Tag: politics

Impeach Obama

But much more importantly, DON’T RAISE THE DEBT LIMIT!

A second Republican congressman is suggesting that impeachment should be an option as President Barack Obama takes executive action to enact gun control measures. In an interview with Florida’s “The Shark Tank,” Florida Republican Trey Radel addressed Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman’s statement that he might seek impeachment if Obama goes forward with executive action to bring about gun control measures.

“All options should be on the table,” Radel responded.

Obama announced 23 executive actions during his Wednesday press conference.

Obama should be impeached, although there is no chance that the Democratic Senate would vote to remove him from office even if he barbecued the children he was using to sell his Second Amendment violations in the Rose Garden and ate them in front of the cameras.  But more importantly, he can’t continue his disarmament campaign against the American people if the government is in default.

I don’t expect the House Republicans to follow through on this, of course, they’ll cave a third time, just as they did before.  But if they actually intended to defend the American people against the metastasizing government in Washington, they would do so.

What part of “shall not be infringed” does the administration not understand?  It’s not just “Congress shall make no law”.  Unlike the First Amendment, the Second Amendment means the Executive Branch is also barred from taking any actions whatsoever that limit the people’s right to bear arms.  There are no mental health exceptions; these 23 executive dictates collectively amount to straightforward unconstitutional dictatorship.

Inside view of the next Treasury Secretary

Pseudo-Spengler used to work for Jack Lew:

“When Lew was a COO at Citigroup, I was strategist for a credit derivatives hedge fund that did a great deal of business with Citigroup. We created collateralized debt obligations out of credit default swaps written on junk-quality debt, and through the magic of structuring, turned the junk debt into AAA-rated bonds. Citigroup not only underwrote these bonds, but bought virtually all of them through its so-called structured investment vehicles (SIV’s). These are off-balance-sheet devices sanctioned by the deaf-dumb-and-blind monkeys at the regulatory agencies that allowed banks to lever up AAA-rated paper at a ratio of 70 to 1. That is, Citibank bought $70 of these phony AAAs with $1 of actual shareholders’ capital. Of course, the supposedly AAA-rated paper rubber-stamped by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s bore no more relation to a true AAA security than a Thai counterfeit Rolex bears to the real thing (in fact, the Thai Rolex holds up better under scrutiny — at least it will tell time). When the crisis hit, the price of these supposed AAA-rated bonds collapsed, leaving Citi with losses multiplied by the 70:1 leverage factor.

“That’s why Citigroup went bankrupt (or would have except for repeated federal bailouts). There was a daisy-chain between the hedge fund investment side run in part by Jack Lew, the structuring desk, and the structured investment vehicle. Citigroup took a fee for investing in hedge funds, took a fee for structuring the hedge funds’ investments, and also bought a great deal of the dodgiest product. We used to tell our counterparties at Citigroup that they were crazy to buy this garbage (in effect, we were short the phony AAA paper that Citigroup was buying with 70:1 leverage. And I told the whole world this was the case on CNBC.) One of the reasons I knew with certainty that the banking system would blow up in 2008 was that I knew in detail what Citigroup had bought on Jack Lew’s watch.

Perhaps those feigning outrage at Jackie Chan’s charge that the USA is the most corrupt nation on the planet should consider taking this sort of thing into account.

Obama bypasses Congress

The totalitarians don’t have the votes to disarm America, so they’re going to try to bypass the democratic process by utilizing Obama and a collection of unconstitutional executive orders.

The White House has identified 19 executive actions for President Barack Obama to move unilaterally on gun control,
Vice President Joe Biden told a group of House Democrats on Monday, the
administration’s first definitive statements about its response to last
month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Let’s see them try it.  If nothing else, it might put an end to the use of executive orders.  More likely, it will explode the last tattered vestiges of the veil that disguises the dictatorial nature of the ruling oligarchy in Washington DC.

And yes, I know Republicans have used executive orders too.  That’s because they’re part of the problem, not the solution.

The first shots are fired

However, at the moment, it’s not violence, merely very loud political protest:

Rifle shots were fired early Monday into the Athens offices of Greece’s conservative party, which leads the fragile coalition government, causing no injuries but intensifying a wave of political violence in the debt-wracked country. 

Remember, the US is actually worse off than Greece, by some financial measures.  The only significant difference is that Greece can’t print money because the ECB won’t permit it, while the US can’t print money because the Fed won’t permit it.

I suspect these are the first shots to be fired in the great wave of political dissolution that is about to sweep over the world.

Of austerity and contraction

Texas cuts spending, tax revenues go up:

In 2011, when it looked as if Texas was facing a multi-billion-dollar
budget deficit, the Texas Legislature cut spending, especially funding
for education, Bloomberg notes. However, partly because of the fracking
boom, revenues from the sale of oil and gas soared, bringing in
unexpected tax revenues. The jobless rate also declined sharply,
currently down to 6.2 percent. Revenue from sales taxes has increased as
well.

Meanwhile, California has lost over $1 billion in tax revenues in less than two months by increasing spending and tax rates:

After Proposition 30 passed on November 6, 2012, the State of California experienced a decline in the total state revenue for the month of November. California State Controller John Chiang reported that the total revenue for the month of November declined by $806.8 million, which is 10.8 percent below budget.

The State of California experienced a decline in its revenue as several of the high income earners have relocated to other states, and have also relocated their businesses out of state. This led to a decline in corporate and income tax revenues by more than $1 billion.

It’s 2013.  How is it possible that any government, at any level, is still using static revenue models?  At some point, inept ideology can only be described as willful idiocy.

The irrelevant Republicans

Apparently we’ve reached the point where Republicans aren’t even pretending to slow down the rapid increase of central government expansion:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts.

Needless to say, this will not fix anything.  And the distance with which the can is kicked down the road keeps getting shorter and shorter.

Shout them down again

It’s time to begin cranking up the volume and sending the anti-gun politicians scurrying back under their rocks again:

In January, Senator Feinstein will introduce a bill to stop the sale,
transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault
weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devises.

  • Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
    • 120 specifically-named firearms
    • Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can
      accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
    • Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds

We all knew it was coming.  You know the drill.  If there is even the slightest squishiness on the part of your elected official, squeeze him until he squeals like an NRA piggy.

Why they’re desperate

If setting up and suiciding a drugged-up patsy to take the fall for shooting up a suburban school of sweet, innocent, white elementary schoolchildren isn’t enough to move the dial in favor of gun control, then what on Earth will?

The public’s attitudes toward gun control have shown only modest change in the wake of last week’s deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Currently, 49% say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 42% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns….  However, support for gun control remains lower than before Obama took office.  In April 2008, 58% said it was more important to control gun ownership; just 37% prioritized protecting gun rights.

The increased hysterics we’re seeing from the media is their horror at the dawning realization that a very large and statistically significant number of Americans will never, ever give up their guns, not even if Washington arranges to have a kindergarten shot up every single day.  It unsettles them deeply to recognize that the mere fact of Obama holding office scares more people than elementary school massacres.

WND column

Standing Firm for Freedom

It was not a surprise that the response of the New York Times to the Connecticut public-school shootings was to run, not one, not two, not three, but four editorials calling for yet another push for gun control. The mainstream media have been waiting literally years for something like this to happen, and they are not about to let such a crisis go to waste.

Top 40 political quotes for 2012

I would take exception to most of the quotes on this list compiled by the Right Wing News.  I think you could find a number of better ones in the comments on this blog alone.  Any time Herman Cain makes the top 10, you have to question the quality.  But a few of them are worth noting:

17) As government becomes bigger, it becomes more lawless. — George Will

13) As my father-in-law once said, when they talk about taxes it’s
always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your
taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you
never heard of. — Glenn Reynolds

4) The thing we adore about these dog-whistle kerfuffles is that the
people who react to the whistle always assume it’s intended for somebody
else. The whole point of the metaphor is that if you can hear the
whistle, you’re the dog. — James Taranto