Left Turn: Take the Washington-Wall St Bridge

I was arguing with the Democratic party propagandists at WaPo over the bailout failure. They were fer it, I was agin' it.

I pointed out that they are the same ones who usually rail against Wall Street and President Bush (aka Bu$hCo) while crying boohoo tears for the "little guy." They failed to see the irony. Nancy Pelosi tries to fork over $700 Billion of the "little guy's" money to modern day Wall Street robber barons and they defend it. I guess their worship of Speaker Pelosi and big government statist interventions trumped their utter hatred for President Bush. Life can get confusing in Libtardland.

A few other reasoned conservatives and I finally drove most of them from the forum, but it was like trying to reason with a pack of yapping hounds.

The GOP should wear their opposition to this Frankenstein's monster like a badge of honor. They revealed the Democrats and Wall Street fat cats to be the true partners in crime that they are.

The Democrats implement socialist experiments, we taxpayers get shaken down for the loot, and Wall Street banksters profit, returning those profits as political contributions to Democratic politicians like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who are swimming in millions of dollars of Wall Street political contributions. Organized crime gangs get taken down for carrying out schemes like this.

The Republicans should be congratulated for throwing a big monkey wrench in the Democrats' taxpayer-funded Wheel of Fortune.

This bailout is a terrible idea. Jeffrey A. Miron is an economist and Harvard economics lecturer. He doesn't like the bailout either. Here are some excerpts:

The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company.

Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.

Further, the current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street's hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80 cents.

Anticipation of the bailout will engender strategic behavior by Wall Street institutions as they shuffle their assets and position their balance sheets to maximize their take. The bailout will open the door to further federal meddling in financial markets.

Just to be fair and balanced, I'm also linking to an ignorant leftist argument in the New York Times. He tries to pin the debacle on "failed Bush policies, but ends up criticizing our increasing federal debt while totally not proving his assertion. To complete his irrationality, he criticizies government spending but supports Obama. This is a prime example of how liberals just look foolish trying to analyze and discuss economic issues.

It's like Halloween or a full moon; the nuts come out of the woodwork...

Barack Obama's America

This is Barack Obama's America: An America where ACORN, La Raza and his fellow community organizers demand home loans for people who cannot repay them.

This is Barack Obama's America: Congress caves in to the leftist agitators and passes laws that force mortgage lenders to abandon prudent, time-tested standards, creating bad debt and collapsing our financial markets.

Wonder what an Obama presidency would be like? We have a taste of it right now: Liberal politicians conspiring with Wall Street banksters to drive our nation into penury. And all in the name of "helping people" by building a Socialist utopia.

We don't need to call him a closet Muslim or accuse him of not being a US citizen. That only makes us look like kooks. Established facts alone can be his undoing.

A guy named David Deming really flames Barack Obama in an opinion piece in the Edmond Sun. Mr. Deming's criticism sticks to basic facts is is very effective. Here are a few highlights:

Obama disdains large swathes of American Culture:

Nothing exemplifies Obama’s antipathy for American culture better than his statement that Americans “cling to” religion and guns out of frustration or bitterness. We only can suppose that Obama regards religion or firearms as aberrations that need to be eradicated.

Obama sat for 20 years in a church where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr preached “goddamn America.”

Obama is an empty vessel into which enraptured followers pour all of their hopes and dreams:

What is Barack Obama for? His campaign motto is “change.” But even a 6-year-old child understands that “change” can be either good or bad. Lacking specifics, the invocation of “change” as policy is completely empty. As we witness Obama’s minions mindlessly endorse the meaningless maxim of “change,” it only can call to mind the barnyard animals in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” chanting “four legs good, two legs bad!”

David Deming is an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. If you want to see what good, effective criticism is, go read his opinion piece.

The ideas that Barack Obama believes in are what caused this financial crisis.

Racism 2008

I find most articles about race disturbing. This one from Breitbart is no different. An AP-Yahoo survey supposedly reveals that 33% of white Democrats are racist. Here's how they define racist:

...one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks—many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.

Note how they group "responsible for their own troubles" with the obviously racist beliefs "lazy" and "violent." This is how they get a higher percentage of "racists."

Saying "blacks are responsible for their own problems" is not racist. It's expressing a belief in personal responsibility. The first step in problem-solving is to recognize a problem exists and take responsibility for it. No one will look out for you better than you look out for yourself. Millions of successful people who rose to success from poor or unfair circumstances can tell you that. They didn't wait around for a community organizer or government program, they just picked themselves up and moved on.

There are too many successful people of color for someone to claim that race is keeping people down. The only thing "keeping blacks down" is the steady diet of race resentment fed to them by liberals who have a financial or emotional interest in keeping the natives on the reservation.

The absurd questions are another reason to detest these pot-stirring polls.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

So the pollsters ask people to select adjectives to describe (stereotype) all black people (a race), then accuse the respondents of racial stereotyping. By the way, those who call blacks "intelligent" or "smart" are also engaging in racial stereotyping. This is junk science at its worst.

Another reason for not liking this stuff is that it is naked propaganda. The not-so-hidden message is that we are all racist sinners, but we can expiate those sins by voting for Obama. Doing otherwise is to persist in our sinful ways. The forced conclusion: If Obama loses, it will have nothing to do with his being more liberal that the majority of Americans. It will be because America is racist.

So tell me again, how does all this improve racial relations?

When Socialist Experiments Explode

In the James Dean movie "Rebel Without a Cause," reckless hoodlums steal cars and play chicken, racing them to the edge of a cliff. Whoever jumps out of the car first is the chicken. Sounds like Congress and the Wall Street bailout program.

House GOP members are trying to stick to their free-market principles and stay in the car, but the economy could end up going over a cliff. They're going to have to jump, and the Democrats will call them chicken when they do.

Democrats are keeping the pressure on because they don't want the truth to come out:

Democrats are the saviors of Wall Street fat cats and Republicans are looking out for the taxpayer.

Socialistic government intervention in private markets created this mess. This second truth explains the first truth. Jimmy Carter started a socialist experiment to allow more people to buy their own homes. Guilty do-gooder liberals in Congress loved the idea and forced lenders to relax their standard so more people could get loans. That is the "deregulation" that created all this bad debt that the President tells us is clogging the finance markets, bringing capital flows to a standstill.

Capitalism is apolitical and amoral. Government schemes of this magnitude need private sector cooperation, and Wall Street was happy to help. They funded Hitler, why not this? Wall Street would finance Satan's global takeover if they could make a profit. Fannie and Freddie greased the skids with political cash to its benefactors in Congress. Barney Frankenstein and Chris DodderingOldFool are swimming in political contributions from the same banksters they are now bailing out. See how this works?

This bailout maintains the status quo. Washington can continue to play Santa Claus with your money, and Wall Street can continue to profit from it.

Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg.com makes the best case I've seen for blaming the Democrats. See Jeff Jacoby's explanation of Barney Frank's guilt.

Pro-Life Music Video

Not all musicians are liberal freaks. There's Charlie Daniels, Alice Cooper, and a very talented buddy of mine. He should be a professional musician, but serves his country instead. He wrote and produced a really touching pro-life video and posted it on YouTube. Please check it out

Joke of the Day: California Then and Now

You can learn a lot from a Freeper...

I frequent and highly recommend FreeRepublic.com. This post is from a thread I was in and it's too good to not pass on. Btw, follow the P8riot link at the bottom. He has put together a really nice web site. I love Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" and P8riot's take on the 2nd amendment hits the bullseye.

To: Silverfiddle

Just got this in an email:

Do you know what happened back in September of 1850?

California became a state. The State had no electricity. The State had no money. Almost everyone spoke Spanish. There were gunfights in the streets.

So, basically, it was just like it is today, except the women had real breasts and the men didn't hold hands.

29 posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2008 7:24:58 AM by P8riot (I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop.)

House GOP Fights Bush-Obama-Frank-Dodd Bailout

The NY Sun asks the question: Will the GOP Congress try a new contract with America this election?

Answer: No.

"There will be no effort to try to nationalize the elections," the House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner, told reporters ...

Mr. Boehner's comments offered a stark reminder of his party's challenges in November, led by a lame duck president with low approval ratings and facing an electorate that voted Republicans out of power two years ago.

While the strategy will free up candidates to tout their independence and distance themselves from a party label that has been damaged in recent years, it may disappoint some activists looking for a more cohesive national strategy and a platform centered around new ideas.

Mr. Boehner cited energy as the issue where Republicans are most confident about making gains against Democrats. He pointed to polling that shows Americans increasingly open to offshore oil drilling, a point that both Mr. McCain and congressional Republicans have been pressing of late.

I really wanted another contract with America, but Mr. Boehner knows more about politics than I do. Plus, I think things are looking up for the Republican "brand".

House Republicans led my Mr. Boehner got Congress to drop the drilling ban and they stood up against the Washington-Wall Street giveaway of taxpayer money. I think they should proudly run on those two important issues.

Let the Democrats run on their support the Bush-Obama bailout.

Axis of Weasels: Washington & Wall Street

What ever happened to responsibility and accountability? Or even good old fashioned shame, for that matter?

Thousands died in a terrorist attack on our country and nobody got fired. Now hundreds of billions of dollars have been flushed down, and nobody gets fired. Instead, we call together the greedy pigs and candyman congressmen who caused it to formulate a plan that will reload Wall Street's vaults with my money.

And the Wall Street welfare queens and bleeding heart politicians who screwed us express no remorse whatsoever. OJ Simpson at least vowed to find the killers...

Anyway, what kind of a financial crisis is this when not even one banker has thrown himself out of a 20 story window? It should be raining remorseful, failed Wall Street Wizards right now.

I listened to the President's speech, and there was one thing missing. Here's what he should have said at the end:

"Now, to help pay for this, as well as to thin the investment banker herd, I'm announcing the federal government will be selling game tags for $1,000 a piece. That's right, for a thousand bucks you can take dead aim on the rich. Now I know some of you boys down in Alabama don't have that kind of money, so we're allowing team hunting. You can pool your money...

OK, so that's going overboard... But I'm mad and I want accountability!

I want to see investment banker heads on pike poles like in the movie Braveheart. I want mountains of Wall Street Wanker skulls piled up like in the days of Tamerlane and Samarkand. I want to see these pseudo-capitalists running down the street chased by angry mobs bearing torches and pitchforks. I want blood...

Limiting executive pay is not enough, not by a long shot dammit! These arrogant bastards need to put some skin in the game: Sell that vacation home, the extra cars, melt down the silver, hock the jewelry... I want to see these greedy weasels squirm. On top of that, the government should only hand over half of what they need. If they're so damned smart they can figure out the rest on their own.

Of course, none of that will happen. We demand nothing of our leaders, so we receive nothing. Harry and the Pelosicrats are planning to cut you another $600 check, though. That should shut us up for awhile, and the World Series is coming up...

Identity Politics, Democrat Style

Here's a great example of a corrupt, liberal Democrat hack trying to scare the natives back on to the reservation:

Florida Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings pointed to Sarah Palin on Wednesday to rally Jews to Obama.

"If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," said Hastings. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

Congressman Hasting is also a disgraced former federal judge. His corruption and perjury while wearing the robes earned him the distinction of being only the 6th federal judge to be impeached by the US Congress. And it was a Democratic controlled congress. Despite that, or maybe because of it (we are talking about Democrats, here) he is now a US Congressman from Florida and a senior Democratic party whip in the House of Representatives.

When your message has no substance, fear and loathing sure do come in handy.

Oxymorons for Obama

Remember the line from Don Henley's hit song "Boys of Summer"? He was chiding the 60's hippies who had sold out and gone mainstream:

"...Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said don't look back..."

Well, I can top that.

Out on the road today,
I saw an Obama sticker
and a Choose Life plate on a Chevrolet,
a little voice inside my head said,
that driver is crazy, stay away.

OK, it's not as catchy as Don's line, but it's true. I really did see it on my way home from work. The person is clearly not pro-choice, since she obviously can't make up her mind between two mutually exclusive beliefs. She probably thinks she's a Republican, too.

Michael Savage is right: Liberalism is a mental disorder...

I didn't have a camera at the time, so I had to recreate the picture using found items on the internet. I apologize to the owner of the car I desecrated.

FBI Probing Wall Street Welfare Queens

It's about damned time!

Wall Street: A Democratic Joint

Follow the Money: If you think Wall Street gives overwhelmingly to the GOP you're wrong. Democrats have been raking in investment banker money almost 2-1 compared to Republicans. Merrill Lynch was the only big firm whose employees gave more to Republicans than Democrats. Michael Franc provides an excellent summary over at National Review.

Blame Liberalism: Democrats caused our current financial calamity. I know, the liberal press echoes the liberal politicians who bawl that it's the fault of those mean, deregulating Republicans. Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters gives us the real reason why: Jimmy Carter and a Democratic congress passed laws that forced lending institutions to loan money to people who couldn't pay it back. These stupid policies were egged on by the Clinton and current Bush Administrations.

It's Not Bush's Fault. It's Barny Frank's Fault. In President Bush's defense, he tried to overhaul Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back in 2003, but was rebuffed by Democrats (and some Republicans) in congress. Here's the money quote from Barney Frank:

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

John McCain Saw This Coming And Tried To Stop It. He cosponsored legislation (blocked by Democrats) that would have reformed reformed Freddie and Fannie. Here's a McCain quote from 2005:

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, ... If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

Capitalism didn't cause this crisis; government intervention in private markets did. Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg.com has written what I think is the best summary on why this is the Democrats' fault.

Bipartisan Sleaze. Wall Street became a giant hog wallow where Democrat and Republican, politician and banker, rooted cheek by jowl in piles of government and private sector money. Even President Bush's overhaul proposal wasn't to sell off Fannie and Freddie, but to create another bureaucracy to oversee the current bureaucracies.

Bipartisan Corruption. Liberals and conservatives must understand this. Our political system is corrupt. And it's a bipartisan corruption: Democrats ran Fannie and Freddie and Republicans lobbied for them while both parties lapped up bribes disguised as political contributions. The only way we can keep sleazy politicians from doing stupid things with our money is to take the money away. Government has no business in business, and business has no business in government. Take away the Federal safety nets for gamblers, and sanity will return to the markets.

We Must Stop Them Before They Breed Again! The regulatory firewall that is needed is between Wall Street and Washington, before their amorous cavortings spawn another monster.

How Are You Going To Pay For It, Senator?

How are you going to pay for it?

That should be the first words out of any reporter or citizen’s mouth upon hearing any proposal from any politician. They sure are the first words out of a wife’s mouth when hubby comes home and announces he’s buying a new bass boat.

Responsible people make financial decisions based upon a budget and try not to spend money they don’t have. We should demand the same from our elected officials.

We are in debt, big time. CBS interviewed the Comptroller General of the United States last year, and he didn’t paint a rosy picture of our fiscal future. And that was before the Wall Street welfare queens disguised as brave capitalists got drunk on greed and wrecked the nation's financial engine.

An awesome place to educate yourself is at http://www.federalbudget.com We are facing a fiscal crisis but the Washington candyman keeps offering us more. Quote from the we site:

In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion of your money on interest payments to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion.

Election season is here. Candidates should be arguing over who will reduce this debt and how. Instead they continue offering us goodies. Here's my only question to the candidates:

How are you going to pay for it?

No We Can't!

John Derbyshire of National Review Online has written a curmudgeonly piece railing against irrational optimism. It's an entertaining read that is even more apt in light of recent developments. I'm sure the jackasses who wrecked our financial system were full of exuberant optimism and overinflated self-esteem.

This hits home with me because, like the author, I do not believe in the perfectibility of man. We are flawed vessels. This brought to my mind William Butler Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming."

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Derbyshire unloads on the liberals, but I must note that conservatives fall prey to unreasoned optimism as well. Here's the money quote:

Today, however, American optimism has got completely out of hand. A corrective is needed. The corrective must come from conservatives, the people who understand that "human nature has no history." We must revive the fine tradition of conservative pessimism. In this age, optimism is for children and fools. And liberals.

Some children will be left behind. You cannot "remake the Middle East" or "defeat evil." The poor will always be with us. Black and white will never mingle together in unselfconscious harmony. Corporations will not research and explore without hope of profit. Russia will not become Sweden. Forty million immigrants speaking a single language will not assimilate.

He makes a very good point. Conservatives used to be against not just risky schemes, but any "scheme" at all. Proper pessimism would keep us out of dubious overseas enterprises and prevent hundreds of billions of new government spending.

Religious Tolerance

Quenton Tarantino movies... Madonna's sex appeal... Religious bigotry... There are some things I just don't get. It takes nothing away from my faith to acknowledge the sincerity of your faith, no matter how different our beliefs may be.

I was on a public forum discussing whether Glenn Beck is an alarmist or not and, it was inevitable, his Mormonism came up. Here's the ignorant comment:

I am surprised that no one has mentioned that Glenn is a Mormon. I think it is common knowledge that among other things they hoard food, supplies and believe the world is going to end any minute now.

Innocuous enough, but it reveals an easy, benign bigotry. Does this guy even know any Mormons? You won't find a more neighborly, self-sufficient and patriotic group of people than LDS folk. They built much of the West and still maintain some of that pioneer spirit. Today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints maintains an extensive charity network that, like the Catholic Church, turns no one away.

Antisemitism still lurks as well. Lately its been dressed up in criticism of "Neocons," and "Zionists." Again I ask the question: Do these bigots actually know any Jewish people? Would they be willing to criticize a Jew to his face? Do they realize Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk were Jewish? Not to mention Cecil B. DeMille, the Three Stooges and Adam Sandler.

A final thought: Whatever your religion, there are literally billions of people in this world who disagree with your beliefs. Thank God for religious tolerance.

Wild Pigs

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the professor noticed one young man who kept rubbing his back as if it hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was wrong. The student told him he had an old bullet wound received while protesting the communist government in his native country. In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"

When the professor, thinking it was a joke, asked for the punch line, the young man shook his head and said,

"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. "The pigs that are used to the free corn start to come through the gate to eat, and then you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops, welfare, medicaid, drugs benefits, etc. Meanwhile they build the fence.

We take the free corn not realizing we are slowly losing our freedom.

Two quotes are appropriate here:

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
-- Gerald Ford (12 August, 1974 address to a joint session of Congress)

"When you get in bed with government, you're going to get more than a good night's sleep"
-- Ronald Reagan (10 November, 1977 speech at Hillsdale College)

Patriotism, Democrat Style

According to Yahoo News Joe Biden made the following comment:

"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

This stupid comment provides a rare moment of clarity.

75% of those making over $250,000 per year are actually business owners filing their taxes as an individual. They've already "jumped in" and are "part of the deal." The "deal" they've jumped into is providing jobs for millions of fellow Americans. That's not patriotic? How about if they fired everybody and then sent the payroll money to the feral government, would that make them more patriotic? According to Palooka Joe it would.

It is socialistic (and stupid) to believe that taking money away from job creators and giving it to the feral government will "get America out of the rut." This is what is putting our nation in the rut.

Do these people even think before they speak? It's so easy to expose their ignorance even a redneck with a computer can do it...

Liberal Fantasy: McCain Caught on Tape

John McCain was caught on tape talking to a roomful of working class Americans at a VFW Hall in Hogeye, Arkansas yesterday, and it wasn't pretty. News outlets quickly pounced, noting excitedly that he had dropped all bipartisan pretense.

"These urban liberals, they cling to their bankrupt liberal orthodoxy and lattes, sneering at everyone who doesn't think like them because they are scared. They think anything outside of city limits is a lawless backwoods free-for-all where toothless hicks and barefoot pregnant women roam around in gas guzzling pickup trucks shooting anything that moves, for heavens sake!"

Loud clapping or stamping obscured his next comment that seemed to mention ACORN, cigarette and booze bribes, voter fraud and dead people voting. "Friends, my friends..." He paused to let the noise die down, then began again.

"They prefer their squalid liberal cesspools of high taxation and high unemployment, insisting imperiously that progressive paradise would be ushered in if only those stupid country hicks would stop voting Republican."

The audio is then overwhelmed by outbursts of laughter and hoots of approval from the small, enclosed crowd. The last part of the recording is partially indistinguishable:

"(inaudible) ... piano lessons,... millionaires... pay for their own damn college bills...hard working Americans!" "...Proud of our country..." (more hoots and yee-haws)... (Break)

I really shouldn't listen to Bill Bennett's Morning in America on the way to work... Thanks to caller Dr. Marty for the idea.

McChange

The constant whining from the press is like a gnat in your ear: "McCain stole Obama's Change message!" But it brings the issue front and center: Which man is best equipped to usher in "change"?

First off, lets drop the kick-butt, take names fantasy. We may relish the vision of a muscular Obama or an angry McCain swinging senators and lobbyists around by their expensive neckties, or publicly shaming them on national TV, but that's just not going to happen.

The entrenched DC powers are a bipartisan collection of moneyed backscratchers and button-holers who do a lot of winking and nodding. They also know how to circle the wagons. All that "Republican versus Democrat" stuff is just for the TV cameras. Both parties are branches of the same powerful DC tribe, and they all subscribe to a modified version of that old Arab saying:

I against my party; I and my party against the opposition party; I and my party and the opposition party against the reformers.

Given this entrenched environment, is it realistic to to expect a 46 year old newbie senator to change anything more important than which way the toilet paper is hung in the president's private bathroom? A quick review of the last two presidencies doesn't provide much hope.

Washington outsider Bill Clinton, elected with 43% of the vote, was impotent (politically!) until the Republicans took over congress. History had ended, so he jumped on their bandwagon. They in turn acceded to some of his demands, and taxes got lowered, NAFTA was passed, welfare as we know if was ended and economic good times rolled. The public voted for change, and the president and Congress were more than happy to give it to them.

DC outsider George Bush used the bully pulpit, or plain old bullying, to get his way on defense and security issues. But most of his changes bloated government; more like something a Democrat would do. Anyway, congress had retrenched by then. The 24/7 Bush-Pelosi-Reid cage match has shown that confrontation does not produce positive change.

Here's how real change can happen: President McCain invites his old Democrat cronies to the White House and says "Look Teddy, we've got to make some big changes here and bring government under control. I need your help. What's it gonna take, Diane, Russ?" Don't worry, he'll invite some Republicans too.

And the bartering goes back and forth, nobody's sacred cow gets gored too badly, and everybody claims credit and runs on it the next election cycle. Some little pigs will get stuck here and there, and they'll squeal loudly as they go down, their defenders crying foul. There will be the rare ugly brute force takedown, but for the most part, the pain and glory will be shared by all because Mac knows how to play these games and he has the deep bipartisan connections to do it.

Democracy & Liberty

I just got this in an e-mail from a friend:

DEMOCRACY is two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for lunch...

LIBERTY is a well armed sheep contesting the outcome of the vote...

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Demoncat Scorned

Folks, The Democrat Machine (which includes the press) is scared. If Obama continues to slide in the polls, they will turn into a frightened, enraged bull, trampling and goring anything and everything in its path.

So brace yourself now for the Mother of all October Surprises. It's going to be an invented scandal a day, drip, drip, drip, turning into a torrent in the final week before election day.

What do I recommend?

This: No matter what you see or hear that is negative about McCain-Palin, do not believe it. I don't care how egregious the charge may be: McCain is a Manchurian candidate, Palin snorted cocaine, her husband tortured animals... I don't care. Don't believe it.

This is not willful ignorance; it is informed decision making. The press has lost all credibility. Reporters are naked Democratic partisans. Remember Dan Rather and the faked George Bush National Guard letter that he still insists was true? And how about all the false stories they peddled about Sarah Palin: Faked pregnancy, banning books, extramarital affair... All BS.

But all that is peanuts compared to what they will cook up when they get desperate. Don't believe me? Democratic Party functionary and ex-Clinton aide Mark Penn says the press has lost credibility in its mad rush to discredit Sarah Palin:

I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.

I think that the media is doing the kinds of stories on Palin that they're not doing on the other candidates. And that's going to subject them to people concluding that they're giving her a tougher time.

What happened here very clearly is that the controversy over Palin led to 37 million Americans tuning into a vice-presidential speech, something that is unprecedented, because they wanted to see for themselves. This is an election in which the voters are going to decide for themselves. The media has lost credibility with them.

Thank You Hollywood

Hollywood is a giant jobs program for those unfit for real life. Where else could drug-addled bums like Woody Harrelson and Sean Penn put on eyeglasses and suddenly become an environmental expert or a foreign policy scholar?

Thank you Hollywood for employing the otherwise unemployable. Were it not for you, the welfare lines would be much longer, unemployment higher, and my wallet lighter due to the tax increase it would require to sustain these ignorant bozos. A $10 movie ticket or $40 concert ticket is a small price to pay to keep these beebee brains off the government dole.

Could you imagine Lindsay Lohan or Snoop Dogg trying to count change at the 7-11? Eddy Vedder or 50 Cent working at a mens clothing store? Barbra Streisand should be in Synagogue every Sabbath thanking God for her voice. If she had to live off of her brains she'd be broke.

Charlie Sheen advocated kook 9/11 conspiracy theories because "it feels like a conspiracy." Famed metallurgist Rosie O'Donnell gave her audience a physics lesson, explaining how fire had never melted metal. I'm sure there were a lot of steel workers scratching their heads over that one.

Matt Damon is the latest Hollywood circus clown to play political commentator. He touched on the "sexy mom as president" theme, which shows you where his adolescent mind is at. He also worried about Palin's ability to stare down Putin.

Yeah Matt, having a big game hunter who took down her own party elite face off with the Ruskies is really risky. Better to go with the effete metrosexual with a messiah complex who wants to be everybody's friend. That would be much better.

So, thank you Hollywood. Thanks for the laughter you bring us when the rancid anti-American movies you grunt out are met by empty theaters. Thank you for the freebees you throw our way in the form of some glittery, plastic surgery moron trying to lecture us from her pulpit on the Larry King Show. Their stupid pronouncements keep us in stitches.

But most of all, thanks for keeping these dregs of society off the streets and giving them a safe place to shoot up and feel good about themselves. Only in America could such worthless bums rise to such prominence but still thankfully be of no real consequence.

God Bless Hollywood and God Bless the USA!

Democratic Desperation

The Obama ship is sinking. And like rats and other creatures fearing for their lives, panicky Democrats are grasping and clawing at anything to keep from drowning.

The latest panic attack comes from Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. She artfully used Alan Greenspan's comments against McCain (whom he supports for president) and demanded McCain explain how he will pay for his tax cuts. Here's her statement:

Alan Greenspan, even though he's a Republican and even though he's a friend of John McCain's, spoke some truth yesterday. John McCain is being irresponsible.

Of course, Alan Greenspan didn't say McCain was irresponsible. Here's what he said according to Bloomberg.com:

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. can't afford $3.3 trillion of tax cuts proposed by Republican presidential nominee John McCain without similar reductions in the federal budget.

Greenspan, a lifelong Republican and longtime friend of McCain, said on Bloomberg Television's Political Capital With Al Hunt' that "I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money.''

McCain has said he would balance the cost of most of his tax cuts with budget reductions, while providing few details beyond eliminating earmarks and other pork-barrel spending, which have totaled about $171 billion since 2001. Democratic nominee Barack Obama is proposing fewer tax cuts and more ambitious spending programs.

Don't hold your breath waiting for McCaskill and other concerned Democrats to demand that Obama explain how he's going to pay for his tax cuts and ambitious spending programs...

OK For Me But Not For Thee

Sam Dealy reports at the USN&WR Site on Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel's tax evasion problems. It's a great article, and this is my favorite paragraph:

But even more galling is that the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee needed a white-collar criminal lawyer to explain the U.S. tax code to him. Rangel's fitness to serve notwithstanding, that says a good deal about the state of our tax system.

Yes indeed. This reminded me of other mortgage issues that have bubbled up recently. WaPo had a news report about how the Obamas got a sweetheart deal on their multi-million dollar mansion. They didn't do anything wrong of course; these special deals are commonly offered to the wealthy.

Then there is news that Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad may be involved in shady mortgage deals as well. Democratic party connections to the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Mortgage debacles round out the picture.

Seeing how we're in the election season, these guys are lucky. If they were Republicans this would be a full-blown scandal by now.

Gibson's Palin Interview

Martin Sieff at UPI has a good summary of Charlie Gibson's interview performance. The consensus is that he was trying to show his fellow lib reporters how tough he could be.

Tactically, she made the mistake of trying to be friendly and informal with Gibson, who assumed a superior, professorial and critical stance toward her.

Gibson's aggressive approach appeared to take Palin by surprise: He was clearly attempting to put her on point by presenting her as having extreme religious views. This again, however, appears to be a double-standard, as Palin grew up in the Assemblies of God, one of the largest Christian denominations in America with 16 million members, and is now a member of the Wasilla Bible Church. Even now, Obama has yet to receive any comparable grilling on his 20-year attendance in the congregation of the notoriously racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Liberal Democrats predictably will cite the interview as evidence that Palin is not prepared for the vice presidency. Republicans will equally predictably cite it as evidence that she is. How centrist voters will react to it remains to be seen. One thing is clear: This isn't a transformational election on either side. Whoever wins, the ugly old cultural and political divisions in America remain -- and they are deeper than ever.

The NY Times chimed in with a decidedly Democratic point of view:

"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "

Bane of the left Charles Krauthammer swats down the biased NY Times analysis and shows Charlie Gibson to be the one who is ignorant of the Bush Doctrine:

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.

Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

I Agree With the Italian Socialists

UK's Times Online reports:

Comedian Sabina Guzzanti 'insulted Pope' in 'poofter devils' gag

An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years.

Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President.

I greatly respect and admire Pope Benedict, and I don't enjoy seeing leaders of any religion insulted, but I hate free speech laws even more. Could you imagine being jailed for insulting the president? Give me a break!

I'm not Italian, so on one level this is none of my business, but we're all part Western Society, and an erosion of freedom in one area can quickly spread.

Even Catholic Priests have chimed in on the side of the tasteless joker:

Father Bartolomeo Sorge, a Jesuit scholar, told La Repubblica the move to prosecute Ms Guzzanzi was incomprehensible. "We Christians put up with many insults, it is part of being a Christian, as is forgiveness. I feel sure the Pope has already forgiven those who insulted him on Piazza Navona."

Supporting free speech means sometimes hearing things that may offend you. Voltaire said it best:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

That's Just Joe

Joe Biden is living up to his reputation as a Gaff-a-minute politician. They're stacking up so high, the press can no longer ignore it. IHT has a short article that sums up his greatest hits of the past few weeks.

For example:

In Fort Myers, Florida, last week, he referred to the "Biden administration," before quickly correcting himself to say the "Obama-Biden administration."

"Believe me, that wasn't a Freudian slip," he said, laughing and crossing himself. "Oh lordy day, I tell ya."

Here's my favorite:

Earlier in the week, in Columbia, Missouri, Biden urged a paraplegic state official to stand up to be recognized.

"Chuck, stand up, let the people see you," Biden shouted to State Senator Chuck Graham, before realizing, to his horror, that Graham uses a wheelchair. "Oh, God love ya," Biden said. "What am I talking about?"

Do his gaffes matter? No. Victor Davis Hanson observes:

Almost any thought that comes into his head goes out his mouth, and the strange thing is that no one seems to mind (imagine if Sarah Palin had said Obama was good looking, or a step backward, or that Romney would have been a better pick than herself)...

Hanson even coins a new term to explain this phenomenon:

Biden's Law: If one makes enough gaffes, they soon reach a point that none of them matter.

Hanson concludes:

I have heard a lot of conservatives rattle off all the reasons why Biden is duplicitous, a bully, and often mean-spirited—before ending up with an inexplicable sigh, "But I sort of like Joe Biden." Even weirder—I sort of do too, but don't know quite why either.

McCain Fights Back, Angers Reporters

Howie Kurtz at WaPo warns that the media is really getting mad at the McCain-Palin campaign. Indignant reporters accuse them of playing politics and spinning. How dare they! No campaign has ever done that before.

I read this and thought, this is news? Of course the press is upset; McCain-Palin threatens to bring down their chosen candidate. Here's a breathless excerpt from Howie's article:

News outlets are increasingly challenging false or questionable claims by the McCain campaign, whether it's the ad accusing Obama of supporting sex-ed for kindergartners (the Illinois legislation clearly describes "age-appropriate" programs) or Palin's repeated boast that she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere (after she had supported it, and after Congress had effectively killed the specific earmark).

Wow. He reports news and defends his hero Obama all in one breath. What talent.

Meanwhile, no one calls the Obama campaign on it when they take an obvious McCain joke about being rich and turn it into a dishonest attack ad.

We heard nothing from these Guardians of Truth about Obama praising China's infrastructure, saying it is "vastly superior to ours." It was an ignorant and provably untrue statement, but the Obama-infatuated press said nothing. You can find Mr. Obama's statement on YouTube, but not by searching on-line news articles.

Mac's not their buddy anymore because he's no longer the inoffensive moderate they can praise as he goes down in noble defeat to The Messiah.

So Howie, Joe, and the rest of the ink-stained liberals disguised as the press... Get mad! Get outraged!

Get bent. Take your haughty, impotent anger and stuff it!

Your credibility is shot. Nobody believes you anymore...

To paraphrase Bob Dylan "we're beyond your command, the times they are a changin'!"

Does Palin Think Romney More Qualified?

"Make no mistake about this," Palin said. "Mitt Romney is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. And quite frankly, he might have been a better pick than me."

Actually, Joe Biden made the above statement about Hillary Clinton on the 10th of September. But imagine if Sarah Palin had said it. The press frenzy would burst all bounds of sanity, the left would be in righteous uproar and it all would be raining down upon our heads night and day, thundering in our ears, until the McCain campaign collapsed and Ms. Palin withdrew in disgrace.

Here's the real quote from Senator Biden:

"Make no mistake about this," Biden responded. "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she’s first rate, I mean that sincerely, she’s first rate, so let’s get that straight."

And the Democrat-supporting press let's it slide... The press's feigned partiality is an insult to all Americans and another shameful smudge on the 4th estate.

Jesus Was a Carpenter

"Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a governor."

This bit of wisdom comes from the same liberals who excoriate President Bush's prayers, denigrate Sarah Palin for living her religion, and routinely ridicule "right-wing Christians." I won't even mention their casual antisemitism cloaked in criticism of Zionism and "Neocons."

All I can say is, welcome to the club. Now, what would Our Lord and Savior say about your unqualified support for abortions, including leaving babies who survive them to die?

This near-blasphemous nonsense is the work of desperate Obamaniacs caught in the grip of Piddle in the Pants Palin Panic (known as P4 for short). The Bible calls Jesus many things: Christ, Lord, Messiah (sorry O-Man, Jesus was there first), but community organizer is never mentioned. Not even The Almighty escapes this crowd's desperate, grubby misappropriations.

What is a community organizer? Depends on who you talk to. Near as I can tell, they spend government grant money in pursuit of... More government grant money! Here's Michelle Malkin's take:

With benefactors like Obama in office, ACORN (a left-wing community organizing bastion) has milked nearly four decades of government subsidies to prop up chapters that promote the welfare state and undermine the free market, as well as some that have been implicated in perpetuating illegal immigration and voter fraud.

The Chicago Sun Times has a more charitible view:

Community organizers come into poor neighborhoods and try to get people knocked down by life back up on their feet.

They tell them where to find jobs, where to send their kids for day care, where to get drug counseling.

They show residents how they can organize to protest poor housing conditions, low pay and other inner-city woes.

Are there really people so helpless that they need someone to tell them where to find a job or a babysitter? There comes a point when training wheels do more harm than good.

I can tell someone how to protest crummy housing, poor neighborhoods and no jobs: Move!

Think I'm being callous? I've been there. The factories were shutting down when I graduated high school. No future in my hometown, so I moved on (with a push from papa Silverfiddle).

Liberalism doesn't provide that push. Instead it encourages the oppressed and downtrodden to wallow in their misfortune (and vote Democrat) instead of just getting up and moving on. This situation does provide employment opportunities though... for more community organizers!

It's called a self-licking ice cream cone...

Silverfiddle Banned from a Left-Wing Kook Site

I got banned from a lefty site this Sunday. I admit it, I was taunting, but kick me off?

I've been prowling websites the last year or so searching for a good debate. Most liberals I've engaged with don't want to debate, they just want to aim foul-mouthed tirades at the intellectual inferiors who are too stupid to think just like they do. The best discussions I've had were with European lefties and atheists. They know how to defend their positions and they do it without the rabid attacks.

Go to your ordinary lefty site run by Americans and you will find herd-mentality people who are scared of a contrary point of view. They don't want their orthodoxy questioned. It's a shame: The left used to be a place of great intellectual ferment.

The fateful thread I jumped into concerned the need to really start going negative against Sarah Palin. This lefty crowd was foaming at the mouth angry and wanted more attacks. Here are some of the enlightened comments:

Uncle Joe Mccarthy Says: palin is not a joke. she is a scary bitch

Fil Hussein Oaks Says: Yes we Klan! Change + Dangerous = Changerous
Yes we Klan for MKKKAIN!

Pissed Off Says: John MCSame Is too Old and too Angry to be President…
George W. Bush has always been too stupid to Be President.

karen marie Says:
his (McCain's) shriveled little *&$%! can barely dribble pee at this point.

Here is my first comment:

Silverfiddle said: Keep up the attacks. Every left-wing nutball attack advances the conservative cause.
McCain - Palin: Real Hope and Change!

I also got this comment in before the petty fascists disappeared me from their putrid site:

Silverfiddle said: ... And be sure to do it with sneering condescension. Remember how ridiculous the self-righteous Republicans looked when they were going after President Clinton? You look even worse going after Palin.

Here is what the insecure thumb-sucker who moderates the forum put in place of my comments:

[Deleted: As a fellow blogger, we would expect a certain decorum on your part. As a site monitor here, I’ve realized that to expect manners from many right leaning people is expecting way too much. I am banning you. I’m scrubbing your URL from our site. It’s the kindest thing I can do for someone who has manners fit for the barnyard (I apologize, barnyards)-Sitemonitor]

So expressing a contrary point of view is bad manners.

Sinclair Lewis famously said: "Fascism will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible." That may have been true in 1935, but it is now outdated, since the bible and the flag no longer enjoy a prominent position in our left-dominated popular culture.

Fascism is already creeping up on us in the form of left-think political correctness. It is enforced by narrow-minded people who ignorantly call themselves liberals. It is writ large in workplaces, academia, and popular culture. But for big fascism to work, it requires thousands of little mini-me fascists. And these petty tyrants already practice it in thousands of petty fiefdoms scattered across our nation.

Obama Worship. Liberal Propaganda. Journalism?

Supplicants in the press continue to promote their hero, Barack Obama.

Obama worshiper Fatimah Ali wrote a particularly dishonest piece. in the Philadelphia Daily News. I'm not saying she's a liar; I'm sure she believes the manure she swallows and regurgitates. My fiskers are out, so let's get started.

She starts by asserting John McCain is just like George Bush. This is a willful distortion. Different men, different biographies, different political styles, different beliefs on the role of government. But she's duty bound to spout the Democratic party line.

She mentions Barney Smith from Marion, Indiana, the ordinary guy who proclaimed himself a Republican for Obama at the DNC Convention. He's an unemployed man living in a liberal sinkhole hollowed out by populist policies and cocky union overreach.

Yes, there are two Americas: Liberal reservations ran by dysfunctional governments that tax businesses into leaving while promising gullible citizens more goodies it can't afford.

Then there is the rest of America, where responsible Democratic and Republican governments encourage people to take care of themselves by participating in free-market capitalism. California and Massachusetts pay the same federal taxes as Alabama and Tennessee, but they tax their businesses more. So who is to blame for the decline of the former and the continued job growth of the latter? Could it be local and state governments?

We have a fundamentally strong economy; some states are more adept at taking advantage of it than others. To blame President Bush is ridiculous. States and cities that engage in leftist Eat The Rich rhetoric (Michigan, Ohio) are suffering. Oklahoma, Texas and other business friendly regions are enjoying lower unemployment.

Here's another outright lie from Ms. Ali:

Over the last eight years, we've lost 3.2 million jobs

This is easily refuted by this Economic Policy Institute negative article lamenting slow but positive job growth. And of course, she fails to mention those minor factors known as the dot-com bubble and 9/11. But no lie is too big to advance the cult of Obama.

He (Obama) promises to cut taxes for 95 percent of American workers and ease the burden for millions of families.

Does she realize how little taxes the bottom 50% of income earners pay? For the record, the bottom 50% makes less than 32,000/year and pays 3% of the income tax. 35% of wage earners pay no taxes at all. They don't need a tax break, they need jobs! And jobs are provided by rich people that she wants to tax into oblivion.

The top 1%, those making over 388,000/year, pay almost 40%. I'm not sticking up for rich people, but how can you cut taxes for the bottom 50% when they pay little or no taxes already? Answer: You give them "tax Credits" that are thinly disguised government handouts. This Wall Street Journal article explains it well:

Mr. Obama claims to offer a tax cut to moderate-income families, but a significant portion of Mr. Obama's tax plan is a welfare giveaway costing more than $648 billion over 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center.

How so? He would authorize a hodgepodge of refundable tax credits covering everything from education, mortgage payments, child care and other items for people who do not pay income taxes now.

About 38% of U.S. households pay no income tax today. Under a President Obama (whose policies would shave 15.3 million households off the tax rolls) that share would grow to nearly half of all American households.

We have been repeatedly told that everyone should pay their fair share. So this sounds grossly unfair and like a return of tax-and-spend liberal economics. No wonder there is a lot of doubt about the wisdom of the junior senator from Illinois.

Liberals are enamored of Billion Dollar Schemes when all that is really required is following some simple advice. Walter E. Williams, a brilliant and witty economist I greatly respect, has a simple plan for success in life:

Avoiding long-term poverty is not rocket science. First, graduate from high school. Second, get married before you have children, and stay married. Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage. And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior.

It really is that simple, just ask the tens of millions of successful Americans who have tried it. Ms. Ali closes her propaganda piece with her real bottom line:

If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!

Translation: If you backwoods hicks elect the old white guy and we'll tip it all over, man! Hand over the loot and nobody gets hurt.

Obama: "My Muslim Faith"

You can't make this stuff up...

Mr. Obama referred to "My Muslim faith" Sunday on George Stephanopolus' show. I'm not one of those who think he is a closet Muslim, but this still has me laughing.

"Let's not play games," he said. "What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you're absolutely right that that has not come."

Mr. Stephanopoulos interrupted with, "Christian faith."

"My Christian faith," Mr. Obama said quickly. "Well, what I'm saying is that he hasn't suggested that I'm a Muslim. And I think that his campaign's upper echelons have not, either. What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith -- something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time."

I've been standing up for Obama against friends and coworkers who think he's really a Muslim and now he goes and does this...