The Headline Says It All

Haven't read the article yet, but:

California: The Lindsay Lohan of States

"Bush Got C's. Obama Probably Failed Lunch!"

Adolf's post-election analysis.

Noonan

A few pearls from her latest:

Two small points on the election's atmospherics that carry implications for the future. The first is that negative ads became boring, unpersuasive. Forty years ago they were new, exciting in a sort of prurient way. Now voters take for granted that politicians are no good, and such ads are just more polluted water going over the waterfall. The biggest long-term loser: liberalism. If all pols are sleazoid crooks, then why would people want to give them more governmental power to order our lives? The implicit message of two generations of negative ads: Vote conservative, limit the reach of the thieves.

...

On to the aftermath of the election. On Wednesday, President Obama gave a news conference to share his thoughts. Viewers would have found it disappointing if there had been any viewers. The president is speaking, in effect, to an empty room. From my notes five minutes in: "This wet blanket, this occupier of the least interesting corner of the faculty lounge, this joy-free zone, this inert gas." By the end I was certain he will never produce a successful stimulus because he is a human depression.

Actually I thought the worst thing you can say about a president: He won't even make a good former president.

His detachment is so great, it is even from himself. As he spoke, he seemed to be narrating from a remove. It was like hearing the audiobook of Volume I of his presidential memoirs. "Obama was frustrated. He honestly didn't understand what the country was doing. It was as if they had compulsive hand-washing disorder. In '08 they washed off Bush. Now they're washing off Obama. There he is, swirling down the drain! It's all too dramatic, too polar. The morning after the election it occurred to him: maybe he should take strong action. Maybe he should fire America! They did well in 2008, but since then they've been slipping. They weren't giving him the followership he needed. But that wouldn't work, they'd only complain. He had to keep his cool. His aides kept telling him, 'Show humility.' But they never told him what humility looked like. What was he supposed to do, burst into tears and say hit me? Not knowing how to feel humility or therefore show humility he decided to announce humility: He found the election 'humbling,' he said."

From The Mouths Of Synthetic CGI Puppets Comes The Truth

Good stuff.

Here's Hoping Our Next President Is From Austrian

Aren't you glad your vote is equal to theirs?

Obama's Triumphant Arrival In India

I got a kick out of this video.

See also.

Commodities Are Not Rights

Good points:

What brought the liberal left to this dismal impasse? It was the foolish notion that in America health care could ever be a fundamental right, which springs from ignorance (or denial) of what fundamental rights are in this country. For a primer on that subject, read the founding documents.

A right is not a tangible object. That would be a commodity. A right is much more precious. Rights are not bestowed on Americans by a benevolent government. Rights are given to us by God, and the founding documents were written to ensure that the government can't take them away. The liberal intelligentsia, who tend to be Humanist (euphemism for atheist) have a philosophical problem with this fact. That's tough.

A bullhorn is a commodity. Freedom of speech, immeasurably more precious, is a right. Bibles, Books of Mormon, Korans, and Torahs are all commodities. Freedom of religion is a right. A rented arena is a commodity. Freedom of assembly is a right. Lest any liberal readers still don't get it, allow me to elaborate. "To keep and bear arms," is a right. The Second Amendment guarantees that the government can't interfere with my -- God given -- right to defend myself or my family. Furthermore, it guarantees Patriots the right to band together to defend the country against a government that becomes as tyrannical as King George III, but thanks to the genius of the founder's, revolutionary change can be non-violent. The founders called such principles, "natural law," which in enlightenment thinking is synonymous with God's law.

Although it is my right "to keep and bear arms," I can't expect to be provided with a gun by the government at the expense of other taxpayers. A gun is not a right. It is a commodity.

So it is with health care. Surgeries, staples, and sutures are not rights. One of the problems with a government dispensing commodities and labeling them rights is, who gets to be the arbiter of which commodities are dispensed? I don't need health care from the government. I take care of my own health. But what I really could use is car care. My family owns three vehicles, and all of them could use a little work. Why not a "right" to car care? There is an airtight, logical argument that automobiles are essential to the U.S. economy. The nation has a vested interest in car care. And once health care is established in the American psyche as a right, who's to say car care won't be next? The problem? Car care is a commodity. The Democrats could have spared themselves a "shellacking" with a simple review of rights, "the laws of nature, and nature's God."

There's Nothing Wrong With Zero That A Massacre Of Innocents Wouldn't Fix

Brilliant.

A Real Genius

Randall Hoven:

President Obama explained us to us as follows:

And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does [sic] not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country is scared, and they [sic] have good reason to be.

(Just my unwashed observation: We have a president who knows what our brains are hardwired to do and can describe the emotional state of an entire country, but he can't get subject and verb to agree and pronoun and antecedent to agree in just two sentences not read from a teleprompter. Good thing he didn't say "refudiate.")

Is There Anything More Racist Than A Raving Leftist?

Doing the KKK proud.

About As Hard-Hitting A Statement As You Will Ever Get From A Fed Governor

We need more like him (ultimately less, actually, since there shouldn't be a Federal Reserve in the first place).

Richard Fisher:

In my darkest moments I have begun to wonder if the monetary accommodation we have already engineered might even be working in the wrong places. Far too many of the large corporations I survey that are committing to fixed investment report that the most effective way to deploy cheap money raised in the current bond markets or in the form of loans from banks, beyond buying in stock or expanding dividends, is to invest it abroad where taxes are lower and governments are more eager to please. This would not be of concern if foreign direct investment in the U.S. were offsetting this impulse. This year, however, net direct investment in the U.S. has been running at a pace that would exceed minus $200 billion, meaning outflows of foreign direct investment are exceeding inflows by a healthy margin. We will have to watch the data as it unfolds to see if this is momentary fillip or evidence of a broader trend. But I wonder: If others cotton to the view that the Fed is eager to “open the spigots,” might this not add to the uncertainty already created by the fiscal incontinence of Congress and the regulatory and rule-making “excesses” about which businesses now complain?

In performing a cost/benefit analysis of a possible QE2, we will need to bear in mind that one cost that has already been incurred in the process of running an easy money policy has been to drive down the returns earned by savers, especially those who do not have the means or sophistication or the demographic profile to place their money at risk further out in the yield curve or who are wary of the inherent risk of stocks. A great many baby boomers or older cohorts who played by the rules, saved their money and have migrated over time, as prudent investment counselors advise, to short- to intermediate-dated, fixed-income instruments, are earning extremely low nominal and real returns on their savings. Further reductions in rates earned on savings will hardly endear the Fed to this portion of the population. Moreover, driving down bond yields might force increased pension contributions from corporations and state and local governments, decreasing the deployment of monies toward job maintenance in the public sector. Debasing those savings with even a little more inflation than what is above minimal levels acceptable to the FOMC is unlikely to endear the Fed to these citizens. And if―and here I especially stress the word if because the evidence is thus far only anecdotal and has yet to be confirmed by longer-term data―if it were to prove out that the reduction of long-term rates engendered by Fed policy had been used to unwittingly underwrite investment and job creation abroad, then the potential political costs relative to the benefit of further accommodation will have increased.

Part of our cost/benefit analysis should include where the inertia of quantitative easing might take us. Let’s go back to that eye-popping headline in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: “Central Banks Open Spigot.”

My reaction to reading that article was that it raises the specter of competitive quantitative easing. Such a race would be something of a one-off from competitive devaluation of currencies, a beggar-thy-neighbor phenomenon that always ends in tears. It implies that central banks should carry the load for stymied fiscal authorities―or worse, give in to them―rather than stick within their traditional monetary mandates and let legislative authorities deal with the fiscal mess they have created. It infers that lurking out in the future is a slippery slope of quantitative easing reaching beyond just buying government bonds (and in our case, mortgage-backed securities). It is one thing to stabilize the commercial paper market in a systematic way. Going beyond investment-grade paper, however, opens the door to pressure on a central bank to back financial instruments benefiting specific economic sectors. This inevitably leads to irritation or lobbying for similar treatment from economic sectors not blessed by similar monetary largess.

It Would Be Tragic If It Weren't So Hilarious

Link

They Took On Babe Ruth. And Lost.

Interesting analysis re:Obama's attempted war against Limbaugh.

Poor Chuck

This actually makes Reid's win worth it:

HEH: The Unhappiest Man In America This Morning? Chuck Schumer.

The Shape Of Things To Come

Not as big a tsunami as I had hoped, but no matter. It'll do.

Predictions:

The next wave of this depression will hit before long and it will be much worse than 2008. Several big banks will fail unless bailed out. They will not be bailed out. Big surprise: the world won't end. The gov't will guarantee nothing whatsoever except deposits. Shareholders, bondholders, and assorted plutocrats will be wiped out, greatly diminishing their political clout (and good riddance).

Private sector unemployment will hit 30%. The House, seeking fairness in terms of bearing the economic pain, will pass a budget which includes a 20% paycut for all federal employees. Neither the Senate nor the President will go along with it. But there will be no continuing resolution and the government will shut down. Unlike 1995, it will not be the GOP that loses this one. After a month or so of stalemate, federal workers will decide that 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing. The Dems will blink and approve the budget. Folks will notice that the world will not have ended with the federal gov't inactive.

The resulting unprecedented pay cut (which will only give citizens an appetite for more) will break the solidarity of the public sector. Intelligent government workers who feel that they are doing something worthwhile will resent having their pay cut in order to support useless featherbedders, parasites, and tin horn bureaucrats. We will then behold the spectacle of government workers agitating for smaller government. It will be entertaining in the extreme to see these vampires fighting over a shrinking pie.

Some of the leftist politicians, whose only enjoyment in life is gotten from lording it over others so that the others must bow and scrape before them, will find that it is just as entertaining to have public sector workers groveling at their feet, begging for their jobs. They will wield the axe with gleee as they realize that a smaller gov't will eventually result in a more vibrant society, with plenty of opportunity for empire building and riches later.

The ugly implications of Obamacare will continue to ramify and outrage. Even leftist judges will conclude that the thing is a generational albatross, and the best strategic course will be to put it out of the Democrats misery. It will be invalidated.

The leftists and MFM will ratchet up the hatestorm to levels heretofore unimaginable. By some miracle the GOP will find its balls and not knuckle under to it, thereby defanging the shrieking media toddlers. Some enterprising entrepreneurs will buy one or more MFM outlets and clean out the stables.

Obama will attempt to rule via executive branch decree, promulgating regulatory "laws" that would previously have taken an act of Congress or a Constitutional amendment to enact. Several states will point out that the laws are null and void because they did not come from the legislative branch. The states will prevent enforcement of these laws in their borders and will ignore any federal court rulings to the contrary. This will open the floodgates as more and more entities realize that they have the power to uphold the Constitution without delegating that task to usurper black-robed Philosopher Kings.

Bringing The Hammer Down

On Myers, who is a philosophical barbarian and damned proud of it.

There is more sense in this single Egnor post than you will find in years of reading everything written by the New Atheists.

It's All Summarized In One Chart

Here.

Hillbuzz, Again With The Good Stuff

Excerpt:

If Wonder Woman in Chicago is shouting about Democrats being “diarrhea” and two guys dressing up to make fun of Tea Partiers fail to get the “Yah! We hate them too!” responses they desired, then Democrats are in for one Hell of a stunning surprise tomorrow.

They have no idea what a fringe minority they have become in the Left, and just how many tens of millions of Americans have woken up and see the Democrat Party for the Marxist mess it’s become.

I referenced the AintItCoolNews piece because over at that site, the Leftists who go there to talk about movies and occasionally engage in politics, have no clue what’s happening tomorrow. They have been making fun of the Tea Party movement, have been vociferously attacking Governor Palin, and have been wishing death on Glenn Beck for so long that they believe the majority of Americans think like them and that Democrats will prevail tomorrow — because they have the backing of the Ivy League big-thinkers, the Lincoln Park hipsters, the Austin-based basement dwellers and Hot Pockets snackers.

When Democrats receive a beatdown larger than anything the polls are showing — because I believe the pollsters have no idea just how much Americans have grown to actively hate the Democrats and see them as the manifestation of the Marxist Left in our government — all Hell is going to break loose in the ranks of the Hot Pockets eaters in their basements.

They will have no idea how to process those feelings: betrayal that Obama failed them when he was supposed to be their messiah; incomprehension over the fact they believe they are so right about everything and that Obama is wonderful and yet Americans are going to humiliate this “living god” tomorrow unlike anything we have seen in modern times; anger they have lost so much after all that gloating in 2008 declaring themselves to be masters of the universe and in complete control of this country.

These people are going to lash out.

...

The way I see it, every time these people lash out at Americans like us for speaking our minds and proudly espousing conservatism, the Left alienates more voters who never want anything to do with a party that condones such behavior. The folks at AintItCoolNews and other Leftist sites, in and outside of the political realm, don’t realize this…but their nastiness, vile attacks, and general behavior cost Democrats a great many votes.

So, keep it up, trolls. Keep the attacks coming. You only end up hurting yourselves.

So, bring it.

But just know somewhere in your brain that you brought all of this upon yourself. Every Tea Party member you ridiculed is someone who committed to voting against Democrats for the rest of their lives. Everyone you called a RAAACIST! for not supporting what Obama and Democrats are doing to this country is now an activist who is dedicated to bringing the Democrat Party down for those personal attacks. Every former Democrat Donna Brazile, Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi claimed wasn’t needed anymore because the party could function with just “blacks, urban elite, college towns, young voters, amnesty-seeking Hispanics, low information gays, and self-hating Jews” is now an Independent or even a Republican who is now using everything they know about the inner workings of the DNC to burn the party to the ground and make sure it never rises again.

The Left did this to itself.

The Democrat Party did this to itself.

Tomorrow, they will lash out at more people, behave terribly, and alienate scores and scores of more people who will then join the Tea Party and continue to work against Democrats.

Just watch.

It’s what happened to us in 2008.

It’s what happened to a lot of you who read us.

It’s happening all over.

And it is the Democrats’ own damn fault…so never let them forget that.

He Was Absolutely Correct

Heh:

Depending on turnout assumptions, Republicans either will enter election day with a 10-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot at 52/42, or if the turnout is lighter, a fifteen-point lead, 55/40. In Gallup’s history of asking the question, no party has ever had this kind of a lead heading into the final stretch...

...

And do you know who actually predicted this? Barack Obama. When asked how Democrats could avoid a 1994-style wipeout if Obama kept pressuring Democrats to vote for unpopular bills, he said the difference between 2010 and 1994 was, “You’ve got me.” Gallup says that may be the difference, but not in the way Obama thought...

Yes, the Democrats are indeed about to avoid a 1994-style wipeout--they'll wish that was all it was.

Hissy Fit

You tell 'em, Spong!

Quip

From the comments of this MS-geek blog:

The editors are so far up themselves they're in danger of becoming Klein bottles...

Great Little Testimony

From a comment at Neoneocon:

But isn’t it interesting how so many conversion stories are sparked by this particular revelation? I was reading Tammy Bruce in the Guardian the other day, and she had the exact same experience: “I thought we leftists were the open-minded ones; I was wrong” (that’s a paraphrase).

My own conversion experience was hardly as dramatic as hers, because I was never really a hard leftist. I hated politics and considered myself an anarchist, because that’s an easy way to float by in college. You don’t have to think anything through and you get to be cool. I did nonetheless have a soft spot for some of the harsher Marxist critiques of “the system,” but I would never have voted for a Democrat - I never would have voted for anyone.

Lets just say I felt very “at home” with leftists - far, far leftists - culturally and intellectually (I liked French postmodernism and Foucault and crap like that).

But my turning point, when I started to become both politically aware and conservative, was when a friend of mine tried to hold a debate between the three Republicans on campus and about 35 of the 3,000 socialists (my college was extremely leftist).

After the debate - which I sat through in utter disgust, listening to the crowd boo and hoot and hiss and curse every time the Republicans tried to speak - one of the Republicans had the tires on his car slashed and “fascist” carved in his car with a knife. He left the school not long after.

I remember realizing at that point that my options had been whittled down fairly cleanly.

I wasn’t an anarchist, because I had this sense of propriety and good form. Somebody, I thought, should have made the crowd shut-up. I realized then that my respect for human decency was far more essential to me than my disrespect for ALL authority. Tying those two thoughts together - cultivating human decency by having a cultivated sense for genuinely oppressive authority - is essential to conservatism.

I also realized I wasn’t a leftist because no ideas that had to be defended LIKE THAT could be worth defending. So by default I said, “OK, if I’m going to learn about politicsl, then I’m going to start with the people who deplore displays like the one I just saw.”

And then I read Thomas Sowell and David Horowitz. They explained very well what I saw. And that was that.

I had thought these people were just nice hippie communist buddhists. Individually they often were. But when the locusts brushed wings… I’d seen no fury like it.

So inasmuch as I had a “conversion”, it was the same thing - realizing how unbelievably intolerant the very people who claimed to be the world-historical champions of Tolerance, forever and ever, amen, were. It’s sort of like Obama himself - the messianic pretense sets you up for both vicious behavior and a certain blindness to how vicious you can be. The flip side is that it’s much easier for adherents to get disillusioned with such a vision than with the somewhat somber vision of conservatism, which takes fallenness for granted.

And I can’t resist a final observation: Isn’t it intriguing that, while liberalism is such an “optimistic” doctrine, liberals themselves are nonetheless (statistically speaking) angrier and less happy than conservatives, who themselves adhere to a doctrine that, by comparison to the sunny utopian progressivism of the left, seems bleak and cold by comparison?

The same commenter follows up again further down thread.

Welcome To Thunderdome

Hillbuzz has gotten, shall we say, interesting lately.

Link

Punished For Living Up To Their Ideals

Good point:

What makes 2010 different from 2006 (or 2008)? In the two previous elections, the American public sent the Republicans home because they veered away from their core principles. In 2010, however, Democrats are going to be punished for following and implementing their truly fundamental beliefs about economics and the role of government in the lives of ordinary Americans.

A Damned Tea Bagger's Contempt For The Less Fortunate

Racist lunatic:

Like a cancer; it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole of society.

-- John Adams

Seen here.

"Oh, Well, That's Another One"

Sign of the times.

Let's Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Link:

Pelosi: ‘We haven’t really gotten the credit for what we have done’

FROM THE COMMENTS: American Elephant begs to differ with the Speaker:

Yes, they have gotten credit for what they have done. That’s precisely why they are being fired en masse.

Amusing Summation

I don't know whether this summary is accurate in this particular instance, but it does describe the par for the course in the ID/Darwinism debate.

P.J. Hits It Out Of The Park

Excerpt:

They aren’t. They don’t. The reason is simple. They hate our guts.

They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.

Whence all this hate? Is it the usual story of love gone wrong? Do Democrats have a mad infatuation with the political system, an unhealthy obsession with an idealized body politic? Do they dream of capturing and ravishing representational democracy? Are they crazed stalkers of our constitutional republic?

No. It’s worse than that. Democrats aren’t just dateless dweebs clambering upon the Statue of Liberty carrying a wilted bouquet and trying to cop a feel. Theirs is a different kind of love story. Power, not politics, is what the Democrats love. Politics is merely a way to power’s heart. When politics is the technique of seduction, good looks are unnecessary, good morals are unneeded, and good sense is a positive liability. Thus Democrats are the perfect Lotharios. And politics comes with that reliable boost for pathetic egos, a weapon: legal monopoly on force. If persuasion fails to win the day, coercion is always an option.

Armed with the panoply of lawmaking, these moonstruck fools for power go about in a jealous rage. They fear power’s charms may be lavished elsewhere, even for a moment.

Democrats hate success. Success could supply the funds for a power elopement. Fire up the Learjet. Flight plan: Grand Cayman. Democrats hate failure too. The true American loser laughs at legal monopoly on force. He’s got his own gun.

Democrats hate productivity, lest production be outsourced to someplace their beloved power can’t go. And Democrats also hate us none-too-productive drones in our cubicles or behind the counters of our service economy jobs. Tax us as hard as they will, we modest earners don’t generate enough government revenue to dress and adorn the power that Democrats worship.

Democrats hate stay-at-home spouses, no matter what gender or gender preference. Democratic advocacy for feminism, gay marriage, children’s rights, and “reproductive choice” is simply a way to invade -power’s little realm of domestic private life and bring it under the domination of Democrats.

Democrats hate immigrants. Immigrants can’t stay illegal because illegality puts immigrants outside the legal monopoly on force. But immigrants can’t become legal either. They’d prosper and vote Republican.

Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats.

And Democrats hate the military, of course. Soldiers set a bad example. Here are men and women who possess what, if they chose, could be complete control over power. Yet they treat power with honor and respect. Members of the armed forces fight not to seize power for themselves but to ensure that power can bestow its favors upon all Americans.

This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order...

Who Knew?

Michael Barone:

Reading between the lines of Juan’s statement and those of NPR officials, it’s apparent that NPR was moved to fire Juan because he irritates so many people in its audience. An interesting contrast: while many NPR listeners apparently could not stomach that Williams also appeared on Fox News. But it doesn’t seem that any perceptible number of Fox News viewers had any complaints that Williams also worked for NPR. The Fox audience seems to be more tolerant of diversity than the NPR audience.

Gotta Like That Colonel West

A mirthful moment in this video (at about 40 seconds in).

How Exciting

But I guess you take what you can get.

Klavan

The times are completely insane.

Klavan spells it out.

Socialism

Great post. Here'e a good excerpt:

This is the end result of the welfare-state. The Europeans (and Democrats here at home) want a utopia where all needs are met, all the hungry are fed, all the children warm and safe, all the sick made whole, all the evil punished and the innocent made free, a land where all is peace and all live in harmony. Instead, the welfare-state is waste and weakness and impoverishment and upheaval and ennui. It is generational warfare, class warfare, enormous debts, squalor, meanness, shortages, selfishness. It is, at base, the end of civil society. Communist economies fall faster because they take the poison pure; it takes the merely socialist ones more time to sicken and die.

But Wait, I Thought Google Was Progressive And Socially Conscious.

But paying the bills for leftism? Not so much.

Hear, Hear

Egnor takes a clue bat to Myers.

"Once The Zombie Apocalypse Is Over, The Annoying Neighbor Dog Is Going To Be Music To Your Ears."

Those who merely kind of suck are going to sweep the field.

Great, amusing, true post.

It Is Awesome, Kind Of

Just one of the reasons.

Bunch Of Freakin' Morons

Our betters wallow in self-satisfied ignorance.

Link

Link

Indeed

From this Kyle-Anne Shiver piece:

On the intelligence claims, no proof has ever surfaced that any of the Obama brainiac hoopla was anything other than gratuitous accolades granted via affirmative action and white-liberal racial guilt. No transcripts. No professional articles. Nothing. Nada. From kindergarten through law school, not a single shred of evidence has ever surfaced to show that Barack Obama was ever even a good student, much less the brainy wizard of his advertisers’ imaginations. Since the candidate openly admitted to lots of high-school and college drug use, plenty of hoops-shooting, but nary a blip of organized sports rigor, it’s entirely within the realm of probability that those transcripts have been buried with the same malevolent intent as tobacco companies who deep-sixed their own negative research.

Ohhh, YEAH!

Watch this.

Yup

Hillbuzz:

Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about this.

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is threatening 401(k) plans — insisting Democrats can use the lame duck, post-defeat session of Congress to ram through a measure that would seize your personal 401(k) plans and use them to prop up the union pension plans that are imploding.

Are these people really this crazy?

For the last few months, we’ve been hearing talk of Democrats insisting they have “nothing to lose” once they are defeated in November, and that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would use the last few months of power they hold to cram as much statist legislation through in the dead of night as possible…with the Left realizing it would not have this much power for another several decades at least.

I’ve never bought into this just because of the permanent damage that lame duck session would do to the Democrat brand.

Yes, the individuals who’ve been defeated in 2010 won’t technically have anything to lose by voting for insanity…and they could leave office giving their constituents a giant F-U. But what happens to them then?

...

But if Democrats really and truly tried to take people’s 401(k) funds away from them and redistribute those to the unions…or tried to ram through Cap & Tax or other madness during that lame duck session…it’s impossible to imagine the blowback the Democrat Party would suffer.

This would, in fact, permanently equate Democrats with Communists in the minds of Americans.

I don’t know how the party remains viable after that…and I don’t know what happens to the American media once the Democrat Party is revealed as a Communist entity, since the media is so tied to the party.

The world as we know it would suddenly pop…and the rage that would fill the streets over the 401(k)s would be something unprecedented.

It really boggles the mind to even think about this…that’s why I still can’t imagine Democrats really doing anything like this.

There would be a march on Washington over those retirement accounts, and there aren’t enough bullets in the Capitol’s armory to shoot down all the Americans who would march upon that building and tear it down brick by brick if Democrats really and truly tried to take those 401(k)s.

This would also be a disaster for the unions…a tipping point where Americans would finally be forced to see these parasites for what they are…and in the aftermath of this power grab Americans would come after the unions right after they finished taking down Congress.

Can anyone think of a historical example where a government did something so insane, so against the will of its people, that the public saw this as a tipping point and rose up against it?

This gets into 1789 France territory.

As stupid as they are, I just don’t see Democrats being foolish enough to go there.

Amazing

Quite the father-son science project. If it is imitated too much, no doubt the FAA will (rightly) get involved.

Link

The Only Language They Understand

Powerline:

Sharron Angle raised the astonishing sum of $14 million during the third quarter. Chris Cillizza describes Angle's $14 million as "a stunning number that far eclipses the cash-collection totals of other prominent candidates seeking Senate seats next month."

Ninety-four percent came in donations of $100 or less. The Harry Reid campaign tried to put the best spin on Angle's smashing success:

"Sharron Angle's fundraising number is meaningless without disclosing how much they spent to raise it," said Reid spokesman Kelly Steele.

I suppose Harry Reid has to spend money to raise money, but people actually donate to campaigns like Sharron Angle's voluntarily, out of conviction. I'd guess that she spent very little to raise the $14 million.

We have reached, perhaps, the last stage in the establishment's view of the Tea Party movement. First ignored or snickered at, then demonized as the racist creature of shadowy billionaires, and most recently a movement which some Democratic candidates try to co-opt, the Tea Party has finally done the one thing that will cause it to be viewed with unalloyed respect by the powers of the status quo: it has raised an ungodly amount of money.

Heads They Win, Tails You Lose

A commenter at Telic Thoughts explicates the rules:

But the requirement for so much tuning, for the coming-to-pass of numerous and so-unlikely events, will simply be spun as evidence *against* design. Why, it all just shows how ridiculously unlikely all this is, how much our very presence depends not on intention and design but outlandish chance. Wouldn't a designer's handiwork be made evident not by tuning or chance, but inevitability?

Unless, of course, the argument is that life and humanity were inevitable. In which case, the near certainty that life would arise, that intelligent life would arise, is evidence against a designer too! After all, wouldn't we expect a designer to accomplish something particularly unlikely, to leave a kind of signature in the form of requiring very unlikely events, or laws that required considerable tuning?

It's like the Origin of Life. Is the OoL event very unlikely? Then it's just proof we are a freak accident, a mistake, a one-in-a-billion (or more!) fluke of the universe. Not designed. Is the OoL event likely? Then it's just proof we are ridiculously common, typical, non-special, dime-a-dozen. Not designed.

There's One For You, Nineteen For Me

Greg Mankiw tells us how it really works:

Suppose that some editor offered me $1,000 to write an article. If there were no taxes of any kind, this $1,000 of income would translate into $1,000 in extra saving. If I invested it in the stock of a company that earned, say, 8 percent a year on its capital, then 30 years from now, when I pass on, my children would inherit about $10,000. That is simply the miracle of compounding.

Now let’s put taxes into the calculus. First, assuming that the Bush tax cuts expire, I would pay 39.6 percent in federal income taxes on that extra income. Beyond that, the phaseout of deductions adds 1.2 percentage points to my effective marginal tax rate. I also pay Medicare tax, which the recent health care bill is raising to 3.8 percent, starting in 2013. And in Massachusetts, I pay 5.3 percent in state income taxes, part of which I get back as a federal deduction. Putting all those taxes together, that $1,000 of pretax income becomes only $523 of saving.

And that saving no longer earns 8 percent. First, the corporation in which I have invested pays a 35 percent corporate tax on its earnings. So I get only 5.2 percent in dividends and capital gains. Then, on that income, I pay taxes at the federal and state level. As a result, I earn about 4 percent after taxes, and the $523 in saving grows to $1,700 after 30 years.

Then, when my children inherit the money, the estate tax will kick in. The marginal estate tax rate is scheduled to go as high as 55 percent next year, but Congress may reduce it a bit. Most likely, when that $1,700 enters my estate, my kids will get, at most, $1,000 of it.

HERE’S the bottom line: Without any taxes, accepting that editor’s assignment would have yielded my children an extra $10,000. With taxes, it yields only $1,000. In effect, once the entire tax system is taken into account, my family’s marginal tax rate is about 90 percent. Is it any wonder that I turn down most of the money-making opportunities I am offered?

...

Now you might not care if I supply less of my services to the marketplace — although, because you are reading this article, you are one of my customers. But I bet there are some high-income taxpayers whose services you enjoy.

Maybe you are looking forward to a particular actor’s next movie or a particular novelist’s next book. Perhaps you wish that your favorite singer would have a concert near where you live. Or, someday, you may need treatment from a highly trained surgeon, or your child may need braces from the local orthodontist. Like me, these individuals respond to incentives. (Indeed, some studies report that high-income taxpayers are particularly responsive to taxes.) As they face higher tax rates, their services will be in shorter supply.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether and how much the government should redistribute income. And, to be sure, the looming budget deficits require hard choices about spending and taxes. But don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that when the government taxes the rich, only the rich bear the burden.

Proving His Point

The Stanford Daily gets pwned by VDH (see the second half of this piece, which is all worth reading).

I Guess That Settles It Then

Whatever.

Quote

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern; every class is unfit to govern."

Lord Acton (1834-1902)

Preaching From A Position Of Pristine Ignorance

Powerline:

The people who run the New York Times, along with columnists like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd, are so ill-informed and out of touch that their efforts to tell the rest of us what to think grow more pitiful every day. This is from today's NYT Corrections Section. The paper corrects a news story written by a reporter who has no comprehension of the tax code, but nevertheless tried to make a political point by implying that subchapter S corporations represent some kind of tax dodge:

An article on Wednesday about the business culture at the Tribune Company after its acquisition by Sam Zell referred incorrectly to federal taxes on an S corporation, which Tribune became after the deal. S corporations pay no federal taxes because shareholders are responsible for all taxes; therefore, taxpayers do not become "essentially silent partners in the deal."

Pathetic. Nearly every day, the Times's editors and reporters lecture the rest of us on tax policy, but for the most part, they have no idea what they are talking about. If you are looking for ignorance, the New York Times is your newspaper.

Rule Of Law Replaced

By Whim of Autocracy.

Darned Good Question

Link:

Of the 39 black Democrats in the House, all but two represent districts where blacks are a majority or plurality. One other black Democratic contender is running in a white majority district. So in this election, Republicans are running more blacks in white majority districts than the Democrats are. Shouldn’t that be taken into consideration when accusations of racism are being hurled about?

Weird Wild Stuff

Clever and perplexing.

The Lay Of The Land

Pretty cool. Be sure to peruse the huge version here.

Brutal

The Republican Governors Association gives us a capsule summary of the last 20 months. Probably the most devastating (and accurate) political ad I've ever seen.

At Least Hofmann Was On LSD

I don't know what Cohen's excuse is.

goo goo g'joob

Jim Carrey covers one of the best songs of the 20th Century.



H/T Wizbang.

Sometimes You Have To Think Inside The Box

A humorous look at current business buzzwords.

"If Someone Is Not A Moral Being, How Can He Be Expected To Vote For Moral Government?"

Why "libertarianism" fails.

Good quotes in the piece. Here's one from Edmund Burke:

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites ... Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

In the comments to this American Thinker piece a tired, lame canard answered:

monostor wrote: "I believe that atheism is also a religion"

I presume then that you believe that not collecting stamps is also a hobby.

...

"I presume then that you believe that not collecting stamps is also a hobby. "

If not collecting stamps means declaring yourself specifically to be not a stamp collector and setting up organizations and tenets specifically geared towards not stamp collecting, and spend your days telling anyone who will listen about how you do not collect stamps, and complain against the post office for forcing you to accept stamps on the letters sent to your mailbox? Then yeah, not collecting stamps is a hobby. If all you do is simply ignore any stamps you find? Not such a big deal. In my experience, the average atheist has more to say about religion than religious people do. People who truly don't care are more apt to simply say, "I'm not religious."

pwned.

Outsourcing Their Oath

Jonah Goldberg:

Imagine the Supreme Court was wiped out in an asteroid strike, or maybe ate some really bad clams. Whatever. With the court temporarily out of the picture, could Congress and the White House ignore the Constitution, locking up Tea Partiers or ACLU members?

Apparently.

"I have been fascinated by [Delaware Senate candidate] Christine O'Donnell's constitutional worldview," Slate magazine's Dahlia Lithwick confessed. O'Donnell had said, "When I go to Washington, DC, the litmus test by which I cast my vote for every piece of legislation that comes across my desk will be whether or not it is constitutional."

To which Lithwick, a widely cited expert on the Supreme Court, responded, "How weird is that, I thought. Isn't it a court's job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional? And isn't that sort of provided for in, well, the Constitution?"

Newsweek's Ben Adler was aghast at the clause in the GOP's Pledge to America that Republicans will provide a "citation of constitutional authority" for every proposed law. "We have a mechanism for assessing the constitutionality of legislation, which is the independent judiciary," Adler wrote. "An extraconstitutional attempt to limit the powers of Congress is dangerous even as a mere suggestion, and it constitutes an encroachment on the judiciary." And a progressive blogger writes in U.S. News & World Report that such talk of requiring constitutionality is "just plain wacky."

Does anyone, anywhere, think legislators should vote for legislation they think is unconstitutional? Should presidents sign such legislation into law?

According to this creepy logic, there's no reason for congressmen to even consider the supreme law of the land. Re-impose slavery? Sure! Let's see if we can catch the Supreme Court asleep at the switch. Nationalize the TV stations? It ain't unconstitutional until the Supreme Court says so!

Of course, reasonable people understand how absurd all of this is.

...

Too many politicians -- in both parties -- have abdicated their most solemn duty: to support and defend the US Constitution. George W. Bush signed campaign finance reform even though he thought much of it was unconstitutional. Nancy Pelosi thinks the Constitution has as much relevance as a pet rock. Asked if the health-care bill was constitutional, her eyes grew perceptibly wider as she incredulously asked, "Are you serious?"

The real issue is quite simple. If more politicians were faithful to the Constitution, the government would be restrained. And restraining government is "weird," "wacky" and "dangerous" to so many liberals today.

It's So Sad When People Think For Themselves

Instapundit:

ALL TOMORROW’S TEA PARTIES:

I see that former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker was spotted at a Georgia Tea Party protest, telling a local reporter that she is “furious about the way we are being led towards socialism.” Prefix magazine calls this “depressing” news that will “bring you down” before the weekend, because it’s incumbent upon all musicians—especially those in seminal proto-punk bands like VU—to have roughly the same, boring lefty politics.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Tell us how you really feel, compassionate Greenies.

Stewart Absolutely Rips Obama And The Democrats

See it here.

Hillbuzz Nails It

Link:

After Gloria Allred (who, don’t kid yourself, was put up to this by Jerry Brown and Democrats) held her bizarre press conference yesterday and paraded a sobbing, Mexican, criminal in front of the cameras to talk about how she committed a felony by lying on employment documents, creating a fake ID, and breaking all sorts of laws to obtain a high-paying job in the home of Meg Whitman in California, we realized what makes us like and dislike certain politicians: their ability to punch back against attacks and how aggressively they counter manufactured scandal.

Gloria Allred is revolting. That needs to be said several times a day. She’s trying to affect November’s election by driving a wedge between Hispanic voters and Meg Whitman by using this Mexican criminal to paint Whitman as a Leona Helmsely-esque tyrant. Whitman fired this woman, “Nicky”, when Nicky told her she was actually an illegal alien and admitted she’d been lying to Whitman for nine years about her work eligibility. Nicky then somehow got connected with Allred, who saw the opportunity to help near-octogenarian Jerry Brown in his flailing bid for the governorship by creating a manufactured scandal for Whitman to deal with in the last month of the campaign. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for Governor, Allred tried to do this to him as well, finding a woman who can forward and said she was abused by him.

Allred’s antics around election day are as predictable as pumpkins popping up around Halloween.

Smashing these political pumpkins takes guts and skill, and only the really admirable conservative candidates are ever any good at it. For some reason, on the Republican side of the aisle, no one seems to teach these people how to take down Democrats when they pull these stunts. Governor Palin, Lt. Colonel Allen West, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Candidate Nikki Haley, Governor Chris Christie, and Governor Jan Brewer are all EXCELLENT at smacking back whenever the Left concocts ridiculous charges against them.

Not coincidentally, we like all of these people very much, because they give us something to cheer about every time they raise up a grizzly paw and strike back against Democrats — leaving the Left bewildered and stunned, because for decades now Republicans have forever refused to fight back.

“We need to take the high road,” consultants in wood-paneled private clubs insist.

“If we address these charges and counter them, we are giving them credence, so it’s my advice to just ignore them,” advisors note.

“Is there any more mayo for my sandwich? It’s so spicy and I need the mayo to cool it down so I can enjoy it and my tummy won’t feel funny later,” the quintessential Republican campaign operative whines.

There’s no reason to wonder why Republicans lose so many elections — when they keep taking advice not to smack people like Gloria Allred back HARD when they pull stunts like yesterday.

So far, Meg Whitman’s done a good job of hitting back…and it looks like Allred had telegraphed what she was up to because the Whitman campaign had all of “Nicky’s” documents ready for perusal moments after Allred’s press conference.

...

It will take a day or two to see whether or not Allred’s stunt has any bearing on the campaign, but what we’re really waiting for is Meg Whitman’s retaliatory hit on Jerry Brown. Here in Chicago we’ve long heard that there’s a lot of nasty stuff in Brown’s recent past that will come out in this California race. Brown’s still hated by many Clinton people we know, as the wounds from the 1992 campaign have not yet healed, and the Clintons themselves have long, long memories that are picked up by those who love and support them.

The big question is whether Whitman’s going to go for Brown’s throat and take him down with whatever she’s got on him, or whether she’ll follow a classic, McCain-like campaign and “not go there”, just as McCain made the personal decision not to expose Obama’s past and his connections with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Frank Marshall, and other radicals even after the Obama campaign repeatedly called McCain a racist and kept spreading all sorts of lies about him.

Saying “I want to run a clean campaign” is code for “I do not have what it takes to win and I am afraid to stand up to bullies because I want to be loved by a media that will never love me and wants to destroy me while I am too stupid to realize this”.

Whitman didn’t get to where she is by being stupid. And she certainly didn’t spend $120 million of her own money to let Gloria Allred and a Mexican criminal derail her campaign.

We don’t know a lot about Whitman, but like the woman…and are rooting for her to step up to the plate and really show us what she’s got now that Democrats have thrown down the gauntlet like this.

Well Said

American Thinker:

This election will be the political equivalent of shock and awe. Media and Democrats will be confused and disorganized. Reports concerning the survivability of the party will follow. Republicans will not be spared as long-overdue reform is imposed. The unprincipled media, sensing the mood of the country, will no longer be able to shill for the Democratic Party they want to survive.

The potential for danger is inside the Democratic Party. President Obama will be at the center of the storm. He is a newcomer, still viewed as an outsider. Obama was never personally popular with other politicians; he was tolerated. To the extent that he could advance the agendas of those in power, he had value. Now his oratory and popularity no longer sell, and he will be held responsible for galvanizing the public against the criminal enterprise we so politely call Congress.

Obama is a liability. His aggressive agenda jeopardized the establishment. Presidents come and go, but the old bulls of Congress die in office. It is they who own and run Washington, not some figurehead president. Obama's magic is gone. It duped the Party just as it did much of the country. This wunderkind is now a pompous, dangerous fool to both sides of the aisle. He embarrassed the real power in Washington and threatened their version of the Cosa Nostra.

Political power is respected, even when it is disliked. Obama came into office displaying contempt for Congress. He was a political phenomenon who established his own advisory group of czars. Congress was to be tolerated, but little more. Much of what was done was in violation of the Constitution. In a Congress where principles don't matter, advancing the ball is what matters.

Political alienation is never pretty. In this case, it could be tragic. We have a president with a Messiah complex, blinded by extreme narcissism. He has lived in an unreal bubble all his life, supported by shadowy figures who viewed him as a meal ticket for ideological change. Most of his life has been devoid of both discipline and reality.

Mr. Obama has never experienced real failure or unpopularity. How will this pampered man-child react to what may be total rejection? That is the core of the problem. The president is likely a sociopath. The nation and his personal tragedy are inextricably linked. The Democratic Party is in there, too. How this drama plays out could affect the entire world.

Mr. Obama is unlikely to be able to handle what is coming. His two-year record contains too many examples of pettiness and "it's-never-my-fault" behavior. Whether he behaves as a spoiled brat and strikes out at some country (say, Iran) to demonstrate his manhood is unknowable. Perhaps he will surprise and accept the fact that he has replaced Jimmy Carter as our worst president, although that is unlikely.

An intervention is inevitable. An intervention might be from trusted friends, or it could be a Nixonian pre-resignation meeting. The Democratic Party will intervene. They will do so out of self-interest rather than concern for the tragedy we call Mr. President. This meeting is likely to be Nixonian.

The administration's initial reaction is predictable. The president and his Chicago thugs will resist. These are tough guys, but from a small pond. The amateurs from Chicago don't stand a chance against the Washington pros. This is street-crime versus organized crime. The big boys have too much at risk to allow some street punk to ruin it.

A Darned Funny Blog Sub-Headline

Under the "Tom McMahon". Pretty good "Coexist" parody, too.

Link

Tactics

From a Neoneocon commenter:

Perhaps more productive is to plant the seed of doubt/thought in the fertile soil between their ears, and let it go at that.

One example is turning leftist viewpoints back on one’s interlocutor apparently without noticing the conflict, viz., if talking to a liberal physician, go on a tear about how Obama’s absolutely right that doctors yank out body parts just to turn a buck, and that you for one are glad that Obama (keep using His name) has had the courage to punish such parasites and cut back their income. It’s for the children!

Other examples include:

1. Talking up militant unionism to anyone who has to (or in some future development, may have to) deal with them.

2. To a liberal mom holding forth about her child’s performance in school, talk about how the Dems are absolutely right that grades are elitist and merely reflective of class advantages, that her child should be sent to an inner city school to learn about the downtrodden, and that since all children are equally valuable they should therefore all receive the same grade. (If anything brings out the hard-nosed side of most women, it’s something that disadvantages their children. And quite right, too.)

3. To a liberal dad who’s proud of his son, talk up homosexuality, and tell him you agree that all children should be taught the …uh…ins and outs of all the myriad “lifestyles” Dems support, and encouraged to try them all. If he’s proud of a daughter, talk about how you approve of abortion without parental consent, and think that the Dems are right to support illegitimate births among teen-aged girls.

4. To accusations of “Islamophobia,” from a liberal who is female, Jewish, homosexual, or a non-believer, extol the virtues of Islam, and speak approvingly of Islamic policies toward the group to which your interlocutor belongs. (”No, no, I admire Islam. They sure know how to keep their ________ in line, don’t they? We could learn a lot from them.”)

5. To union members, talk about how you approve of the Dem’s environmental policies. “Barack’s right, we must preserve the environment for the spotted howling cockroach, no matter how many jobs are lost. Losing blue-collar jobs is a small price to pay for seeing the cockroaches gambol merrily in a pristine habitat.”

6. To someone who makes a lot of money, talk about how everything over some sum (choose, say, 70% of the guy’s annual income) should be confiscated in taxes and given to the poor. He’s got so much, they’ve got so little. It’s not fair!

7. Car buff? Government Motors should produce only strictly utilitarian transport (Trabants!) They’re good enough for the proletariat.

You get the idea. Dem policies have a thousand cleavage planes in them, because they’ve cobbled together a whole bunch of groups that have mutually exclusive views. Jam the person’s face in the part that’s repellent to him, but act as though you presume he – as a Dem – will agree. The hard part is keeping a straight face.

Additionally, just for fun, with people who don’t know my actual views, I sometimes like to use psychic ju-jitsu; express agreement, and then go progressively (sorry) even further left to titrate their views, ending up waxing eloquent about policies that would make Karl Marx squirm. (Think Kim Jong Il’s press secretary and you’ve got the idea.) The trick is to see how far you can go without the other person realizing that you’re engaging in parody. It’s amusing to watch initial smiles of agreement slowly slip, and even more so if they start arguing a more conservative line.

Mark Shea Asks

"[Did you] ever notice that people who continually proclaim themselves 'rational' are as incapable of reason as people who continually proclaim themselves 'devout' are incapable of devotion?"

As a parenthetical aside to this piece.

Thoroughly Lacking In The Remotest Common Sense Regarding Simple Current Events, But A Complete Genius When It Comes To Speculative Historical Science

What a tool.

Why'd They Change The Wording?

Just asking.

Truth, Synthesized

The Ouroboros

Great Dr. Zero post.

Excerpt:

It’s not an exclusively partisan scandal. The party in power tends to attract the big payoffs, from contributors eager to turn thousands of campaign dollars into millions in taxpayer loot. It’s an investment that pays huge dividends, no matter how rotten the economy might be. As the party dedicated to government growth and central control, the Democrats are more aggressive salesmen, and they can count on general media disinterest, so they can be more brazen.

The sharpest fangs of the Ouroboros are public employee unions, especially the teachers’ union. Titanic amounts of taxpayer money are poured into the hands of the NEA, and despite generally poor performance, they are politically shielded from reform. One of the biggest controversies from President Obama’s first year in office was the brutal murder of a popular District of Columbia school choice program, carried out by the Democrats on the order of the teachers’ union. The NEA buys this kind of influence by donating tens of millions to Democrats each year – over $56 million during the 2008 election season.

These very expensive money-laundering systems have been running for decades, consuming taxpayer billions to stuff millions into the coffers of politicians, who then grab more billions to throw into the machine. As long as vast sums of money are accumulated in Washington, the politically connected will gather to feast. Politicians need funding to stay in office, and despite their posturing as selfless public servants, they tend to be greedy and envious… with a strong sense of entitlement to the lavish lifestyle paraded before them by big-money contributors. They will always lose the battle against temptation to sell their power. They wrap their sins in self-righteous rhetoric, which they can sometimes convince themselves to believe. No central accumulation of power has ever escaped corruption on a massive scale, anywhere in human history.

Consider the terrible image of this huge serpent feeding upon itself, and ask yourself: what is the use of a “moderate” agenda that merely causes the beast to chew a little more slowly? What is the “centrist” position relative to a system designed for automatic, perpetual growth? Even if the President repaired to the golf course for the rest of his term, and Congress held no further sessions, the growth of the federal government would continue automatically. You can hear the sounds of the serpent’s teeth scraping against its own tail in talk of baseline budgeting, and the term “cuts” used as a curse against reductions in the rate of spending increase.

How will you maintain your “independence” when control over every aspect of your life is fantastically valuable, and politicians have plenty of eager buyers with deep pockets lined up?

It’s not enough to tinker at the edges of this system. Vast amounts of power must be torn from Washington, and returned to the people. We must begin the fearsome task of pulling the serpent’s tail from its jaws, or we will all be crushed by its death throes.

“Moderate” voters would be well advised to study the Tea Party critique of our unsustainable government carefully. As dramatic as it sounds, it’s the truly moderate position. The Ourboros has shown it cannot be reasoned with, and there are no firm boundaries it respects. The “living Constitution” is but the tip of its flickering tongue. Leave it alone for a few more years, and it will teach you the true meaning of “extremism.”

Pass It On

Great video.

If They Believed Their Own Propaganda

They'd be this straightforward (from a VDH column):

Proud and loud?

In other words, why cannot liberal defenders of Obama simply say, “Government, much more wisely than a selfish private sector, can ensure a vibrant economy. When people are assured of comprehensive government entitlements they use that security as a base for renewed work and investment. Deficits create consumer demands, spread money around to those who need it most, and spur economic prosperity. And when business provides society with over half its profits in income, payroll, and assorted state and local taxes, the resulting redistributive change and spread-the-wealth equality ensure aggregate economic growth”?

But no one seems to wish to run on the very philosophy that just two years ago was gospel. Instead we get “Obama made us do it.”

Quote

Via Rick:

"We have become a culture where making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does."

Unclear On The Concept

A senator's oath to uphold the Constitution is somehow completely incomprehensible to some.

If You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Precipitate

Instapundit:

BIG MEDIA’S BIGGEST FAILURE: The Debt. “Indeed, our unsustainable financial situation led to the creation of a Tea Party movement — one of the biggest political developments in America over the past two years. It would seem to be the perfect news peg for ongoing media coverage of our government’s fiscal irresponsibility. Of course, it didn’t work out quite that way, did it? Instead, the establishment media ignored, then attacked the Tea Party movement . . . . Thus, the establishment media reveals itself, not as the people’s watchdog against irresponsible government, but as the irresponsible government’s guard dog against the people. It is ground zero for manufacturing center-left consent.”

It's All They've Got

ID refuted!! here:

Intelligent Design

I think that I shall never see

A theory dumber than ID.

It says that God can make a tree,

A beaver or a honeybee—

That God can simply get a whim

To make the small E. coli swim;

He waves his hand through Heaven’s air

And lo! Flagella everywhere!

But sometimes even God falls down

And makes a poor pathetic clown:

Yes, poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make Behe.

"If You Shine A Black Light On It You Can See A Hammer & Sickle Appear"

Quip lifted from comment here.

All Your Paychecks Are Belong To Us

Dropping the pretense:

The UK government tax collection agency says…

…all your money really belongs to us anyway, so why not just skip the middleman: you!

Perhaps it’s only a matter of time, although for now the proposal is still considered “radical:”

The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.

The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.

Please read the whole article. In it, the proposal is criticized, to be sure. But the main arguments seem to be whether it would really save the government money or cost money instead, and whether errors would be likely to be made. Liberty? Never heard of it.

We Aren't The First

This'll Make Your Palms Sweat

Good work, if you can find it.

No More Control

Outstanding Dr. Zero piece.

I liked this snippet:

Substituting the limited vision of a few, for the innovation and risk-taking of many, will always impose a steep price. We speak approvingly of “thinking outside the box.” Washington makes boxes.

Excellent Peter Kreeft Quotes

Over at Rick's.

I have a whole shelf of Kreeft's books...

Here's a great WFB quote from the article that Rick links to:

A clever debater once accused William F. Buckley of having “one of the finest minds of the thirteenth century.” Buckley replied, “I don’t deserve that compliment.”

D'Oh!

The Simpson's White House.

It's uncanny.

No Severance Clause

Interesting...

Our Petulant Boy-King

What hath Affirmative Action wrought? VDH:

The wonder is not that Obama is angry at criticism, but why he is so surprised in a weird “how dare they?” fashion.

Various explanations come to mind. Like the early presidential years of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Obama has experienced a radical drop in approval ratings. His preconceived notions about the world abroad have proven shockingly therapeutic. He must be disappointed that an Ahmadinejad or Putin is not swayed by his charisma and does what he pleases, which is mostly to oppose America and its interests whenever he can. Messianic disappointment with an unappreciative lesser world can explain a lot.

Keynesian economics did not pan out. Pundits without the responsibility of governance, who advised him to borrow trillions, now abandon him for not borrowing more trillions. He must be confused why he is both being attacked by friends and yet unable to borrow his way to recovery.

Yet Obama’s petulance, I think, more likely derives from a certain surprise — leading to anger — that originates from novel and sudden demands for accountability. Quite simply, no one has dared question Obama before — much less press him for deeds to match his mellifluous words.

Did he really think he could talk his way through four years of the American presidency?

Apparently, he did, and apparently he was almost right — given that rhetoric and sophistry earned him the presidency in the first place. In what follows, I hold some empathy for Obama’s pique; you see in some sense those around him suddenly changed the rules, and what in the past had been habit and custom no longer quite applied.

An Old Story

This is an old story with a long heritage. We know Obama got into Columbia; we have no idea what he accomplished there — or whether his undergraduate transcript merited admission to Harvard Law School. Obama may have charmed his way into Harvard Law Review, but in brilliant fashion he seems to have guessed rightly that once there he would be singularly exempt from the usual requirements of quantifiable achievement.

A part-time visiting law professorship at the University of Chicago Law school rarely leads to a permanent tenure-track position, much less a tenured billet– and never without a body of published articles and books. In Obama’s case those protocols simply did not apply. He was not only offered whatever he wanted, but as Justice Kagan reminded us, Obama was courted by Harvard Law School as well.

...

It is hard to think that an Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, would have gushed over the rather undistinguished legal record of Barack Obama, had he been either a well published but obese white Harvard Law graduate, or a conservative African-American antipode to the Biden-Reid stereotype, perhaps in the Clarence Thomas mold. After all, it was not just Obama’s appearance or skin color or cadences that so impressed Biden and Reid and won over liberal Americans, but his politics as well that earned him an exemption not accorded even to an equally professional appearing Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice.

Now What?

But enough speculation over motives for the origins of Obama’s strange and growing petulance. All that matters for the country is that the current president of the United States seems surprised that as our chief executive he is earning scrutiny not previously accorded him — and that he finds that demand for accountability both exasperating and abjectly unfair. Thus this week’s latest “like a dog” whine.

For some reason, Obama believed that those who expected after his campaign promises a real upturn in the economy, or fiscal responsibility, or inspired foreign policy would be satisfied, as they had in the past, merely with soaring rhetoric and superficial reassurance. When they were not, and voiced such displeasure, as ingrates they had supposedly reduced Obama to canine-like status.

...

Given all that, it is understandable both why America is very worried about what it has wrought — and why Barack Obama is miffed and lashes out.

You would too if both accountability and criticism were novel experiences at 49.

Moderate Islam, My A**

A couple of good posts at Rick's:

Link

Link

Consciousness Simply Cannot "Emerge" From Matter

John C. Wright offers some splendid analogies and writing on the topic here.

There is also a good post on this at Uncommon Descent (with good discussion in the comments) here.

The Ruinous New Deal Policies Ended When We Had To Get Real Due To War

And it turns out that evil, conservative policies might be just the thing when one faces electoral Armageddon:

OCTOBER SURPRISE? White House considers pre-midterm package of business tax breaks to spur hiring. I think we’ll see a lot of these kinds of things now that they’re desperate.

The Fix Is Simple, But Short-Term Painful

Denninger has the details.

Worth A Thousand Words

How Jihadis see the Victory Mosque.

"Replacing Keith Moon With C3PO Hasn't Made For A Rush On Record Stores"

Today's pop music sucks.

More here.

Oh What, Oh What Could It Possibly Be?

Hugh Hewitt:

From Mike Allen's Playbook this AM:

TIME magazine dubs Obama “MR. UNPOPULAR”—Michael Scherer: “White House aides explain this change as a largely inevitable reflection of the cycles of ?history. Midterms are almost always bad for first-term Presidents, and worse in hard times. “The public is rightly frustrated and angry with the economy,” says Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s communications director, explaining the White House line. “There is no small tactical shift we could have made at any point that would have solved that problem.” In more confiding moments, aides admit that the peak of Obama’s popularity may have been inflated, a fleeting result of elation at the prospect of change and national pride in electing the first African-American President. As one White House aide puts it, ‘It was sort of fake.’”

Wow. This White House is paralyzed with self-pity and still suffused with arrogance and ideological blindness. The president is plummeting in the polls and his party with them because their ideas don't work, they seem ashamed of America, and they want to take all the money and give it to their friends. This isn't hard to figure out, but the ego in the Oval Office needs a grand historical explanation for his unfolding failure.

Incompetence and arrogance combined with extreme ideology far outside the American mainstream is just too easy for him to grasp.

Of Course Not. There Are No Terrorists On The Left. What A Silly Question.

"Will the media call the Silver Spring/Discovery Channel gunman an environmental terrorist?"

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Death By Suicide

Excellent article reflecting on the self-immolation of the MFM.

That There Exist People With Minds That Would Come Up With Such A Thing Is, Frankly, Alarming

Nightmare.

Vanderleun comments here.

It all gives me that warm fuzzy feeling I get when reading 1984.

Vanderleun

Has a couple of good posts.

From the second one:

Sooner or later, one or more insane Muslim jihadists are going to figure out how to defeat an airport security system at one or more of the hundreds of airports sending flights into the country or inside the country itself.

Once they get on board one or more planes, they will succeed in blowing them out of the sky causing hundreds of innocent deaths. If they are really lucky they will manage to detonate their bombs over a city causing hundreds of more deaths on the ground below.

The gelded child who styles himself as a president will make mewling noises on and off for a week or so, and then will go on a stress induced golfing vacation. The congress will be predictably outraged. There will be funerals and a lot of TV, newspaper, and magazine coverage of the "missing."

...

Flights will then resume at an even more glacial inspection pace except for those in first class, government class, or with private jets. The rest of us will then be told that in order to board the plane we must strip naked and don bright orange government approved flight sacks complete with relief tubes and Depends.

All except for Muslim men and women and children whose religion will not allow them to participate in such a demeaning measure.

Full Scale Attack

Neal Boortz minces no words here (language warning).

H/T Brutally Honest.