Many on the right are worried about the perceived “weakness” of the
Republican Presidential field. Various candidates have either been
described as too “moderate” or too “unelectable.” All of the
candidates, to varying degrees, have strayed from Republican orthodoxy
in some way, leaving many would-be supporters discouraged. We seem to
be forced to choose between arguably more conservative candidates
versus arguably more electable candidates. Many fear that any one of
them is too weak to beat Obama. I must admit, I have shared that
trepidation at times, and largely stayed out of the internecine
battles of the primary. I have always said that I would support the
eventual nominee against Obama (even if his name was Osatan Bin
Hitler, and I had to saw off an arm to ensure victory). I didn’t
particularly care who was the nominee, as long as they beat Obama.
However, the time for choosing has come, and I have chosen the
candidate for whom I am going to vote tomorrow, and I am making my
endorsement public on the eve of Super Tuesday in Massachusetts, in
the hopes that fellow Bay Staters will choose that same candidate.
My candidate has the extensive executive experience necessary for the
Presidency. As a Governor, he was doing battle with entrenched public
employee unions before it became fashionable. Although New England is
not famous for its conservatives, he is a very strong (some might say
“severe”) conservative. He isn’t a bombast about it, though. He is
(famously) not given to incendiary remarks that might turn off
independent voters. He has the proven discipline and even temperament
that we need to win the White House, govern successfully, and keep it
in Republican hands. I daresay that, if Ronald Reagan could vote for
him, he would. That is why I am proud to endorse former Massachusetts
Governor, Calvin Coolidge’s corpse.
I’m sure the first question that pops into your head is: is he
eligible? And the answer is: of course. Ridiculous conspiracy theories
aside, he was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont (on the forth of July no
less!). He has only served one full term as President (he finished out
Harding’s term beforehand), and is thus eligible for another (unlike
Reagan, unfortunately). Finally, there is no Constitutional
requirement that a candidate be alive to become President or to be
alive as President.
Your next question might be: why Silent Cal over the other candidates?
Well, I have areas of disagreement with all of the candidates, but I
think that Mitt Romney is the only candidate other than Coolidge
(whose electability and conservatism are proven) that can beat Obama.
I don’t have to like that, though, and I am not inclined to vote for
the guy who gave us Romneycare, especially when he’s projected to win
big in Massachusetts anyway. I’d rather vote for the guy who gave us
the roaring twenties.
Furthermore, being a corpse could have advantages on the campaign
trail and as President. For one thing, he’s guaranteed not to make any
embarrassing verbal gaffes or ever break a promise. By definition, he
can’t be assassinated, so we’ll save all kinds of money on Secret
Service protection, and White House chefs and doctors, for that matter
(that also makes the veepstakes less important, but I’d like to see
some geographical balance on the ticket with someone like Barry
Goldwater’s corpse). He’s very unlikely to be involved in a sex
scandal (though that would be quite disturbing). He’s never heard of
Keyensian economics. He’ll never cave and compromise with the
Democrats. Most importantly, though, he couldn’t violate the
Constitution through executive fiat or by signing unconstitutional
laws, raise taxes or spending, or any of the other annoying things the
government does. In short, yes, we’d be better off with no President
than the one we have now.
I know Coolidge hasn’t officially announced (and you thought he was
silent the last time around), and hasn’t made the ballot in the state
he used to govern (how embarassing). That’s why this is a write in
campaign. If you would like to write in “Calvin Coolidge” or “Calvin
Coolidge’s corpse” (either is acceptable, with a small “c” in corpse),
you’ll also need to write in his current address, which is:
Plymouth Notch Cemetery
Lynds Hill Road
Plymouth, VT 05056
You can also follow Calvin Coolidge’s corpse on twitter at
@NotSoSilentCal.
So… Keep Cool (room temperature) with Coolidge in 2012! Better Dead than Red!
I am continually amazed (though not surprised) by Obama’s war on business.
Considering that his own job security depends largely on the unemployment
rate, you would think that he’d be a bit friendlier toward people who, you
know, create jobs. But, what can you expect from an effete
pseudo-intellectual liberal who grew up in an academic bubble (having
everything handed to him) without any experience in the real world of the
private sector? I am ever more increasingly convinced that the only way the
unemployed are going to get new jobs is for Obama to lose his.
He can’t seem to open his mouth without putting someone out of work. His
ludicrous class warfare rhetoric alienates even some of his would-be
supporters. Remember his demagoguery of business people (mainly from bailed
out companies that should never have been bailed out in the first place)
having conventions in Las Vegas? That severely hurt the Las Vegas economy (I
wonder how many poor cocktail waitresses lost their jobs) and led otherwise
Democrat-supporting casino magnate Steve Wynn to call him a socialist.
Obama would do well to heed the advice of one of America’s most underrated
Presidents, Calvin Coolidge:
The words of a President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used
indiscriminately.
I’m not going to hold my breath on that one, though.
One of the latest examples was Obama’s disparagement of corporate jet owners
in his demagoguery of Republican “intransigence” in refusing to raise taxes
as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling, etc. (which they didn’t want to
do in the first place). Let’s set aside the fact that the tax breaks
regarding the depreciation of corporate jets were part of Obama’s “stimulus'
package (again revealing him to be a hypocrite,,. or maybe he just didn’t
read his signature economic "achievement”). Even reliable Obama shill Warren
Buffet, who “patriotically” implores Obama to raise his taxes (someone tell
him he can go tax himself by writing a check to the treasury and leaving
everyone else alone), couldn’t stomach that crap.
I was amused recently to hear a Vice President of Hawker Beechcraft (an
aircraft manufacturer where my dad works) on Laura Ingraham’s radio show,
joining the growing chorus of business leaders decrying Obama’s war on
business. Laura pointed out that the revenue generated by closing the tax
loophole for corporate jets over the course of something like a few thousand
years would not cover the deficit for this year alone (again, pointing out
the ridiculous nature of Obama’s “tax the rich” agenda). Of course, what do
facts matter when you can score political points and further depress another
business in a down economy?
The latest development regarding Obama and Hawker Beechcraft is an impending
decision on awarding a Defense contract for Light Air Support and Light
Attack and Armed Reconnaissance aircraft. The choice is between the
American-made Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 and the Brazilian-made Embraer EMB-314.
Both are similarly priced, but by all accounts the AT-6 is the higher
performing aircraft.
For an administration that claims to be concerned about “saving and/or
creating” American jobs, the choice of the AT-6 (which will support around
1400 American jobs) would seem to be obvious. However, despite Obama and his
party’s continual bitching about the outsourcing of American jobs (their
anti-growth policies couldn’t have anything to do with it), that appears to
be Obama’s inclination in this case. But that’s not the most compelling
reason for me to support the choice of an American company to support
American national security needs.
Embraer is partially controlled by Brazil’s socialist government, and the
company’s bylaws give the Brazilian government control over aspects of the
business that could impact its ability to meet the mission needs for the
aircraft. I think it is logical to trust the production of American military
aircraft to an American company that has been manufacturing aircraft for the
military since World War 2 rather than a company controlled by a government
that is increasingly unfriendly toward the United States and whose President
blamed the current (capitalist) economic crisis on “white people with blue
eyes” (how did he know it was all part of my grand scheme to make sure Obama
is a one term President?!!!!11!).
It is bewildering to me that this is even an issue, but Obama seems to have
some bizarre affinity for the Brazilian economy (more so than the American
economy). After all, this is the same President that opposes any form of
domestic oil drilling, but strongly encourages it in Brazil (lol, does he
only care if oil spills affect WHITE people? How RAAAAAACIST!!!!1!).
Thankfully, though, this is not a done deal. If you are so inclined, you can
read more about it at the AT-6
website, and
contact your legislators and the DoD about the issue.
Here in MA, I doubt that Kerry will do anything but blindly do anything
Obama wants him to do, but there is some hope for Scott Brown.
In the wake of the S&P downgrade, Rand Paul has called for Tim Geithner to
resign. The other day, Tony tweeted a link to a Reason post with Paul’s
press release on the subject:
RT @LibertyShovel: Rand Paul to Geithner: step down. Reason:
http://t.co/ffvBsXv
I retweeted it, prompting a facebook comment from a liberal old college
friend of mine:
Why would Geithner resign? The three biggest reasons for the downgrade S&P
outlined in their report (http://bit.ly/pfrs1x) are government spending, the
lack of new revenue and the fact that the debt ceiling has been used as a
bargaining chip for the first time ever. None of these is within the purview
of the Secretary of Treasury. Two of them are on Rand Paul.
My response is as follows:
As Rand Paul said in his press release, not only did Geithner assure us that
the downgrade wouldn’t happen as long as we raised the debt ceiling…
During his tenure at the Federal Reserve and as Treasury Secretary,
Secretary Geithner has had a direct role in the failure of the Fed to
diagnose and act on the housing crisis. He presided over bank bailouts, auto
bailouts and failed trillion-dollar stimulus plans.
Geithner is the last rat to jump the sinking ship of Obama’s (original)
economic team, and he has been an unmitigated disaster. He is Obama’s most
trusted economic advisor, and his advice has served his boss (and the
country) very poorly. Furthermore, I don’t think it is unreasonable to say
that, as a result of the first credit rating downgrade in US history, the
head of the Treasury department, which manages US debt instruments, should
resign. It is certainly within his purview.
Having said that, however, I don’t really care if Geithner resigns or not.
Believe me, nobody looks forward more than I do to the day that he returns
to the North Pole to make toy trains (high speed rail, of course) and help
Santa Claus cheat on his taxes. We need a Treasury Secretary that knows the
country’s assets from a hole in the ground (an increasingly difficult
proposition, I’ll admit), but I don’t think that will happen until Obama is
removed from office. Geithner is just carrying out Obama’s policies, and
anyone Obama appointed to replace him would probably be just as bad (though
it’s hard to imagine that anyone wouldn’t be an improvement). Getting
approved by the Senate would take time, and we don’t need any more
uncertainty in the markets than we already have. On the other hand, perhaps
Obama would pick somebody better, which would make him look less
economically clueless. I’m also against that. The more clueless Obama looks,
the easier he will be to beat.
Now, as for the reasons for the downgrade that you cited: I mostly agree
with the reasons, but not your characterizations. Obviously, tautologically,
if our spending exceeds our revenue we will accumulate debt. We have already
accumulated a dangerous amount of debt, and S&P has deemed that there is
little hope of a political solution to our mounting debt in the foreseeable
future. I agree with that assessment, though I think S&P still overestimates
our creditworthiness. We’re so far in Banana Republic territory I don’t
think there should be any “A’s” in our rating. But, as Democrats were so
quick to point out (in their rush to kill the messenger), S&P does have a
history of getting things wrong… namely their over-rating the
government-backed mortgage securities that led to the housing collapse.
Apparently they have a pattern of over-rating the US Government and the
products of its policies. Maybe they think the US is “Too Big To Fail,” but
we are failing.
You say that Rand Paul is responsible for two of the three cited reasons for
the downgrade. I assume you do not mean spending. After all, you can’t find
anyone in the Senate that wants to cut the budget more than Rand Paul (as
much, maybe). And he’s also only a freshman Senator in the minority party,
so he doesn’t have much control over how much gets spent. I assume you mean
the lack of revenue and the political squabbling over the debt ceiling deal.
Let’s take revenue, first. Nobody (not even Rand Paul) is against more
revenue for the government. What we are against is more taxation, and that’s
an important distinction. Democrats like to point out that tax revenues are
“historically low,” but that’s because Obama’s economy is historically bad.
In bad economic times, revenue drops; in good ones, it rises, both in real
terms and as a percent of GDP. The important point, though, is that since
World War 2, revenues have been 18% of GDP on average, no matter what the
tax rates are. That’s because lowering tax rates tend to spur economic
growth whereas raising them tends to suppress it. What Rand Paul (and I)
would like to do is grow the economy by rolling back the regulatory state
(which is a drag on the economy with trillions in compliance costs and a far
amount in enforcement costs to the government as well) and lowering taxes
(and yes, eliminating loopholes and broadening the tax base. I’d prefer a
flat tax). Democrats want to increase revenue by taking a larger piece of a
smaller pie. We want a smaller piece of a larger pie. In the end, though, as
the GDP grows, the dollar amount of the governments 18% cut grows, and
revenues go up.
On spending, the 18% historical limit on revenue is (or ought to be) a limit
on spending as well. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone, and so if you
want to balance the budget and stop accumulating debt, you have to adjust
spending downwards to what you can realistically expect in terms of revenue.
So, we need to cut spending down to 18% of GDP, or, ideally, lower so that
we can begin to pay down the debt. That is what the Tea Party wants to do,
and what we are trying to browbeat establishment Republicans into doing.
Democrats, though, are fighting every step of the way. To them, every dollar
of federal spending is sacred, including those that we weren’t spending last
year, and even attempts to roll back spending to what it was a few years ago
is “extreme.” When did simple math become racist, by the way?
Finally, as to the political impasse, this is not the first time an increase
in the debt ceiling has been a political football. Take this quote from the
debate on the debt ceiling increase from 2006:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is
a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t
pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial
assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless
fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and
internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead,
Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our
children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of
leadership. Americans deserve better.
I’m sure you’ve heard that quote before, but if you haven’t, it is a quote
by a freshman Democratic Senator named Barack Obama. And its one of the few
quotes of his that I agree with, though he obviously didn’t mean it. He,
Biden, Reid, and other Democratic Senators who’s heads have been exploding
about the importance of raising the debt ceiling in 2011 (and how “extreme”
Republicans that opposed it are) ALL voted against the debt ceiling increase
in 2006, proving unequivocally that they are petty partisan hacks,
hypocrites, and liars.
Their demagoguery in this debt ceiling debate would have been breathtaking
had I not already come to expect it from them. It has been nothing but a
series of lies and distortions, in which they have been aided and abetted by
the ministers of truth in the media.
In the first place, there was never any threat of a default. Nobody would
let that happen. Furthermore, on a monthly basis, we take in more than
enough money to service our debt and to pay for all of our defense budget
and entitlement payments and then some. If we had come up against the debt
ceiling, none of those functions would have been disturbed. We just couldn’t
accumulate any more debt, which would mean massive and immediate (and
admittedly, potentially disruptive- though not as much as a default)
spending cuts and a partial government shutdown (and I wouldn’t shed too
many tears over immediate massive cuts).
However, Obama repeatedly and blatantly lied about this and the implications
if a deal wasn’t reached by his arbitrary deadline. The most egregious
example was his loathsome attempt to scare Granny by saying he wasn’t sure
he’d be able to send out social security checks despite the fact that he was
legally obligated to do so (and had been explicitly instructed to do so by
Congress) and had the funds for it. Obama was (and is) more full of shit
than the colostomy bags of the old people he was trying to frighten.
Democrats like to act like it was Republicans that were being intransigent
in the debate, but even if that were true you would have to admit that
Democrats were as well. Obama, while offering no plan of his own, threatened
to veto any Republican proposal that made it through the Senate. Senate
Democrats (who, by the way, haven’t passed a budget in going on 900 days, in
dereliction of their duty) acted like Republicans were wasting everyone’s
time by putting forward plans that “wouldn’t pass the Senate,” absolving
themselves of responsibility despite the fact that it was their own
intransigence that was reason they wouldn’t pass (the plans would pass if
they would vote for them). The only plans that came out of the Senate were
full of budgetary gimmicks that didn’t actually cut anything (they just
promised to slow the rate of growth and make cuts in “the future.”). The
reason that Democrats wouldn’t go along with Republican plans was because
they wanted to raise taxes. Perhaps you can explain to me why Republicans
were intransigent for insisting on a debt deal with spending cuts and
without tax increases, but Democrats were not intransigent for insisting on
a debt deal without spending cuts and with tax increases.
In fact, however, Republicans were not intransigent. As I mentioned, they
actually put forth plans. They were willing to compromise. Hell, none of us
wants to raise the debt ceiling. That’s a compromise in itself, because we
recognize that we’re not going to be able to balance the budget overnight
(especially with Obama and Reid around). But then Obama comes around with
the absurd negotiation position: “I know you don’t want to raise the debt
ceiling or raise taxes, but if we’re gonna raise the debt ceiling we also
have to raise taxes.”
The Republican Cut Cap and Balance plan was a compromise in that it was a
list of concessions that we would settle for in exchange for agreeing to
raise the debt ceiling and allowing Obama (who is on pace to spend more than
all his predecessors combined) to keep on spending. The plan actually
addressed the structural problems that led to the S&P downgrade. It would
have cut current spending levels, capped future spending at a sustainable
level with regard to historical revenues as a percent of GDP, and stopped
the accumulation of debt with a Balanced Budget Amendment to the
Constitution that would have forced politicians to do what they should
already be doing anyway, thus ameliorating the political impasse S&P cited
as a reason for the downgrade.
Of course, that reasonable plan was rejected by the Democrats, and the deal
we got is a shit sandwich, but it’s just about as good as can reasonably be
expected from Democrats. Now we have an unaccountable “Super-Committee,”
which, after it inevitably fails to reach a solution, will trigger automatic
cuts to Defense (the primary and one of the few legitimate purpose of
government in the first place).
My own horse-faced horse’s ass of a Senator got in on the act (after
lamenting that the media reports our positions at all) in a more civil but
equally absurd way by parroting David Axelrod’s talking points about the S&P
downgrade being the “Tea Party Downgrade.”
As Rand Paul said, blaming the Tea Party for the downgrade is like blaming
firemen for the fire they are trying to put out. We want massive spending
cuts and to begin paying down the debt with our revenues, which would
increase under our preferred free market economic policies. Those are
exactly the policy prescriptions that would have kept S&P from downgrading
us, as they outlined in their report.
It is the Democrats that want to keep spending us into oblivion and continue
the same policies that led to the downgrade. It’s bewindering. I generally
try to avoid questioning people’s motives and keep in mind Hanlon’s razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
…but the Democrats' complete disregard for the basic math of the situation
makes me question whether anyone really can be that stupid. Maybe it’s a
strategy, a flip-side to the Republican “Starve the Beast” strategy (let’s
call it, “Whet the Beast’s Appetite”), wherein the Democrats plan on
spending and accumulating debt to the brink of bankruptcy as a pretext to
enact more draconian confiscatory taxes than they’d otherwise be able to get
away with, to further “fundamentally transform” the country to suit their
collectivist redistributionist vision. I’ll be generous and call Obama just “maliciously stupid.”
Whatever their motives, the Democrats have made clear that they will never
attempt to address our spending and debt problem. Therefore, the only way to
address the political impasse that S&P cited in their explanation of the
downgrade is to remove Democrats from office. No real progress will be made
while Democrats control the Senate and the White House, and that is why we
are going to take them over in 2012.
To extend Rand Paul’s firemen analogy (Haha, I guess that makes the
Democrats arsonists?) with some Billy Joel lyrics: We didn’t start the fire.
But we’re damn sure going to put it out, no matter what dirty names the
arsonists call us.
Another great video from Bill Whittle, exploring how “poor” the “poor” in
America really are.
The video is spot on. As I often say, the American public by and large has
no perspective or understanding about what poverty really is. As the video
demonstrates, the “poor” in America would be considered middle class in much
of the developed world, and positively wealthy in most of the rest of the
world. The fact that poor people in America have homes, cars, televisions,
video games, etc. at just a slightly lower level than the average person in
America speaks to the fact that the poor in America really aren’t all that
poor.
They are called poor, as Bill lays out, by the left, redefining the word (as
they so often do). The left needs to keep the less wealthy in our society in
a perpetual state of self pity in order to win elections (with promises of
goodies doled out from the public treasury) and expand the welfare state. It
is the politics of envy, but also greed, resentment, shamelessness and
theft.
If the less wealthy in America understood how well off they are compared to
their counterparts in the rest of the world, they would (or at least, I
would hope they would) jump for joy and “have a parade” (as Bill put it).
They would appreciate America’s exceptionalism (if America has such a
poverty problem, why are the rest of the world’s poor clamoring to come in
and partake in it?) and celebrate the free market system that has created
such prosperity for everyone, rather than trying to destroy that system by
bleeding it dry with government wealth redistribution programs.
As awkward as it is to call the poor “ungrateful,” I have to agree with Bill
(in my best Thurston Howell the Third voice). As Mark Twain said, “Don’t go
thinking the world owes you a living. It doesn’t owe you anything. It was
here first.” But that is precisely what the dependency class in America,
carefully nurtured by the Democratic party, does. Their hands are always out
begging for more and more money from their neighbors, even as they curse
their benefactors for their success and whine about “income inequality.” I
say: go make your own income equal your expenditures. Again, emotional
arguments do not work on me; I was born with a second brain instead of a
heart.
I loved Bill’s line about Best Buy. Unfortunately, the “poor” person next to
you in the Best Buy check out line probably wouldn’t have the temerity to
demand that you buy his PlayStation game for him in person, but he’d likely
be perfectly comfortable using the government to take the money out of your
wallet for it.
For some reason, which remains a mystery even to me, I actually took the
time to read through all 7,000 coma-inducing words of Al Gore’s latest
lunatic ravings about the end of the world being nigh, entitled “Climate of
Denial: Can science and truth withstand the merchants of poison?” It was published in Rolling Stone, an appropriate venue for the
piece’s intellectual heft (what is Justin Bieber’s opinion of climate
deniers?!), though it would have been equally at home scrawled in feces on
the padded walls of an asylum.
Gore regurgitates the same nonsense he’s been peddling about anthropogenic
global warming for years now, but it’s worth reading for the insight into
the mindset of a man who nearly won the Presidency (but thankfully did not).
It’s quite scary. Al Gore proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is truly
the King of the Watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside), and
that, for the Left, the debate over climate change has nothing to do with
the climate. It’s all about power.
Throughout the screed, Al Gore keeps coming back to the tortured metaphor of
a professional wrestling match as the “conversation of democracy.” He and
his followers are “the good guy” while all of the rightwing extremist
climate deniers and their evil shadowy capitalist overlords are “the bad
guy,” breaking the “rules” of democracy (apparently by resisting his
preferred policies?) when the “referee” (the media) isn’t looking. He thinks
the referee is distracted and too concerned with entertainment, when they
should be concerned with proving “it is real,” applying to both climate
change and, apparently, the professional wrestling match. I don’t think he
thought this metaphor through all the way… or maybe he still thinks the
wrestling is real (I just got a disturbing mental picture of him with a
tear-away Hulk Hogan T-shirt). Nobody tell him about Santa Claus (maybe
he’ll use the great red Saint as proof that socialism can work in his next
op-ed).
As he frames it:
“…the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because
it’s a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are
Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing
Ideologues.”
It calls to mind the villains in the old Captain Planet propaganda cartoons.
Evil anthropomorphic pigs trying to fill up the Grand Canyon with garbage,
just for fun. Gore accuses the polluters of funding junk science by
“pseudoscientists” to muddy the waters of the debate by debunking his
claims, and in the next paragraph (characteristically, without a hint of
irony) expresses outrageous outrage that, as he sees it, his opponents are
attacking the integrity of the climate scientists that back him up:
“That is why the scientists are regularly accused of falsifying evidence
and exaggerating its implications in a greedy effort to win more research
grants, or secretly pursuing a hidden political agenda to expand the power
of government. Such slanderous insults are deeply ironic: extremist
ideologues — many financed or employed by carbon polluters — accusing
scientists of being greedy extremist ideologues.”
I’d say the real irony is Al Gore calling anyone a greedy extremist
ideologue, and thinking that the source of funding for “psuedoscientists”
that disagree with him automatically discredits their work and makes them
shills, but that doesn’t apply to those that agree with him. I don’t think
there is a vast conspiracy within the scientific community, but I do think
that scientists are as self interested in anyone, and they know on which
side their bread is buttered. The interest of the sponsor is a pretty good
predictor of the outcome of the research. The funding for the bulk of
climate research comes from governments, who are always on the lookout for a
new crisis to use as an excuse to expand. Global warming is very much in
vogue now, as global cooling was in decades past, so it’s not surprising
that most of the research that gets funded (especially on a recurring basis)
supports the political position of the people providing the funds. Bias is a
perpetual problem in science. Integrity is a valuable commodity, and all too
often is sold rather cheaply.
Al Gore spends precious little verbiage providing scientific evidence to
support his hypothesis that the sky is, in fact, falling. It mainly consists
of confirmation bias and conflating weather and other events with climate
(see those wildfires? Toldja!). He basically just quotes notoriously poor
prognosticator and fluffy climate-muppet Jim Hansen. That’s ok though, Gore
is not a climate scientist and is therefore not credentialed to speak on
such matters.
I’m also not a climate scientist, so I’m no more qualified to pontificate on
climate change than Gore (ahem), so I’m not going to try to re-litigate the
issue. I will simply say that I believe that the Sun (you know, that big
glowy thing in the sky?), which is responsible for daily temperature swings
of tens of degrees and even more over the course of the year (to say nothing
of multi-year cycles), is probably more likely to be responsible for the
(“dangerous!”) shifts of a fractions of degrees over many decades that has
Al Gore so scared than I am by driving my SUV around and emitting small
quantities of a trace “pollutant” (which, incidentally, all plants need to
live). I also think that the only constant in the climate is change, and it
is foolish to think that the climate somehow achieved perfection sometime
around the turn of the 20th century. Furthermore, I believe it is the height
of anthropocentric arrogance to think that over the course of the brief
period of time that humans have even been cognizant of the climate that we
have developed a sufficient understanding of it to determine its future and
even TELL if we are affecting it in a significant way, let alone be the
DRIVING FACTOR behind the change, and THEN to think we have the wisdom and
power to correct it.
Gore spends some time hand-waving at his proposed solutions. Guess what?
They require growing government! He wants to “put a price on carbon that
reflected the true cost of fossil energy — either through the much-maligned
cap-and-trade approach, or through a revenue-neutral tax swap.” Somehow I
don’t think he means the economic “cost.” He also wants America to lead the
way (hoorah!) in establishing a “global agreement that in one way or another
puts a price on carbon.”
Gore’s diatribe does have some laughable moments, like his painfully naive
paeans to the idealism of “Arab Spring,” and most hilariously when he
invokes Thomas Paine as a model for journalism (I don’t think he would call
himself objective) who couldn’t get his message out in todays media
environment, dominated as it is by the evil Fox News. He describes Paine’s
seminal work thusly:
“Common Sense became the Harry Potter of Revolutionary America.”
Deep stuff. Of course, as is his wont, he plays the race card (at one point
he implies that “climate deniers” are tantamount to birthers) and compares
him and his movement to the civil rights movement:
“The civil rights revolution may have been driven by activists who put
their lives on the line, but it was partly won by average Americans who
began to challenge racist comments in everyday conversations.”
That’s pretty rich coming from the son of one of the Democratic Senators
that filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (can you imagine if Al Gore
Sr. and Jr. were Republicans?!). He quotes noted Klansman and another
Democratic Senator who joined his father in that filibuster, Robert Byrd, in
another part of the piece (for his courage in opposing the Iraq war?). He
also relays a story about FDR.
President Franklin Roosevelt once told civil rights leaders who were
pressing him for change that he agreed with them about the need for greater
equality for black Americans. Then, as the story goes, he added with a wry
smile, “Now go out and make me do it.”
That’s right, that great icon of the civil rights movement and father of the
Japanese internment camp, FDR.
The bulk of Gore’s piece, though, is a litany of left-wing talking points
that have nothing to do with the climate or science. He complains about the
bogey-man of “deregulation” causing the recession and invokes the drive to
repeal the estate tax instead of extending unemployment benefits as an
example of special interests running roughshod over democracy… made all
the easier because of the Supreme Court now allowing evil corporations to
buy nefarious (presumably Republican) politicians through their political
donations (it’s ok for Big Labor, though, because it’s “a shadow of its
former self”).
He’s still sore about Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” comments about
Obama, who he gently criticizes for not doing enough about climate change
(mostly because of those darn Republicans resisting him), while reminding
supoprters that Republicans would be much worse. His biggest complaint about
him:
“He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United
States, apparently in an effort to defuse criticism from those who argue
speciously that "drill, baby, drill” is the answer to our growing dependence
on foreign oil."
I must have missed that call for a massive expansion of oil drilling int he
United States. And those Republicans sure are stupid, thinking that
increasing domestic oil production will reduce our dependence on foreign
oil.
Mostly, Gore laments that the Left has lost its monopoly on the media
because, though most of it is still a house organ for the church of global
warming (with Al Gore as reptilian Space-Pope granting himself and other
Learjet-Liberals indulgences for their gigantic carbon footprints as they
galavant across the globe telling their inferiors how to reduce their own
emissions), they can’t control one cable network (Fox News) are the
blogosphere. He gripes about Iraq, and uses that as an example of the
dangers of “propaganda,” which I suppose he feels bolsters his point that
the media should… engage in propaganda (as long as its leftwing)? In so
doing he deftly decapitates the strawman that Saddam planned 9-11 (which,
apparently, is what Al Gore believes was the case for war). He says
intelligence was manipulated to trick the public into supporting the war.
I’m not sure what that has to do with climate change, but remember when Gore
was aghast that anyone would question the integrity of climate scientists?
He doesn’t seem to have those scruples about questioning the integrity of
those who dedicate their lives to protecting us. Strange.
He also gets in a few jabs at capitalists, any politicians that have the
temerity to disagree with him, and any journalists who try to be objective
about reporting the other side (interfering with our ability to make
“collective decisions”):
“Those who profit from the unconstrained pollution that is the primary
cause of climate change are determined to block our perception of this
reality. They have help from many sides: from the private sector, which is
now free to make unlimited and secret campaign contributions; from
politicians who have conflated their tenures in office with the pursuit of
the people’s best interests; and — tragically — from the press itself, which
treats deception and falsehood on the same plane as scientific fact, and
calls it objective reporting of alternative opinions.”
What is Al’s solution to these “problems?” Would he have the government take
over the media to ensure that it does not block the proper perception of
reality? Outlaw campaign contributions to politicians? Maybe just those who
aren’t pursuing the people’s best interest (as he sees them, presumably)?
This all just goes to show what a fraud the green movement (and Al Gore, as
its leader) is. It’s not about the climate. It’s not about the science. It’s
about power. It’s about dressing up a leftwing agenda (of growing the power
of the state) as necessary and logical steps to mitigate an imagined crisis
in the future. Freedom be damned (it just gets in the way).
Gore wraps up his non sensical hyperbole with a complete misunderstanding of
the concept of free speech (what else is new?):
“What is now at risk in the climate debate is nothing less than our
ability to communicate with one another according to a protocol that binds
all participants to seek reason and evaluate facts honestly. The ability to
perceive reality is a prerequisite for self-governance. Wishful thinking and
denial lead to dead ends. When it works, the democratic process helps clear
the way toward reality, by exposing false argumentation to the best
available evidence. That is why the Constitution affords such unique
protection to freedom of the press and of speech.”
No, Mr. Gore. Free speech was not protected by the Constitution because the
founders thought pragmatically that it was the best and most efficient way
to settle a public debate. They wisely understood that the government has no
right to control the speech of free citizens, and sought to protect it from
future tyrants like you who would, if given the power, suppress it in order
to impose your will on others.
Gore ends:
“The climate crisis, in reality, is a struggle for the soul of America. It
is about whether or not we are still capable — given the ill health of our
democracy and the current dominance of wealth over reason — of perceiving
important and complex realities clearly enough to promote and protect the
sustainable well-being of the many. What hangs in the balance is the future
of civilization as we know it.”
That is apparently a plug for his best seller: “Harry Potter and the Balance
of Earth” (presumably co-written by Thomas Paine). Gore seems to believe our
democracy (actually a Republic) is in ill health because his ideas are our
of favor. He also decries wealth (despite his own), and again invokes the
collective “well-being of the many.” Astounding.
Al Gore is a modern day Cnut the Great, the ancient King who (apocryphally,
and unsuccessfully of course) tried to command the tides. However, unlike
Cnut (who, in the story was trying to point out the impotence of man and the
meaninglessness of earthly titles), Al Gore might actually think he can
succeed, if only given the power to sufficiently stifle dissent and unleash
his will.
Perhaps I’m wrong, and Gore really does believe his own bullshit. If I am,
Al Gore and his acolytes can prove it by following their anti-human
Malthusian nonsense through to its logical conclusion and taking this simple
step:
Yesterday I came across an odd article by Rich Lowry at National Review
Online entitled “The Rise of Uncompassionate Conservatism,” with the description “Bush
would
never make it in today’s GOP.”
I’m not all that familiar with Rich Lowry. I’ve seen him on TV a few times
and I can’t recall him saying anything particularly objectionable, but I
don’t quite get his article. He seems to be lamenting the death of
“Compassionate Conservatism” in his comparison of George W. Bush to current
Texas Governor (and possibly the next President) Rick Perry.
He contrasted them:
“Bush rose from Texas to the national stage in 1999 talking of his federal
education agenda, the courage of single mothers, the power of drug and
alcohol recovery programs, and the need for government to forge partnerships
with faith organizations. Perry is emerging from Texas talking of the 10th
Amendment, cutting government, defending freedom — and defending freedom
some more.”
Ok, so far I’m with Perry.
Rich points out how Republicans went along relatively quietly with Bush’s
signature domestic achievements: No Child Left Behind and the prescription
drug benefit. Still not convincing me. He admonishes Republicans to remember
that they need to play to the center to win. Certainly, you need to be
electable to win elections (by definition), but electability and fiscal
conservatism are not mutually exclusive.
Rich does say one thing I whole-heartedly agree with:
“Running on his message circa 1999, George W. Bush would be hard-pressed
to gain traction in the current Republican party. Running on his record
circa 2008 — the spending programs, the bailouts, the attempted amnesty and
the two ongoing “hearts and minds” wars of counterinsurgency — he’d be booed
from the stage. If Michele Bachmann didn’t drop-kick him off it first.”
And good riddance. Bush is the reason we’re all in this mess. He could have
kept the budget under control, but didn’t. And he allowed himself to become
so unpopular and damaged the Republican brand so much that he paved the way
for Democrats to win two consecutive wave elections and for Barack Obama to
become President. We’d be in much better shape right now had Reagan chosen
another Vice President and spared us the Bushes.
Rich also offers a salient prediction:
“As the press clues into the new anti-Bush drift of the GOP, we can expect
a revival in Bush’s reputation. He will be portrayed as more reasonable,
more internationalist, and altogether more statesmanlike than his benighted
compatriots. If only it were still the party of George W. Bush will be the
lament. And it will make the party even more glad that it’s not.”
My point here is not to Bush-bash. He is a good man, and did an OK job as
President. My issues are with his fiscal policies and how easy he made it
for the Democrats to come to power.
Rather, I want to point out the fallacy of Lowry’s premise. He equates
advocating higher spending for social programs with “compassion,” and calls
a desire to reduce that spending “uncompassionate.” That is the premise of
the Left, and the premise of “Compassionate” Conservatism. I reject that
premise.
First off, there is nothing virtuous or “compassionate” about spending on
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other welfare programs. People
in power like George Bush are not being noble or sacrificing of themselves
by spending money on those programs. It’s not their money. It’s the
taxpayers'. In fact, it is ignoble because the politicians are buying votes
with their “compassionate” willingness to spend other people’s money.
Neither are the taxpayers doing anything virtuous by funding these programs.
I’m sick of being told to be more “Christ-like” and give more to the
government to be redistributed to other people. Chartible giving is laudable
as long as it is done voluntarily. But the Government is not a charity. It
is taking money by force from the taxpayer, whether he agrees or not, to
give to someone else. The taxpayer is no more virtuously giving to charity
by handing money over to the Government to give to a poor person than he
would be if he were to be mugged on the street by that poor person. The only
differences between the two situations is that in the first the mugger is
using the Government as a weapon and walks away with impunity as the victim
has no legal recourse… and I would expect that in the second situation the
mugger (or the victim or the Government) would not have the audacity to
think that he was doing something “compassionate” by mugging his victim.
Every social program is predicated on theft, because it necessarily entails
coercively taking money from someone who earned it to give it to someone who
did not. The Government may have the best intentions in the world for doing
so, but it is still a thief. So, “Compassionate” Conservatism (just another
label for Liberalism or Statism) is not only not morally superior to the
alternative, it is morally indefensible. Where is the “Compassion” for the
smallest minority of all, the individual, whose liberty and property you
violate to build your “Compassionate” State?
Secondly, the invocation of “compassion” is an emotional appeal, not a
logical one. The apologists for Big Government cannot make logical arguments
because their policies do not make sense, and cannot prove the efficacy of
their policies because historical evidence proves they fail. So, they are
forced to rely continually on emotional appeals. Take the MediScare tactics
the Democrats have used over Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform proposal. They
distort or ignore facts to paint it as “ending Medicare,” and conjure up
images of old ladies being tossed off cliffs, presumably after a last meal
of catfood. They would have us believe that the elderly are all in imminent
danger of starvation, despite the fact that they are statistically more
affluent than younger people, more likely to own a home, etc. (having worked
all of their lives). It seems that they have a “right” to other people’s
money simply by virtue of living so long, and apparently being surprised
that they have grown old and feeble like everyone else in history without
having planned for it.
The Left paints an emotional picture of the “victim” of every proposed
budget cut, especially “the poor,” despite the fact that “the poor” in
America are immensely better off than people living in actual poverty in
most of the rest of the world. For instance, the average “poor” person in
America has a home, a TV, a car, a cell phone, etc. and are more likely to
be overnourished (obese) than undernourished.
I have empathy for those who are less fortunate than me, but that does not
give them a right to rob me. I should be free to help them, should I choose
to do so, or not. No amount of emotional appeals to my “compassion” from the
Government and its fans will convince me otherwise. Fortunately, as I often
say, I have a rather advantageous birth defect.
Emotional arguments do not work on me. I was born with a second brain
instead of a heart.
Since Sunday night I’ve been too busy rapturously reading the news to
comment on it. I’m so happy that Osama is dead and that the last thing he
saw was an American Soldier aiming a gun at his head. The minute I heard
that Osama had been killed, I rushed home, watched the announcement and then
went out to celebrate with friends and family. I toasted (too much)
champagne, and joined in the spontaneous rally of mostly college students on
the Boston Common (in my Gadsden flag shirt) and chanted “USA! USA!” with a
bunch of liberals for a change. I even took the day off of work Monday to
watch the news all day. This is the happiest I have been… possibly ever.
And I’m not ashamed of that.
To all the equivocating moralizing liberals masquerading as theologians
admonishing us not to be happy or celebrate the death of another human being
(however evil) and be more “Christ-like” in our reaction: I’m not Jesus, so
STFU. Take your own advice and stop casting stones at other sinners, and if
you want some quiet introspection, ask yourself why you AREN’T happy a mass
murderer is dead.
Speaking of stone throwing… even worse are the moral relativists that
equate the celebrations over Osama’s death to those we saw in the streets of
the Middle East (including young children) as the Twin Towers fell on 9/11.
The theologians at least have some consistency. These people are just
despicable. The celebrations on 9/11 were celebrating the murder of 3,000
innocent civilian men, women, and children. We were celebrating the death of
their killer, a great victory for our country, and the fact that justice had
finally been served for those 3,000 victims (in addition to all Osama’s
other victims).
As an aside, I’m also sick of people saying Osama’s death was somehow
illegal. Andrew Napolitano (who is now dead to me) said it was
“unconstitutional and immoral.” Osama Bin Laden attacked us, and was a
legitimate target in the War on Terror as a non-state illegal enemy
combatant. And we didn’t “violate” Pakistan’s “sovereignty” either because
it doesn’t exist in the first place. Pakistan is a failing state that cannot
control its own country well enough to keep terrorists and our enemies like
the Taliban out of it, or their military enough to stop it from aiding them.
We have given the Pakistani government ample notice that we would take
action without notifying them if we found Osama. The leaders understand
that, and (who knows?) may even actually have secretly authorized it (their
current caterwauling is meant for domestic political consumption). It there
is any conflict with this mission and “international law” it is the problem
of international law, not this mission.
Anyways, unspeakably evil monsters like Osama have relinquished any claim on
their humanity, and I feel nothing but joy at their demise. If I had the
opportunity, I would have disemboweled Osama with my bare hands and
strangled him with his own intestines… and then slept soundly, my only
regret being that I couldn’t do it again (say, once more for every one of
his victims).
Osama deserved to be gunned down like a dog (or preferably worse), and there
is nothing wrong with being happy about it. I’ll remember where I was when I
heard the news that he’d been killed (watching Mad Men at Kat’s place) just
like I’ll remember where I was when I heard about the attacks on 9/11 (in
study hall at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, VA). I cried both
days, but this time they were tears of joy. There was some feeling of…
closure.
We were all victims of 9/11, and I think we should all feel some measure of
closure. I can’t pretend to imagine how the families of those killed on 9/11
feel, but I hope they take some comfort in knowing that the man who
masterminded the murder of their loved ones was not able to escape justice.
I’ve had a rather deep seated personal hatred (again, I don’t claim to be
Jesus) for Osama for a long time, since about 1995-1996, when I first
witnessed his evil. I was living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the time, when
the OPM-SANG building was bombed killing several Americans (wounding far
more), including the parents of some of the children at my school. Life
there was already pretty militarized, but it started to feel like a war zone
after that, with the mazes of Jersey barriers our school buses had to drive
through while being inspected for bombs and taking secret coded randomly
selected routes to school to avoid anyone being able to observe a pattern to
develop a plan to attack us. After the Khobar Towers bombing, the families
were evacuated, leaving my Dad behind to finish his job. It was a rather
rude awakening from the naive sense of security of childhood. I’ve hated
Osama and his ilk with a very personal passion ever since.
I watched the news of terror attacks pretty closely after that, but wasn’t
personally effected until 9/11. I was in study hall, where the radio was on,
and heard what was going on. For some reason the school administration
thought it would be best to keep the news from people so as not to cause
panic, which I suppose is understandable considering we lived in an exurb of
D.C. and every third kid’s Dad worked at the Pentagon, including my own. He
was in the Pentagon that day (along with several family friends). I remember
the panic building in me during my English class while my teacher blathered
on about poetry, until a hall monitor dropped off a note from my Mom: “Dad’s
OK.” I didn’t find out until later that night that my Aunt and her family
were in New York City on vacation at the time, and had the WTC on their
agenda for that morning. Thankfully they were not early risers that morning.
So, Osama has had a profound influence in my life, as he has much of the
9/11 generation. My hatred for him even influenced my choice of career:
doing counter-terrorism related research for the Department of Defense at
MIT.
I am ecstatic that he is dead.
Beyond my personal animosity, though, we as a nation have great reason to
celebrate. We finally got him. He was not able to escape justice. Every day
that he lived after 9/11 was a national embarrassment and made us look weak,
bolstering his argument that he we were impotent and that he was under the
protection of Allah. We have proven our resolve as a nation, and sent a
clear message that if you attack us, we will track you down and destroy you,
no matter how long or how much effort it takes. It is a great moral victory.
Justice has been done.
I am not a big Obama fan, as you probably know, but I will give credit where
credit is due. The mission was risky and its outcome uncertain, and I
applaud Obama for doing the right thing and pulling the trigger. He also
went with a surgical strike with soldiers rather than a bomb, so we could be
sure he was dead (and to avoid collateral damage, which he prioritizes),
which was a good call. He also put the SEALs' safety first, making sure they
didn’t take any unnecessary risks trying to capture rather than kill Osama,
thereby sparing America (and himself) the legal headache of a trial for
Osama (which would have given him a huge platform for grandstanding and
could have attracted more attacks on our soil).
I give even more credit to Obama in his willingness to take the political
risk of angering his support base by bending his stringent ideology to
reality on many terrorism and foreign policy related issues. By and large,
he has continued Bush’s policies (which were a political liability for him),
which have proven effective at keeping the country safe, and, indeed,
contributed greatly to Osama’s death. The intelligence that identified
Osama’s courier was provided in large part through Gitmo, wire-taps,
“enhanced interrogation” (like waterboarding), rendition, and CIA
interrogations in “black-site” prisons in foreign countries. Obama
demagogued the hell out of Bush for these policies while on the campaign
trail, but when forced to actually take responsibility for keeping the
American people safe, learned their necessity and kept them in place. In
that regard, he actually has (despite his inexperience) learned on the job
and not been nearly the disaster on security and foreign policy issues that
I had feared (though I still have plenty of complaints).
Politically, Obama is probably the big winner here, though I think that Bush
is a big winner too, since his policies have been vindicated. I’m only
willing to go so far in my praise for Obama, though. For one, his
announcement and subsequent remarks have been nauseatingly narcissistic,
with a gratuitous amounts of credit-taking “I’s” and “me’s” and “my’s”. You
get the impression that going after Bin Laden was HIS idea in the first
place. In fact, he had very little to do with it, and when Osama was found,
Obama essentially signed off on the no-brainer (pun not intended) mission.
He only deserves so much credit for doing what every other President ever
would have done in that situation.
In point of fact, people were reasonably sure where he was back in August.
Additionally, Obama apparently waited 16 hours while he slept on it over
night before saying “ok.” Obama may have had his hand forced because dumped
Wiki-leaks documents might have tipped off Osama that his courier had been
compromised and caused him to flee. Keep in mind that at any point Osama
could have fled. And how badly would that reflect on Obama now, if we had
known for a long time where Osama was and he disappeared while Obama
dithered? There are also unsubstantiated rumors that Obama was dragged into
the operation kicking and screaming by Hillary, Panetta, et. al.
Ultimately, my biggest gripe with Obama’s handling of this situation is the
aftermath. First there was the burial at sea. I think the decision was a
good one, in that the absence of a burial site precludes a shrine or
pilgrimage destination for his followers. I think, though, that the pretense
of an Islamic burial is ridiculous. First off, in Islam a burial at sea is
only acceptable as a last resort, when someone dies at sea and cannot be
brought to land within the required 24 hours for a burial. Many Muslims have
angrily pointed that out (illustrating the futility of trying to appease
them). Secondly, in America we do not bend to any religion’s requirements
for a quick burial when there is important information that can be gleaned
from a body, such as a murder victim for instance. I don’t know how much of
an autopsy Osama got other than what was necessary to ID him, but we could
have gotten all sorts of useful information. This could include forensic
evidence of the circumstances of his death (some will no doubt speculate
that we’re trying to cover something up). It could also include
intelligence. We could tell if intel (and its sources) about his alleged
illnesses were accurate. Hell, even his stomach contents might give clues to
his behavior. Who knows, maybe he’d been eating at the Pakistani military
academy mess hall.
His body should have been brought to an undisclosed location within the US,
examined until we were sure there was nothing more to gain from it (without
regard for the 24 hour burial requirement), and then unceremoniously
incinerated and its ashes disposed of (preferably in a toilet). The
“Islamic” burial may have given an excuse for a quick disposal (though that
seems suspicious to conspiracy theorists), but the real reason was more
political… and more insulting. Osama did not deserve a respectful burial.
I personally would have preferred to feed him to the pigs, or better yet
tour him around the US for viewing or hang his body at Ground Zero… but I
can see how some might find that “offensive.” Obama decided to give Osama a
proper Islamic burial, however, so as not to “inflame Muslim sentiment.”
That’s also his reason for refusing to release the Osama death photos, which
I find even more egregious than the respectful burial. They also say there
is no need to release the photos is that conspiracy theorists won’t believe
them, which is ludicrous. Sure, hard core conspiracy theorists won’t believe
them (and think Israel is responsible for shark attacks), but there are a
lot of people out there who want proof (and are able to be convinced), and
the quick disposal of the body and refusal to release any visual proof might
seem suspicious to them. It bolster’s the conspiracy theorists arguments and
grows their ranks. I’m getting deja vu of the Birther controversy. As with
the Birthers, the controversy is politically advantageous to Obama in that
he can drag it out for a while and keep people from talking about real
issues, and release the photos at a politically opportune time (they’re
going to get out eventually, either by him “magnanimously” relenting or
through a leak). Maybe we need to get Trump to demand the photos.
The argument that releasing the photos (or not giving him a proper Islamic
burial) is going to outrage Muslims and create a violent backlash is
ridiculous on its face. First of all, are we to believe that people who
would turn violent at the sight of Osama’s bullet-ridden face are shrugging
their shoulders at the fact that we shot him in the first place? Secondly,
who cares? Flush ‘em out. The CIA should be noting anyone they see turn out
in the streets in the Middle East angrily waving those photos. This wouldn’t
make our soldiers targets. They already are. In fact, it might be better for
any “backlash” to occur while they’re on high alert and expecting it.
Thirdly, I thought Osama didn’t represent the true faith of Islam, the
“religion of peace.” That’s what CAIR always says. If so, why would Muslims
get angry? Shouldn’t they be embarrassed that Osama got an Islamic burial,
and be insulted that Obama thinks they’d get angry if he released the
photos? We’re in a War on Terror, not a War on Islam, so why would a
casualty insult Muslims?
Finally, and most outrageously, why does Obama care more about appeasing
jihadists than he does about appeasing Americans? As I mentioned, the best
part about Osama’s death is that it sends the message (or ought to) to our
enemies. Releasing the photos would show our enemies their future, and the
cost of attacking us. The refusal to release those photos for fear of the
rage and reaction of jihadists undercuts that message and makes us look
weak. Obama heeds their ire more than that of the American people, and that
is a terrible message to send, and incredibly insulting to the country which
he (temporarily) represents.
President “Transparency” (how’s that working out?) is not only hypocritical
(remember the Abu Ghraib photos?) and cowardly in his refusal to release the
photos, he is insufferably condescending toward the American people for
wanting them released at all. He lectures us about taking victory laps (as
he does so at Ground Zero) saying we shouldn’t “spike footballs” and “that’s
not who we are.” That may not be who you are, Spock (I’m starting a new
birther conspiracy theory that Obama was actually born, not in Kenya, but on
Vulcan), but you don’t speak for me. I’m a human, and I’m in the mood for a
little grave-dancing. Sure, there’s an element of morbid curiosity and
bloodlust, and I do want to put the pictures on T-shirts and coffee mugs,
but so what? It’s cathartic. And that’s the most compelling reason to
release the pictures. It will provide closure. That’s the same reason
victims' family members are allowed to witness the executions of their loved
ones' murderers.
Obama isn’t alone in his idiocy either. The House Intelligence Committee
Chairman sided with him, drawing an analogy asking how American’s would feel
if jihadists release photos of one of our dead soilders. Newsflash: they do!
And are you saying that our soldiers are as bad as Osama? See my above
comments on moral relativism. And this guy’s a Republican! Truly, stupidity
knows no partisan boundaries.
Another reason I believe Obama deserves little credit for the operation
itself is that it was so successful, meaning he must not have been involved.
Look at how badly he and his team have handled their side of it on the
public relations front. Was there are firefight or not? Was Osama armed? Did
he resist? Did he use a woman as a human shield? Are you going to release
the photos (as Panetta and others said)? They can’t get their stories
straight. It’s amateur hour at the White House.
For all these reasons, I don’t think Obama is going to get much of a
benefit. He took out Osama, and then turned around at the moment when they
should all be with them and started antagonizing them and reminding him of
his flagrant incompetence. I’ve been watching the polls, and while he got a
bump of a few points, I think that is going to dissipate quickly (as all
similar bumps in the past have), especially with all the dire economic news.
And I don’t think this takes foreign policy off the table for criticizing
Obama either. Every good idea he’s had on foreign policy was originally
George Bush’s (and he originally opposed), and every bad idea he’s had has
been his own (and all of his own ideas have been bad). He deserves a modicum
of credit for this, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good president (he’s just
not insane enough to not have done it). I can’t wait until we get a real
President.
Obama really had to work really hard to get on my bad side on this. I really
wanted to be able to give him a pat on the back about this, but he has
screwed it up royally. Only Barack Obama could send Navy Seals on a daring
covert mission to successfully kill Osama Bin Laden and come out of it
looking like a condescending America-bashing self-aggrandizing
jihadist-appeasing hypocritical incompetent dithering pantywaist.
Now that you’ve had a night to sleep on it after having seen the long-form
birth certificate, birthers, are you satisfied?
I am not now, nor have I ever been a birther. When the question was first
raised by the Clinton campaign several years ago and Obama released his
short-form birth certificate, that was enough for me. I couldn’t believe
that the Clinton Campaign, the McCain Campaign, and all Obama’s political
opponents couldn’t or wouldn’t use Obama’s rumored foreign birth to destroy
him if there was any truth to it.
That wasn’t enough for some. Some conspiracy theorists were convinced that
Obama was ineligible to be President and that there was a cover up. I’m sure
there were some well meaning and intelligent people that were just
suspicious that he was hiding something embarrassing or something like that.
That group slowly grew as time wore on and Obama continued to refuse to
release his long form birth certificate. I can see how that could be
construed as suspicious. It took a loudmouth celebrity like Trump to shine a
spotlight on Obama’s intransigence (credit where credit is due) and ask the
question “Why not just release it and prove the conspiracy theory wrong?” to
grow that group to a critical mass and force Obama’s hand.
Who won? Trump or Obama? I don’t know. I think it’s basically a wash, but
I’d give an edge to Trump. I think Obama would have preferred to drag this
out as long as possible but Trump forced the issue, and any goodwill he
would have generated by the revelation is not going to materialize because
he waited so long. I don’t think this reflects too poorly on Republicans in
general because no serious Republicans were pushing the issue. I don’t think
Trump comes out of this looking too bad either, despite having indulged this
nonsense (and making me cringe every time it was brought up on the news,
distracting from real issues and making Obama opponents look crazy) because
the optics are that the President capitulated to him, making him look
powerful. I’ve heard some speculation that Obama may have released it in
order to raise Trump’s profile and keep the chaos alive on the Republican
side, but I think that’s too clever by half.
Michael Graham (who also believed it was C) has a great article in the
Boston Herald today about Obama’s release of the long form
birth certificate, and I basically agree with everything he has to say about
it. He says:
It was out of concern for our republic that I had called on the president
to release the long form birth certificate just the day before. I was
horrified by a new USA Today/Gallup poll that found just 38 percent of
Americans are confident Obama was born in the United States. In other words,
two-thirds of Americans seriously wonder if our president is serving in
violation of the Constitution.
Yes, this doubt was generated in part by anti-Obama kookery from the
fringe right. But for the doubt to become a conspiracy, Team Obama had to
play along. They had to leave the birth certificate hidden in the Hawaii
Department of Health instead of just releasing it when the questions first
arose.
Barack Obama and his media allies played the issue perfectly. The media
continuously asked Republicans their position on the birther issue, sending
a message that everyone who opposed Obamacare or criticized his fiscal
failures was somehow linked to a lunatic conspiracy.
Graham also points out that Obama’s “reason” for the release is ridiculous:
It wasn’t because of Obama’s bogus claim that the press was too birther
obsessed to cover anything else. Hours after he played the “bad media” card,
the independent Poynter Institute reported that the economy accounted for 39
percent of news coverage the week Obama gave his debt/deficit speech. The
birther issue? Four percent.
The bulk of the coverage was from MSNBC. I wonder why (sarc). I do think the
media played this up to make the right look crazy, and I would also take any
polls with a grain of salt. People that don’t like Obama are likely to say
they agree with any disparaging statement about him in a survey, whether
they actually agree with it or not. If Gallup asked me if I thought Obama
eats live kittens for breakfast, I’d probably say yes. It’s also worth
pointing out that in the same poll that said only 38% of adults believed
Obama was “definitely” born in America, only 43% said the same of Trump.
Anyways, this should put to rest any legitimate worries about Obama having
been born outside the USA or trying to hide something on his birth
certificate, though I’m sure there is a small core group who are still and
never will be convinced (they’re already rejecting the document as a fake).
Anyone who continues to peddle this nonsense now, though, is well and truly
a clown. Just like Donald Trump.
I didn’t get a chance to blog about it yesterday, but yesterday really was a
surreal day in politics. Not only did President Obama cave to a blustering
Reality TV star by releasing his long form birth certificate (thus
unilaterally disarming himself of a cudgel used to portray all of his
opponents as fringe racists obsessed with a festering conspiracy theory, not
that birther “true-believers” will ever be convinced), but the MA House of
Representatives passed a Wisconsin-like bill stripping public unions of
their collective bargaining “rights,” thus unilaterally disarming the left of
one of their favorite talking points: that those evil racist sexist
homophobic xenophobic (etc.) Republicans are using the budget as an excuse
to enact their nefarious schemes in their war on the working man by
stripping him of his “rights.” Nope, it turns out, it really is about the
budget.
There aren’t enough Republican legislators in MA to pass a resolution that
the sky is blue, or block a “mandatory puppy-stomping” bill. The Democrats
have tighter control of MA than the mullahs have of Iran, and are forced to
take responsibility for governing as a result. The Democrats actually had to
put on their big-girl panties and find a way to save some money, making
their powerless cowardly “fleebagging” counterparts in WI look all the more
frivolous as a result. When forced to actually look at the issue rather than
demagoguing it, they found that they actually did need to weaken the power
of their beloved unions at the bargaining table in order to rein in costs.
The bill isn’t exactly the same as that in WI. It doesn’t go as far in some
respects. As I understand it, it only removes collective bargaining powers
for health benefits, not pensions, both of which were included in the WI
law. On the other hand, it also goes further than the WI law in some
respects, because it includes police and firemen, which were explicitly
exempted in the WI law.
The house stealthily passed this around midnight Tuesday night to avoid
union caterwauling. It still has to pass the Senate and be signed by Deval,
so its final passage is far from certain (though I hope it succeeds).
Knowing Deval, I suspect he’ll cave to the unions. He’s already mollifying
them: “This isn’t Wisconsin.” Maybe those are “just words.” Who knows? Will
Obama end up condemning Deval’s “attack on unions?”
Somehow, I don’t expect the unions to start putting Hitler ‘staches on
pictures of Deval and storming Beacon Hill a la Madison. They know which
side of their bread is buttered. But they are not very happy. Says the MA
AFL-CIO goon in chief:
“It’s pretty stunning,’’ said * *Robert J. Haynes, president of the
Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor
unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns.
The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they’re with us,
that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions… .
It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.’’
He also called it “union busting.” Awww… to quote Danny Devito from It’s
Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “That’s politics, bitch!” I guess their votes
weren’t as bought and paid for as you (or I, for that matter) thought.
Welcome to reality. Your days of suckling at the public teat are numbered.
We can’t survive any more blood-letting to you leeches. We’re broke.
This is one of the rare times I can applaud the Democrats on Beacon Hill. It
actually took some level of courage (where’d that come from?) to stand up to
their union masters. Who knows, maybe this will be a trend? I hear that
Senate President Therese Murray is “breaking ranks” with Deval to “eradicate
hack-packed, do-nothing state agencies and taxpayer-cash-blowing government
programs by requiring all public entities to undergo regular performance
reviews for the first time” and exact “zero-up” budgeting (as opposed to
using last year’s budget as a baseline). How long until we see her at one of
our Tea Party rallies?
It’s a good feeling to see Tea Party ideas winning in MA (at least to some
degree), even if our preferred politicians don’t.
I saw another great graphic at QandO today, this one from the American Petroleum Institute showing a
map of the combined federal, state, and local gas taxes for each state in
cents per gallon. The average is just under 50 cents.
Remember that next time Obama blathers on about how there’s no “silver
bullet” for lowering gas prices. The government could lower the price of gas
at the pump by 50 cents immediately with a gas tax holiday.
But of course, they won’t do that. They prefer to scapegoat and demagogue
evil “speculators” and oil companies for “price-gouging,” “price-fixing,”
and “profiteering,” or whatever other supposed sins of the capitalist
marketplace that the statists in D.C. like to form investigative commissions
(like the one Obama just formed) to find (which they never actually do)
whenever the price of gasoline gets high.
This chart points out their hypocrisy. Consider, for comparison, that oil
companies generally make a pretty anemic profit margin of around 6%. We’re
paying about $4 per gallon for gas at the pump right now, meaning the evil
oil companies take about 25 cents as their “obscene windfall profits”
compared to the Government’s 50 cents of profiteering. About 12.5% of the
price at the pump (on average) goes to the Government, which is twice the
amount that goes to the robber barons of big oil. Let’s also keep in mind
that the profit motive is the only reason oil companies provide us with gas
in the first place. I don’t see how you can call them evil on one hand, but
expect them to fill your tank out of the goodness of their hearts on the
other.
Now, I’m not suggesting that gas taxes be eliminated. I’m actually ok with
them philosophically, because it is fair to pay for roads with funds raised
from taxpayers in a way that is proportional to how much they use them
(though not all the money ends up getting used that way). The point is,
though, that the Government takes a bigger cut in “profit” than the oil
companies (even though the government’s cut isn’t profit because they did
not invest or contribute to the gas production). Obama should be
investigating himself, not the oil companies. He could take some steps to
bring down gas prices immediately over the short term with a temporary gas
tax holiday. What’s more important, though, is what he could be doing to
bring the prices down over the long term.
Gas prices are high right now because of supply and demand (which control
all prices for everything). Prices are higher in the summer rather than
winter because people drive more (more demand). The trend in demand is
upward as developing economies like India and China use more oil. The supply
is in some jeopardy right now due to instability in the Middle East, and is
constantly manipulated by the monopolistic cartel that is OPEC. The
government has little control over that, but it can lower prices by
increasing the supply of oil by opening up more areas (offshore, ANWR,
anywhere) for domestic drilling. We have plenty of domestic resources to
drill, and plenty of companies willing to drill for it if the government
would just get out of the way. Increased domestic production would not only
stimulate American job growth and the economy, it would lower and stabilize
gas prices, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and shielding us from the
effects of instability in the Middle East and price fixing by OPEC.
Of course, Obama and the environmental movement are never going to lower gas
taxes and allow more drilling (unless its in a third world country like
Brazil where I guess they don’t care about spills). They’re doing the exact
opposite. Obama’s permitorium has steadily been decreasing oil production
and driving oil companies overseas to greener pastures. One campaign promise
Obama has kept, is that with his energy policy, energy costs have
“necessarily” skyrocketed (the price of gas is double that when he was
inaugurated). Obama wants energy prices high, despite the fact that it hurts
the economy (and the poor most of all), because it makes his preferred
pie-in-the-sky green energy sources comparatively more cost effective.
That’s another reason he hypocritically wants to end “subsidies” for oil
companies, mainly in the form of tax breaks (but hey, to Obama all money is
really the government’s anyways), without a word about green energy
subsidies. I’m sure that’ll help lower gas prices.
The government actively tries to reduce the supply of oil, and it takes more
of your money at the pump than the oil tycoons. Remember that next time some
busybody bureaucratic liar like Obama tries to blame high gas prices on the
oil companies.
