Tag: politics

Choosing collapse

This is a rather timely poll, following as it does my recent column on the subject. It makes it very clear that there is no point looking to the Republicans to save the nation. John Hawkins polls the nominal right-wing blogosphere about the Republican primary:

If you had to pick a 2012 GOP contender today, which of the following candidates would you select?

7) Jon Huntsman: 2.5% (2 votes)
6) Rick Santorum: 5.1% (4 votes)
5) Michele Bachmann: 6.3% (5 votes)
4) Ron Paul: 7.6% (6 votes)
3) Mitt Romney: 12.7% (10 votes)
2) Rick Perry: 26.6% (21 votes)
1) Newt Gingrich: 39.2% (31 votes)

Which candidate would you LEAST like to see as the GOP nominee in 2012?

7) Rick Santorum: 1.3% (1 votes)
6) Rick Perry: 1.3% (1 votes)
5) Newt Gingrich: 3.8% (3 votes)
4) Jon Huntsman: 9% (7 votes)
3) Michele Bachmann: 11.5% (9 votes)
2) Mitt Romney: 25.6% (20 votes)
1) Ron Paul: 47.4% (37 votes)

If your top choice couldn’t get the nomination, which candidate would be your second choice?

7) Ron Paul: 3.8% (3 votes)
6) Jon Huntsman: 6.4% (5 votes)
5) Michele Bachmann: 10.3% (8 votes)
4) Mitt Romney: 14.1% (11 votes)
3) Rick Santorum: 15.4% (12 votes)
2) Newt Gingrich: 19.2% (15 votes)
1) Rick Perry: 30.8% (24 votes)

This is why I have absolutely no sympathy for Americans whatsoever, especially not Republicans who claim to be so distraught over what “the Democrats” are supposedly doing to the country. They are revealing themselves to be EVERY BIT as stupid and clueless as the “Hope and Change” Obama Democrats. They are an integral part of the problem, not the potential solution they imagine themselves to be.

I find it particularly telling that Ron Paul is the Republican for whom they harbor the most distaste. No one likes the man who tells you that you aren’t a beautiful snowflake whose every action is justified, much less the one who tells you that the good times are not going to continue rolling and happy days are not here again.

WND column

Choosing Collapse

Another flavor of the month has passed its sell-by date. To no one’s surprise, except perhaps those Republicans in desperate search of a get-out-of-racism-free card, the Magic Negro, Part II: Republican edition has “suspended” his campaign, thus marking the latest collapse of a nominal frontrunner. If we are to take the polls seriously, this leaves Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney as the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, which is arguably the least attractive leadership pair on offer since the Polish people were divided between Hitler and Stalin.

An upset in Iowa?

Ron Paul is coming on strong:

A brand-new Iowa Poll, just published by the Des Moines Register, reports the often-dismissed 76-year-old Paul has surged past one-time front-runner Mitt Romney and moved into second place, with his sights set on the current front-runner Newt Gingrich.

According to the new poll results, Gingrich leads the pack at 25% of likely caucus-goers with less than a month until they’re held. Paul is second with 18% and Romney now trails with 16%.

It would certainly be interesting to see how far the media is willing to go in pretending Ron Paul doesn’t exist if he were to win Iowa. It would certainly be hard to maintain the unelectable theme. I imagine the big story would be the “unexpected” strength of Mitt Romney’s third-place showing.

Exit the Harassinator

You know, it really doesn’t bother me in the slightest to say “I told you so“.

Herman Cain, the insurgent populist whose candidacy has been ensnared by allegations of sexual impropriety, said Saturday that he is leaving the race for the Republican presidential nomination, saying that the allegations have cast a “cloud of doubt over me and this campaign.”

“As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign,” he said at an event in Atlanta. “I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt . . . on me, on my family, not because we are not fighters, not because I am not a fighter.”

Herman Cain’s campaign was always a joke. He was never a serious candidate in the eyes of anyone with more than half a brain who bothered paying attention to what came out of his mouth after swirling around in his head.

I shall now commence to gargle with the sweet, saline goodness of Fred Backer’s tears

The inevitable result of the “Arab Spring”

Perhaps, my dear anklebiters, you may recall when you said I had no idea what I was talking about when I scoffed at the idea that the “Arab Spring” would lead to that vision of shiny secular democracy that is dying in the West and will never exist in the Middle East. After all, weren’t there STUDENT LEADERS speaking ENGLISH to CNN reporters? Surely the ability of two or three twenty-somethings to appear presentable on camera must have been a reliable indicator of their political power in Egypt! And I’m sure you haven’t forgotten all your pooh-poohing of the idea that democracy would lead directly to rule by religious fundamentalist parties:

The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, appeared to have taken about 40 percent of the vote, as expected. But a big surprise was the strong showing of ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in voting or public life.

Analysts in the state-run news media said early returns indicated that Salafi groups could take as much as a quarter of the vote, giving the two groups of Islamists combined control of nearly 65 percent of the parliamentary seats.

Quelle surprise! The entire point of establishing the various kings and military dictatorships at the end of the European colonial era was to avoid popular governments and thereby prevent the revival of violent Islamic expansion. And I have no sympathy for the neocons, particularly the Jewish ones who loudly advocated democratic revolution in the Arab world and will soon be shrieking about how their precious Israel is now increasingly threatened by the democratic governments they helped establish.

The neocons have clearly already made geo-politics much more unstable with their unrestrained interventionist strategery. I suggest they all shut the hell up and simply watch as the Arabs, Israelis, and Americans go about pursuing their national interests without the “benefit” of advice from the idiot interventionist lobby.

Democracy is not, and has never been, an intrinsic good in and of itself. It is not freedom. It is not liberty. And very often, it is a very good way of ensuring that human freedom and liberty are repressed.

Be grateful for President Obama

It could have been a lot worse… John McCain might have won:

Buried in the annual defense appropriations bill is a provision that would give the President the power to use the military to intern anyone – including American citizens – indefinitely, and hold them without charges or trial, anywhere in the world, including on American soil. The provision essentially repeals the longstanding Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the military from engaging in law enforcement on US territory – the greatest fear of the Founders. Approved by a Senate subcommittee in secret hearings, the provisions open the road to a military dictatorship in this country – and for that we can thank Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, who introduced the measure. Both the FBI and the Pentagon came out against the Levin-McCain monstrosity, and Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado) introduced an amendment striking the provision: the amendment was defeated in the Senate, 37-61.

The mind reels.

Given how spectacularly awful McCain has been as a senator, it still boggles the mind that he managed to win the Republican nomination. Any Republican Those who are arguing for supporting Mitt Romney based on the idea that he can defeat Obama in 2012 are forgetting the obvious problem: given his political record and the principle of counter-push, there is absolutely no guarantee that Romney won’t actually turn out to be even worse than Obama.

There can be little question at this point that McCain would have been. The one good thing about Obama is that he is far too passive and lazy to want to be a dictator, because then he would actually have to stop voting present.

On second thought, perhaps Obama might be as bad as McCain after all. Or at least someone in his administration is.

“The initial bill reported by the committee included language expressly precluding ‘the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.’ The Administration asked that this language be removed from the bill.”

Well, at least we’ll have a bipartisan military dictatorship. And bipartisan is always good, right?

The Harassinator strikes again!

Herman Cain says he was just helping a woman financially… in much the same way that Eddie Murphy was just giving that tranny prostitute a ride and Hugh Grant was just helping Destiny Brown floss her teeth. Such good samaritans, the three of them:

An Atlanta businesswoman is breaking her silence, claiming she has been involved in a 13-year-long affair with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain…. She says the physical relationship ended about eight months ago, right before Cain announced he was running for president. But the communication did not. When we asked for any corroborating evidence, she pointed us to her cell phone contacts. One name: Herman Cain.

She showed us some of her cell phone bills that included 61 phone calls or text messages to or from a number starting with 678. She says it is Herman Cain’s private cell phone. The calls were made during four different months– calls or texts made as early as 4:26 in the early morning, and as late as 7:52 at night. The latest were in September of this year.

“We’ve never worked together,” said White. “And I can’t imagine someone phoning or texting me for the last two and a half years, just because.”

We texted the number and Herman Cain called us back. He told us he “knew Ginger White” but said these are “more false allegations.” He said she had his number because he was “trying to help her financially.”

I’m sure he is telling the truth, if by “help her financially” he meant “provide her with a taste of that sweet, sweet, forbidden fruit that is known by the name of Herman Cain”. The best part is the way she describes him: “Herman Cain loves Herman Cain.” That sums it all up right there. You may recall that I told you, right from the start, that the man’s candidacy was a joke.

I shall now commence to bathe in the invigorating saline waters of Fred Backer’s tears.

UPDATE: In a conference call this morning, Herman Cain told his senior staff that he is “reassessing” whether to remain in the race. He will make his final decision “over the next several days.”

Politicians are pricks

I know, I know, it’s a revelation:

Televised congressional hearings often serve as a platform for members of Congress to berate, bloviate and showboat for the cameras, but at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, historian Douglas Brinkley wouldn’t stand for it.

The topic at hand was drilling in the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The trouble began when Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young misstated Brinkley’s name after referring to the hearing as “an exercise in futility.” In a certain breach of protocol, Brinkley cut him off.

Young didn’t like that one bit.

“You just be quiet,” Young demanded.

“You don’t own me,” Brinkley shot back. “I pay your salary!”

The worst thing about it is that this report actually downplays the obnoxiousness of the representative. He didn’t just misstate the historian’s name, he confused the man with the university. And what could have simply been acknowledged as an innocent slip of the tongue instead revealed the ugly and arrogant face of the elected class that believes it is beyond all accountability.

If I was an Alaskan, I would want to be sure that Don Young was never mistaken for my “representative” again.

That didn’t take long

Newt Gingrich no sooner comes within sniffing range of frontrunner status than he promptly commits campaign seppuku:

The Republican presidential hopefuls are debating how to deal with the nation’s illegal immigrants, differing on how to deal with millions of people already in the United States. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that he wouldn’t “expel” those who have come illegally but have made lives in the U.S. He says that the GOP cannot call itself a party for family when it separates parents from their children born in the U.S.

This is a remarkably stupid stand in light of Rick Perry’s immigration self-implosion. The fact that foreigners have made criminal lives in the USA does not mean that they belong here, and in almost any other country in the world, the fact that a child was born in the USA wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever regarding his legal right to continue residing there.

Gingrich can hardly claim that it is unthinkable to tell foreigners, legal or otherwise, to repatriate in light of what the Mexican Constitution has to say on the issue:

Article 32

“Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable.” Foreigners, immigrants, and even naturalized citizens of Mexico may not serve as military officers, Mexican-flagged ship and airline crew, or chiefs of seaports and airports.

Article 33

“The Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action.” It also states: “Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.”

The GOP should be a party for family and it shouldn’t separate parents from their children born in the U.S. The children should also return to their parental homelands, in which they hold citizenships. Birthright citizenship is a foolish, short-sighted and uniquely American policy; Canada and the United States are the only countries that grant automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens.

No one with half a brain should support the corrupt little troll in any circumstances, so it is fortunate that Gingrich has decided to sabotage himself so swiftly.

Mailvox: the dangerous Ron Paul

The cognitive dissonance at work in N’s email, written in response to yesterday’s column, is remarkable:

I like Ron Paul but I don’t like him closing all our bases around the world and bringing our army back home. This isolationist view is DANGEROUS and will only empower and embolden our enemies and actually bring us closer to WORLD WAR, this time right at our DOORSTEPS!

Is that what you want???

If Reagan said America was that “shining city on the hill”, dimming it around the world with an isolationist view will only make stronger the darkness of this world. We need to keep shining that light shining everywhere, bud. The cost of peace ain’t cheap, but war is a hell of a lot more expensive!

Yes, that is precisely what I want. All military bases closed, all American troops back in the USA. To argue otherwise is indicative of a shockingly stupid perspective which is not only illogical, but blatantly ignores both the historical record and the observable reality of present U.S. foreign policy.

First, the argument about “the cost of peace” is a non-starter. America is presently engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Iran. (Don’t kid yourself, there are already CIA and most likely special forces in Iran right now.) It may still be active in Libya. That is hardly peace.

Second, the USA is bankrupt. It can’t afford ANY military operations at all. Thanks to the expected failure of the Congressional supercommittee, automatic defense cuts must be made. As the global economic contraction continues, the U.S. military will have to shrink.

Third, it is American military operations that have not only brought enemies to our DOORSTEPS, but have brought them into the country. The Saudis who attacked the Two Towers on 9/11 were angry about the U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia and were “studying” in the United States. There are far more Somalis in the USA than there were before U.S. troops invaded Somalia and more Iraqis than before U.S. troops invaded Iraq.

Isolation is not dangerous. American strength and wealth waxed during its isolationist period and has declined steadily ever since, just as both the Roman and British empires declined once they started attempting to police the world. As I wrote in the column, the irony is that the one Republican presidential candidate whose policies would strengthen the American military and best protect American interests is constantly attacked by stupid and ignorant Republicans who wrongly believe that the more troop deployments that take place, the stronger the nation is.

No wonder they also fall for the Neo-Keynesian argument that the more money you spend, the wealthier you become.