Loss of Trust

RealClearPolitics - The Eradication of Trust

I like the honesty of this column, it provides a lot of insight into the liberal mind. 

Trust might as well be a four-letter word. American public opinion seems to have become an unguided Weapon of Mass Suspicion, and it's not hard to understand why. But those who would exploit distrust, dissatisfaction and anger for political gain had better worry about collateral damage.

I'm quite certain that Robinson looks back on Bush being "unelected", "blood for oil", "politics of Mass Deception", the HORRIBLE deficits of the early '00s, "Cheney and Haliburton", the supposed failure of the Bush admin at New Orleans, etc, etc as simply "factual" -- in his mind all those elements were NEEDED to give people the "TRUTH" about "the worst administration ever" ... loaded with incompetence, corruption, lies, cronyism, gross partisanship, and all manner of evil. I imagine he sees no irony whatsoever that now that the shoe is on the other foot, he finds "distrust of government" to be a very bad thing.

The overhyped tea party phenomenon is more about symbolism and screaming than anything else. A "movement" that encompasses gun nuts, tax protesters, devotees of the gold standard, Sarah Palin, insurance company lobbyists, "constitutionalists" who have not read the Constitution, Medicare recipients who oppose government-run health care, crazy "birthers" who claim President Obama was born in another country, a contingent of outright racists (come on, people, let's be real) and a bunch of fat-cat professional politicians pretending to be "outsiders" is not a coherent intellectual or political force.

Had there ever been a war protest that even accounted to 1/10th of the Tea Party movement, we would have never seen anything else on TV. When poor deranged Cindy Sheehan was pretty much sitting alone outside Bush's ranch in Aug '05, she was one person national news! Millions of common working Americans with lots better things to to spend their time on getting out and protesting deficits in the $1.5 Trillion range for as far as we have estimates are of course "racists" -- there is simply no other reason one could be against those numbers. $400 Billion under Bush though?? HORRIBLE -- I'm sure I could go find Robinson screeching "Armageddon" back then as I've done pointed out forKrugman. What a difference a change of party makes to a true partisan.

The liberals always want us to note how "uncivil" anyone that disagrees with them is -- I'm sure all the depictions in Robinson's paragraph above are just 100% facts ... like the Michael Moore movies and the "Truthers" during the Bush admin.

Another story that won't go away is the pedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. On Sunday, during a visit to Malta, Pope Benedict XVI prayed with eight adult victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests and reportedly expressed his "shame and sorrow." But practically every day, there are new revelations of pedophile priests having been transferred to other parishes rather than being defrocked and reported to authorities.

It seems just a little disjoint to bring in the old Priests and boys story. This is a problem that pretty much goes back to the Greeks, and I'm sure before. There have been plenty of REPORTED "page scandals" in our own hallowed congress. The usual situation is as per normal "If Democrat, then "boys will be boys" --- or in this case, "some types of men like boys". If Republican, then horror, hypocrisy, out of office, maybe we ought to prosecute". Catholics generally vote Democrat, apparently them being a religious organization means that they have to be treated like Republicans by Robinson.

Republicans have been actively encouraging this groundswell of distrust on the theory that it's bad for incumbents, meaning Democrats. Indeed, the approval rating for the Democratic Party has plunged to 38 percent. The problem is that approval of the Republican Party has also fallen -- to 37 percent.

The moral here, for giddy GOP strategists, is the one about people who live in glass houses.

Now, when it was Democrats encouraging the "groundswell of distrust", did they not live in a glass house? or is Robinson's assertion that Fox and a few Tea Partiers are more mighty than the Democrats, MoveOn, the whole MSM and the code pink sort of movements put together?  More likely, like many in the culturally dominant liberal 20%, he simply believes he is completely right and the 80% is completely wrong. Like a fish, he can't define "all wet".

The Dying RINO

Who Killed the Responsible Republican? Bill Kristol, of course. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine

From the left, a "Republican In Name Only" RINO is of course a "Responsible Republican. An RR to them is "almost as good as a Democrat".

Now when it comes to a DINO "Democrat in Name Only" -- Say Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller, how is their attitude? Actually, both Joe and Zell are pretty much "Dems" on a lot of things -- taxing the rich, supporting unions, lots of public works, etc. It is just that they "left the reservation" on what they thought of as "American" vs "Partisan" issues -- Winning the War on Terror, killing the unborn.

Yet again, we see that a "Responsible Republican" is a Republican that essentially always votes with the Democrats. For the Democrats however, there is no leeway -- you either tow their line all the way, or you are no Democrat at all.

If one followed the logic of this column, would that mean that there are no "responsible Democrats"? Seems right to me.

NYT and CBS Services

RealClearPolitics - The Populism of the Privileged

The New York Times and CBS News thus performed a public service last week with a careful study of just who is in the tea party movement.

The media that EJ finds to be "moderate" are somehow always providing a "service". They do such "careful studies".

This must be the first "populist" movement driven by a television network: Sixty-three percent of the tea party folks say they most watch Fox News "for information about politics and current events," compared with 23 percent of the country as a whole.

As I had to explain to one liberal at length, "correlation is not causality". Ice cream sales and drownings are correlated, but there is no causality relationship. If 100% of Tea Party folks watch Fox News, that doesn't say Fox is driving the Tea Party. It is quite easy for there to be MANY factors -- as in conservatives tend to watch Fox, maybe all the Tea Party folks are conservatives?

Is there any interest in what percentage of the MSM or other groups would be "the privileged"? Somehow I really doubt that EJ is very close to "middle  class", and there seems to be no problem that organizations like say "MoveOn.org" are funded by multi-billionaire George Soros. Soros made billions by betting against the US economy and the US dollar, but since he funds left wing activity, he is a hero. Somehow, if you aren't completely dirt poor and have graduated from High School, once you have any conservative ideas, you are "privileged". If you support conservative ideals and you ARE dirt poor with less than a HS education, then you are a racist. According to the MSM though, conservatism is a "big tent" -- we may be a motley crew of the privileged and the racist, but we are all a bunch of idiots, so at least we have THAT in common!

A Pew Research Center study released Sunday is thus a better guide than the tea parties' rants to the real nature of this nation's discontent. It found that only 22 percent of Americans say they can trust the government almost always or most of the time, "among the lowest measures in more than half a century." This mistrust extends beyond government to banks, financial institutions and large corporations.

So while the Tea Party is a bunch of privileged angry white men, somehow nearly 80% of Americans aren't trusting the shining BO, Harry&Nancy government -- shocking. I assume that EJ and his other 20% that self-identify as liberal still trust the government. Sounds like the Tea Party (according to EJ) accounts for 20%, so now we only have 60% of the country that aren't trusting government or institutions and aren't in the Tea Party.

Suppose EJ can get them to be Democrats if he calls them some names as well?

Reporting On Concerned Americans

Experts: Angry rhetoric protected, but can be disturbing - CNN.com

Remember when anyone that wanted to protest anything about our troops in Afghanistan or Iraq was a "courageous voice standing up for what they believed in"? Remember when we got to hear over and over how "Bush's Wars were unfunded"? Remember "Code Pink" demonstrators being dragged out of the Republican National Convention on live TV during McCain's acceptance speech screaming hateful things about him being a "killer" at the top of their lungs?

The  MSM never reminded us that these things were "protected", because nobody in the MSM found them to be "disturbing" in the least. Last night I went to a Tea Party with around a thousand local men, women and children. The speeches often focused on how radically the deficits have skyrocketed in the last year -- 4-5x as high as in any previous administration. If you are speeding by 15MPH, that is fast, speeding by 60-80MPH, going 120-140MPH is completely different. 15MPH over is being in a big hurry, 70MPH over is a felony.

No doubt millions of folks nationwide did what I did. Went out because we now know for certain what we have really known for a long time. The entitlement society that has been created is unaffordable and we have just added a huge new entitlement that we can't afford. In a free country, people taking enough interest to stand up and  be noticed, extremely peacefully, is positive. What is actually quite dangerous and disturbing is to see the MSM treating that negatively as they possibly can without recognizing what really can't be denied as very legitimate concerns financially, independent of if you are in agreement of the direction or not. Caring so much we write bad checks isn't really helping anyone.

Best Tax Day of Our Life

April 15, 2010: The Best Tax Day of Your Life - Newsweek.com

Well, our future life. Some of us got to live through the good old days under Reagan. For the young today, this is probably as good as it gets. Well, at least they got to have the joy of voting in BO, now, much like that AM hangover, they get to pay the piper for the rest of their lives.

Why Times Change

RealClearPolitics - No (Political) Experience Required

Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times notes that when Stevens was nominated in 1975 to fill the first vacancy since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, he was asked no question about abortion during his confirmation hearing. He was confirmed 98-0, as was Antonin Scalia in 1986. Things changed the next year, when Ted Kennedy used a demagogic Senate speech to launch a successful liberal crusade against Robert Bork.

Liberals have very short memories on a lot of reasons for today's "incivility". Not doubt their memories will be every bit as short the first time a Republican Senate passes a major piece of legislation with 51 votes.

Some Frogs Starting to Notice?

Obama's disregard for media reaches new heights at nuclear summit

Note folks, this is DANA MILBANK -- who has traditionally been a highly reliable liberal shill.

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama's Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow.
They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck.
In the middle of it all was Obama -- occupant of an office once informally known as "leader of the free world" -- putting on a clinic for some of the world's greatest dictators in how to circumvent a free press.

47 73

RealClearPolitics - The Debate America Needs to Have

47% pay no income tax, the top 10% pay 73% of the income tax. Remember, if something can't go on forever, it won't.

Honest Appraisal of Stevens

RealClearPolitics - Good Riddance!

The right to own property is 2nd only to the right to bear arms on the list of critical freedoms. Kelo essentially revoked it. Sowell recognizes with great clarity that our founding fathers knew that it was the government "Leviathan" that the individual needs constitutional protection from. Stevens and the left seek to remove the rights of the individual and transfer them to the government.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the Supreme Court opinion that expanded the Constitution's authorization of seizing private property for "public use" to seizing private property for a "public purpose." And who would define what a "public purpose" is? Basically, those who were doing the seizing. As Justice Stevens put it, the government authorities' assessment of a proper "public purpose" was entitled to "great respect" by the courts.

Let's go back to square one. Just who was this provision of the Constitution supposed to restrict? Answer: government officials. And to whom would Justice Stevens defer: government officials. Why would those who wrote the Constitution waste good ink putting that protection in there, if not to protect citizens from the very government officials to whom Justice Stevens deferred?

The Illinois Spiral

The Illinois spiral: How overgrown government stymies job creation. - chicagotribune.com

Good title. Reality is a stern teacher. This paragraph directly hits the mark, but it is an overall good column.

Employers tend to be harder-headed in deciding where to invest their money than our lawmakers are in spending other people's money. The employers see Illinois pols dithering through a crisis, inviting an even more bleak future with their refusal to reform government spending and reduce what it costs to have a payroll in Illinois:

Obvious, But Still Wisdom

Thomas Sowell : Race and Politics: Part III - Townhall.com

Sowell is one of my intellectual idols, it is a struggle for me to be objective about him. Just read the whole thing (short), but if you are REALLY pressed for time, he starts with the assertion that different races have had radically different outcomes at different times in history and ends with:

Causation and morality are two different things, however much they get
confused today by politicians and the media.

In support of that:

Nothing is easier to find than sins among human beings. But the fatal
misstep is to assume that those sins must be the reason for the
differences we see.

Precisely. What people do with no thought of doing good often results in great good for even those injured, and what people do with the greatest of intent often results in great evil, often for exactly those to be intended to be helped!

Those who see differences among groups as being due to environment,
rather than heredity, too often think of environment as the current
immediate surroundings. But a major part of any group's environment is
the culture that they have inherited from the past.

Our pictures are FAR from big enough -- as are our sense of time / history.

If We Drop Our Pants, So Will They

Charles Krauthammer : Nuclear Posturing, Obama-Style - Townhall.com

Slick Willie walked the halls of power with his pants around his knees, but BO is raising it to a national security posture. "Getting caught with your pants down" used to be something to be avoided, but we now have "Change".

If some small rogue nation unleashes a biologic plague on the US and kills 150 million people, will we nuke them? According to BO, absolutely not! I'm sure that is comforting for any terrorist working on transmissible hemorrhagic fever in some backwater, but somehow, to me, the idea that we want to provide aid and comfort there is insanity. What else is going to come of this new "posture".

 I'd think it might be kind of good for such a person to feel very assured that something really bad, up to and including being nuked, was LIKELY if they were to "succeed" in leaving 10's or even 100's of millions of our loved ones and fellow Americans dying in pools of our own blood, vomit and excrement  with nobody left healthy enough to help. On this particular policy it is hard for me to imagine it really being selected by stupidity -- based on his two books, I'd have to say there is an over 50% chance that BO would find the vision of that bio-threat creator to be something "justly deserved" for the former "colonial power".

Think of all those slaves, think of all those Indians, think of all those poor in the slums -- America being humbled in messy death may be just the "Change" BO would find to be "just".
Let's see, I'm 6'4", 280lbs and have a permit to carry. I suppose that if I have my legs cut off at the knees and carry a sign that says "unarmed", that will make me safer? Seems odd that I've been able to walk into some pretty rough places from time to time over the last 30 years or so and never have a problem.

I've always thought that being big, ugly and looking like you might have a couple howitzers and a machete on you was good way to AVOID problems -- I at least HOPED so, since "blending in" isn't that good an option at my size. There are some folks that like to fight, but most of them would like to think their chances of winning were high and of getting shot were low. I believe that ambiguity as to retaliation is a GOOD thing.

Not so BO! Would he not be safer if he gave up Secret Service protection? or maybe just promised that if no attackers were going to use any guns, then neither would his protection detail? That seems like an obvious way to prove the intelligence of his nuke posture -- at least unless he has some other purpose in mind for what he is doing.

A Bright Future

Op-Ed Columnist - Relax, We’ll Be Fine - NYTimes.com

David Brooks is the "conservative" at the NYT, which means he is a Socialist rather than a Marxist. I like optimism, especially warranted optimism. We finally have some optimism, I'm just afraid we already gutted the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The United States already measures at the top or close to the top of nearly every global measure of economic competitiveness. A comprehensive 2008 Rand Corporation study found that the U.S. leads the world in scientific and technological development. The U.S. now accounts for a third of the world’s research-and-development spending. Partly as a result, the average American worker is nearly 10 times more productive than the average Chinese worker, a gap that will close but not go away in our lifetimes.

A 2008 study? Gee, what policies had the US been operating under since '81, other than during a very short Clinton induced bender in '93-'94 before we were saved by a Republican Congress? I really don't think outlets like the NYT thought that we did so much R&D, top or close to top in every measure, 10x as productive as the Chinese -- but maybe I was asleep in '08. I could have sworn that '08 was the year that "Change" was the only thing that counted ... things were so bad that certainly ANYTHING would be better than Bush!

This produces a lot of dynamism. As Stephen J. Rose points out in his book “Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger From the Financial Crisis,” when income is adjusted for family size, the percentage of prime-age American adults earning between $35,000 and $70,000 declined by 12 points between 1979 and 2007. But that’s largely because the percentage earning more than $105,000 increased by 14 points. Over the last 10 years, 60 percent of Americans made more than $100,000 in at least one of those years, and 40 percent had incomes that high for at least three.

Note ... 2007. I listen to MPR, I can't count how often I was made aware of the "decline in the middle class". Somehow (even though I've been aware of it from "biased conservative sources") they always failed to mention that the largest reason for that is the fact that 14% of folks went UP to earning over $105K. Shocking. How could they miss that statistic???

Well, we are in the 4th year of Democrats in congress and the 2nd year of BO, so the MSM is recognizing good news. That is good to see. It is a bit disconserting to realize how dense they feel that their supporters really are to believe that news from '07 / '08 is likely to help us much now. Nancy, Harry and BO have been very busy with "change" since '07. Added regulations, rewards for failure, penalties for success, kickbacks to their supporters in unions and industry, vast increases in low productivity government workers, etc. Yes, I whole heartedly agree that while we still had huge problems in '08 ( sub-prime mortgages heavily due to FANNIE / FREDDIE, structural deficits do to unaffordable FICA / Medicare, costly regulations like Sarbanes - Oxley, etc) -- we were WAY ahead of where we are now.

So, we were in great shape in '07 and '08 based on long standing policies. The smart thing was to CHANGE those policies to be more like the folks that we were beating back then. If football was like liberal thinking; if your team is running the West Coast offense and winning consecutive Super Bowls, while the teams you are beating are mostly running the Wishbone, the smart thing to do is to start running the Wishbone, start losing, then point back at the years you ran the West Coast and use that as an indication that you have a bright future!

Tipping Over Series of Tubes

I heard from my teen/early 20's sons about the stupidity of the "series of tubes" over and over again. Apparently it was a hot item on John Stewart. If you have the stomach to listen to the long versions of these, I'll let you draw your own conclusions about relative intelligence. Then draw your own conclusions about which one gets the most MSM coverage!

BTW, I'd never listened to the Steven's one before, from listening to the whole thing -- while clearly not an Internet expert, it seems pretty clear that he was using the very standard metaphor that all of us that actually work on technology. Usually "pipes", but not PHYSICAL ... just a way to think of it. 

Positive Ridicule

Obama, in Maine, Needles Republicans Over Calls to Repeal Health Care Overhaul - NYTimes.com

Mr. Obama ridiculed Republicans for apocalyptic predictions about the health care program and needled them about their campaign platform calling for repeal, repeating the “Go for it” challenge he issued in Iowa last week.

Bush of course was called extremely arrogant for saying "bring it on" to terrorists. Democrats reveled in any sign that America's troops were losing in Iraq, pushing that joy right to the limits as their "wisdom" meant declaring our efforts "lost" on a number of occasions, including the spring of '07 after Bush announced the surge. I don't believe he ever ridiculed Democrats.

Cheering for defeat in Iraq was of course "patriotic" from the MSM POV as long as Bush was in office--along with hailing any jobs report that was "below estimates" as a sign of "a jobless recovery", even after the 9-11 attacks. The wars, Gitmo, the Patriot Act, offshore drilling, and a host of other things are now either "no news" or "good" as long as we have BO in the big chair.

My view is that the MSM actually does what I consider to be a decent job when there is a Republican in the oval office. ALL leadership deserves to be 2nd guessed and questioned -- and even ridiculed a little. The late night TV folks do a decent job of that when a Republican is in, but they can't even find it in their liberal souls to make some fun of BO saying company health insurance was going to go DOWN by "3000%".  They do go too far when they cheer for America's defeat at war however. Why can't they find it in their professional responsibility to criticize the elected officials that they agree with? Why have an "adversarial press" when they turn into a lapdog press when their guy is in?

Those of us that have checked into BO's background know that ridicule is #5 on his list of "commandments" from his own personal hero, Saul Alinsky. It is in his own personal code to ridicule the opposition, but the MSM shows their true colors just a bit too much when they revel in his ridicule of Republicans, but considers any opposition to his programs by Republicans to be tantamount to treason.

I've long ago given up on the myth of an "unbiased press". I just wish the rest of the country would recognize it as the dangerous myth it is. The NYT, NPR, CBS, CNN, etc are simply "Fox News on the left". They are every bit as "faux" as Fox, it is simply that the 20% of the left realize that they can't continue to govern the 80% in the middle - right if the opposition viewpoint is openly expressed.