Tag: politics

Republican frauds

Karl Denninger notes that it took all of six hours for Republicans to abandon their self-proclaimed and much-ballyhooed goals:

The very so-called “Tea Party” and “Conservative” members of Congress could not even agree to cite a specific clause in The Constitution that enabled legislation to be brought to the floor.

Oh, it gets better. The actual proposed rule would not have prevented passing something that nobody could manage to find a clause in The Constitution that enabled the bill. It in fact only required that a point of order be raised if the language was not present, allowing a gigantic and overwhelming 20 minutes of debate (10 each side) before a simple majority could vote to table the objection and move forward anyway – Constitution be damned.

The Committee rejected that watered-down milquetoast rule!

That would be enough to call the Tea Party and so-called “Conservatives” we sent to Washington a failure on the day they took their oaths of office all by itself.

But no, that wasn’t enough for them. They had to make damn sure that I could get out the megaphone and holler from the rafters that every single thing we were sold by these clowns during the campaign – the entire Palin thing, the entire “we’re gonna take back Washington!” screed was an out-and-out fraud from the very first breath that passed their lips.

Remember, the claim by the Republicans (including but not limited to The Tea Party) was that they would cut the budget by $100 billion? Which, I might remind you, would have been less than five percent of the deficit this year. Well, it turns out that was a lie too.

I think it’s a little too soon to condemn the Tea Party for these failures, however. They are a mere subset of the Republican legislators and there aren’t enough of them to force these sorts of things through over the objections of their fellow Republicans. But, it certainly does underline the complete lack of commitment to either the Constitution or reducing government spending on the part of the newly elected Republicans.

And unfortunately, it looks like Rand Paul has already sold out too. He’s willing to raise the debt ceiling… just this one time. Again. How quickly they grow once they get into office.

In search of the missing certificate

Joseph Farah takes a pre-victory lap:

Have you noticed how much better informed the major news media have become about the missing birth certificate since Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie entered the picture? It wasn’t that long ago that most of the TV talking heads and alleged news reporters were telling the American people that Barack Obama had released his birth certificate. They seemed incapable of comprehending the difference between the digital short-form certification of live birth offered up by the Obama campaign in 2008 and a standard, long-form birth certificate we’re all familiar with.

How many of you recall Bill O’Reilly and Chris Matthews waiving copies of the certification of live birth in front of the camera, telling the American people they had the actual birth certificate?

How many times do you recall them viciously attacking those who persisted in demanding the absolute minimal documentation needed to ensure Obama was indeed constitutionally eligible to serve as president – without ever giving any of those conscientious, principled, rational advocates of the rule of law and openness in government the opportunity to answer their ad hominem insults?

How many times have you heard them characterize “birthers” as a fringe group of crackpots and conspiracy nuts?

Now, all of a sudden, as polls continue to show Americans increasingly skeptical about Obama’s birth narrative despite the media’s stonewalling and obfuscating, along comes the new socialist governor of Hawaii who admits the possibility that the release of some actual evidence might indeed quell what is turning into widespread public distrust of both the government and what Rush Limbaugh astutely calls “the state-sponsored media.”

He says he would like to release the birth certificate – though I doubt he ever will. But that leaves O’Reilly, Matthews and the rest of the Big Media in a dilemma. After all, they have been pretending for years that the birth certificate has already been released.

I have to admit, the silence of all the Obamorons who insisted that Mr. Soetero/Soebarkah had already released his birth certificate – willfully failing to grasp the difference between the certification and the certificate – is amusing now that it has been proven that a) no certificates were actually destroyed, and b) the Hawaiian authorities are openly admitting that the relevant information has not been released to anyone.

If, at this point, you still genuinely believe that Obama is eligible for the office he is presently occupying, you simply haven’t been paying attention. He isn’t merely hiding something, he’s hiding practically everything, including a relatively low IQ. He isn’t doing this in order to “embarrass his critics” either since the only people who have been embarrassed throughout this process are his hapless defenders in the media. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t the least bit surprised when the swearing-in ceremony went awry.

WND column

The Fourth Government

In his dialogue “De re publica,” Marcus Tullius Cicero explained, though the fictionalized voice of Scipio Africanus, that there are three basic types of government. The first is the monarchy, in which the king rules. The second is the aristocracy, in which a select class of privileged delegates rules. The third is the democracy, in which the people rule themselves. Each type of government has its strengths and weaknesses, and through those weaknesses, a cyclical process occurs in which one type of government devolves into the next.

Okay, unexpected

Chris Mathews, he of the famously tingling leg, is beginning to dabble in birtherism:

On Monday night’s edition of “Hardball,” host Chris Matthews talked about putting the birth certificate controversy surrounding President Obama to rest. “Why has the president himself not demanded they put out the original documents?” Matthews wonders. “If it exists, why not put it out?” Chris Matthews asks.

Occam’s Razor suggests that his reason for not putting it out is somehow related to his qualification for the office he presently holds. I note with some amusement that the ludicrous notion Obama is cunningly holding it back to “embarrass his critics” appears to have finally faded away.

A fabulous military

No one cognizant of history would think to deny that homosexual men are capable of fighting effectively. The Sacred Band of Thebes alone would suffice to disprove that notion. However, one salient fact to consider about the Sacred Band was that it was a band, which is to say, it was a military unit that was set apart from other military units that did not share the particular predilection that made it such a remarkably cohesive unit.

The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which effectively permits the many closeted homosexuals in the U.S. armed forces to openly exhibit their abnormal preferences and presumably to act upon them, is therefore likely to prove less salutary to American military efficiency and effectiveness. While it is true that other Western militaries have eliminated their bans on homosexuals, it is also worth noting that none of them are presently capable of successfully invading Jerry Jones’s new stadium even if it were defended only by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

So, it is at the very least questionable to assume that there will be only minor negative consequences from this latest experiment in social engineering. Although the ambitious and politically correct general officers won’t admit it, the grand experiment of women in the military has been a massive failure whereas the integration of black soldiers was a success. Only time will tell if the result of this third great experiment will be more akin to the first one or the second.

Top conservative blog?

John Hawkins of the Right Wing News has VP at #16 on his list of the 40 Best Conservative Blogs. I’m flattered, of course, but just a little confused given my decidedly non-conservative views on a whole panoply of political issues. Although perhaps this is a sign that conservatives are moving in a more libertarian direction after that whole experiment in Big Government Conservativism didn’t turn out so well.

The distant sound of slithering

Peggy Noonan reaches a conclusion:

The Democrats’ problem is that most of them know that the person who would emerge, who would challenge Mr. Obama from the left, would never, could never, win the 2012 general election. He’d lose badly and take the party with him. Democratic professionals know the mood of the country. Challenging Mr. Obama from the left would mean definitely losing the presidency, as opposed to probably losing the presidency. There is only one Democrat who could possibly challenge Mr. Obama for the nomination successfully and win the general election, and that is Hillary Clinton. Who insists she doesn’t want to.

Of course, it strikes one that Clintons are almost as famous for their honesty as for their lack of ambition.

Republicans plot betrayal

The incoming House Majority Leader is considering whether he can get away with keeping Ron Paul out of the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee panel that oversees monetary policy in order to protect the Federal Reserve from any uncomfortable oversight:

Five GOP leadership aides, speaking anonymously because a decision isn’t final, say incoming House Speaker John Boehner has discussed ways to prevent Paul from becoming chairman or to keep him on a tight leash if he does.

If this happens, it will be a strong indication that the Tea Party is either going to split in two or split from the Republican Party.  And this should tell you all you need to know about whether the House Republicans are going to govern any differently than they did the last time they were in power.

That’s why she’s the frontrunner for 2012

Mike Potemra posts an email from Claire Berlinski:

Palin is probably the only GOP candidate Obama could beat right now. She runs, 90-year-olds who have never dreamt of voting in their lives will register for the first time to vote against her. And I wouldn’t blame them. I don’t hate her, as some think. I just cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would look at her and think, “I trust her to hold the most powerful office in America at a time of uniquely grave national peril.” It’s mind-boggling.

It’s not mind-boggling, it’s ludicrous. Not the idea of Palin winning the Republican nomination, but the idea that the opinion of a Jewish woman living in Paris, whose family connection to America is but a single generation, is even remotely relevant to the probable primary voting behavior of American Christians living in Iowa, Florida, Texas, and Ohio. And since the “uniquely grave national peril” comes from the Federal Reserve, not a few third world goathumpers who haven’t managed to do so much as take out a single Christmas tree or lemonade stand in nine years, Palin will almost surely continue to become more popular because she is the only Republican politician besides Ron Paul who has been speaking out against Bernanke’s futile attempts to keep the insolvent banks afloat.

I am not a Palin fan myself; I’m a libertarian and Ron Paul is the only Republican for whom I would vote. But Palin has the political starpower and common sense synchronicity with popular opinion that the other candidates completely lack. I mean, Newt Gingrich? Trig Palin has a better chance of being elected president in 2012 than that fat little troll does. John Bolton? Mitt Romney couldn’t even beat the corpse of John McCain. The only Republican who looks capable of beating Palin for the nomination right now is the New Jersey governor, Christie. That’s why I expect to see the moderate elite fire up a Draft Christie campaign soon.

I chuckled, I did

The Washington Post issues another call for an opponent to run against Obama in the Democratic primary. To, you know, “save the Obama presidency”. Right.

But there is a real way to save the Obama presidency: by challenging him in the 2012 presidential primaries with a candidate who would unambiguously commit to a well-defined progressive agenda and contrast it with the Obama administration’s policies. Such a candidacy would be pooh-poohed by the media, but if it gathered enough popular support – as is likely given the level of alienation among many who were the backbone of Obama’s 2008 success – this campaign would pressure Obama toward much more progressive positions and make him a more viable 2012 candidate. Far from weakening his chances for reelection, this kind of progressive primary challenge could save Obama if he moves in the desired direction. And if he holds firm to his current track, he’s a goner anyway.

Seriously, I don’t see how you can look at what has quite clearly in the process of happening over the last six months and not realize that Obama is going to either drop out or get kicked out by the Democrats. No one, least of all the Democratic elders, are in fear of the reaction of the 11% of black voters which has nowhere else to turn and also has one of the lowest turnout rates in the electorate.