Desperate Democrats

Democrats:  Crazy?  Delusional?  or Successful?

The military calls it prepping the battlefield. If you're going to take over a country, you don’t just go in with ground forces.  You first soften things up by taking out industrial centers, intelligence nodes, and air defenses. Propaganda campaigns can also play a critical role.

Reading about the latest Dem strategies, I can only conclude that they believe they have adequately prepped the electoral battlefield. They have poked out the eyes of the voters, clogged our ears with BS, and so disoriented us that we now believe up is down and bad is good.

Senator Schumer is encouraging Democrats to talk about gas prices with their constituents

Democrats are being advised to emphasize high gas prices to their advantage when they go home for a weeklong break next week as they seek to counter GOP criticism levied at the Obama administration. (Politico)

Of course gas prices are higher, and Democrats are to blame!
Petroleum is a dollar-denominated commodity, so as the value of the dollar falls, the price of oil and gasoline climb. Thank you President Obama, Boy Wonder Geithner, and Big Ben Bernanke.

Obama restricting drilling permits on land and off-shore served to lower the supply, resulting in higher gas prices, and the democrats applauded.

Schumer and the dems are urging the president to tap the strategic oil reserved in order to drive gasoline prices down. This is encouraging because it demonstrates that these lefties at least understand the concept of supply and demand and the affect it has on prices.

Now if we can just get them to take the next leap, and and break down the regulatory wall that prevents new refineries from being built. While they are at it, they could also allow more drilling in the US.   If they believe unleashing the strategic reserve will lower prices, then they must agree that pumping more oil will have the same effect.  The Louisiana Lieutenant Governor, who just abandoned the Democratic party to become a Republican, cited Dem opposition to drilling as his reason for switching.

For the other side of the Demagogic party propaganda, see the Oil & Gas Financial Journal article, Why the Oil Companies Make Bad Villains.  Among other things, you will learn that while software companies make on average a profit of 17 cents on every dollar spent, the oil industry makes a mere 8 cents.  Why aren't the demagogic Democrats going after Big Software?

Dems Hope Union Battles Lure Back Independents

Are they crazy? The public unions have pitted themselves against the lower-wage taxpayer and it’s a zero-sum fight over who is more entitled to the loot--those who earned it or government bureaucrats.  Government workers enrich themselves by taking money directly from the pockets of the taxpaying citizen voter.  I don't know how they think this is going to work in their favor.

Either they're desperate or they are dangerously delusional.  Either way, if the GOP can keep it on the rails and actually roll out a coherent agenda, they might just get somewhere.

Michigan Democrats Busted With Counterfeit Tea

Their agenda revealed as a farce, their job-destroying record exposed for all to see, Michigan Democrats were left with nothing but a false flag operation that would make Nixon proud.

Pontiac— Two former high-ranking members of the Oakland County Democratic Party are facing various election corruption charges in a bogus tea party scheme [...]

They face charges related to Independent Tea Party filings, false affidavits and forged documents that occurred between July 23 and July 26 last year.

The charges include felonies that carry up to 14 years in prison. Neither could be reached for comment.(Detroit News)

Liberalism is a Corrupt, Spent Force
Liberalism is an intellectually spent force if all it can come up with as a solution is more government.  Liberals are now firmly ensconced in the uncomfortable position of defending the statist status quo. 

Power is a Centripetal Force
Our system of divided government is not natural.  The arc of human history shows that power is a centripetal force, drawing all to itself.  The Founders set up a system to balance off competing interests and power centers, but the centripetal force has steadily wicked away personal liberty as power naturally accretes to the center.

An Imperial Presidency, An Omnipotent Federal Government
Abraham Lincoln started it.  He saved the Republic and the states lost power to Washington as a result.

Next came Woodrow Wilson, the income tax and the Federal Reserve.  A progressive Supreme Court mistrustful of the people, powered by such intellectual luminaries as Oliver Wendell Holmes ushered in the apotheosis of the imperial presidency in the person of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Lyndon Johnson shook down working people to build a multi-trillion-dollar Great Society, resulting in societal decay, and George Bush II institutionalized the imperial presidency, opening the door for Barack Obama to make rules out of whole cloth and imperiously announce which laws his administration would no longer follow.

We cannot control our borders, we’ve become slack and effeminate, drained of civic virtue, and the sun never sets on our empire as we’re busy fighting other peoples’ wars for them.  Comparisons to Rome are trite, but here we are…

Edward Gibbon – Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Inside, Outside

Inside outside...  Leave me alone...
Inside outside...  Nowhere is home...

I've never been an insider, even growing up in my home town.  I got on Facebook last year because I had found a family we lived next door to in Germany, but couldn't contact them without joining, so I did.  Next thing I know, all these people I grew up with were pinging me and I'm wondering why.  Can they really be that damned bored?

If I were interested in their lives, I would have looked them up when I go back to see the folks. 

I'm not an outsider either, but I am somewhat of a lone wolf.  I've lived so many other lives, awkward kid and misplaced adult being just a few.  Sometimes, being an American walking the streets of a foreign capital can feel comfortably inside, other times it can be very outside...

Thank God Raymond Davis is now outside Pakistan and back inside Colorado...

Dhimmicrats and Muslim Theocrats: Fellow Travelers

Islamists need to chill free speech in order to implement their agenda. Liberal dhimmicrats are their willful patsies

Clever propagandists have wound it up and bound it all so tightly, that one cannot criticize radical political Islam without appearing to criticize the legitimate exercise of religion.

I would expect this to work in the uneducated hinterlands of South Asia, but it is scary that such rot has taken hold here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, and with the cooperation of so many supposedly enlightened individuals.

The only way for freedom loving Americans to combat this is to not kowtow to it. Shove it back in their faces. How many people have militia members decapitated in the past 10 years? I bet Muslims are beating them in the head count.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, US Navy veteran, shows us how it’s done:

This exchange occurred at the King hearings on Islamic radicalization.  I love how he eviscerates the clueless dimbulb-ocrat who stupidly discounted the testimony of good Muslim Americans who related how radical Islam had tragically led their children astray. 

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., went after the witnesses themselves. She said that these "anecdotes are interesting," of Bledsoe's and Bihi's story. She noted that hearing needed more experts. Then she asked a question of Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Speier: "Do you believe that you have expertise to be speaking?"

Jasser: "That's the question the theocrats ask me all the time." (RCP)

Bravo, Dr. Jasser!  And he did it with a smile.

Bending the Reality Curve

“Green Energy,” is a pipe dream.

The Center for American Progress (the Obama White House's unofficial think tank) argues for a federal "35 by 35" standard—mandating that 35 percent of America's energy come from renewables by 2035. This means the feds would force all utilities to generate more than a third of their electricity from renewables—a guarantee of far higher prices.

A Heritage Foundation study found that even a scaled-down version of the plan, a 22.5 percent renewable standard by 2025, would bump household-electricity prices 36 percent and industry prices 60 percent by 2035—producing a net GDP loss of $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035. ( Shikha Dalmia – Global Warming by Another Name)

But don't take Heritage and Reason Mag's word for it.  Listen to the liberal El Lay Times explain a green energy fiasco right in the heart of liberal la la land:

As head of a $5.7-billion, taxpayer-funded program to rebuild the college campuses, Eisenberg commanded attention. But his plan for energy independence was seriously flawed.

He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. And he poured millions of dollars into designs for projects that proved so impractical or unpopular they were never built.

These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.

Instead of saving an advertised millions of dollars per year, a multi-billion dollar community college green energy project ended up wasting $10 million...

Get it? They blew $6 billion, expecting energy savings. Instead, they bled out another $10 million, in addition to the existing energy costs…

Here’s the fundamental truth that destroys the green energy myth:

“But Eisenberg's enthusiasm obscured an inconvenient reality: With the technology now available, the cost of renewable power exceeds that of energy derived from burning coal and natural gas.” (El Lay Times – Grand Dream)

For those who cheer on the absurd notion of government paying to create jobs… OK, why not have government blow two trillion and completely wipe out unemployment?

John Stossel – Obama’s Green Jobs Fantasy
Vincent Carroll – A Double Standard
AEI – The Myth of Green Energy Jobs

The Tripoli Trap

Libyans are crying for the The Great Satan to come and save them, and the neocons who've never so much as heard a shot fired in anger are beating the war drums. 



My answer? Va Fangoul!

Remember the lies Chalabi and other Saddam opponents told us? People would throw flowers at our feet and welcome us with kisses, the Iraqi people just wanted to be free, Saddam was building nuclear weapons…

He and other succeeded in goading us to action, at a high cost in lives and treasure. Now the oil is flowing, and contracts go to China, who did nothing to topple the old regime. In Afghanistan, our troops are making the country safe for Chinese and Russian mining companies, while our “friends” the Pakistanis provide safe haven for their friends the Taliban.

We saved the Kosovar and Bosnian Muslims from slaughter and are rewarded by a Balkan Muslim gunning down American Airmen at Frankfurt Main.

We saved Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Hussein, Afghanistan from the Taliban, and our military is stationed in the Gulf at the request of the poobahs to protect them from Iran.  All we get is hatred in return.

If we were so stupid as to go in to Libya, we would end up being further castigated by the purple-faced Muslim Street and their fellow travelers in the international left.

Libyans are already trying to lure us in…

Not because they love America or admire our ideals; but because they need our firepower to topple Khaddafi. Once that is accomplished, welcoming smiles will turn to fleck-spittle hatred and we’ll be accused of war crimes. If we leave too early we will be abandoning the Libyan people. If we stay too long, we’re building an empire. Every bomb we drop will end up killing “civilians,” most likely in one of those ubiquitous wedding parties. Every troop killed by a wild-eyed Libyan fanatic we’re trying to help will be called an unfortunate aberration…

We’ve seen this movie before, and there’s no good ending. Here’s how it begins…

“A large French flag hangs on the front of the courthouse used as the revolutionary council's headquarters after Paris recognised the rebel leadership […]

“But Libyans are also increasingly vocal in their criticism of Washington in particular for what is seen as a failure to back up rhetoric against the regime. (Guardian – Libyan Rebels)

Awww… See? They love us, but now they’re becoming disappointed in their hero Uncle Sam… BS!

But we’d better rush in there, or these feckless, unstable people will fall into the arms of the radical Islamists!

“However, Gheriani said that if the west failed to offer practical help to the revolutionaries to free themselves from Gaddafi's rule it risked frustrated Libyans turning to religious extremists.

If the west takes too long – where people say it's too little, too late – then people become a target for extremists who say the west doesn't care about them," he said.

"Most people in this country are moderates and extremists have not been able to penetrate them. But if they get to the point of disillusionment with the west there will be no going back."

Screw ‘em! We’ve heard all that before and it’s all BS. 
They’re all extremists and they all hate us! We’ve already proven that using our military power to help them won’t change that.

We’ve witnessed how they really feel about us...
Dancing in the streets at the news of 9/11, nothing but a constant stream of vituperation spewed upon the civilized west, ignorant stinking hordes lapping up every outrageous lie and conspiracy theory the demagogic mullahs tell them…

No, this is not fertile ground for Western civilization to take root. This is not a bridge to new friendships. It’s just another venue for the bug-eyed bastards of the Religion of Pieces to stage their theater of the grotesque. Well, this is one opera the US should skip. Let someone else provide the kettle drums and the snares.

We’ve allowed these inhabitants of the armpit of the world to send us on too many fool’s errands
The Muslim dingbats have again set their house ablaze, and again they call the US Fire Department. And again, once the fire is out, they will criticize us for putting axes through the doors and soaking the walls and the furniture. It’s time for the fire department to stand back and let the house burn down. Maybe that will teach these crazy morons to stop playing with matches.

For a more reasoned and informed analysis, read Intelligence analyst Paul Pillar's article, Not So Limited Liability in Libya.

Eat the Rich?

Todd Frankel asks, Do the rich deserve what they get?

It’s a provocative question, especially in egalitarian America. I also have a problem with “deserve,” as I do with almost all of the article, but it’s a fairly cogent argument for “social justice.”

As you have greater inequality, you have a greater and greater risk of distorting democracy. If only a small group of people hold more and more resources and money, they're really able to put a lot of pressure on the system to play out their agenda alone. So widening inequality really is detrimental to the principles of democracy. (STL Today)

Progressives forged a social contract over 100 years ago

The wealthy were feeling increasingly threatened by the grimy hordes of unschooled hayseeds and boisterous immigrants crowding east coast cities to work the factories. The kids needed education and the adults needed economic security. There really was generalized fear of peasant revolts or worse, a growing permanent underclass given over to a life of crime.  Gangs of uneducated poor marauding rich neighborhoods like packs of feral beasts was a specter that haunted the nation into governmental noblesse oblige.

This has turned into a crass form of “fire insurance.” Keep the money flowing, and they won’t burn the place down. While I disagree with the class warfare rhetoric, we are facing conditions ripe for community troublemakers to mobilize millions demanding their “fair share.” We’ve built an entitlement culture and you can’t blame the entitled. Government has encouraged them.

People don’t need handouts and grand social programs. We need schools that teach useful skills, economic opportunity, and a strong dollar that holds its value so that life savings are still worth something when we get to our old age. Those three things will not guarantee equal outcomes (nothing will), but they will give everyone an equal shot in this most prosperous, egalitarian, and upwardly mobile country in the history of the world.