take self-government for granted. 

Neither the United States nor the European model will work again until we rediscover and acknowledge our own natural weaknesses and learn to police rather than lionize our impulses.

Pretty much covers it. Recognize our natures are flawed and learn to compensate -- with check/balances, religion, culture, etc. 

Unfortunately, I don't expect this enlightenment to be generally sinking in anytime soon. 

Setting A New Standard for President

What was Mitt Romney like in high school (and should anyone care)? | Power Line

Or more honestly, for Republican Presidents. With W the issue of  "was he a good pilot when he was in the TX National Guard 30 years ago?" was of critical and obsessive importance to the MSM. Dan Rather lost his job working on that important issue.

For BO, the standard was "ANYTHING about his past -- college records, church he went to, his citizenship, radicals he may or may not have associated with, his drug and alcohol abuse, his statement that he had taken on the "dreams of his father" and was an anti-colonialist (and the US is now considered a "colonial power", etc were ALL "racist, off limits, and not legitimate issues". The "Dreams From My Father" book is a veritable treasure trove of oppo research, including BO reading it aloud, including passages using the "N word" and "Pussy" ...

Slick Willie established that there is no MORAL standard to occupy the presidency -- for a D. BO established that there is not standard of COMPETENCY, again, for a D. Will Americans sit and allow things that happened in HIGH SCHOOL to be a valid issue for an R? Is there NO limit to the double standard? What happens if the standards completely break down -- for BOTH parties?

Now, for Romney, his carrying of a family pet on the roof of his car, his church, and now his HS behavior ARE critical issues that are stated by the leading MSM "news" outlets as items having significant bearing on the suddenly important "character issue".

Couple things  come to mind on this front.

1). The current obsession with "bullying". When I was a kid, the mantra was "Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you". Today, it is the opposite -- children are basically raised to be thin skinned, and they are. It looks like this is a lefty fad on par with "Climate Change" at least in the short term. One can see how it fits with their mind set -- human nature is infinitely pliable, all it takes is a bit  more "re-education and state control" and we can have millions of automatons behaving exactly as we decree. Nothing can go wrong, go wrong, can wrong go ....

2). The MSM has now raised the ante on presidential character for Republicans to "stories from HS". Can junior high and grade school be far behind? Horror of horror, supposedly "Christian values family man" had a Playboy in Jr High, or looked at dirty pictures on the web. One asks if there is a limit -- no, there isn't, and it will get worse. They went out and got Clarence Thomas's video rental list, they WILL find some future Republican candidates internet surf list from Jr High.

3). I can only hope this is an "over reach". I'm starting to see the "Dreams" book material show up.The imaginary girl friend for example. Eating the dog. While the MSM will do all it can to keep a firm double standard, is that going to be possible with such a rich treasure trove of significantly unflattering anecdotes allegedly by BO's own hand just sitting there?