Republican Women for Obama

Republican Women For Obama? [UPDATED: Another Fake "Republican" Exposed] | Power Line

Yea, right. Good takedown. 95% of the time the "long time Republicans" that call in to shows and rant about the current crop of Republican candidates either never were Republican at all, but rather quite left-wing Democrats,

In a few cases they were  such RINOs that they apparently staggered into the "R" label like a college freshman into the next kegger ... totally unaware what the heck the "R" even meant.

"Hh my God, those people believe making money is good, the government ought to live within it's means,  and that people bear some individual responsibility for their actions! Wow, I never realized people could be so misinformed -- no wonder they are so partisan. When I saw Mitt Romney, I realized how scary the R's really are and came to my senses!"

BO's Silent 2nd Term Agenda

Strassel: The Silent Second-Term Agenda - WSJ.com

"DestrOY America!" ... with the BO O in the Destroy would be my pick for the BO campaign motto, but as this article explains, "FOward" isn't bad.

America will keep getting what it has the last 4, only deeper, harder and faster.

New Issue in 2012: Money In Politics

Will money buy the White House? - CNN.com

I'm sure this fine reporter just forgot about 2008, or didn't have the 2 sec it took to google up a number.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=anLDS9WWPQW8

Conservatively, BO spent $740 M, although many place the number closer to $1B because of many of the loopholes he used (eg. not reporting contributions of <$50).

This is a CNN HEADLINE article, and the previous presidential election bears no mention?

Oh, and:

Since 1976, the presidential public financing system included matching funds for small contributions in primaries and equal grants for the two general election nominees. Beginning with George W. Bush rejecting public matching funds in the 2000 primary campaign (and the spending limits that went with them), that system was diminished incrementally until 2008 when Obama's rejection of general election funding spelled its final demise.

Uh, lets "blame Bush". He didm't accept funds for the PRIMARY??? Does CNN even care which Republican gets selected?? Oh, I suppose they DO want to make sure it is the weakest one, and since fundraising is clearly important, I guess W bypassing the primary rule WAS painful for them. 

BO spening a Billion??? Not a problem in '08 ... at least we had ONE election in which money in politics was just fine!

BO Fails to Spell Ohio

Oiho?? I’m Sure It’s One of the 57 States | Power Line

Never mind, he is a brilliant man. Ohio is much harder to spell than "potato".!

Praise to Thee Oh Newspeak!! BO Has Gotta Go!!

Niall Ferguson on Why Barack Obama Needs to Go - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

Hats off to NewsWeek! I had written this publication off as sunk permanently in the leftmost ditch, but here they come with a great cover and a SUPERB article by one of my most admired historians! Wow!

Just read it. If you can honestly read this an believe that BO deserves another shot, then you can write yourself up as a solid lefty ideologue, and say goodbye to reason and reality.

Gird Your Loins

Articles: Will Obama Keep Power 'by Any Means Necessary'?

The reports of many DOMESTIC government agencies buying 100's of K or millions of rounds of hollow point ammo are very widespread and well sourced enough that I believe there is certainly a major movement of these organizations to prepare to wage war on Americans.

This article doesn't cover the executive orders that allow US government agencies to fly armed drones over domestic airspace. BO has already assassinated US citizens via drone abroad, can doing it domestically be far behind?

This article also doesn't touch on BOs first book. He dedicates the book to Saul Alinsky who openly advocated the overthrow of the US government, and dedicated his book "Rules for Radicals" to Satan. In that book, BO expresses respect for the Black Panthers, lots of distrust of white folks, and finds his mission as a Luo Tribesman to destroy "The Colonial Powers"  ... including the US.

"Forward" is a good slogan -- he may already have fatally wounded us, but the hated (by him) Stars and Stripes still flys, so BO's work is not yet complete.

Solo Wing 2700mi

View Rochester - Austin TX in a larger map

In the years I rode my CX500 back in the early '80s and on occasion during my 24yr hiatus from riding, I tended to think of the "big ride" and what kind of daily distances were doable / enjoyable on a Gold Wing.

I've got my answer. 820 mi Rochester - OK City in coolish temps wasn't too bad, but clearly at my limits for that day. Leg and shoulder stiffness are the items that start to make it unpleasant for me after about that amount of time on the bike ... 12 hours, 7:30AM to 7:30PM.

The next day, to Bertram TX was only 450, but with 102-105 heat most of the way, it took more out of me physically and took from 9am-8pm to accomplish with many hydration stops. Oh, and also an EXCELLENT BBQ stop at "Hard Eight" in Stephenville TX http://www.hardeightbbq.com/

Wed brought zero time on the bike, but good TX Hill Country views, some successful shopping for hot weather motorcycle apparel, and and excellent lunch at Chuys in Austin along with enjoyable time spent seeing some old friends from IBM days.

Thursday AM saw a 6:30 launch with a great 600+ mi ride from Bertram to Beebe AR,  just north of Little Rock. Both East TX and AR are areas that I want to return to. Very much like the upper midwest terrain and greenery look, although I realize with a lot more heat in the summer -- but much less winter to deal with as well. A houseboat on one of the big impoundments?

Friday I spent a little too much time wrestling with the GPS on the bike for my liking ... "Shortest Time vs Distance" became an issue. The Wing seems to like routing through "fun motorcycle roads" which is fine, but when interspersed with a constant penchant to go all the way over to I-35 to make time, it can cause an on-bike tiff. Much like dealing with a wife, we worked it out by doing it the Wings way ... I hit I-35 just N of KC. Excitement of the day was a life flight chopper landing on US 13 right ahead of me and having to turn around and make my own "detour".

The biggest disappointment of the trip was pulling off at Albert Lea, less than 100mi from home as it was solid dark and I decided that the risk of tagging a deer the wrong way on that section of highway was just too great after 14 hours in the saddle. So I stayed the night and chipped it at 9AM Sat.

Lots of time to think of "why am I doing this?" and stuff on especially the interstate.

Some thoughts:

* an over 40  rider is 20x as likely to die riding a bike than in a car
* by not drinking when riding I cut that risk in half ... 10x
* by wearing a helmet, hi viz gear and taking a cycle safety class I cut the risk close to in half again ... 5x
* so since I drive about 20k mi a year and ride < 10k, I'm "only" about 2.5x as likely to die on my bike

Which is called RATIONALIZATION!

There is something irreplaceable about the experience of a trip like that. The danger is part of the thrill. Lots of guys are out there with no helmets, ape hangers, and riding "care free". They have a more fatalistic attitude ... But it is the same principle, just a matter of degree. Same with driving our cars and a lot of life activity. A safe life isn't a life. A risk free economy isn't an economy, it is a gulag.

It is a huge blessing to have made it to 55 with good health. The only way to be alive is some level of risk... One person's "reasonable risk" is completely insane for another, but be sure to embrace SOME risk that makes you less than fully comfortable. Lest you fail to have lived while alive.

I'm An Extremeist

Are You an Extremist? - Bill O'Reilly - Page 1

Worth a read. Wanting your nation  to live within it's means and limiting taxation on people to something less than 50% of their income is now "extreme" ... along with being a Christian (but not a Muslim), honoring marriage between  a man and a woman as it has always been, supporting the right to beat arms as enumerated in the Constitution and a bost of other things.

It has never been easier to be an "extremist" in America, and I have to say I'm proud to count myself in that group!

A $222 Trillion US Vision Gap

Great news: The US fiscal gap just jumped $11 trillion … to $222 trillion « Hot Air:

Something over 50% of Americans get to age 50 and throw up their hands realizing that their net worth is negative and they have no time for investment growth to build enough for their retirement even if they DID finally start saving. They "waited for tomorrow" for 3 decades and now it is too late.

They have a lot of company. Something over 90% of americans have no clue about the net present value of the future obligations of the US government which include caring for that 50% that neglected to care for themselves.

Much like worn out tires, siding, roofing, disease, death, etc, the future is most likely to happen. True, we could have a giant earth shattering disaster of the meteor, plague, super volcano sort that would wipe out 100's of millions and essentially cancel the future, but one doesn't really like to focus on such as a "solution".

So we blithely keep rolling up future obligations at a rate that is 10x our actual yearly deficit with over 90% of the population that is supposed to be self-governing being completely unaware.

90% of people need to have the individual responsibility to cover their own retirement with assets left at the end to pass on. We need a complete re-make / return to what we were founded to be -- a nation of FREE PEOPLE, which includes freedom from individual and public debt.

Right now we are a nation of fools where a bloated government hobbles our productivity while promising us "security" as it saddles us with debt to destroy our future.


'via Blog this'

BO Recovery Worst Since WWII

GDP Data Show Obama's 'Recovery' Has Been Worse Than Any Postwar President's - Investors.com:

Don't expect to see this make the news much ... but it would be helpful to the ability of americans to govern themselves if it did.

'via Blog this'

Democrats and Media Protect Pedophile

Reid puts GOP in a bind over Romney's taxes - CNN.com:

Gee CNN is really worried about the Pedophile Majority Leader "putting Republicans in a bind".

Oh, you didn't hear that Harry Reid is a Pedophile?? Well, I have it FROM A VERY GOOD SOURCE that I'm not able to share at this time that the charge is 100% true!

Oh, you don't think that is "fair"? Hmm, then why is there a story on Reid's unsubstantiated accusations "causing Republicans problems" vs a story on how his fellow democrats, media, liberal organizations are ALL demanding he immediately cease and desist from this calumny and apologize, or be removed from his post???

Unbelievably, Pedo Harry is Senate Majority Leader -- not talk radio, not Fox News, not Huffpo, not even some first term back bencher in the House.

Is ANYONE going to deny that the MSM would be raising holy hell if the source of this was from the right and the target was on the left??

'via Blog this'

Wingvana

Haven't been doing nearly enough posting on my motorcycle. Here it is, pretty much the way I purchased it.

Wing as purchased

Had I not added the Kury pegs, http://wingstuff.com/products/27625-switchblade-highway-peg-w-mini-arms?from_search=1  I would have never been able to make the 1800 miles out to the Black Hills and Gillette WY and back (I'm  6'4" tall).

Here are some pictures from the trip ... a really good ride. http://www.flickr.com/photos/67173429@N00/sets/72157630412159566/

The trip convinced me that I needed to do something more, so I added Kury boards including the wide brake pedal ... BIG improvement! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/yTBRzM0cQyYAyambcxwpsaEu3piSopWgtluch9Wsgbo?feat=directlink

Why Honda doesn't make floorboards standard on the Wing is beyond me. Lots of tweaking and setting to get them just right, but once I got it done, it is hard to imagine how I rode without them.

On the trip I also was bothered by a lot of wind buffeting. In general it was windy, there were a lot of trucks and since I am tall and wear a helmet, a lot of the time my helmet was up in the turbulent air. I did a lot of web / Gold Wing forum searches and decided that the Laminar Lip was the way to go https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VNXxOGhqXfsiu6aF7SeIi6Eu3piSopWgtluch9Wsgbo?feat=directlink at least to start. I've put a couple hundred miles on the bike since installation, and so far I'm VERY impressed. It produces a very quiet pocket of air behind the windshield that seems to be exactly what I was looking for.

After reading a number of the forums I decided that a real fork brace was something that I ought to add, so I added the Kury Gen II, WOW ... huge low speed "wander" improvement, but more solid at all speeds. Very hard to understand why Honda doesn't put a solid brace on from the factory.

Christ Muslims Gays Double Standards

Radical imam OK but not Chick-fil-A - BostonHerald.com

There is only one true radical, the risen savior, Christ Jesus. All questions ultimately come down to Christ.

Case in point. Boston Mayor Tom Menino had no trouble assisting a Muslim in development of a mosque as well as speaking at its ribbon cutting, even though the official position of Islam, stated by one of the leaders of that mosque is that Gays must be put to death.

We all know of his comments on Chick-fil-A, and the comments of many on the left about a Christian owned business that clearly practices what it preaches by being closed on Sunday, yet is the highest profit per store fast food outlet.

WHY is this true and what does it mean???

1. It is strong evidence of the primacy and radical effect of Jesus and Christian teachings / life. What the Gays, atheists and left hate is not "religion", or even "radical violent fundamentalist religion". What they really hate is CHRIST and CHRISTIANS!! The left's willingness to "forgive and forget" Muslim violence, doctrine and treatment of women is limitless. The swiftness and vehemence of their anger and intolerance to any display of Christian belief or doctrine is a strong proof of the primacy of Christ. 
2. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Many of the left mostly secretly mourned the loss of the USSR. They WANT the power of US to be "counter balanced" and reduced, at least to extent that the US is seen as "a Christian Nation". Todays counter balances are Islam and China, but China is less loved by the left than most communist nations as it has embraced a lot of capitalism and competition. Capitalism and competition mean individual initiative and differential outcomes. The left demands that individual lives be meaningless and only the "state collective" matter. Christ, capitalism, competition and the Constitution ALL celebrate the dignity and meaning of the life of the individual. This is anathema to left-statist-collective thought.
3. "Liberalism - Progressivism" are of course both lies. "Liberal" is in fact a label of the RIGHT, which is LIBERTARIAN. "Progressive" is allusion to the  myth that "newer is better / modern is smarter / old is bad / etc".  The USSR, Nazi Germany and Maoist China ought to have been enough to bury these foolish thoughts forever, but "false hope springs eternal". The left thinks that we are "better / smarter" than what has gone before and that there is an "arrow of evolution" that is "upward / better". Some tiny creature that just consumes organic matter, breeds prodigiously, is resistant to extermination and consumes the entire biosphere leaving only a "gray goo" would be the ultimate, but species costly "we told you so" rebuttal. If evolution means that we are just getting better, how did we end up with Obama/Carter/Franken/Pelosi/etc ... or for the lefties Bush/Reagan/Bachmann/Palin ... Seems like we ought to be able to easily determine the fallacy of the progress myth very easily without exterminating ourselves ... but maybe not. 

I could go on, but the REAL issue here is that a "christian / conservative / true liberal / libertarian / fact based / transcendent / etc" world view is not actually able to understand the inconsistencies of a "statist / atheist / progressive / vision based / materialist" world view. And of course, vice-versa!!

Which means that we generally CAN'T just "all get along" unless we actually decide that facts are more important than visions, or liberty is more important than "fairness", etc.

But if liberals were going to make those changes, then they would no longer be "liberals". Or conservatives would just have to decide that God is dead and facts don't matter.

Two things are "hopeful" -- aging tends to move people to the right, as do massive disasters -- natural, political, financial. "Reality has a way of creeping up on you", or "liberalism only seems to work until you run out of other peoples money" to say it even more simply.

More Democrats! Or Voter ID?

Democrats' Ideal Voter: Illegal Alien, Single Mother, Convicted Felon - Ann Coulter - Page 1

Sometimes Ann gets one right. This one is worth the read.

Dangerous Data

Revenge of the Sociologists | The Weekly Standard

Nial tends to be wordy, basically this the old news story of "don't mess with the shibboleths of the the dominant culture". Gay has been decided to be good, gays raising kids was summarily judged to be good, maybe even better than "traditional families". End of story, woe unto all that would dare to question that "settled science".

For those of us of a certain age, we well recall when "divorce had no negative impact on children, and may even be positive because of the reduction of tensions". Much like the requirement to delay an hour after swimming to avoid cramps, this view has been "reassessed".  Naturally the reassessment came well after any chance of deciding to "make do" or "work it out for the kids" was far from as stupid as we were told in the 60's and 70's. I'm still sore about the swimming I missed.

In the '70s, the energy crisis was caused by the FACT that we were OUT of oil -- today, the reserves are many times larger than they were then. The climate was cooling in the '70s ... well known, but not as "settled" as the warming, er,  "change" today. Change would seem to cover it.

In the '70s when EO Wilson questioned the Blank Slate, he was a bigot, a neanderthal, a zealot. Today, the Blank Slate is considered absurd -- nature seems to have the strange idea that success breeds more than failure, and carrying along a few tendencies that turn out to be adaptive in the DNA is beneficial.

I'm not so concerned about "content" here -- it seems likely to me that when two sexes are required for procreation, and the idea of a "family" being one man and one woman having been by far the norm for at least a couple thousand years,  the outcomes for children MIGHT be better in that situation, but I certainly can't prove it.  I'm sure we will see much more evidence on at least the opposite view, with maybe some on the "common sense side" depending on the ability of the dominant culture to suppress pro man/woman family results vs Man-Man, Woman-Woman, etc. But that isn't the point here.

The point is the danger of massive politicization of research, science and common sense,  and the sort of environment that is engendered by that course. When the price of having and stating beliefs, hypothesis,  data, statistics, results, etc that are in disagreement with "the dominant elite culture position" becomes too high, many people shut up, claim to believe what they don't, or even just throw up their hands and actually switch sides. I seem to be one of the very few that actually enjoys being stupid.

If you are aligned with the dominant culture view, your response to this thought is likely "good, I don't really care how the fools that disagree with us get on board, but they have to!".

All well and good, but just try to recall the discomfort you may have had after 9-11 when 80-90% of the population was in support of attacks on terrorist bases in Afghanistan, and nearly the same numbers were behind the removal of Saddam Hussein under the suspicion of WMDs. When radio stations were told by their listeners to stop playing the "Dixie Chicks" after they disparaged the president overseas. When Tim Robbins didn't get some invite to a forum after one of his anti-Bush screeds. Remember how quickly the spectre of Nazi Germany and Hitler was raised by the left elites at that point?

Please realize that the real problem in Nazi Germany was UNlimited Government -- the kind that you get when you allow the government to say, force you to buy a product -- say, insurance. The kind you get when THE GOVERNMENT tells you that certain kinds of speech are "hate speech", or that certain kinds of religion are "not our values" indicating that you ought not hold those religions views (Rahm Emanuel , Chicago, Chick-Fil-a). The kind that you get when you are penalized for what you DON'T do ... today, "buy insurance', then "Heil Hitler". The kind where the government tries to remove you from your tenured university position because they don't like what your research shows. You know, the kind of government our Constitution was supposed to guard against.

What was being called "Fascism" in '02-'08 was private citizens making decisions on who they listened to on the radio or invited to some event. It wasn't the government or government officials. In a free country, people used to be allowed to hold even very unpopular views. The idea was that freedom of thought and speech went together and needed to be heavily protected.  ESPECIALLY unpopular speech!

That was the law, but more importantly it was part of the shared mores of a free country. Tolerance of free thinking may have even been the American "Prime Directive" for you Trekkers. Oh, POPULAR speech sometimes needs to be controlled according to the left as well -- if it looks like a Republican might win, then the amount of speech (money) they are allowed must be curtailed.

It was once expected, even considered honorable that your brother, your dad, your neighbor, your boss, the guy at work or down the street would have some crackpot and maybe even really bad ideas ... racism against Blacks, Jews, Irish, Italians, Orientals, Polish, etc.  Lots of folks thought that Communism was "inevitable" (pretty much up to '89 MANY DID, some still do), Socialism was clearly the answer -- right up to when "National Socialism" took a very bad turn in Germany under Hitler. Eugenics suffered a similar fate -- it was a really good idea for the left elite (Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood for example), and then, uh, not so much.

Wouldn't it be great if we could "educate" everyone to be a BO Democrat, or maybe a Christian ... or a Buddhist, or a Capitalist, or a Minimalist ... or ??

Why don't we just ostracize, marginalize, harangue the people that don't line up with our view of "correct"? Oh wait, I guess many DO do that now ... but we didn't used to do it as much. It was considered to be against our shared values as Americans. Even when the subject was ACTUAL sympathy and working with a foreign sworn enemy with nuclear weapons pointed at us, pushing to hard on that was considered a "dark period in American history" ("McCarthyism). My how far we have come with Chick-Fil-a and the whole Gay Marriage issue!

or is it just the ever present problem of it VERY much depends on whose Ox is being gored?

Understanding Leviathan

George Will: Blowing the whistle on Leviathan - The Washington Post

Good column by George. I've read "2 Felonies a Day", a very good and sobering book.

The statutes are already in place for the government to declare you a felon any day they want. Without even having a thought in your head of committing a crime, you have run afoul of some statute ... maybe a claim on your taxes, maybe some chemical that you use ... for cleaning, for crafts, for lawn care. Maybe your religious views somehow crossed the line to "hate speech" ... or somebody is willing to testify that they did. Maybe you transported the wrong thing ... or person across state lines. The list is endless.

The list is way too long and getting longer every day. For now, the government can only TAX you for not buying the proper type of heath insurance. But the slope is greased -- the path to criminalizing what you DON'T do is well established.

Face it, get on the wrong side of the wrong people and you are CURRENTLY a criminal.

Oh, you trust the government? What if the "other side" wins ... do you trust Mittens? Do you trust  Boehner? Michelle Bachmann?  No?? As you applaud the adding of  more and more government power,  remember you have NO guarantee of what idiot will wield it.

That is why our founders specified LIMITED government. They thought that EVERYONE could see the dangers in UNLIMITED government and that limiting government would be a bipartisan AMERICAN issue.

 But we don't understand that, do we??

Why Guns?

Fear drives opposition to gun control - CNN.com

Frum seems really certain that it is fear.

In the last 10 years motorcycle sales have skyrocketed http://www.bts.gov/publications/special_reports_and_issue_briefs/special_report/2009_05_14/html/entire.html

The biggest growth area is riders over 50. Since I've bought both an assault rifle and a motorcycle in the last 10 years, and Frum points out that this group is also the biggest gun purchasers, perhaps he is missing a factor or two?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that people over 50 are aware that motorcycles are dangerous. Even the many that ride without a helmet are aware that motorcycles are dangerous.

Somewhere around 50 it becomes clear that one is not going to live forever, and in fact, your time to do things you might like to do in life is far more limited than mere age of death demographics would suggest. As parents and others age and pass on, it becomes very clear that your quality of life for the last decade or two of your potential life span is likely to be much less than you are used to and might have hoped for.

Guns go bang. Some of them go bang a lot of times. Being able to keep them on a target at all can be challenging -- when it gets less challenging just add  more targets, time the firing, put the targets farther away, make them smaller ... you get the idea.

Guns are male jewelry. Especially handguns. They are a combination of beauty and power, yes, with some danger mixed in. (See motorcycles). Guys like Frum and a lot of others that "know better" don't like them and want them banned. There are a lot of folks that have a lot of similar ideas about motorcycles.

Sauce for the goose. You may or may not have had some rebellious tendencies when you were a teen, but by the time you are 50 the idea of some supposedly brilliant somebody having power over your choices is completely different. When you are 20, you are likely to do something just because someone says you can't ... or even just because someone else (eg your parents) does or doesn't.

After 50 years, you have no doubt spent a lot of time making or being forced to make choices on the basis of things like "gotta raise the kids", "gotta keep a job",  "wife won't let me" (maybe for some of those reasons), "no time, too much work, kid raising, etc... ". Some of those very real considerations start to lift in the 50s and you realize you can reasonably make some different choices ... and that the time when you can is not likely to last a whole lot longer.

You have also seen the clay feet of the "elite". Like all people, while they are telling you what to do, it turns out they have their own problems --- wine, women, weight, gambling, smoking, drugs, ... the list is long. Likely you yourself have wrestled with one or more tendencies,  maybe you still are and always will be. "The brilliance of man" often tends to fade somewhat as age advances. Turns out that none of us are nearly as smart as we once thought we were.

Twist the throttle, pull the trigger -- as long as you are still breathing, life can go on, and guys like Frum? Well, they can still get their jollies still being certain that they have the world all figured out.

Liberation

Random Thoughts - Thomas Sowell - [page]

Good column, but the last paragraph is priceless.

There seems to be something "liberating" about ignorance -- especially when you don't even know enough to realize how little you know. Thus an administration loaded with people who have never run any business is gung-ho to tell businesses what to do, as well as gung-ho to tell the medical profession what to do, lenders whom to lend to, and the military how to fight wars.

The Overwhelming Femaleness of Quilters

The overwhelming maleness of mass homicide - CNN.com

or macrame fans, lovers of too many pillows to see the bed, romance novels, etc. etc.

Damn, sex differences still exist! The obvious solution? Let's see if we can fully feminize men, that ought to make us one big frilly, chatty, giggly fun bunch a sistahs!

Ah yes, the "Martians" ("Men are from Mars, Women from Venus"). News at 11, there is a "downside" to maleness. Who better to pick it up than a woman.

We keep trying to get boys to behave as girls, but they just don't seem to get it. Guess we will have to work harder ... or maybe there is some sort of backlash to the "maleness is bad" approach?

Nah, can't be ...

Facts on Gun Control and Violence

News Versus Propaganda - Thomas Sowell - Page 1

Sowell hits one out of the park as he so often does. Any person that reads this and doesn't at least have a basic understanding of why we have such a wide divide in world view in this country has simply been brainwashed.

There is ALWAYS another side to the story, and often the other side is quite difficult or even impossible to refute. Many views "have a point" --- it may not be the right point or the optimum point, but it is often "a reasonable point".

If you can't argue the opposite side of your position well enough so the average guy in the street would be convinced that you hold that view, then you don't know the issue well enough.

Biased "Secrets"

Mitt Romney's other tax secret - Jul. 23, 2012

In 2008 the media was remarkably incurious over policy relative to BO. "Hope and Change" was his platform and to even consider a "detail" like what kind of things might be in a BOnomics or BOcare plan was completely unnecessary. He was going to close the evil Gitmo and fix the economy in 3 years or be a one term president. What more did people need to know?

Release any information about BO's past? Take a detailed look at where he went to church for 20 years, or who his close associates and helpers were (eg. Tony Rezko ... sweetheart land deal for BO's house among many other political money "favors. Rezko is in prison). There was just no critical interest in "the one" -- the job of the media was to add a brighter lustre to whatever spewed from his massive campaign juggernaut.

Now the media is fantastically interested -- in Mittens, but strangely only in items that they can call "questionable".

In Al Gore's tax returns from when he was VP, his charitable giving was $350 on $300K of income one year ... wide open info, one would have thought it was a state secret relative to media. There are millions of deductions for charity in Mitts taxes ... lots to the church, but he has also done a lot of other pretty amazing charitable giving / work.

For some reason, I'm not expecting CNN to be doing any stories on that.

33rd BOcare Repeal Fable

SPIN ALERT: The House Did NOT Vote to Repeal Obamacare 33 Times

I heard the "33" on MPR a number of times -- with the appropriate derisiveness from the announcers for the "symbolic show having been done 33 times".

While I strongly suspected the truth, I really didn't care enough to check it -- I already knew they were biased. Heck, every Democrat "Close Gitmo", "Defund Iraq", etc shenanigan was treated as if it were holy writ by MPR, no matter how many times they had floated some DOA stunt when W was in WH.

So it turns out, complete fabrication. If you are an opposition party, voting for repeal after you take over and after the SCOTUS upholds is pretty normal political behavior.

Of course so is treating it derisively and fabricating false numbers to try to make the other side look bad. Which I have ZERO problem with!! If NPR, NYT, CBS, etc would just truthfully label themselves with something like the following:

"We are Progressive Statist Propagandists -- we believe in ever larger government controlling more of our lives. We abhor the Constitution and see it as a document standing in the way of government doing unlimited good. We see government as a total force for good in the modern world, and human nature as infinitely malleable through education and government incentives. "

Or some such. Cigarettes have to have warning labels, and they are FAR less dangerous to the future of America than the MSM!!

Post Post America Energy Picture

Energy Revolution 2: A Post Post-American Post | Via Meadia

Some good news for a change. I love it when "Nature" ... or I believe God, does a little "pundit mocking".

Remember Negative Ads Being ... Negative??

Barack Obama’s high-risk, high-reward campaign strategy, and how Romney should respond | Power Line

This is a good little strategy discussion, but it reminds me of how things work in US Politics / Media today. Prior to 2008, negative ads were TERRIBLE -- any politician that "went negative" needed to be asked a lot of questions as to "why". It was considered to be part of the legacy of such evil geniuses like Reagan handlers Lynn Nofsinger, Ed Rollings, etc. -- unseemly and bad for politics.

Then BO spent more on negative ads against McCain than had been spent in the previous history of campaigns, and we were off to the races. Now, going completely negative is SUPER strategy as far as the MSM is concerned -- what else is BO going to do? If he runs on his record it would be a short campaign -- "As I promised 4 years ago, if I didn't fix this economy I'd be a one term president -- so I guess I will be".

So he is out defining Romney as negatively as he can -- uh, "maybe he's a Felon"?, but of course we know that BO **IS** an admitted Felon. He STATED that he heavily used marijuana, cocaine and who knows what else in his first book -- oh, wait, he is a Democrat, nobody cares.


One would STRONGLY hope this backfires big-time, and maybe it will. There isn't anyone that looks much  cleaner than Mittens, and one doesn't need to look very hard for BO pictures that show a very much darker side of the old "Hope N Change Guy" ... but media and the massive BO attack ads are powerful. The outcome is anything but certain.

Contrasting Election Columns

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/opinion/krugman-policy-and-the-personal.html?_r=1

First we have Krugman ... personal attacks are OK if are directed against Romney, since real issues are complicated and Republicans are liars. BTW, the "heavily tilted to rich" W tax cuts provided $3T in tax relief for people making < $250K and $700B for those making over $250K. Oh, and "lowest taxes" are lowest tax RATES ... which nobody paid. In actual and inflation adjusted dollars, those that make $250K and above are paying far MORE in actual dollars and percentage of total taxes than they have ever paid before -- but we can trust Democrats and Democrat columnists.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/15/niall-ferguson-the-cure-for-our-economy-s-stationary-state.html

Then we have Ferguson ... as we have know for 200+ years, the engine of growth is  capitalism, competition, free markets --- then and now, stagnation AND government cronyism with public unions and the wealthy. There are MORE people in the .1% that are BO supporters than Romney supporters. Why? They already GOT their wealth!! It is the people from "$100K - $500K" in INCOMES that want competition and lower regulation -- they want to pay off all their student loans and get wealthy so they can afford to be Democrats as well!

There is no reason that Romney ought not win by double digit popular vote numbers if people would vote their pocket books!

Stay Married, Avoid Poverty

Two Classes in America, Divided by ‘I Do’ - NYTimes.com

For anyone that supplements their media diet with just a tiny bit of off-MSM seasoning, it is no news at all that a very significant amount of the "rising inequality" is due to the damage that sagging morals and government stepping into the roll of "daddy" (provider) has decimated the lower and lower middle classes.

They say 40% here -- I'd say it is much higher than that because the societal crackup came in the 60's ... we have had a couple generations of pagans in some cases -- and it shows.

But maybe if the NYTs prints it, more people will start to believe the obvious.

Finish HS, get married and stay married, raise a family -- IN THAT ORDER! Those are the biggest keys to you and your children not living poverty!!

Demographics and BO

Why Doesn't Obama Have a Bigger Lead? | Mother Jones

Mother Jones reporter can't figure out how a President with persistent 8.2% unemployment and the weakest economic "recovery" since the Depression doesn't have a big poll lead -- to which one might just dope slap your forehead and loudly say DUH!!!

The MSM and the Democrats are perpetually talking about how Hispanics are a rising percentage and they are huge Democrat voters -- so Republicans are toast.

Maybe.

I see a lot of mixed Hispanic-White marriages, and many of them seem awfully religious / conservative, and seem to be having a ton of kids. Are they all counted as "guaranteed Hispanic / Democrat" voters??

The Democrat constituency for a long time has been "birth control, abortion, Gays,   no or maybe one kid to save the planet, etc.". Not a way to increase your voting block in general. Meanwhile, at least at our church (relatively conservative LCMS), there are a number of larger families coming up, and in some cases already voting age. Seems to be even a bigger trend at more conservative evangelical churches.

I've heard that the groups that have the most offspring eventually "win" in this evolution thing? Likely just a myth though -- all the geniuses with "evolve" on their bumpers are certain that not having any kids is the smart move. They gotta be right!

Kill Brad Pitt's Mom?

Brad Pitt’s Mother Fears For Her Life …After Her Conservative Statements - Independent Journal Review

Reagan said it best; "A liberal will defend your right to agree with them to their dying breath".

What he didn't say was that "liberal", ISN'T. It is a stolen term -- prior to WWII it was "Progressive, Socialist, Fascist or Communist". WWII changed that because "Progressive, Socialist and Fascist" all became "unpopular" for some reason -- "Communist" wasn't so bad -- the USSR was our ally.

So the left stole "liberal" ... meaning "laissez faire",  libertarian, individual liberty, open minded, etc

Progressive, socialist, fascist" are distinctly NOT "liberal" in the proper meaning of the word. They are elitist and absolutely certain that they have all the right answers -- oh, and if you don't agree? You should either be silent or SILENCED ... your pick.

I REALLY applaud Brad Pitt for standing up for his mother! It is courageous, because "liberal" ideology certainly doesn't recognize mothers as special and worthy of the unconditional support of their sons. Also because many liberal sons would not  take the position that blood is thicker than ideology, and would just side with the attackers.

Note, Pitt doesn't have to say he AGREES with his Mom to support her! "Liberals" have a gigantic tendency to confuse "support/care/respect/etc" with "agreement", because they really believe that their thoughts and positions are "sacred". Since most conservatives have a higher power (God), they tend to be more tolerant of opposing thought, since they don't see man's temporary thinking as sacred.

Walter Williams, Some Economic Common Sense

Difficult Economics Lessons - Walter E. Williams - Page 2:

Excellent article from Williams. Between him and Thomas Sowell, I'm a bit prejudiced in favor of Black Economists.

I loved the following quote. One problem with the fuzzy thinking of liberalism is that they provide very little logic that is invertible (ie. if this is a "good idea", why doesn't it work both ways?) or universal -- "if campaign finance restrictions are important, why wasn't it an issue when BO broke all records in '08?" or "If Gitmo was so horrible, why isn't it still an issue since it is four years later and it is still open?".

 "But what is equal opportunity, and how could you tell whether it existed? I've asked students whether upon college completion they will give every employer an equal opportunity to hire them. Most often, with a puzzled look on their faces, they answer no. Then I ask, "If you are not going to give every employer an equal opportunity to hire you, why should employers be forced to give you an equal opportunity to be hired?""

'via Blog this'

What Unions Really Spend

Higher Political Spending by Unions:

Organized labor spends about four times as much on politics and lobbying as generally thought, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, a finding that shines a light on an aspect of labor's political activity that has often been overlooked.

For those of us that attend the MN State Fair and see the giant Union Booth on the corner opposite the giant Democrat Booth, this is no surprise. The Union Booth is just another Democrat booth -- fully staffed by union members and supporting exactly the same candidates. The Democrat Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Unions, and as we have seen in the auto bailouts, vice-versa. A very cozy relationship.

Naturally, while the MSM is INCENSED about "Citizens United" and "The Koch Brothers", union political spending, "volunteers", etc are no problem at all. It's a free country after all -- for folks that agree with the left at least.

Retired Extreme Conservatives Happiest

Conservatives Are Happier, and Extremists Are Happiest of All - NYTimes.com

Well, I made the retired part up, but I really suspect it us true.

Not a lot of new news here, people are happier when they know where they fit and have solid relationships in that fit -- which the more extreme you are, the more likely you are to hang together. Flat Earthers and Moon Landing Deniers soon end up finding each other in the internet age.

Turns out that actual multiple thousand year old religions tend to work a lot better than those thought up yesterday in the happiness department.

Should we care? Well, I'd argue that we don't have a choice -- we are wired to seek happiness, it really isn't an option for this relrase of humanity.

Acceptable Tolerance

Symptoms of a sick culture - Jonah Goldberg - Page 1

Interesting take on the lifeguard fired for saving a life, worth the read.

I'm struck by how much outcry we get from the media on things like "zero tolerance" for drugs, alcohol and such, but for union work rules actually defining who gets saved and who doesn't, it is a "don't care".

Everything we do has both intended and unintended consequences, "side effects". When what we do is as big as a national health law, the side effects are likely to be bigger than the act itself -- and nearly as unpredictable.

"Truth", Media, F&F

The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal - Fortune Features

This is one of those stories that has stayed right up at the top of CNN for a few days. It is rather long for it's premise -- "Fast and Furious never happened at all, everyone ought just move along".

This article doesn't reach the conclusion that Holder should resign, but take a look at this paragraph:

As political pressure has mounted, ATF and Justice Department officials have reversed themselves. After initially supporting Group VII agents and denying the allegations, they have since agreed that the ATF purposefully chose not to interdict guns it lawfully could have seized. Holder testified in December that "the use of this misguided tactic is inexcusable, and it must never happen again."

This is the first article I've read that takes the tack "it never happened". The other explanations from the left and the WH have said "it was a Bush program". (is there a pattern here? "It was Bush's fault" ... or, "uh, it never happened" ... then maybe,  "uh, BOTH!!") However, Holder testified under oath that the Bush program was "Wide Receiver" and he knew of the differences
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2012/06/wide-receiver-vs-fast-and-furious.html


1). The guns were marked, RFIDed and tracked
2). The Mexican Government was aware and involved in WR
3). WR was shut down in '07 because it was not considered effective


So Fortune -- a Financial magazine writes a big article that sits at the top of CNN on the web for a couple of days that says "Fast and Furious never happened", and the whole problem is "Republicans / Conservative Media". 

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

Indeed. 

The NRA is about the right to bear arms in the US -- not Mexico. The fact that illegal drug cartels acquire illegal guns from the US ought to be off everyone's radar. The illegal drug cartels acquire and sell illegal drugs that are illegal on both sides of the border as well. The guns are just a business cost to them -- like cars, boats, planes, trucks and cool sunglasses. 

They will acquire the guns from some supplier -- US, Columbian, Czech, Chinese, etc -- why anyone is even REMOTELY concerned where the illegal drug cartels happen to acquire their guns, knives, cars, fancy jewelry, etc is beyond me. Their BUSINESS is acquiring, transporting and selling ILLEGAL DRUGS for goodness sake. If you think they really care about where they get the various tools of their trade, or think it is going to somehow be "hard" for them to acquire ANY weapon that they want (RPGs, grenades, full auto weapons, etc), you have no concept at all about groups that move thousands of TONS of drugs into the US every year!

So, the "ultimate irony" is that major US news outlets are falling over each other trying to explain away a scandal that cost the life of a US DEA agent plus many more in Mexico to protect "their guys" in the WH. 

Limits of Tolerance

Where Maurice Sendak was | Power Line:

The idea that the left is tolerant and civil is an extremely cruel joke. These people are not loonies in some backwater, they are well known people of the left, yet there is ZERO interest in policing their own -- because frankly, they agree with them.

'via Blog this'

Eureka! An Honest Life vs BO

Sitting in a coffee shop in Eureka IL, location of Eureka College, Alma Mater of Ronald Reagan, the end of the "Ronald Reagan Trail" in IL. Towns like Dixon, Tampico, Washington, Galesburg -- full of real places and real people.

The little museum at the college is full of pictures from Reagan's life -- all the way back to being a lifeguard. Everyone knew "Dutch" -- his life is an open book. Teachers, girlfriends, buddies, people he saved from drowning, classmates, team mates, bosses, people that listened to him on the radio.

For Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, HW, Clinton and W, I suspect there are or will be little displays and "trails" that are much the same. There are a ton of Reagan quotes -- "Tear Down This Wall" being right up there with "Ask Not" and "We will land a man on the moon in this decade". Even Slick Willie famously said that "The Era of Big Government is over" and "That depends on your definition of "is"".

What would the "BO Trail" look like? Where are his classmates? Where are his childhood friends, teachers, team mates, etc?? What is his best quote? My personal favorite "If I don't fix this economy in 3 years, I'll be a one term president". or maybe "57 States so far, 2 more to go"! I guess "The private sector is doing fine" may be remembered for awhile.

Reagan left a lot of tracks in his life. BO? I guess we should be thankful that other than red ink -- which of itself may be the poison that finally kills America, his life and presidency are already nearly invisible.

Pot Calls Kettle Cookware

Running Scared, Democrats Resort to Hysteria | Power Line:

One of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of liberalism is total blindness to their own hypocrisy -- but this may be a new height even for them.

'via Blog this'

Let Our People GO!!

Boom Town, USA | Power Line

The magic of America was once FREEDOM!! Let our people and states innovate and compete and we will rise again just as we did in the early 80's -- only BIGGER!

Deodorize the BO! Lets ROLL!!

A Very Misplaced Faith

Moral Dystopia - NYTimes.com

Like many "progressives", Mareen seems to be shocked at the wages of relativism. Can't we just worship "the human spirit"??

We are getting a lot closer to understanding the "base wetware and kernel memes" that make up the core of what Maureen might think is "the human spirit" -- sort of an bio-cultural semi-indoctrinated  daemon in the brain to "keep us good". A kind of randomly programmed "moral compass".

Nice wish, not really much of a substitute for an eternal God and eternal damnation.

Somehow she left of Slick Willie, patron Democrat saint who we no know was a serial abuser of women under his control or influence, very likely including rape in the case of Juanita Broderick -- Maureen, nor anyone else in the press even took the small step of "reporting it to Paterno" in that case, let alone standing up and saying "I don't care if he is President, women matter more, he has to be punished". Very very fat chance.

She did however drag out the Catholic Priests. Nobody is reporting it much, but the source of that problem is pretty well documented to being the big influx of Gays into the US church in the '60s as our nation became more "enlightened". Abuse of boys and young men is very old -- Greeks, Romans for example. Any culture that embraces homosexuality has also embraced the sexual abuse of boys -- they may just not know it right away. They apparently go together like "a horse and carriage".

We are pretty much a thin veneer of civilization on top of a massive nervous and limbic system that at best is under tenuous "control" ("training", "management", "coaching" ...) the old systems are very happy to be driven by seeking "pleasure" of all sorts. They aren't very selective systems. "Moral" only in the sense that your cat is an  equal opportunity killer. Equality and morality are only VERY recently associated -- history would find anything that has equality of result to be equally BAD as in lowest common denominator.

Here in the west, we used to have a few thousand years of Judaeo - Christian culture playing a very major role that included friends, neighbors, family, work, school, etc taking shared responsibility in the proper creation and maintenance of a very specific "small still voice" -- if you are just an honest sociologist. If you are a Christian or Jew, that voice becomes very real, and evidence of an eternal Spirit that exists forever and is the true value of each human. Killing that transcendent human Spirit is the most difficult task of the atheist.

Or, as was decided in the '60s, we are just "naked apes" whose best moral maxim is "if it feels good do it". Even atheists that have managed to get their transcendent spirit bludgeoned very close to death usually have to swallow hard to actually the utter the true label on the fruit of secular humanism.

There are many thousands of years of human history that could clue poor Maureen in on how the very social and political directions she so strongly espouses give us more and more Bill Clintons, Jerry Sanduskys, abusing Catholic Priests, etc. Night tends to follow day, flies tend to show up around filth and death. Some things really ought not be surprising.

A Conflict of Visions (Brooks)

What Republicans Think - NYTimes.com

A good one by Brooks, the following paragraph is a pretty decent summary of how conservatives see the current welfare state model:

The welfare model favors security over risk, comfort over effort, stability over innovation. Money that could go to schools and innovation must now go to pensions and health care. This model, which once offered insurance from the disasters inherent in capitalism, has now become a giant machine for redistributing money from the future to the elderly.

BO Getting Stale?

Media — and others — oddly unimpressed with presidential re-reruns « Hot Air

When it comes to light that your policies aren't cutting it, you can either "stay the couse", try the "and now for something completely different" or "triangulate" to the other guys policies.

Reagan stayed the course, and the policies started working in '83, so by '84 he had lots of success to run on.

Bush 1 made a giant political mistake. He caved to tax increases in a VERY mild recession and then got abused for a "poor economy" as those tax increases were absorbed by an otherwise strong economy. HW is a lesson in what happens when Republicans "compromise". Tax, spend and regulate policies have been proven over and over not to work, and Democrats LOVE getting a Republican enact them and then complain when they STILL don't work.

Clinton triangulated after '94 and by '96 was pretty much an "honorary Republican" -- NAFTA, Welfare Reform, "the era of big government being over".

W's issues were more military than economic -- by '02 the crash recession was over and the economy was just not that big in '04. Even bubble growth is better than no growth.

BOs problem is that he really believes that more government spending and debt = prosperity, or at least it should. That is his ideology, and he is not shifting it. Unfortunately, what he believes doesn't work, so all he really can do is try to blame others and keep saying that things are "getting better".

Stale BO soon starts to be unwelcome -- even to your friends!

It would be funny if it were not so sad has we hear BO blaming W for policies that the extremely weak lame duck W was forced into after he lost congress in '07. He had enough institutional / political power to push The Surge through and win in Iraq -- thank God. Beyond that, the economy has been on Democrat pilot since '07, and it shows.

Another ID Outrage!

Since I know that many Democrats are honestly concerned about the evils of people being forced to carry around a government issued photo ID, I include this offensive picture so they may use it as they move forward from just focusing on voting to purge the country of ID requirements.

From Drop Box

I can only imagine the horror and outrage that quakes through a Democrat as they visualize an "undocumented worker" (some would say "illegal alien"), elderly person, or apparently college student (that one always mystifies me -- most of them must not drink today) being turned away from shipping a UPS package!!

What is the country coming to!! I realize that so far, because of their many priorities,  Democrats have only focused on voting ID requirements -- but since I know they are honestly concerned, and not just trying to allow as much fraud as possible in the specific case of voting, they will soon be working hard to remove the scourge of personal ID requirements from our lives.

Alcohol sales, cigarette sales, plane travel, changing your phone from land line to cable, driving, cashing a check, checking into a hotel, mailing a UPS package -- all these are cases where the ID challenged person is blocked in  today's society -- oh, and in voting every couple years if the evil ID legislation passes.

I do realize that my understanding of the Democrat brain is limited -- it is hard to understand why they would focus so hard on no ID for voting rather than the many other more common challenges to the less ID abled person. I'd think it would be easier to ban the use of IDs for checking into a hotel, mailing a package, or even driving rather than just focusing on voting.

This is a civil country though, I believe Democrats are intelligent and well meaning people, so I'm certain they can't just be trying to enable voter fraud because they know there is a lot of it in their favor based on ACORN and other prosecutions in the past couple years.

Recalling Sanity

No Recall - NYTimes.com

The linked column gets it  mostly wrong, but the voters in WI got it right. Recalling a Governor over a matter of policy that was passed and implemented as required is anti-Democratic and would have been a strong message in the direction of even worse partisanship and gridlock. The real winner in WI was "Good Government" or "We the People". Self government can't work if the minority demands constant recalls when things don't go their way after losing regular elections.

There are a lot of "mirrored connections" between BOcare and Walker's Budget:

1. The opposition was energized -- Republicans followed the process and took over the House in 2010. Democrats and Unions in WI protested and did a bunch of recall elections. The politics of division and destruction is primarily a Democrat / MSM approach (look at all the war metaphors in the linked  column alone), it just gets reported as the reverse.
2. Walker's policies generally worked -- the WI budget is in surplus, the state economy is outdoing rival states and there has been no loss of services in the state. BO's policies have generally not worked -- we have massive deficits, a poor economy and healthcare costs continue to rise unabated. All of the claims of BOcare "saving money" to date have proven false. All the claims of "disaster" being caused by Walker's policies have also proven false. 
3. What is missing from the linked article and much of the left is Sanity/Reality. Democrats look at the "growing economy" of much of the post WWII era and believe it was due to "good government". In fact, it was due to "less government" -- less, but perpetually increasing. Like weight, spending, driving fast, gambling, drinking, etc, government is NOT a "universal good". Some is required, but more is definitely not always better.

We live in a looking glass media culture. Having our politics be less divisive is important when it means letting Democrats have the policy their way. But when Walker and enough Republicans are elected to act in WI to solve the budget crisis, suddenly the more divisive the better -- including legislators fleeing, threats of violence and endless recalls. 

 

BO The Fiscal Conservative

Obama Doubles Down on Lies About Spending and Debt | Power Line

Insanity reigns -- good take down of what ought to be so obvious to all that anyone putting forward this line of tripe would never be taken seriously again.

BO is as much of a budget hawk as Reagan was pro-commie!!!!

25 Years Since "Tear Down This Wall!"

Tear Down This Wall at 25 | Power Line

Virtually everyone in his own administration "knew better", and the press thought he was completely insane. Then they thought he was insane, now they think he was lucky. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

I'm sad for those too young to have been alive to see Reagan stand strong for America and a brighter future. His faith was in God and the American Spirit, not Ronald Reagan, and thus his strength and accomplishments far outstripped the would be leaders that have followed him. Much like today, Americans had decided that "our best years were behind us" until the Gipper launched us on a 30 year "Morning in America" adventure.

We could REALLY use a leader like Ronald Reagan again!!

Knowing Left From Right

Socialist or Fascist - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative Columnists - Page 1

An excellent column, please read it.

One of the most effective propaganda moves of the left was the abandoning of Fascism when it went bad in Nazi Germany and brilliantly morphing it into an ideology of the "Right".

Since left is "State Control" and right is libertarian anarchy", this never made any sense, but when you control the schools, universities and the press it is amazing what you can get people to believe!

If Thomas Sowell had been our first Black President, our nation would be MUCH  better off today!!

Building Discord

Obama Steps on Message, GOP Steps on Economy -- Daily Intel

The assertion in the article is that Mitt Romney not being castigated for making an off the cuff claim that reducing spending in his first year would be counterproductive "proves" that Republicans are trying to slow economic growth to gain power. Thus:

So Republicans in Congress are blocking Obama’s jobs plan, in the correct understanding that this will redound to their party’s advantage. When Obama attempts to explain this state of affairs, Romney can accuse him of making “excuses.” Obama can hammer home the point that Republicans are blocking his plan, but doing so has the side effect of making him appear partisan and ineffective.

Obama was arguing, correctly, that Republicans are the ones satisfied with slow private sector growth, and he is the one trying to boost it through economic stimulus. But his argument is complicated, and theirs is very simple.

So your average NY Magazine reader, already pretty certain of the thesis finds their suspicions confirmed -- it is always easy to confirm our suspicions.

However, is that really what the discussions have been about? No.

BO wants to INCREASE spending AND increase taxes on the "wealthy". So Mitt saying he is going to hold the line on spending and saying nothing about taxes is actually significantly different than the meaning reported, and likely far less nefarious. 

Republicans just believe that the private sector tends to allocate capital better than the public. 

It is an article of faith for Democrats that GOVERNMENT spending is positive for the economy, but also that high taxes on the WEALTHY are beneficial. Having Bill Gates sell a billion worth of MS Stock so that BO can send $500 M to some Solyndra, and 500m to various folks so they can spend it as they see fit is a FAR better investment than leaving the money in MS stock. ]

A Warm Uniter vs a Cold Narcisist

How to praise your predecessor with class | Power Line

Just read it, it really doesn't get more plain. Putting up a portrait of your predecessor is not a time for political points or self aggrandizement -- it is about them.

BO is incapable of even the most rudimentary understanding of respect for others, of occasions not being about him, or of things being far bigger than him.

He needs to be shown the door.

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??