The New York Times reports that the President is revamping his tactical political team and focusing on the basics, by which is meant “how to sharpen the president’s message and leadership style”. But that’s not basic enough. Neither of these address the two fundamental questions: the focus of his policies and the quality of his management of the executive bureaucracy. Perhaps stemming from his earlier belief that he had “lost touch” with a fearful electorate, one of President Obama’s first moves in the wake of the Massachusetts debacle was to reshuffle his political operatives and put them on a permanent campaign footing.
In addition to Mr. Plouffe, who will primarily work from the Democratic National Committee in consultation with the White House, several top operatives from the Obama campaign will be dispatched across the country to advise major races as part of the president’s attempt to take greater control over the midterm elections, aides said.
“We are turning the corner to a much more political season,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, who confirmed Mr. Plouffe’s role. “We are going to evaluate what we need to do to get timely intelligence and early warnings so we don’t face situations like we did in Massachusetts.”
Jake Tapper notes many of these new operatives were part of the team which successfully guided his 2008 campaign to victory. “In addition to the return of top aides such as Plouffe, other mid-level operatives from the 2008 Obama campaign who helped bring candidate Obama victories in Iowa and in Feb. 5 ‘Super Tuesday’ primary states, will be enlisted to work on campaigns to keep expected Democratic losses to a minimum, aides said.” These are guys Obama will be relying on to bring back the magic.
But the roots of the President’s political woes may lie deeper. Mort Zuckerman observed that in contrast even to Clinton, Obama has put politics at the center of his activities. Policy and governance are an afterthought. Zuckerman, who voted for Obama, wrote:
One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.” …
There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.
This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically. …In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.
Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it. …Focus on cost-containment first. But he’s trying to boil the ocean, trying to do too much. This is not leadership.
Now President Obama has belatedly decided to tackle the financial industry, where again the danger is that politics, not policy will be at the center; where genuine reforms are ignored in favor of going after unpopular targets and leaving sacred cows untouched; where the “deal” not risk management or long term growth, is king of the hill. If that happens, then like health care “reform” the cure may be worse than the disease and salve nothing.
Zuckerman’s words — a man who voted for him — and the rejection by Massachusetts — the most liberal state in the country — echo through the debate. Sharpening the message and leadership style are not basic enough. Here’s a President who may have made the mistake of putting politics, not policy at the center of things. And repeating the mistake with greater emphasis isn’t necessarily a solution. He can send for his conjurers again and create the mightiest permanent campaigning machine history has ever seen. But they won’t bring back the magic. That requires performance in the areas of policy and governance.
The really worrisome thing is if the President can’t change as opposed to won’t change. If politics is all he knows and all he is good at then 2010 will be a rough year indeed, not just for Obama, but for everybody.
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Like every other celebrity, he has to remake his image, a “new” American Idol (icon in Greek). Maybe a different hair style or clothing? Maybe three teleprompters instead of two…to reduce the ping-pong head effect? Perhaps Simon Cowell will be hired to serve as Obama Image Czar, just in time to save the 2010 elections?
Obama’s problem is that like Hollywood moguls railing against the man, HE IS THE MAN.
Valerie Jarrett talked of speaking Truth to Power. BUT SHE IS THE POWER.
Americans (Obama does not know them or understand them being culturally Muslim and Black) demand RESULTS from Presidents and punish them when they don’t get them. Period.
Obama can campaign all he wants (and it is ALL he knows). It won’t matter. He won’t even be able to manange on the margins to pull out a few races. Nor will railing against Wall Street after he gave them goodies and packed his Administration with them.
IF unemployment radically decreases as say, six million new jobs are created, Obama’s popularity and agenda will pass. Since the possibility of that is zero, and in fact the economy is only getting WORSE (thanks to Obama meddling with Wall Street), the possibility of a wipe-out in the House AND Senate, and impeachment/removal of Obama and Biden cannot be ruled out. Certainly the House is now likely to flip Republican. The Senate is not out of reach, either.
Obama does not have any margin. A 9/11 style attack killing thousands will get him removed if he does not simply forbid elections and rule by decree.
And that is the danger. Even Nixon, in the end, refused to go the auto-coup route of Peru’s Fujimoro. Obama? He’s not culturally American. It would make sense to the man who has a Mao ornament in the White House Christmas Tree.
In my life I’ve now witnessed two administrations brought to their knees (or at least to their senses) by the whole subject of “Health Care”. First Clinton’s, now Obama’s.
If Hillary decides to run in 2012 as many think likely, do you suppose she’ll be brave/dumb enough to make Health Care a central plank in her platform? Lord knows the topic is a near obsession with her, but by the time she runs the people may simply be so sick-to-the-gills of the whole subject, they may simply say “Not again”!
About Obama: Given how quickly he’s managed to turn so many people off, I find myself wondering/dreading how much worse he can make things given his remaining 36 months.
But politics does not subsume leadership. If Obama cannot lead, a vacuum will be created. And the vacuum will be filled. Who will see their opportunities in the void, and how will their interests be manifested? This is where it gets dangerous.
whenever you hear someone mention–as was done in the last thread — lincoln’s quote
“a house divided against itself cannot stand”…–its always helpful to remember that in the biblical context that “house” was satan’s house.
Mark 3
20 Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21 But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.”
22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.”
23 So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end. 27 No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.
Bill Clinton was the greatest politician to ever hold the presidency. Politics is all he cared about and what he did, to the point that he knew when politics was not enough or not the answer.
Barack Obama is a poltiician. But he never had to hone his political acumen. He has been handed everything, even his political experience. He’s never had to calibrate or triangulate or work on his political self.
As such, politics certainly is all he knows. But notions of his political brilliance are overblown. He’s not a great politician. He’s a man who has accepted every opportunity that politics has handed him.
Now, for the first time in his life, politics is not only not handing him what he needs but is snatching it away.
We will see that the emperor has no clothes. Nor the political acument to recognize that he is naked.
Who will see their opportunities in the void
In Montana we call it BBS – Beyond Baucus Syndrome, otherwise known as Better Bull Sh^t.
Wildly O/T, but some things are even more important than politics, and NFL Championship Sunday is one of them. For that reason, I, Waltradamus, will give you my predictions for Sunday’s games. My first prediction is a dome team will win at least one of the games, and since three of the four teams still playing are dome teams, that one is a one hundred percent certainty, as are most of my predictions, at least some of the time. And secondly, I will tell you what I have always told the Medicis. Take the points.
The Jets they like to run the ball
Those passing plays they just don’t call
They play defense like hair’s on fire
I see them going wire to wire
The Colts though like to spread it out
With Peyton there is little doubt
That when the man is in the zone
There’s not a game he does not own
The Vikings have a man named Favre
Who grins because he likes to carve
Those corners up with pinpoint throws
And he could win it, I suppose
The Saints sure look like destiny’s team
They’ve never reached the Super Bowl dream
This time as pretty as you please
They’ll get there ‘cause of one Drew Brees
Bill Clinton was widely hailed as an obsessive policy wonk even before he was elected, and there were many stories of lengthy policy shop talks throughout his administration. At the same time he was a canny politician and knew how to work a room or a crowd, and to say whatever was helpful to his political fortunes. Everyone described him as the best political talent in a generation.
Barack Obama never developed a similar reputation for a love of policy. He was a Senator who voted Present a lot, not a governor who had responsibility for implementing policy and being accountable for it. Maybe he can learn accountability and policy details, but nothing in his background really prepares him for it. He and his team are political to the Nth degree, all the speechifying in the world can’t select from policy alternatives and successfully implement tangible policy.
It may be moot whether he WANTS to do so, since it is doubtful he is ABLE to master policy, administration, and accountability. He could conceivably bring into his administration and empower some wise and experienced policy hands to assist him, but it would be a stretch for someone of such apparent self regard.
If Obama cannot lead, a vacuum will be created. And the vacuum will be filled. Who will see their opportunities in the void, and how will their interests be manifested? This is where it gets dangerous.
Correct. It’s a danger to everybody. People have been looking to see how President Obama will deal with his crisis, because it will reveal what he can reach for deep down when he has to. If all he can come up with is a gimmicky approach to banking reform and rehiring his old PR magicians, then there may be a real problem.
What if he simply doesn’t know how to manage things? Can’t win a war, can’t reform intelligence, can’t contain entitlements, can’t fix the economy, can’t do anything practical? Just like maybe he couldn’t manage the Annenberg Foundation or edit the Harvard Law Review? It’s no crime, but it means that he will sooner or later either become a figurehead surrounded by Democratic “wise men” or go charging around like a bull in a china shop.
But remember that if this actually happens it will be a result of a systemic failure. Obama of course wanted to rise as high as he could. You can’t fault him for that. But you can fault the “gatekeepers” — the MSM, the DNC, the professional politicians, the great and the good, the university dons, the whole quality control system for endorsing this man into something over his head. The system is broken. And there’s no guarantee that when Obama goes at the end of his term that they won’t throw up another handsome hapless guy and stick him in the Oval office.
The challenge will be whether the political system can respond quickly enough, within the framework of laws and the constitution, to fix these systemic problems and get, not a genius, not another Jefferson or Lincoln into the White House, but just someone who has has the country’s best interests at heart and a modicum of competence and common sense into the candidate lineups for the political process.
He can send for his conjurers again
Obama wants magic, he can borrow John Kerry’s magic Cambodian hat, the gift of the CIA. From a 2003 interview Kerry gave the WaPo:
A close associate hints: There’s a secret compartment in Kerry’s briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.
“Who told you?” he demanded as he reached inside. “My friends don’t know about this.”
The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
“My good luck hat,” Kerry said, happy to see it. “Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”
Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn’t complex after all; it was Kerry.
He smiled and aimed his finger: “Pow.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59559-2003May30_4.html
I wonder whether O. has a magic community organizer hat hidden away somewhere, the gift of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Shouldn’t we wait till the SOTU speech to get a glimpse of exactly where he is going to lead us, and their strategy to go forth?
Whiskey: Alberto Fujimori was the Peruvian president who mounted the “auto-golpe” (self-coup). Check the spelling. The reference, though, is correct.
Obama’s move to bring Plouffe back demonstrates once again his duplicitous nature. He said he would change politics as usual if he were elected; he has in fact strengthened politics as usual. Having crippled the housing market and the auto industry he now attacks the stock market and Wall Street. I’m thinking his hero is not Saul Alinsky as much as it is Joe Bfltspk. F
Shouldn’t we wait till the SOTU speech to get a glimpse of exactly where he is going to lead us, and their strategy to go forth?
I think it would be a useful exercise to predict what he’ll say in the SOTU, because if we really understand the way he works, then we ought to be able to predict at least the general tenor with some accuracy. At least a prediction shouldn’t be wildly off.
Here’s my own prediction:
1. There’ll be some rhetorical concession to the need to fix the economy, to focus, etc on jobs
2. There’ll be more blame on inherited ills;
3. But most importantly I think he will make no major cancellations in his initiatives, though he may mention “climate change” only indirectly or in some corner of the speech. Health care will be front and center still, with a few trims around the edges, plus banking reform will be present in full force (in the paragraph along with blaming the past administration).
4. I think he will tread water on national security issues. But no new major initatives. That will be a holding action.
The bottom line is that he’s going to try and occupy more or less the same political ground he always has. He will move to the center only rhetorically and try to fix his problems by hitting “hot button” issues and turning his PR troops loose on them.
If my prediction proves substantially true, then I believe 2010 will be another year of waste and paralysis, but this time, with nobody listening to Obama. It will be as dangerously close to being in a vacuum as possible without going into outer space.
Why on earth would anyone expect a man who’s failed at everything he’s done except campainging to know anything about policy? All he konws is politics, and I think the only politics he knows is a narrow sort that usually doesn’t work on a national level. But he got lucky with his timing (the rest of us got real unlucky). He had a whole host of idiots who, I dunno, I guess after Clinton frittered his way through two terms and Bush (according to the average Obama voter) dolted his way through two more, maybe they thought it wasn’t a serious job. “If Bubba and Shrub could do it, anybody can.” So they voted for a hipster who made them feel good about their own pathetic selves. “I’m cool, I voted for a Black guy.”
Well, guess what Mort Zuckerman, it ain’t a job just anybody can do. Bush was a lot smarter than the MSM characature. Clinton was too, in his own way, though he did squander an awful lot of time. Obama doesn’t have the brains, guts, experience, grace, outlook, he doesn’t have anything that it takes to do the job. Nothing. He can’t host an effing State Dinner without screwing up. Can’t give the leader of our closest ally a token present without insulting him. Can’t shake hands with another Head of State without embarrassing himself. Those are the easy parts of the job, the ceremonial figurehead stuff. He can’t even do that. Hell, Gaff-o-matic Joe would be a better figurehead.
Maybe he’d be a better President too. Yeah, I know, hard to believe Biden would be an improvement, but the bar’s mightly low right now.
Zuckerman’s an idiot for voting for Obama, but by recognizing his mistake, he shows he not a complete idiot. There are lots of idiots around, but not many complete idiots. By 2012 it’ll be hard to find anyone who admits to voting for the guy.
President Obama should call me, and then do exactly what I tell him to do. It’s his best bet for saving his Presidency. Some will say he should call Habu, and do exactly what Habu tells him. But no. He should call me. I’ll tell him when it’s time to call Habu.
Wretchard: The really worrisome thing is if the President can’t change as opposed to won’t change. If politics is all he knows and all he is good at then 2010 will be a rough year indeed, not just for Obama, but for everybody.
We don’t want Obama to change, we want him to stay right on doing what he’s doing, blame Massachusetts on Bush, try to push Cap and Trade, double down on Health Care, right up to November 2, 2010 so we get that much larger of a GOP majority.
Jake He’s not a great politician. He’s a man who has accepted every opportunity that politics has handed him.
Thanks for that concise thought, I never really focused on that until now.
Dan D: He and his team are political to the Nth degree, all the speechifying in the world can’t select from policy alternatives and successfully implement tangible policy.
In the fourth Dune book, Leto II says:
“The difference between a good administrator and a bad one is about five heartbeats. Good administrators make immediate choices. . . [Acceptable choices] can usually be made to work. A bad administrator, on the other hand, hesitates, diddles around, asks for committees, for research and reports. Eventually he acts in ways which create serious problems. . . a bad administrator is more concerned with reports than decisions. He wants the hard record he can display as an excuse for his errors.”
PA Cat:I wonder whether O. has a magic community organizer hat hidden away somewhere, the gift of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
It’s a black beret with a red star, looks a bit like this.
You left out:
5. Lots of use of the first person singular pronoun.
If He can avoid referring to Himself, then that alone will be the first major change He will have accomplished, and in a small way show that He might be capable of other changes during the next three years.
Reminds me of Barthomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Suess.
“‘Won’t look like rain. Won’t look like snow.
Won’t look like fog. That’s all we know.
We just can’t tell you anymore.
We’ve never made oobleck before.’”
In the words of the immortal Doris Day
He sighs, the song begins
He speaks and they hear violins
It’s magic
The stars desert the skies
As he cuts health care down to size
It’s magic
And then along came Brown
Of Wrentham, Mass
And it all came undone
Alack, alas
You’re done, you’re finished bro
And take Alinsky when you go
It’s magic
No more can you explain
That Bush is cause of all that rain
It’s magic
Why do I tell myself
All that is happening is all really true
It’s just because I know
The magic is that you are through
If your product sucks marketing will only get you so far. When you’ve saturated your market with a rotten product, new marketing strategies (no matter how creative) don’t do sh*t–the consumer knows the value of what you’re trying to sell them, and they won’t buy it.
The product of a President is policy and leadership. In effect, in 2008 we bought a used Yugo with 100,000 miles on it and its not really the high performance dependable vehicle we were told it would be –and the paint job sucks as well.
No amount of marketing is going to persuade us to ever buy such a vehicle again. We want a better product, and all Obama wants to do is to assemble a new marketing team to sell us the same old defective goods again.
How pathetic.
W/14–
I agree with your last two paragraphs because if he makes any significant changes to the center-right the most radical, most zealous members of his base will turn on him; he will be Palinized to a cinder. These are the most committed of his supporters but also the least forgiving.
But even if he does try to make the shift, no one will be won over. It will only increase the contempt and distrust of his enemies, whom he will now need to get anything useful done. Thus, they can hold his feet to the fire even as they cynically use him.
So: he’s stuck between the horns of a dilemma and will characteristically try to BS his way through, doing what’s always worked before.
Yes–2010 will be interesting.
“….endorsing this man into something over his head.”
Ah, but the real problem is that the way he wants to run the country is over everybody’s head.
He’s trying to make a long distance phone call using a potted plant instead of a phone. He’s trying to make mock apple pie using carrots. He’s trying to construct a neumonic memory circuit out of stone knives and bearskins.
I think that one of the consequences or running out of design Margin is that we are now in the age of continuous bubbles. First the Dot Com Bubble. Then the Housing Bubble. Then we found out from the Housing Bubble that we have a Financial Bubble, but in fact we already had one – it just got worse. Then we have the Social Security Bubble and the Free Health Care Bubble, which have been there all along, but now not only loom but are merging with the other bubbles. We are in a freakin’ bubble bath.
repeating the mistake with greater emphasis isn’t necessarily a solution
In the American military when in doubt there are simple priorities to guide an officer. In ascending order they are (with focus naval departments);
1. logistics and repair (Supply & Engineering)
2. train and prepare (Admin & Combat Systems)
3. observe and communicate (Operations)
4. engage, move to the sound of the guns.
Naturally all Departments are constantly partaking of all of these and the last is a focused effort by the entire Command.
In WW-II the motto of NavAir was, “When in danger or in doubt, turn in circles, scream and shout.” That meant that the lost airplane, no radar then, would gain altitude and broadcast and hope that the carrier would hear them, turn to close the distance to them, and break radio silence to guide them in. That showed, as the Task Force moved to recover the lost pilot, step 4 in operation with elements of 3, and was based on 1 and 2 having been done right. It also showed America’s cultural values at work as the Admiral would make the hardest decision of whether to break radio silence to rescue his lost lamb, knowing that to do so risks endangering his Command.
In the old Soviet military there was always a simpler guide to remember. When in doubt an officer was expected to, and often ordered to, demonstrate more “activity.” They were not judged in the narrow sense on results, although the price of failure could be severe.
The point behind this quaint comparison is that Obama is not acting like an American here but like someone who has been indoctrinated in an alien culture. When faced with a problem he divides it into two parts, threats to the society (including its institutions, traditions, culture and economy) and threats to his own authority. He focuses all his efforts on the latter. His response to economic catastrophe, enemy aggression, and public repudiation is not to correct the threats to the society but to produce more political theater, that is more “activity.”
To some extent all politicians do this and the commons have to spend a lot of time and energy reminding them about the community that pays to keep them in the castle on the hill. Religious prayers are reminders to God that he really does love and care for us poor folks down here. They may have developed as safe reminders to the secular lord that he also had better ensure that threats to the well being of the community need to be addressed as well as threats to himself. Obama, who may think that the peasants prayers are being addressed to him personally has personalized and politicized all issues to an extent unseen since Woodrow Wilson.
He expects Magic. He will summon monsters from the vasty deep. But will they come? (see 9:00 on)
Someone should have taught young Barry Soetero to tell truth and shame the devil. Now it is to late.
Wretchard said:
The bottom line is that he’s going to try and occupy more or less the same political ground he always has. He will move to the center only rhetorically and try to fix his problems by hitting “hot button” issues and turning his PR troops loose on them.
IF that is the case, the Dem party in-fighting may force Obama and Co to move to center for real, not just rhetorically. I don’t think the other party politicians are as dedicated to The Cause as the leaders. Rahm/Pelosi/Reid will not be able to strong arm them again.
According to the Beep:
Scientists working for the US Geological Survey say Venezuela’s Orinoco belt region holds twice as much petroleum as previously thought.
The geologists estimate the area could yield more than 500bn barrels of crude oil.
Gawd, they’ll never get rid of Hugo now.
How come the US Geological survey ain’t up here helping us find our oil? Oh. Right.
I see I misspelled my name. For some reason the auto fill-in feature is gone and was replaced with auto golpe. Auto golpe to the head.
I love how Tapper attempts to make a distinction be between policy and political “people”. In this administration, with their radical agenda, there is really no difference between the too. Of course, what they really mean by “political people” are just campaign managers and staff. This is hardly the sae thing. Tapper, like his whole tribe, do not understand that they now are in a completely different world. Yes, it is yet another Democrat explosion, but it is not a just replay of 1994. Rather, it is a grim, clumsy parody of 1994, and a exceedingly flamboyant and dark one at that.
I predict that Obama wins back a little ground in some of the public around the edges, almost all of it among the wavering around the core of the faithful, but it will not matter–he has made too many enemies in a year. Those he wins back will be mostly politically meaningless.
It was all so drearily predictable, the only surprise is just how PO’d and how effective the middle class has become.
It is like we are stuck in a time-loop, but everything gets more frayed and battered with every new loop.
We are reliving the Clinton and Carter administrations, but this time around it is just deadly.
One notes the old saw about history repeating itself as a farce, but what if it started out as one? We seems to have reversed that maxim in our actual national political life. At my age, this overreach and the resulting implosion of Democrats presidents in their first terms has become so tediously routine that one almost hopes that it would for once not occur. Almost. Yes, Clinton was truely a master politician; he managed to survive that implosion. Obama will not. The democrats have so warped their cognitive capacities of late, that not only they have really lost the nation, they are in the main unaware of it. They will claw back some of it, but not enough to matter.
Or so I hope.
#2,
I agree that the House and the Senate are within reach and even quite likely to fall into Republican hands.
Impeachment however is very unlikely, regardless of Obama’s managerial incompetence, personal arrogance and wrong headedness on the issues, to be impeached, a President must be accused of unlawful activity. There are no recall elections at the federal level, so I’m at a loss as to how we can lawfully rid ourselves of Obama before 2012.
“A 9/11 style attack killing thousands will get him removed if he does not simply forbid elections and rule by decree.”
Even another (or worse) 9/11 style attack would merely prove incompetence, not unlawful behavior. Perhaps and this is really stretching it, asserting that another 9/11 is prima facie evidence of an incapacity to do the job… but I doubt that would hold up, you’d have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t incompetence but in fact intentional.
Barring one scenario, Obama does not have the power to forbid elections and rule by decree. That scenario is the successful detonation of a nuclear device in an American city. He then would declare martial law, as would any President but given his socialist/communist inclinations…all bets would then be off and almost anything could happen.
Though even then, if he strayed too far off the reservation, I can’t foresee the US military cooperating in the establishment of a dictatorship.
No, Obama and the leftists have had their shot at fundamentally transforming this country and they’ve failed. It will be back to incrementalism and the Cloward/Piven strategy.
Dan D,
Obama had a reputation as one of the laziest and least prepared Senators. Given the competition that says something. He was almost always late to a hearing and never made a meaningful contribution, resorting only to boiler plate polemics. At the UNiversity where he taught other faculty said that he was a distant presence not engaged in the life of the academic community.
Can we pay Obama $30,000,000 to go away now?
One funny thing about Obama is that history will likely condemn him because his policies were not radical enough. Obama’s politics are radical. Yet, his policies appear utterly conventional. (There is nothing particularly radical or innovative policy-wise for a statist to broadly increase the role of government in the economy.) Radical policies don’t need radical politics to carry them through. In fact, political radicalism can often get in the way of making needed reforms.
We do need overhauls on many items, and banking regulation is certainly on the list. The problem Obama faces is that he can either rally popular support or use big city machine methods but he can’t do both. If he truly seeks to rally grassroots support, he must stay away from the legislative sausage factory. If he focuses upon the legislative sausage factory, he loses whatever moral suasion he still has. People don’t like to see their presidents take the low road to getting what they want done.
Although Obama needs to reach across the aisle, he needs to do so quietly and behind closed doors. His aides need to find backdoor channels to get things done. If Obama reaches across the aisle in a public manner, he shows a lack of faith in wanting bipartisanship. If Republicans don’t feel included in the back channel discussions, they will have no incentive to cooperate even if they wanted to.
It is the rare president who ever likes the mess he got from the previous administration. That’s a given. The question is whether this president has the maturity and statesmanship to focus on what he can actually get done. The Obama administration needs to realize that many of its opponents actually want Obama to do the right thing, but they don’t have much faith in him. So far, Barack Obama’s actions as candidate and president give much reason for concern.
#8,
You’re right, tomorrow is much more important than politics. The great thing about the match-ups is that any of these teams could win and all of them deserve to be there, so whoever goes to the SuperBowl will deserve it. Hopefully all the teams will play well and no one choke.
CBS, televising the game, wants a Favre/Manning match-up in the SuperBowl for ratings, watch out for suspicious penalty calls, it is a $BILLION$ business.
Lately, some of these calls have me scratching my head and given humanity’s predilection for screwing good things up… I’m not accusing anyone, I’m just sayin
Oh, and BTW, that was a very shrewd prediction; that, at least one of the games will be won by a dome team…;-) really going out on a limb there, kind of like hazarding a guess that the dems are in trouble.
And for those of you who aren’t football fans, that’s fine but hopefully you agree that there’s more to life than politics and current events.
OT over.
magic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChxLGnIwCU
The Obama Strategy: deceive the electorate to get elected; and, once elected, when the electorate discovers your campaign rhetoric was empty, you haven’t the ability or experience to govern, and you intend to pursue policies the public disapproves of if not abhors; well, just go back to step one and repeat earlier deceptions.
Nat Hentoff was right on the money about this guy: he’s very possibly the most dangerous and destructive President we’ve ever had.
Geoffrey Britain
there’s more to life than politics and current events
Some obsess on policy, some on money or sex. Some obsess on work.
It happens to both Republicans and Democrats.
1:55 on, Robert Altman’s The Player
I think Wretchard has it largely right on method and content of SOTU address. As I tried to suggest in the previous thread, Obama isn’t progressing by learning and adapting, he’s reverting to his previous campaign posture by speaking more moderately to widen appeal. I have always been convinced this bottomless empty vessel doesn’t comprehend the chasm between campaign posturing and leadership in action. He is a flat mundane actor pantomiming his impression of a POTU, and this will continue to unfold as a catastrophe for America.
For extra credit I say
1. He’ll feign humility and tell us he has heard us loud and clear, that he’s somewhat chastened by the political rebuke.
2. He will then repeat his lame attempt to take ownership of the disaffected masses.
3. He will also stress joblessness as Wretchard suggests with this embellishment: His magical “40 million uninsured Americans” meme will morph into “40 million unemployed or underemployed Americans”.
This will simply be another smokescreen (as healthcare was) to foment class divisions and bribe a large group of marginal Americans (mostly blacks) and millions of illegals under the new guise of massive “Jobs Bills” benefits in order to secure and activate his majority. This is why he lead with healthcare I believe. Failing his first ruse he’ll repackage and go again.
Notice how rigid this floridly incompetent fool has been with every maneuver. He may feign this or that, but he always doggedly returns to his script. Competent people begin by making mostly sound decisions based on wisdom from experience. We take decisive confident actions. When our assessment or course proves wanting we change course and again move cofidently towards the goal. Even when in doubt as to methods, a competent person goes forth knowing he or she will prevail.
Compare this to Obama’s mind-bendingly bad presuppositions, his preening sham of confidence and cool, and his rigid return to script. Despite the 8 month agony of the “healthcare” debacle, he never changed course.(I don’t think he’s capable). Despite roiling events on the ground, he never wavered in his endless “dialogue with Iran” nonsence. Muslim terrorism is STILL being treated as a matter of crime and law, not war. The financial meltdown lurches along, Obama doubles down. These are the actions of a man who is too dumb to perceive how dumb he is. The teleprompter is his metaphor. Without his playbook this oaf is a clumsy clown. With it, the clown can mimic a real person, but only for a time.
All Obama knows how to do is campaign. He does not know how to lead. Every problem to him looks like a nail, so he doubles down with the campaign hammer.
This is what happens wwhen you elect an affirmative-action President with zero experience.
And the really scary thing is, he’s now the captain of the good ship USA, cruising in shark-infested waters with the crew of the SS Minnow helping him.
He’s President Gilligan, without teh funny.
“But you can fault the “gatekeepers” — the MSM, the DNC, the professional politicians, the great and the good, the university dons, the whole quality control system for endorsing this man into something over his head. The system is broken.”
The system is broken because the ultimate gatekeepers, the people failed. The people shouldn’t be able to be fooled by those other gatekeepers. If they can, then they, the people, are the problem.
Wretchard @ 14: “If my prediction proves substantially true, then I believe 2010 will be another year of waste and paralysis …”
If one happened to be advising the head of Al Queda, or Mad Hugo, or Amadinnerjacket, or Premier Putin, or the Chinese officials responsible for foreign investments, or any number of other people outside the US who have their own agendas, a year of “waste and paralysis” might look like a year of “opportunity”.
The election of Brown in MA reminds us that elections do matter. Would it be better for foreign actors to act before the next elections, while any US reaction would still controlled by a weak President and his discombobulated Democrats? Or would it be better to wait, and funnel some more of those kinky illegal campaign contributions to their preferred candidates in the meantime?
My guess is that Al Queda will choose patience; some of the others may choose action. And the consequences of their actions in the next 10 months will have profound effects.
I’d love to play the “guess the SOTU address”, but it’s too depressing. Actually, I have a dentists appointment that morning, should be more fun than the address. I’m sure the dentist will blame everything on the last eight years, and maybe Obama will promise the nation he’ll floss more often.
He’s not a complicated guy, it is only that we have never seen someone so overpromoted above his capabilites, experience, and true nature.
I have always wondered how he could finish his (as he would say) first term. Perhaps the Democrats will find ways to make him disappear when things get much worse. For example, I expect he is a fully legal American citizen, but if he were not he’d inevitably get busted by his old new friends, just as he’s trashed everyone in his own pary who could make him look bad.
And for those of you who aren’t football fans, that’s fine but hopefully you agree that there’s more to life than politics and current events.
It’s time for Walt to predict the 2010 baseball postseason.
Wretchard@10:
“… not a genius, not another Jefferson or Lincoln into the White House, but just someone who has has the country’s best interests at heart and a modicum of competence and common sense…”. I think you just described George W. Bush.
Morton Doodslag@36:
“Obama isn’t progressing by learning and adapting, he’s reverting to his previous campaign posture…”
Obama doesn’t have an OODA loop; he’s got a DOO-DOO loop!!
Wretchard touches on this a little, but I think a big part of Obama’s SOTU speech (which perhaps will be retroactively titled the STFU speech) will be about demonzing various groups. He’ll demonize:
1. the Banks for taking bailout money and not loaning it (he will, however, be secretly cutting backroom deals with them). He’ll try to blame all or nearly all economic problems on “fat cat” banks.
2. Republicans as “the Party of No.” This will be a big theme, and they’ll have nearly equal villian billing for our woes.
3. “the Rich, who don’t pay their fair share.” Need to re-energize the class hatred.
4. Bush, by way of continued references to “the mess” he inherited. In case the Banks, the GOP and the Rich haven’t soaked up all the discontent.
5. Americans in general (though maybe he will softpedal this one) for being some combination of too impatient for change and too scared of change. Whevever you are on the spectrum, he will try to tell you he’s right there with you, but those other guys are screwing it all up.
I think it will be an awful mess of a speech and simply won’t make any sense except as an implied threat. He’ll deliver it in the same tired old sawtooth cadence he always uses (“I will say this with a rising inflection…. (pause) … and then say that with a sinking inflection.”). It will be mostly about telling people his critics are the problem and should be (nudge, nudge) dealt with. I have low expectations. Or rather, I have expectations it will be low.
Josh
Unfortunately no, we can’t, because we don’t have any money. We’d have to pay him with an IOU, and Michelle is probably smart enough to know that would be worthless.
“The system is broken because the ultimate gatekeepers, the people failed. The people shouldn’t be able to be fooled by those other gatekeepers. If they can, then they, the people, are the problem.”
The ultimate gatekeepers, the people, failed because the MSM, leftist academia, Hollywood and the democratic party have spent the past 50 years relentlessly advancing the meme that conservatives and republicans are racist, misogynistic, greedy and selfish, hypocritical, christian fanatics and rabidly opposed to ‘social justice’.
In spite of all that they can do; in spite of all the distortions, deceit and outright lies, ‘the people’ elected Reagan and now Brown, in Massachusetts and may well yet elect Sarah Palin.
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.” Abraham Lincoln
From the NYT as quoted by Wretchard:
“We are going to evaluate what we need to do to get timely intelligence and early warnings so we don’t face situations like we did in Massachusetts.”
This is a little beside the point of the thread as it is moving along, but I’m appalled. Axelrod wants timely intelligence and early warnings to avoid situations like Massachusetts, but NOT Moslem attacks like, maybe, oh, I don’t know, a repeat of the Undiebomber?
its not really the high performance dependable vehicle we were told it would be –and the paint job sucks as well.
Teh Won can haz some makeup tips from a real master:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kCAFkfFLQQ
james wilson,
Perhaps the Democrats will find ways to make him disappear
13 hours ago I blogged on Obama’s poll numbers and the options for the Dems.
http://tinyurl.com/yefueb9
What would a Grand Bargain look like? Biden gets the White House and no lynch mobs but Satomayor is off the Supreme Court and all other appointments will be reexamined by a committee chaired by Senator McCain sounds like a start to me.
Kinuachdrach,
My guess is that Al Queda will choose patience
Evidence is that al-Qeada has chosen to move sooner. How many self identified aQ attacks in this country have we had so far? Is it 4 or 5, plus the interceptions and the panic in London?
someone,
the ultimate gatekeepers, the people failed
1. Please buy a better nick.
2. The People are not supposed to take personal charge of examining the fitness of every candidate. That is the point behind having a Constitutional Republic. Ultimate sovereignty resides with the people and they express it by directly electing Representatives and State Legislatures. That is why the country is a Democracy, sorry Habu. However it is not a Direct Democracy. The original intent was to have the State legislatures select worthy and experienced leaders who would meet and examine the qualifications and fitness of candidates for President. Some horse trading among local interests was to be expected but real clunkers should be filtered out in the same way that a parliamentary system usually weeds out the flagrantly incompetent or morally degenerate before they get to the top. After all experienced politicians and community leaders know each others flaws, even if they are hidden from the public. Remember how the Senate shocked everyone by rejecting John Tower when he was nominated by Bush ’41 for SecDef? Largely that was a partisan attack and partly it was an elitist blow at the only former enlisted man in the Senate but it was argued that as his former colleagues they knew that he was a drunk and unfit for the office. If the President was selected by a conclave of civic leaders, as intended, who would be selected by legislatures elected from small local constituencies, originally an annual election, then both the Democratic and Republican elements of the Constitution would be at work. Under such a system a man like Barack Obama would not be elected.
Remember when Biden said this:
Biden to Supporters: “Gird Your Loins”, For the Next President “It’s Like Cleaning Augean Stables”October 20, 2008
“This guy has it. But he’s gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, ‘Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why
is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?’ We’re gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I’m asking you now, I’m asking you now,
be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you’re going to have to reinforce us.”
“There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision’,” Biden continued. “Because if you think the decision is
sound when they’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular, they’re probably not sound.”
That is where they are coming from. The public is nothing but a smelly, shitty stable and they must be cleaned up. Prepare to be scrubbed clean.
Have a fun 2010.
Wretchard,
I think you are confused (or the people you quote are confused) about policy/politics. In liberal politics, policy and politics are the same thing. That is because the political spectrum is paradoxical.
Conservative principles are true. When they extrapolate to policy, they mimic human nature, which produces unfair, and sometimes cruel results.
Liberal principles are insane. When they extrapolate to policy they produce policy which is humane and fair. This can then create a society where problems (and human nature) are removed.
To be a liberal is to focus on the policy and hide the principles. Policy is good (health care for everyone!), so becomes the message and the policy at once.
Its a sight to behold. A guy and his team so believe in the insane policy prescriptions, that they think they just sell it harder, implement it harder and the people will like the result. Obama really believes that when people receive what he is selling they will like it. So pushing it harder politically and implementing it as policy are one and the same thing.
James
“2. Republicans as “the Party of No.” This will be a big theme, and they’ll have nearly equal villian billing for our woes.
3. “the Rich, who don’t pay their fair share.” Need to re-energize the class hatred.
4. Bush, by way of continued references to “the mess” he inherited. In case the Banks, the GOP and the Rich haven’t soaked up all the discontent.”
The Republicans should anticipate the predictable themes Obama is likely to sound. They should work out a response that allows them to seamlessly and quickly insert rebuttals to whatever themes Obama uses. As example:
#2) Republicans have not been the party of ‘no’ and, President Obama knows it. Every political reporter in America knows it. In the Senate we’ve regularly been literally locked out of legislative deliberations, not even allowed into the rooms where secret deals are occurring and then, the democrats have dumped 2000 page bills on our desks and said , you have 24 hours to sign it! That’s not bi-partisanship, that’s legal tyranny. We’ve just declined to sign on to what we believe is, at best ill-considered legislation and for just once, since we had no say anyway, ensure that the democrats have to take responsibility for what they propose and implement. There’s no wiggle room here folks, it’s all on them and what have they accomplished but to place obscene debt upon future generations?
#3) The rich should pay their fair share and most of them do. According to the official US Office of Tax Analysis, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income. Everybody should pay their fair share and not one penny more, or taxes become legal theft.
#4) Any fair minded person has to wonder, at what point does “Bush did it” become an excuse? The democrats have controlled Congress since 2006 and President Obama and his party have had TOTAL control of the government for over a year. That’s three years folks. We were rightly voted out of office for not doing a good enough job and we know we’ve learned our lesson, when do they have to answer, for not getting the job done?
Wretchard @ 10 said:
“But remember that if this actually happens it will be a result of a systemic failure. Obama of course wanted to rise as high as he could. You can’t fault him for that. But you can fault the “gatekeepers” — the MSM, the DNC, the professional politicians, the great and the good, the university dons, the whole quality control system for endorsing this man into something over his head. The system is broken.”
This is what infuriates me. Obama was ***obviously*** not competent to serve as President. How many times and by how many different people here at Belmont Club was it mentioned that Obama was an empty suit?
However there are some mitigating circumstances:
The far-left and the MSM did an excellent job through the propaganda of ceaseless repetition of whipping people into a mindless frenzy over George W. Bush and the Iraq War. That bit of inexcusable sedition set the stage for a demagogue like Obama.
Also moderates and less extreme leftist were completely bedazzled by Obama’s skin color. The silly fools went into orgasms of joy thinking Obama was the Messiah. That second bit of stupidity was almost forgivable. Conservatives did drop the ball by not presenting a black man as President prior to Obama. Doing so would have vaccinated us against a future dark skinned demagogue.
So now we’re between a hammer and a hard spot. The country desperately needs a leader in the Harry S. Truman class but we’re stuck with Obama for three more years. The only silver lining that I can see in this desperate mess is the idiots who facilitated Obama’s rise to power are now in disrepute. Who except a brainless moonbat believes anything they read in “Newsweek” or hears on NPR. The MSM’s creditibility is almost completely shot.
@36 Morton Doodslag
[Obama] is a flat mundane actor pantomiming his impression of a POTU …
Exactly what a colleague from University of Chicago says about him:
http://easyopinions.blogspot.com/2009/04/richard-epstein-discusses-barack-obama.html
However there are some mitigating circumstances.
John Mitigating McCain
Oh, foo. I could join in the “gatekeepers” rant. For fifty years now we’ve been teaching kids not to judge, and changing institutions not to judge, and then, we ask the public to judge candidates, and they’re afraid to “judge” and maybe, with that training and those social norms, the public did what they have been taught. McCain wasn’t any shining alternative, nor was Hillary. In fact, where *were* the shining alternatives? Answer me that.
zhombre,
Thank you, I was looking for that.
We have 3 practicing psychiatrists that I know of who post on, and maybe more who follow, the Belmont Club. Epstein’s description of the great stone face obsessed by control cries out for discussion.
Can we put up a billboard? “In your guts you know he’s nuts.”
Obama has already signaled what he will do in the SOTU address: go after banks and Wall Street. He’s going to try and play angry populist.
That will work like Jeremiah Wright at a Bluegrass convention.
As for impeachment, the Congress can define High Crimes and Misdemeanors in whatever way it wants. Obama has done so many things illegally that Congress can if it wants remove him. This has always been within Congress’s power — they merely lacked the will.
I think Obama would find most of the Pentagon happy to go along with a rule by decree. See the report on Major Hassan, whitewashing the words Muslim and Jihad out of the thing. About five thousand dead, Obama would find it easy to have Generals, the media, most of the Congress, and all the “important people” on his side for an self-coup.
[Yes it is Fujimori. I should have known.]
At any rate, most of the SOTU will be about how evil bankers and Wall Street have set “White Man’s Greed creates a World in need,” with added stuff on Haiti (you are a RACIST!!! if you don’t agree to take half their population NOW and pour money there) plus how he’ll go after “fat cat Wall Street Republicans.”
Obama only knows politics. The people expect results: back on the job, rising wages.
This is not going to end well, it will end by either Obama’s removal by an enraged people or Obama ruling like Chavez.
is evolution a viable theory? If you think it is then O has a chance.the least effective ones are under the bus as a very brutal Darwinian experiment has been under way this last year.the big question is can the big cheese learn himself?my bet is on a repeat of the 90′s(O is as shameless as Clinton
). God help the poor bastard that gets to clean up the mess in 2016.
#54,
Accurately characterizing the ‘gatekeepers’ isn’t a rant. Not to mention that you subtly engage in a bit of it yourself by mentioning some of the social results of the gatekeeper’s philosophy, post modernism.
McCain sure as hell would have done a better job in the WoT. He would have avoided the tripling of our national debt. And in fairness, he would also have participated in further implementation of liberal incrementalism, which as bad as that is, beats the hell out of what Obama attempted. But he also would have provided on the job training for Sarah Palin, so that in 2012 the democrats couldn’t resurrect the tired meme that she hasn’t enough experience, who has the potential to be a shining alternative. Now, democrats are sure to resurrect it, if she should run in the 2012 Presidential election.
Hillary, I refuse to make an argument for but really, would she have been as bad as Obama?
I have had this nagging fear for a while now, that before 2012 arrives we’re going to have to deal with a President who has set lofty goals, has failed, and is deeply depressed. I guess will work though it.
As a psychologist with almost 30 years of experience in psychodiagnosis, my read of the interview posted by zhombre is that this is the description of a sociopath.
I know narcissism is a longstanding assumption, and I don’t disagree with that, the two syndromes being closely linked. The difference seems to me to be susceptibility to stress. The sociopath is narcissistic but is likely to be less vulnerable to destabilization than a pure narcissist when the approval or adulation ceases. Take Marilyn Monroe when she lost her looks as an example of a classic narcissist.
Obama seems more arrogant to me than a garden variety political narcissist like Clinton, who was clearly able to regroup and make adjustments to keep the approval coming. There’s a megalomaniacal sense about this guy that makes me think he’s going to keep pushing with the expectation that he’ll prevail — not only has he always done so, but the stimulation derives from him beating the system and prevailing.
I would be flabbergasted if he makes a sincere shift, the operative word being sincere. Whiskey is right, he hates us, and doing us in is his mission (hates his white mother, blah, blah, blah). Of course, doing himself in is also his mission (hates himself and his black father, blah, blah, blah).
My hope has always been that he would accomplish the latter before the former.
There’s another point here. The Dems and Obama rode to power by using Bush as a sacrificial victim against which they could coalesce and draw others to them. He’s about used up, and you can see them casting about for another focus of Dem/populous rage: Rush, Sarah, Fox, banks, white cops. That’s not working, and they’re starting to fall upon one another. It’s a bad sign that they’re going back to that approach by vilifying the rich — not unexpected, just a bad sign. Clinton was more advanced. He elected to make love and not war when the same thing happened to him, and that worked.
This is a self-destructive path through and through, especially if Wretchard is right about the SOTU. I wondered out loud about 2 years ago if this might be the first president that we hospitalized psychiatrically while he was in office.
wretchard wrote:
He can’t. It is. It will be.
As I have said: Buy staples, metals, seed, guns and ammo. Maybe add that hunting license. It is going to be a rough ride.
The Zero is going to “Double Down”. In all the “policy” areas – healthscare, Cap’N'Tax, financial system reform, GITMO, etc. Then he is going to go into full class warfare mode coupled with the ’10 Congressional campaigns. Between him and the DNC they are going to bring out the big guns. What they did to Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin is going to seem like kids play. ACORN is going to be mobilized as are the SEIU thugs to attack, attack, attack any and all actions at the Tea Parties. Plus they are going to push the end around plays like the replacement of Congress with a Committee. Civilian Security forces anyone?
As LOTM points out the Rasmussen daily approval (strongly approve – stongly disapprove) is now at -19. -19!!!!!!eleventy!
These guys in DC have got to be wondering when they are going to see the crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue with pitchforks, tar and feathers.
It is going to get ugly.
Wretchard@14:
“If my prediction proves substantially true, then I believe 2010 will be another year of waste and paralysis, but this time, with nobody listening to Obama. It will be as dangerously close to being in a vacuum as possible without going into outer space.”
That rings really, really true. And therein lies the scary part. There won’t be any adults minding the store, and we really need some adults to react effectively to events that are looking for a time and place to happen. Things like the Chinese deciding that they want to foreclose on our debt or make a move on Taiwan. Like the Norks sparking up real trouble, or the Iranians finally deciding to test their brand spanking new bomb, or Al Qaeda getting off another lucky shot.
To my mind, the biggest potential problem is actually much more mundane, and that is that we simply run out of money and suddenly realize that nobody is willing to lend us any more. Even that wouldn’t be such a problem except that I see no recognition by anybody at the federal level that it’s even a possibility. But think of what it would mean if suddenly federal checks started bouncing. The federal government is a beast the size and scope of which has never existed before. It’s hard to even imagine what your individual situation would be.
For me, my folks would suddenly lose their Social Security AND their state-funded teacher pensions. Remember that many states (MN is one of these) operate partially or substantially on federal dollars in many areas.
My sister would lose her Social Security (she’s on disability for cystic fibrosis) but her husband works and could support them, providing that his job for a semi-public charity doesn’t evaporate. My own student loans would stop paying for school if it were to happen this year, plus my TEACH grant wouldn’t come through. I’d be screwed and would have to abandon plans to switch to teaching.
A very close friend of the family and her daughter live entirely on federal and state aid due to a brain injury, and would likely have to move in with us along with my folks. A good third of our town is probably on aid of one sort or another that would evaporate, killing the local economy and throwing a LOT of people into serious hardship. The crime rate would skyrocket into the stratosphere. People would die, and the whole thing would rapidly snowball.
If we had resisted the siren song of making every law federal and having Washington dig into every area of our personal management, a lot of these potential problems would be a lot less severe, but that’s spilt milk at this point. All that’s left is trying to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
And yes, I’ve given up on Obama and his coterie having any awareness of the very real problems waiting in the wings that could let loose if they don’t reduce spending immediately and hugely. Oh, dear lord, but it looks like it’s gonna get ugly. Please just let me get through school first.
The old magic ain’t a-comin’ back; 1) Obama blew his cover, everyone with a brain now knows he’s a marxist–not a centrist, never a centrist; 2) his rotten, ruthless, inhumane, statist Left agenda is hanging out there for all to see; you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube; 3) he’s unforgivably bankrupted the country and–what’s worse–our children; few will volunteer to be a serf to the government unions; 4) disenchanted and influential ex-fans like Zuckerman will make it their mission in life to dig back into Obama’s past to figure out how they could have been so deceived and will expose him for what he is; 5) there are fashions in thought, and Obama is no longer fashionable; 6) the media is fickle; some of them will see the tide has turned and get a pair; the rest will suffer the rising anti-media tide; 7) the backlash from the financial sector and its victims, as they realize they are being reduced to eating field grass will make Scott Brown’s election look like one of Obama’s better days; if the dollar goes through the floor, goodbye to life–and politics–as we’ve known it; 9) unfortunately, we’ll probably see more terrorism on American soil.
Oh, and the fact that his party is fracturing under the pressure of its own greed and mendacity won’t help, either.
Politically, 2010 should be interesting.
#56,
“As for impeachment, the Congress can define High Crimes and Misdemeanors in whatever way it wants. Obama has done so many things illegally that Congress can if it wants remove him. This has always been within Congress’s power — they merely lacked the will.”
No, Congress cannot declare whatever they will, as a ‘crime’. They are not the ‘nobility’ rebelling against and seizing power from an absolute monarch. They have to prove him guilty, not merely declare him guilty of a crime. SCOTUS, as presently constituted, would never support it. And because of that they will ‘lack the will’. So it’s a moot point.
“I think Obama would find most of the Pentagon happy to go along with a rule by decree.”
Do you agree that there is a difference between a professional soldier and a ‘soldier’ who is really a politician, like the ones who whitewashed the Hassan attack?
Your assertion presumes that enough of the military would ignore their sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution and, be willing to obey clearly illegal orders. I suspect that, with a bit of reflection, you might think better of our military than your fears lead you to presently posit.
“Obama only knows politics. The people expect results: back on the job, rising wages. “
Yes, and that’s why he shall continue to fail.
“This is not going to end well, it will end by either Obama’s removal by an enraged people or Obama ruling like Chavez.”
It is going to be a very rough ride. Obama will be removed in 2012 by a landslide rejection. Obama shall never rule this nation as a Chavez, that is simply NOT going to happen.
zhombre 53!: That makes for an interesting read… We should be scared out of our boots for our nation by this freakish president. Not because of his odious socialist insanities, though they’re plenty damaging, but because he clearly believes posing is all that’s required to lead. For such a devastatingly deluded person, failures achieving cherished goals cannot be caused by flaws in the goals themselves, but must be ejected outward onto victims and scapegoats. This is the lens through which I view his pivot against the banks and Wall St. It is yet another avoidance of recognition on his part that he is the primary architect of the maelstrom of flaws and failures from his first year in office. Here is a partial list of the sacrificial scapegoats Obama has offered up when he met resistance — it is very malignant. For all those who keep getting lulled into the mantra of his centrist-sounding rhetoric it is a list worth remembering :
Bill Clinton the racist
Bush the warmonger / torturer
Tea Partiers
“Typical white person” (his white grandmother)
Middle Americans clinging to their guns and bibles.
Surgeons cutting out tonsils and amputating for profit
Auto execs
Insurance execs
Fox News (not a real news outfit)
Returning war vets (highest terror threat)
Rush Limbaugh
This guy isn’t changing anything in his tired, nasty, paranoic playbook. Far more crazed than Nixon, and the signs were already obvious far before he entered the crucible of the office… Bad world actors already have this poisonous imposter pegged and are making their plans accordingly. He will bring ruin upon this nation both by incompetent omissions AND poisnous commissions.
..Geoffrey Britain, martial law is when the military takes over the civilian court system and tries folks br military tribunal or courts martial. I can see that happening at the scene of a nuclear attack or some other catastrophe, but not nationwide. The military doesn’t have the means to do it internally. The entire federal court system isn’t big enough to do that in one big state. The U.S. miliary and law enforcement would not go along with a Federal takeover to benefit Obama. They take their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as a personal duty. Besides, they despise his lies and weakness.
…That old black magic of political rapture only comes once. He’s lost it. Whiskey , I lived through Jimmah’s 4 years of ineptitude, I suspect you and most here did. Obama’s removal or ascendancy to dictatorship doesn’t have to be the only possible future. He could just lose his effectiveness, as Buchannon, Wilson, Hoover, Carter and Clinton did.
65
You can add to the list:
Cops acting stupidly
People who drive pickup trucks
#60,
Is suicide a possibility when he discovers that he can’t prevail? When at best, pity and at worst, contempt for him becomes the norm… from even his former supporters? Who are already starting to turn on him…
He’s not another G.W. Bush, able to weather unbelievable ridicule and opposition. He’ll crumble like blue cheese by late summer at the latest. It’s already started, anybody else notice how quickly he’s aged? And it’s NOT from having the weight of the world upon his shoulders. Sociopaths’ don’t care. That’s why infanticide doesn’t bother him.
And he will fail and self-destruct, it’s written all over his historical and present behavior, plus it will be exacerbated by the fact that his leftist supporters can’t deliver without the ‘moderate’ democrats, who now know that a political guillotine awaits them, if they continue to support his radical agenda.
Whatever he says, the SOTU doesn’t matter because from this point forward, ALL he can really do is flail (fire people) and rail (whine & complain) and flop about ineffectively.
He’s broken and all the kings horses and all the kings men won’t be able to put him back together again. He’s done, he just doesn’t know it yet.
How does the Constitution deal with a President who is incapacitated by injury (Garfield lingered for 80 days) or illness (Wilson was incapacitated for 17 months) or who is otherwise removed from office? The 25th Amendment was passed after JFK was assassinated. Sections 1 through 3 deal with vacancies in the office of President and Vice President and temporary voluntary transfer of presidential power. The meat is in section 4.
In effect this allows the Veep with sufficient support to impeach the President subject to a later trial in the Senate. The grounds on which he can do so are more flexible than those granted to the House of Representatives in the original Constitution under Article II sect. 4. Look at the first sentence of the Amendment. It says that the Vice President can in effect temporarily remove the President with the concurrence of half the Cabinet or with the support of some other body that Congress may create. That second part is interesting. There is no restriction on what that body could be. It could be a committee of 6 State Governors or the 2 senior leaders of each party from both the House and Senate or for the paranoid it could be the top 3 officers of the Bilderburg or the Freemasons. Congress can give them the power and then they can install the VP as Acting President subject to a trial in that he would need confirmation by two thirds of both houses. It is easier to remove the President this way than to Impeach him under Article I but if he resists then it is harder to confirm the removal then to get a conviction in a Senate Impeachment trial. There is a movie script in this.
The scenario would be that the Cabinet is supine and unwilling to act against the President that they serve at the pleasure of. We will ignore any false precedent created by the Democrats complaining about Bush firing US Attorneys. So Congress can appoint a body that meets in a closet with the Vice President and orders the President removed. If two thirds of both branches of Congress supported the move, and it would only happen I think if that had already been determined, then the removal becomes permanent.
maineman,
Thank you for that sobering contribution. We all have to act carefully under the circumstances.
Given the poison that has been injected into the body politic, the hate and fear and the real economic damage, we must be ready for violent reactions if he does collapse or needs to be removed. I am very afraid of a long hot Summer in the cities.
To be blogged under the title “The XXVth Option.”
#66,
I agree. I think you have my view confused with whiskey’s. I see things much the same way you do. I spent 4 yrs in the navy during Nam. The military I knew then and see now performing in Afghanistan, Iraq etc, would never support a dictatorship or even a military junta. They’re not mercenary’s, they’re Americans. Our brothers and sisters , sons and daughters.
Is suicide a possibility when he discovers that he can’t prevail?
I find myself thinking of James Forrestal’s suicide following his dismissal as Secretary of Defense by Truman in 1949. Forrestal was diagnosed with clinical depression and hospitalized only three days after Truman fired him. He was found dead seven weeks later.
#63 I agree with you–”The old magic ain’t a-comin’ back. . .”
Once you alienate others to a certain degree the bridges between you catch on fire, and there pretty much isn’t anything you can do to rebuild them. He’s alienated enough of the independents now that I doubt there is anything he can do to mollify them that wouldn’t alienate his base supporters. He’s in a no win situation.
But that’s the price you pay when you raise people’s expectations and then can’t deliver. When you represent yourself as all things to all people you end up being nothing to everyone. He’s nearly there.
I love Wretchard’s idea (#14) of a prediction of Obama’s SOTU address for 2010. Let me add:
“I think it would be a useful exercise to predict what he’ll say in the SOTU, because if we really understand the way he works, then we ought to be able to predict at least the general tenor with some accuracy. At least a prediction shouldn’t be wildly off.”
“1. There’ll be some rhetorical concession to the need to fix the economy, to focus, etc on jobs”
This is a prime opportunity to bash “the problems we inherited (Wretchard’s #2).” I imagine he will talk up the historic nature of the stimulus, the Republican opposition to it, and claim “jobs saved or created.” Will he really announce a new jobs policy here? I doubt it. He will want to talk about how the health care takeover will somehow create jobs. This is also an opportunity to restate the claim that a green economy will create jobs by the bucket.
“2. There’ll be more blame on inherited ills;”
Well, duh. I suggest a drinking game, one drink every time he says, “there are those who say…”, two drinks every time he says, “the last eight years”, and three drinks every time he says, “the mess we inherited (thanks JMH #44).”
“3. But most importantly I think he will make no major cancellations in his initiatives, though he may mention “climate change” only indirectly or in some corner of the speech. Health care will be front and center still, with a few trims around the edges, plus banking reform will be present in full force (in the paragraph along with blaming the past administration).”
Yes, I agree, there will be no cancellations here. He certainly will try to define his actions as successes, especially covering the point that he has somehow healed America’s reputation in the world, and that should make up for the blunders on other stuff (Iran, NKorea, China, etc.). Almost certainly he will blame Bush for the tough going he has experienced. Give me time, he will say, my outstretched hand will work once the memories of evil Bush are gone.
“4. I think he will tread water on national security issues. But no new major initatives. That will be a holding action.”
Will he bring up the Predator strikes as a “new” initiative? He has certainly used them a lot. He might bring up Iraq and say the troops will be home by Christmas – not new, not really his doing, but worth applause. He will certainly say that Bush’s policy of detaining and torturing terrorists was recruiting for Al Qaeda, and that his law enforcement approach is humane and just and demonstrates to The World the superiority of the US, or at least, the superiority of himself. He will probably repeat that under his watch, the United States Does Not Torture. I can see it now, him saying it with uplifted chin, the cameras focused on Senator McCain as he applauds. Go MSM!
Probably Wretchard is right, nothing new. Oh, but I bet he will applaud the civilian arrest and trial for the underwear bomber using the above justification.
“The bottom line is that he’s going to try and occupy more or less the same political ground he always has. He will move to the center only rhetorically and try to fix his problems by hitting “hot button” issues and turning his PR troops loose on them.
If my prediction proves substantially true, then I believe 2010 will be another year of waste and paralysis, but this time, with nobody listening to Obama. It will be as dangerously close to being in a vacuum as possible without going into outer space.”
Yeek, that’s depressing. I will make a different prediction. Obama will find a way to appear he is changing, and may actually change some stuff around the edges. He’s not a dumb man, just a greedy and inexperienced one. Greedy for power, I mean. The Presidency is a powerful position, and even if Pelosi and Reid fall, Congress must work with the President to get things done.
It’s hard to argue with Wretchard on the substance of this. I will continue to think about it.
lotm,
“their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”
The phrase in bold above is wherein the heart of the matter lies. If Obama is psychologically impaired, yes. But if hale and hearty but judged incompetent, only if results are judged as sufficient?
Then there’s the issue of would Biden have the stones? Especially with ‘iffy’ political support?
He’ll claim monday-morning quarterbacking is at play. And claim precedent; after all FDR wasn’t removed for Pearl Harbor.
To be sane and removed, he’d have to do something like announce we were surrendering to Al Qaeda…for that to fly, don’t you think?
Whether this is true or not, it is largely immaterial. If it came to that, it wouldn’t be the Generals in the Pentagon who would matter, it would be the Colonels, Majors, Captains and Sergeants who would matter. If the Colonels decide the Generals have issued unlawful orders that would violate the Constitution, and the Majors, Captains and NCO’s agree with the Colonels, then the Generals will be in a bit of a fix.
Even the Hassan-covering PCs types would be scared of pushing things that far. As it stands right now, a General Casey can ruin a Field Grade officer’s career if his wishes aren’t carried out because every other officer is going to go along with the chain of command. But once it comes down to Martial Law by order of a failed President with tanking job approval numbers, the Chain of Command is clearly shattered whatever happens, so all bets are off and each officer, each member of the military, will have to make what choices seem best.
It’s really a microcosm of the larger Progressive myopia about America, which Whiskey somehow has fallen for. When times are good, the brass hats (whether military or civilian) can throw their weight around and people will tolerate it because it’s better than the alternative. But if things hits the fan, that equation doesn’t hold any longer and the big shots no longer issue orders, they make bargains and call in favors. How many favors do the line officers really think they owe the PC Brass in the Pentagon? How many favors does the average American owe the local Mayor? Local Sheriff? Local Democratic Party ward-heeler?
But if hale and hearty
Do we know even that much? IIRC, some people noted during the 2008 campaign that Obama submitted only a one-page boilerplate health report whereas McCain’s was quite lengthy and exhaustive. Given what we now know about FDR’s and JFK’s respective medical problems during their terms in office, should we take Obama’s skimpy health report at face value? It’s in the same category as his nonexistent undergraduate and law school transcripts.
Wretchard said @ 10:
“Obama of course wanted to rise as high as he could. You can’t fault him for that. But you can fault the “gatekeepers” — the MSM, the DNC, the professional politicians, the great and the good, the university dons, the whole quality control system for endorsing this man into something over his head. The system is broken. And there’s no guarantee that when Obama goes at the end of his term that they won’t throw up another handsome hapless guy and stick him in the Oval office.”
In a democracy everything that happens is a learning experience for the electorate. What our electorate has to learn now is that our professional politicians, the great and the good, the university dons and our unionized public employees have walled themselves off from the real economy behind their tenure, civil service regulations and pension arrangements, and seceded from the rest of the country as best they can. They are now just strutting up and down their walls, striking an occasional populist pose and tossing out instructions and regulatory diktats, on how not to behave.
Clearly the main thing everyone else now has to learn is that we’re on our own and have to think for ourselves. In this respect the Tea Party movement is a very good thing, and could lead over time towards a positive outcome.
Should the Banks Thank Barney?
The broker/dealer stocks on Thursday bounced back from earlier losses after Rep. Barney Frank told “Street Signs” that he partly disagreed with President Obama’s call for increased regulation.
While Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, was not necessarily opposed to the president’s reforms – stopping banks from operating in the hedge-fund and private-equity worlds and banning proprietary trading – he did have a problem with Obama’s demand for an immediate change. Frank said he preferred a three- to five-year period instead.
“Any mandate to make them do it immediately would be a mistake,” Frank said, adding, “it’s got to be done over time.”
Geoffrey Britain,
he’d have to do something … for that to fly, don’t you think?
Not necessarily, it is all up to how the politicians see their own interest.
Unlike the Article II standard for Impeachment of “Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and misdemeanors” the XXVth Amendment standard of “unable to discharge” is completely flexible. Functionality and competence are in the eye of the beholder. If a man can be certified as a sociopath then even if he is outwardly functional the Congress can declare him “unable to discharge” the office. They can declare you “unable to discharge” the office on any grounds they want. No court will hear an appeal from the judgment of Congress in this case. If two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate are onboard, and if things get really bad then that is possible but I do not think it is probable, then the leadership they select will know that in advance. If that happens and they appoint a “body” to meet with the Veep then it could happen. Would they have to issue a report from some joint Judiciary Committee stating that eminent psychiatrists, psychologists and the head keeper at the National Zoo all agree that he is technically “nuts?” Sure they would and it would make as good a read as Lord Demmings Report. It would sell fewer copies then Kenneth Starr’s report on Clinton but it might get read more. On the other hand they might produce a medical report stating that he suffers from some tragic hangnail but that gives him intermittent migraines so he can’t answer the phone at 3 AM and therefore regretably can not be President.
My thinking is that the USA is better off flying on autopilot in 2010 while Obama dithers rather than living with Obama decisions.
Bad decisions can be worse than no decisions, and I think those are the only kind Obama is capable of making.
#76,
Not to dispute the slim to none medical report on Obama but in any scenario involving removal, appearance will count heavily. If Obama appears in public to be rational and physically ok, despite whatever reality might actually be, then barring an official doctors report Obama would prevail. In fact, under those conditions it would never come to even an attempt at removal. Incompetence is just not sufficient, if it were, neither he nor Biden ever would have gained the nomination much less carried the election.
Even should a nuclear attack occur, it would depend upon when it happened.
We would be enraged because we’ll know that both his actions and lack of action enabled the attack but most would be reluctant to accept it because without mental preparation it’s too terrible to contemplate.
If it were to happen now, many of the american people would look to him for leadership, not instantly place blame upon him. As long as he acts like he knows what he’s doing, a lot of people are going to take that as reassuring. A year or two from now with him having demonstrated years of incompetence and the public’s judgment will be much harsher.
#79,
You make a persuasive case. I’m going to leave your words unchanged but flip the order of two sentences because then I can fully agree:
” If two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate are onboard, and if things get really bad then that is possible but I do not think it is probable,”
THEN
“They can declare you “unable to discharge” the office on any grounds they want.”
First there must be essentially overwhelming support, from both the public and the Congress. But it would have to be undeniable incompetence bordering on incapacity. Say, an idiot of Biden’s caliber
he suffers from some tragic hangnail but that gives him intermittent migraines so he can’t answer the phone at 3 AM
That’s an apt description of FLOTUS.
1. If I were Obama right now, the very first thing I’d do would be replace Rahm Emanuel. But I haven’t even heard that as a potential possibility. Whatever advice Obama’s been getting is bad advice, and if Rahm is Obama’s enforcer, he’s doing *that* badly, too. Obama needs a Karl Rove. And all he’s got in a lunkhead from Chicago, a bunch of screaming juvenile delinquents who know how to key cars, and a vicious wife.
2. Re: his SOTU speech, I predict he’ll reach out to the unions. He can NOT afford to lose their allegiance, and they were voting for Brown in Massachusetts.
3. THis would be a good time for Obama to announce a new Jobs Creation program, something government-funded that would put back to work all those now unfunded ACORN workers. Something census-related, for example, or feeding the poor people like the Black Panthers used to do. And then in a year or so, these same newly-hired people could go out (once again) and register (more) new voters and I’m sure they’d be really really good at it, because of their previous experience in trundling zombie voters to the polls in 2008.
4. “…we’re going to have to deal with a President who has set lofty goals, has failed, and is deeply depressed.” **and** “…if this might be the first president that we hospitalized psychiatrically while he was in office.” Seems to me that Obama suiciding would solve a raft of problems, except, of course, we’d be left with Biden as President. If we impeach his bony ass, do we still get stuck with Biden? I would love to see an analysis by some qualified mental health type of what interested citizens could do to encourage Mr. Obama to head in that direction even more than he already is. Perhaps pointing and laughing might be beneficial, and not likely to get one arrested by the Secret Service.
The discussion of the coming SOTU, the political maneuverings in lieu of policy, and the latest iteration by mental health professionals of a diagnosis of Buraq Hussein Obama that at best is horrifying drew me to this thought:
We have a set of boundaries. Between the coming SOTU, and Diety willing, what passes for one in whatever form in 2011; the survival of the United States as a constitutional republic will be decided.
One year. One year in which we face literal existential threats domestically in the field of politics and what remains of law, in the economy, and in the basic relation between the individual and the State. Externally, we face multiple forms of deadly threats and enemies on all sides, and we have driven off any friends we might have had come to our aid.
Each one of us has one year to look inside ourselves, and decide what we will and will not do during that year when the chalice is passed to us. There is no avoiding it. Inaction is a decision. Those of us who regard BC as a home away from home are above the average of our fellow citizens in mind and perception. If anyone is the type to be capable of looking ahead, analyzing the situation, and not only acting, but leading and guiding others in action; it is us.
There is no room left to hope that we can ignore or avoid what is about to descend on us.
I am neither Christian, nor Jewish. Yet, being born and raised in this country; I write, think, and speak in English. An English where much of the underlying culture is based on conceptions stated in the Bible in one form or another, directly or rephrased in literature. Thus, my thoughts turn to phrases that are not politically correct in these degenerate times, but they are what come out.
From those who have been given much, much is expected.
The cause of Freedom is the cause of God!
Fear God, and Dread Naught!
And from a more secular source:
Duty, then is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.
May we all do our duty in the coming year, as best we can see it.
Subotai Bahadur
Geoffrey Britain — Did or did not Congress (the House) impeach Andrew Johnson? In fact, they did (the Senate failed to convict by ONE vote).
Congress (and the Senate) can if they desire, define High Crimes and Misdemeanors as dismissing Cabinet officers. Or charging terrorists as common criminals. Or corrupt land deals. Or perjury in a civil suit for sexual harassment.
Congress IMPEACHED BOTH Johnson and Clinton. Both escaped conviction by fairly narrow margins. However, Impeachment and Conviction remain real possibilities.
It is likely to be used once, and once only, in that Biden would be told he would be found medically unfit to continue (his aneurysm) and doubtless as a pol of 35 years in the Senate has many scandals he would wish to avoid. Yet, it is there.
As for “lawful orders,” I find it highly likely that most Generals would back Obama. General Casey found that the most “tragic loss” would be diversity from the Fort Hood Massacre, not the people killed. The top brass, all of them, are PC-ified and Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush generals and admirals who care more about getting along with PC-driven pols than anything else. Chain of command means that if Obama issued an order to his JCS, they’d pass them down and the military WOULD OBEY, even if they hated it.
Obama is not stupid. He knows treating Jihadis like criminals who knocked over a 7-11, and prosecuting the CIA interrogators, and leaving CIA agents open to prosecution abroad, and bowing/scraping to the Saudi King, only guarantees a massive casualty attack being successful in the US.
THIS IS WHAT HE WANTS. So he can rule by decree. Who’s going to stop him? Tea Partiers? Middle Class White folks? Please. None of them have picked up a rifle and fired in combat against people trying to kill them. Gen. Casey and all the rest would be happy to go along with a PC-driven rule by decree. The military would obey because that is what they do.
Obama’s gamble is that the US gets hit hard, by terrorists, so he can rule like Chavez as America’s Vizier. Instituting Sharia-lite, as in Europe, with punishment for the White Middle Class and rule by himself and family forever. Chicago politics writ large. His gamble may run out if the nation is in worse straights before terrorism hits so that he’s impeached:
*Gas prices can spike/soar as Nigeria implodes, Iran lights off a nuke and closes the Persian Gulf, or Israel hits Iran (likely with their own nukes which are the only stuff big enough to do the job), or India and Pakistan fight a war, or the Saudis suffer widespread sabotage of oil fields out of Yemen.
*China can suffer a financial bubble asset meltdown, their real estate is in Dubai bubble mode, or Japan’s government could fall apart trigger Yen devaluation and tit-for-tat major currency devaluations, or Greece could default and get kicked out of the Euro Zone (Germany is unwilling to pay to bail them out) or Brazil/India could suffer an asset bubble popping.
*Jihadis could nuke Copenhagen or some other European nation’s capital where the populace has been insufficiently cowed by Muslims. Triggering a mass-panic, stoppage of global container trade (the likely means for delivery), internment/deportation of all Muslims in the West, and global nuclear armament from Switzerland to Sweden.
Any one of these things can bring the US economy crashing down, Obama has as Wretchard noted NO MARGIN and must have everything go right for him to recover. If any one of these crashes the US economy further to say, 40% unemployment, Obama will be impeached along with Biden and replaced by a national unity President.
Blood is in the water and the sharks are circling. Amazing how quickly things have fallen apart for Obambi. Like the proverbial deer in the highlights he doesn’t have a clue what to do. “Fight or flight?” The SotU address we tell us the path that The One has chosen.
Personally, I hope he doubles down and fights. That will alienate even more of the voters. I don’t want him removed from office through some gimmick in the Constitution. I want him driven from it by the voters in disgrace and humilition. And in the end walking the halls of the White House talking to the paintings of the former Presidents; wondering how it all went so wrong. At this point we have to seriously consider does he even stand for re-election in 2012? An 1894-style rout in the House or a 1946 one in the Senate in the 2010 mid-terms might very well prompt the party elders to tell The One that early retirement is in the cards for him. Question then becomes “Who?” for the Democrats. Hillary is damaged goods, as is Biden. Not a whole lot of depth on the Democratic bench. 2010 is going to interesting, but 2012 has the potential of dwarfing it in terms of “what-ifs”.
One point overlooked in all the discussion about Obama and his supposed mental state: Michelle Obama. I sense ruthless and conniving in her. She won’t go quietly into the night if others are trying to nudge hubbie to the door.
#84,
I concur and will leave the words of wiser men than I for others to consider:
“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. [Yet] There may even be a [still] worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish, than live as slaves.” – Winston Churchill, “The Gathering Storm.
“There can come a time when the avoidance of risk threatens to become the surrender of principle.” David Weber
“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.” George Washington
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.” Abraham Lincoln
“If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.” Abraham Lincoln
“Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” Abraham Lincoln
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” Abraham Lincoln
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that others consent.” Abraham Lincoln
“Did or did not Congress (the House) impeach Andrew Johnson?”
Yes they did and failed to convict for the good of the country. Just as they would with Obama unless the evidence of wrongdoing was overwhelming and judged profoundly serious by the public.
“Congress can if they desire, define High Crimes and Misdemeanors as dismissing Cabinet officers. Or charging terrorists as common criminals.”
Cabinet officers are a Presidential prerogative, they serve at his pleasure and, no Congress would ever use a cabinet firing as excuse to impeach because it would never fly. Charging terrorists as criminals is a stupid, even ‘criminal’ decision. It might even be a covert method to imperil the US as you assert but it is a completely legal maneuver. Even to be used as evidence, supporting a circumstantial case against Obama, there would have to be an undeniable “smoking gun” and, so far, he hasn’t provided one to remove him from office. Accusations and theories of malfeasance aren’t enough, there must be concrete evidence and the most extraordinary of circumstances.
“Impeachment and Conviction remain real possibilities.”
Only under the most extraordinary and undeniable of circumstances.
“It is likely to be used once, and once only, in that Biden would be told he would be found medically unfit to continue (his aneurysm)”
Which would place Pelosi as President. Talk about picking your poison!
“I find it highly likely that most Generals would back Obama… Chain of command means that if Obama issued an order to his JCS, they’d pass them down and the military WOULD OBEY, even if they hated it.”
Normally yes, but not in a constitutional crises in which Obama was seeking to rule by decree. Military officers swear to uphold the Constitution, they do not swear fealty to the Commander-in-chief, nor would they remain loyal to one seen to be trying to destroy the Country they love and the Constitution they swore to uphold.
As JMH @ 75 pointed out, “Colonels, Majors, Captains and Sergeants who would matter. If the Colonels decide the Generals have issued unlawful orders that would violate the Constitution, and the Majors, Captains and NCO’s agree with the Colonels, then the Generals will be in a bit of a fix. Even the Hassan-covering PCs types would be scared of pushing things that far.”
“Obama’s gamble is that the US gets hit hard, by terrorists, so he can rule like Chavez as America’s Vizier. Instituting Sharia-lite, as in Europe, with punishment for the White Middle Class and rule by himself and family forever.”
You’re way over the top here whisky, better ease back on nippin at that jug. The prospect of Obama as America’s Vizier proclaiming Sharia law to a Christian population (85%) while declaring his new permanent and, by divine-right, an inheritable monarchy… is laughable. Not going to happen. Not in this country.
Yes, a lot could go wrong and some possible scenarios are truly scary. Impeachment is implausible but under the right circumstances possible.
A national unity President? Not in our lifetime, too divided an electorate. But another Reagan or Truman? Yes, that’s possible.
The whole “rule by decree” question is in fact so out there and unprecedented that very little of what we write here can mean a lot. We have no idea what would happen, but my gut tells me such a decree would last about six hours tops.
But just for fun, here’s something no one has mentioned about such a scenario: I wonder if it would never even be an issue for the military. Because I wonder if the Secret Service would be the ones to get one whiff of such a decree, roll their eyes at each other, secure the building, and then walk into the Oval and say, “You’re done.” Maybe then a quick call to the Pentagon, where the right person would say over a speaker phone, “We stand with the Secret Service”, and a second call to whatever authority (VP, I presume) is constitutionally empowered to succeed…. and that’s all she wrote. Done deal.
Because I think it would go down that easy… it’ll never happen to start with.
All very bizarre, of course, but the conjecture is great for coffee conversation, I suppose.
Guess the idiot:
After the Massachusetts Massacre
It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America.
It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006.
It was not a harbinger of a resurgent G.O.P., whose numbers remain in the toilet.
Brown had the good sense not to identify himself as a Republican in either his campaign advertising or his victory speech.
(Brown ran, first and foremost, as the 41st vote against healthcare!)
Jake Tapper notes many of these new operatives were part of the team which successfully guided his 2008 campaign to victory. “In addition to the return of top aides such as Plouffe, other mid-level operatives from the 2008 Obama campaign who helped bring candidate Obama victories in Iowa and in Feb. 5 ‘Super Tuesday’ primary states, will be enlisted to work on campaigns to keep expected Democratic losses to a minimum, aides said.” These are guys Obama will be relying on to bring back the magic.
So, essentially the call went out ….”Plouffe, the magic’s draggin’!”
Excellent, bleachers!
Bill Kristol made the important point that Brown ran an upbeat, optimistic campaign, not an angry resentful one.
Hope the Pubs learn a lesson there, but old dogs…
There has been a lot of analysis of Obama’ leadership or lack of, but who does the president listen to or talk to for advice. I always felt Nixon had faults which Halderman and Erickman took advantage of which created more problems for Nixon. I don’t know much about the people who are Obama’s closest advisors other than the political advisers he brought into the Whitehouse. I believed Reagan was a great president mainly because of his Chief of Staff. I read that the president of SEIU has been to the Whitehouse much more than anyone else. Is that who he talks to when things get tough? I wander who recommended bringing back the political team to help Obama?
“Gen. Casey and all the rest would be happy to go along with a PC-driven rule by decree. The military would obey because that is what they do.” I think this is nuts, I do not believe most of the military would obey blatantly unconstitutional orders if push came to shove. I tend to avoid Whiskey’s racialist arguments to begin with even if I think his theories about The Big Man and some females being excited by uber Alpha Male bankers and pols contributing to our current slouch towards oligarchy may have a trace of validity.
Regarding Penson Financial in the previous thread, it seems to me if they were the physical epicenter of a massive scheme to destroy Goldman Sachs’ competitors using naked short selling that they would have attracted more attention. They’re in downtown Dallas not from far the local fed gov offices including those that have jurisdiction over securities fraud. And they’re not hard to find if you just Google them up. Being in a downtown location as opposed to some remote undisclosed Cheney type bunker also would make it easy to track who was coming in and out, regardless of whether or not they wiped their IP and trading histories (something I also think is a stretch). I cannot believe that any conspirators in said sinister scheme would be so stupid as to not make key decisions face to face rather than over easily monitored electronic comms that would open them up to blackmail by each other. This is the typical pivot on which most conspiracy theories tend to fall apart, along with human nature tending against keeping secrets to show one’s prowess (the subject of the Habu/Teresita debate which seems to have been resolved). The Mafia was taken down in part for the same reasons.
P.S. I think Google is getting self-booted out of China not because Chinese gov backed hackers jumped in to a few activists email accounts. That seems far too easy and simple. More likely the Chinese government and top CCP bosses realized how many of its employees were using Google either from work or at home and that everything passing through Google’s servers are basically an open book for the USG. Think about it, if China is America’s no. 1 creditor then one would expect even the junior assistants to those Treasury buying decision makers in Beijing to be ID’d, and have their accounts constantly checked, not just uploaded for later viewing on a server but actually read by a Chinese speaking analyst somewhere, though there are probably not nearly enough Mandarin speakers that are trusted. When it comes to going after the Islamiacs who rely on face to face messengers I think we’re lousy. But when it comes to targeting nation state actors with swarms of electronic data trails I wouldn’t bet against Uncle Sam.
You don’t become a behemoth without some quid pro quo with the feds, a theme I keep hammering on with Goldman, the credit rating bureaus, and even the health insurers. Tim Carney’s new book seems to start nibbling around the edges of American corporatism, as does Taibbi. But it’s not all there yet and the evidence is elusive.
Watch Obama’s Ohio speech, which is his first one after the Massachusetts election. The tone and manner were the same as any of his campaign appearances. Obama is a one trick pony. The Ohio speech is entirely self referential. Scott Brown won the election, Obamacare failed, joblessness is high because “We” don’t get it. His self criticism is that he has not been as effective as he thought he would be in explaining his Wonderfulness to us. I suppose the subtext is that Americans are even more stupid than he thought.
Marxism jumped the rail from the “natural progession” of history to a murderous nightmare when English workers determined on their own that life in the industrial age was not so bad after all. History cannot be stopped. The stupidity of the masses could be corrected only with proper guidance from Those Who Know Better and the elimination of those who opposed the grand plan.
Team Obama is following the same template. The local rubes are too stupid to run an election and will need guidance from The One.
Although happy to see this Marxist halted at the gate it is extremely worrisome to know that we must still withstand this assault on America for 3 more years.
This morning they had the Author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, on Fox News. They asked him about Obama. I was surprised at how harsh he was. Most millionaire popular authors feel themselves to be part of the Elites and are more circumspect in their criticism.
He said that Obama was a product of affirmative action and had never actually had to run anything.
He said that only about 7% of Obama’s advisors had any business experience. I did not know it was that bad but I guess I am not surprised. The past few elections I have noticed that it has come down to the private sector versus the political sector. Bush Vs. Dukakis, Clinton Vs. Bush, Gore Vs. Bush, Kerry Vs. Bush. But in 2008 things looked quite ominous, with it being Political Sector Vs. Political Sector, with McCain’s only saving grace being his military experience.
So now we have a Political Bubble.
Anyway the point I was trying to make in the post above was that naked short selling would be extremely unlikely to be pulled off via one single firm, anymore than millions in foreign cash could possibly have been funnelled to Obama’s campaign from a single account. It would be more accurate to say that someone came up with a very clever algorithim for creating mini accounts and dripping $200 a pop into them, and the same with the naked shorts. A programmed swarm rather than a single node.
So it is best to speak of network vs. counternetwork rather than Soros or Strong sitting somewhere like Ernst Blofield plotting the downfall of America and Russia and world domination of China/EU consortium – like the Bond villains did in trying to pit the U.S. vs. USSR so they would rule the pieces. I just wonder if we will see some Goldman execs going to jail five years from now in much the same way that Khodorkovsky was jailed five years after his fellow oligarchs contributed to Russia’s economic collapse. Subpeoning Geithner after he is fired for contempt of Congress even if the case cannot be proven from the leaked emails might be a start. But I do not think Washington is ready for a wholesale purge and the media-hyped ‘market panic’ surrounding a filibuster/refusal to confirm Bernanke is telling, as is the mainstream financial media fear of Taibbi. They doth all protest too much.
I don’t have patience for the ticking nuke timebomb ’24′ or war porn scenarios. I don’t think the Saudis by themselves have the competence to pull of a Manchuri-stan candidate scenario. And the Russians and Chinese both have too much invested in the U.S. to act suddenly – Russia in particular cannot do anything that would lead to a sudden collapse in commodity prices. And the Chinese almost 99% are cooking their books and their economic growth figures are not to be believed, there was no massive foreign consumer to pick up the slack for Americans buying less of their junk at Wal-Mart.
The current Russian elite recalls all too well what some oligarchs did in pumping flat out plus asset stripping to get $10 per barrel oil in 98′ and the disastrous effect on the Russian economy (and those oligarchs may have had foreign sponsors in on the ground floor). $140 a barrel was also not really good for Russia because no one in Moscow really thought that could last either – at the very moment prices hit that level Paulson was in Moscow telling the Russians not to bail out of their short term Freddie/Fannie paper while foreign credit to Russia’s largest copanies was drying up. All the Moscow financial media go to guys like things at the $70-$80 goldilocks level – enough money to fund reform but not too much to pretend that reforms can be put off and the oil windfall will last forever.
“One funny thing about Obama is that history will likely condemn him because his policies were not radical enough. Obama’s politics are radical. Yet, his policies appear utterly conventional.” Yes this is the heart of the matter. Obama spoke like a bold reformer but has governed with even more crass payoffs to the U.S. bank/health care cartels than Bush or Clinton could have ever gotten away with. Or rather, unlike in the 90s and early 2000s the capital for such payoffs is shrinking rapidly and just as some Russian oligarchs went to war with each other in the 1990s we may see the American oligarchs fighting over a shrinking carcass.
Every day that passes the similarities between Obama and Gorby seem to grow. Both are trying to keep an unsustainable system chugging along, though the subtext of Wretchard’s posts is that the old order – MSM, big banks, Dem power brokers, lobbyists – is increasingly unsustainable, much like the old Soviet nomenklatura in the 1980s. The first to head for the exits in the late great USSR were the security services, and they were the only ones that businessmen and politicians could trust in the 1990s. One wonders what American equivalents are waiting in the wings – Blackwater?
How much money, offshore real estate and gold is Eric Prince investing in?
wretchard #4 — I think it would be a useful exercise to predict what he’ll say in the SOTU, because if we really understand the way he works, then we ought to be able to predict at least the general tenor with some accuracy.
If whiskey’s theme is the influence of “women,” I suppose mine is academia.
Like many academics, Obama long ago lost the ability to honestly debate, reason, and sometimes compromise on political issues. He lived for too long, as a student and then an instructor, in a cocoon where a pointedly sneered “George Bush” or “Fox News” substituted for reasoned discourse.
That cocoon is now a bunker. Obama will not retreat from social transformation and the Wonder of Me.
The story of the three envelopes.
When a newly hired exec bumps into his fired predecessor on the way out of the office, the individual is offered three envelopes. The predecessor advises that each consecutively number envelope is numbered and only to be opened in sequence when the proverbial crap hits the fan and nothing else is working. The new manager smiles, takes the envelopes but quickly puts them in a drawer and forgets them. That’s until months later things are still not running well and senior management is looking for scalps. Then the envelopes are remembered. The manager dutifully finds and opens envelope marked ’1′. It contains a simple note saying – ‘Blame everything on me”. Not having any other real ideas, the manager does exactly that which buys him a reprieve from the powers to be. Things are still wonky, but the new manager barely keeps the office afloat. Many months later, things still haven’t significantly improved and senior management once again is looking to make someone walk the plank. The stressed manager remembers the envelopes and rips open the one marked ’2′. It reads “Reorganize”. So a plan to reorganized is formulated and given to senior management. That buys our manager several more months to try to deal with the crisis at hand. Of course the problems being intrinsic to the organization, they only fester. Senior management now summons the manager to a meeting which anyone could understand may well be his last. So the manager digs to find envelope numbered ’3′ to open, only to read the advice “Prepare three envelopes”.
It’s all “perfectly clear” to me now. Obama’s new approach to solving all of our country’s problems will be ………
wait for it……….
HOPE and CHANGE !!!!!
When discussing impeachment it’s worth thinking on the nature of the crisis which would surround such an event.
For example, London Mail recently reported a spike in “no fly” passengers attempting to board planes. Let’s say this is the tip of a massive plot to bring down 30 jumbos which the Muslims largely succeeed in pulling off. In the midst of chaos and meltdown, with the near complete cessation of air commerce and global markets in freefall, it is revealed that the Christmas bomber had been Mirandized just as he was listing the names and addresses of his graduating class of pantybombers when he clammed up.
Would Obama’s despicable and incompetent handling of the affair rise to the level of a high crime? Under the duress of a major terror crisis, would it even be possible to further paralyze the nation by initiating a Constitutional crisis with a presidential trial? Also keep in mind that the pinch hitter line-up behind Obama is Biden, followed by Pelosi. Out of the frying pan into the blowtorch.
W said in in opening remarks that the realignment of obamas staff failed in two areas;
Neither of these address the two fundamental questions: the focus of his policies and the quality of his management of the executive branch
I would say that we could easily make the case for one absolutely fatal shortcoming obama has. The lack of a well constituted philosophy is his major lacuna. We may call him Marxist or the much more nebulously defined fascists but he is purely neither. He is an unalloyed lost soul searching for the next radical father figure to aid him articulate the rage he has for this country. It is also not simply “a “philosophy” he needs but one grounded in American and English Enlightenment philosophies built upon the writings of centuries older philosophers. He simple lacks a coherent philosophical guide…..simply having and exercising power and spending huge amounts of other people’s money is not a philosophical system. A simple case of “Kool Daddy Barry” goes to college and learns how to read a teleprompter and nothing else, save a hatred for the USA.
The greatness of a Socrates and of selected men of the Enlightenment lies not so much in what they teach as in what they are. obama is nothing. obama lives not to teach us but to preach to us, not to lead but to threaten us and his words never follow his deeds; we have yet to plumb the depths of where he will go with his threats. He is the worst type of gutter soul brother. He is guided by philosophies that have failed in the recent past and thus quickly falls back to paralysis or force. Of moral conviction, duty to this nation and a conscience of right and wrong this pretender knows nothing, as we all have learned. We are hard pressed to even apply Immanuel Kant’s Dualism, the spiritual world, or intelligible world the world of moral law and religious faith. The second aspect of dualism, the sensible world, the physical and material world of sense experience with which the natural sciences deal is also moribund in obama, ( voting “present”, being absent from voting at all does not further learning in this arena)
The words I could continue. The idea I hope I have conveyed; that obama is the greatest danger this country has ever had seated in the oval office and needs to be defeated at every turn ….we have made a course correction but much work is just over the horizon.
48. Lifeofthemind
“That is why the country is a Democracy, sorry Habu. However it is not a Direct Democracy”
What a huge disappointment it is to read the words you have written so unthinkingly.
You are not simply arging against Habu but the likes of John Locke T..Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and perhaps 99% of other Founding Fathers with regard to our Republic. That you choose to not only ignore their writings but those dating to Aristotle is pitiful.
LOTM, on many things you are correct and your presentations usually flawless but on this issue if you continue to dig you will find yourself with no hope of recovery. That you may want this to be what you want it to be does not make it so.
Your scholarship on this matter is sophomoric and not worthy of your usual product. I suggest you read several books and the re read the Federalist Papers as a curative for what you have somehow developed.
Furthermore you might as well address, on this issue, those souls who defined this country, Habu did not, but I am confident of my history. Furthermore, when you locate the word democracy in our Constitution please appraise us all of its location and why you believe it is missing from that document…… you know the one that defines our government.
whiskey “Since the possibility of that is zero, and in fact the economy is only getting WORSE (thanks to Obama meddling with Wall Street), the possibility of a wipe-out in the House AND Senate, and impeachment/removal of Obama and Biden cannot be ruled out.”
Jeez…then who would be President? OH NO..!! But no worry. Even if he were impeached, it would slide just like for Clinton. Unless of course the birthers or someone could unearth real proof that he is not what/who he claims to be. But even then, the consequences might not be what we want or would expect.
This is America you know.
“Obama does not have any margin. A 9/11 style attack killing thousands will get him removed if he does not simply forbid elections and rule by decree.”
Maybe, but remember he has the AG, dozens of Czars, and is the Commander in Chief and he can and most likely- like you said, decree a “National Emergency”. Then he will have the power to do whatever he wants not only overtly but covertly.
Remember who his backers are. Not only the worse Chicago style thugs but backers from all over the world that will stop at nothing to destroy the United States of America. As they are now trying to do financialy.
But they may not stop there.
In all that is Holy…how did we allow this to get this far?
He is, right now, on a downhill slide from Chicago style politics into Communist/Marxists politics which challenge the law of our land and The Supreme Court.
Along with his backdoor attack by the EPA in which he is directly challenging The Congress of the United States.
There is more that he is doing that he thinks is perfectly correct by his lights. Lights he has obtained from his dysfunctional family and life. A life that has been lived among Communists, radical Marxists, Muslims and his mentor who was not only a radical but a sexual deviant and a mother who was nothing more than a radical eco-Hippy liberal whore.
I’m sorry but I don’t agree that the House is going to flip Republican, a chance, but small at this stage. Ask me again in 6 months, but I am more encouraged that the Senate will, by God’s Grace. There are many Senators who care more about themselves than they do our Republic.
Ok, Got to get the kids and this sinner to Church. See y’all later.
Papa Ray
Habu
To portray Obama as a lost soul in search of a philosophy is to grossly underestimate him because it implies that he is capable of redemption – that once he sees the light that he will govern responsibly and in accordance with our Tradition.
Obama is a man on a mission. His constant attacks on every segment of society that provides succor to an upwardly mobile middle class suggests the implementation of a well conceived plan. Whether it’s called statism or marxism or socialism or progressivism is not so important. Whatever his end game may be it seems obvious for now at least that he will use all the power of the office to centralize control of as much as the economy as possible.
Salt Lick: If whiskey’s theme is the influence of “women,” I suppose mine is academia.
Whiskey’s theme is an unconscious reaction to the very deep and pervasive influence of female sexuality on the evolution of the human race.
Alone of all the animals in the world, Gyna Sapiens has the ability to perfectly mask her time of ovulation, even from herself. In the rest of the animal kingdom, the females can be essentially ignored by the males until the time she goes into estrus when she becomes capable of fertilization. Then she becomes the center of attention. But human females must be wooed at all times, because we have “stealth” estrus.
Alone of all the animals in the world, Gyna Sapiens bleeds like a stuck pig in menses. Combined with the loss of iron associated with birthing and feeding, women run with about 15% less iron in our bodies than men. And the most efficient source of iron is red meat. So to answer Freud’s question “What do women want?” — We want a filet mignon. Preferably with red wine and a candle and conversation.
Why the conversation? Because there is a precarious balance between the size of a fetus’ head and the opening in the pelvic floor which will allow it to exit. And the opening in the pelvic floor cannot be any larger, else human beings would disembowel themselves with gravity every time they stood straight up. Prior to the advent of Caesarian sections (which is like burning a bridge behind us, it will result in larger heads in babies over many years, thus compelling all births to be by Caesarian), it was a very dangerous thing to give birth. Women who took charge of their own bodies lived and bred more than women who were wallflower baby factories. Alone among all the animals in the world, Gyna Sapiens has the ability to override instinct and say no to sexual intercourse. So men have to convince us to do it. And the best way to do it is to describe how he can provide more iron-rich filet mignons than the other guy.
This has resulted in the evolution of a male who can compartmentalize things with incredible aplomb. For we were once primates living in trees, but we went down to the forest floor and had to compete with lions and tigers and bears for meat. And in order to do that, men had to become the most wickedly cruel and heartless predators this world has ever known. He could never take pity on a wounded baby bear and try to get it to an animal shelter, his hunting buddies would think he was slacking off and there was meat to skin. And when he brought that meat home to his girlfriend, he had to use it to gently woo her for sex. And that means men are by nature a creature with two completely different personalities.
Islam is a deviation from that. They are essentially going the rape route, on a culture-wide basis. They use force to gain access to their females, and thus never have to demonstrate the compartmentalization of the cruel side and their soft side. There’s no soft side. Whiskey describes the symptoms of the Muslim pathology but he has not truly diagnosed the cause.
Mr X/97; –a search on [ penson naked short ] shows a pretty lively back n forth on what happened to drive that huge number –80% of volume in financials during the Panic –on google the good stuff is a couple pages in –including a PDF from Penson itself to the SEC, on the Taibbi video. Smoking gun in either direction is missing, something doesn’t add up –so far. For example, the massive attack on the banks in early September, the ‘panic’ that took the share values down 70% in six or eight sessions, is universally ascribed to naked shorting –and the tapes on the traders exist, so the USG knows who was on both sides of every trade –even if it was an offshore dark pool, the govt knows THAT, too. All i’ve seen so far was long months ago, and in ref to the oil spot gyrations of that summer, a tiny release of a story that the FBI is admitting that the mkt was in fact manipulated, and by ‘dark pools operating out of London and Dubai’.
I just wonder, what with some 4 or 5 trillion in ‘hot money’ –that is, recently invested but now waiting in mm funds for some reason to re-enter the mkts, why the huge issue of uncertainty about what and who happened and did what –an uncertainty helping (along with Obama) to keep that cash on the sidelines –is being allowed to persist?
Somethin’ ain’t right. Including that ”hoax” or ”not hoax” viseo Taibbi broke. If it’s a fake –who did it –and why? Crickets on all that –so far –
Interesting theories, Terrasita… You are spot on with the rapist mentality of Islam. Immediately after 9/11 I was struck and perplexed by the way every Muslim (male or female) who appeared on TV had the audacity to blame us for 9/11 and then claim that he or she or all of Islam was somehow the real victim of the attack. This stunned me until I began thinking of 9/11 as a giant rape by the Muslim world against the despised and uncompliant “infidel” world. Rape is about brutal control. The widespread jubilation of self-satisfied Muslims aross the world after their feef, their further victimization of us by blaming us, and their insane claims that they were the ultimate victims were exactly the same reactions a rapist would have immediately after the deed, and upon being confronted for the deed.
For those curious about the brutal and frightening Arab mindset I recommend reading a shocking series of essays by Shrinkwrapped at his blog entitled “The Arab Mind”. Read them but then take a long shower. The cultural cesspool which spewed Islam forth and which we’re now confronting is devastating, and must be exposed. Couple these readings with a perusal of the Haddiths, or the life of Muhammad and the terroristic, brutal, corrupt, racist, rapist and supremacist natures of Arab tribalism and their sacralized glorification and codifications within Islam are revealed amply.
LOTM
To shoot an even larger hole in your argument is defined in Article II, Section I
of the U. S. Constitution, which was later amended by the 12th Amendment. The Electoral College.
Please fit that into your explanation that we are somehow a democracy. Heck on Election Day we don’t even vote for the President or Vice President.
Tell me, have you ever heard of the contributions that Emmerich de Vattel made to the thinking of our Founding Fathers? That Madison and Hamilton quoted or paraphrased David Hume several times. That George Mason gave a speech right out of james Harrrington’s Oceana Six delegates cited Montesquieu and through him Bolingbroke.
No LOTM it is you who are wrong, not the history or the Framers of our Constitution.
workout time…then, football playoffs…tomorrow is another day.
Yoose folks have a great day.
105. Peter Boston
You make the assumption that redemption is the purpose of having a philosophy.
What if he were searching to become an anarchist?
now i do have to run….later
PS, a ‘video hoax’ as an attack is so crude –Taibbi’s people would not run it for any reason –imho –but to publicize it widely enough to make folks wonder why Penson isn’t taking it to court –and then arriving at –maybe Penson doesn’t want to go thru ‘discovery’. They write formal letters to the SEC on the topic, but do not threaten legal action against the purveyors. isn’t that kind of a miss-mesh?
“go charging around like a bull in a china shop”
He already does it. What is better description of his last charge against banks?
I have not read all the posts as thoroughly as they deserve, so my apologies if this thought has already been mentioned by others.
“…another voice spoke, low and melodious, it’s very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard…Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking…”
“They turned their backs on the doors of Orthanc, and went down…The spell of Saruman was broken: they had seen him come at call, and crawl away dismissed.”
Morton Doodslag:
You are right about the September 11 attacks being a form of gang rape. I would also add that it was a symbolic form of castration fantasy. The principal reason for attacking the World Trade Center was penis envy. And now, Dubai has the tallest building in the world. (The plans for the so-called “Liberty Tower” look like a miniature imitation of the Dubai tower.)
If New Yorkers can’t get it into their heads that we need to rebuild the World Trade Center, perhaps the federal government could build a replica of the twin towers elsewhere in this country. I vote for western Pennsylvania as the site of the “World Trade Center Replica”. I think the replica ought to be a fortress complete with anti-aircraft guns and a ten-mile “no fly zone” built on a new military reservation.
Morton Doodslag:
Interesting theories, Terrasita… You are spot on with the rapist mentality of Islam. Immediately after 9/11 I was struck and perplexed by the way every Muslim (male or female) who appeared on TV had the audacity to blame us for 9/11 and then claim that he or she or all of Islam was somehow the real victim of the attack.
This same dynamic occurs with real rapes. The rapist goes, “Well judge, she was wearing a little leather miniskirt and fishnet tights like a slut, what’dja except me to do?” And of course liberals only protect animals, trees, terrorists, and rapists while killing babies and jobs.
The cultural cesspool which spewed Islam forth and which we’re now confronting is devastating, and must be exposed. Couple these readings with a perusal of the Haddiths, or the life of Muhammad and the terroristic, brutal, corrupt, racist, rapist and supremacist natures of Arab tribalism and their sacralized glorification and codifications within Islam are revealed amply.
Humanity is about 250,000 years old, and it has been a long and intricate dance where female sexuality played a central role. Men have always had the option to short-circuit this “dance” by resorting to rape, but this has not proven to be a good tactic, in a Darwinian sense, and we see that is true because in most cultures, historically, it is an aberration, a crime. Those tribes and cultures which became primarily a rape-based culture such as Islam today, cultures which used male force to override the power of the female to select a mate, were crowded out and extinguished, but they were oh-so-slow going and they caused a lot of damage as they went.
“Stand, Men of the West, stand and wait! This is the hour of doom!”
If the US can cage obama, that is, keep him from doing harm, the next problem in world financial markets will be in europe…or japan because, hard as it is to believe –they are more overleveraged than the USA.
The Tightening by the central bank in china has caused the oil markets to start to fall in anticipation of lessening demand from china.
the combination of weaker japanese & european economies relative to the USA will mean that the US dollar rises relative to these countries. further, the weakening chinese economy will weaken the demand for oil at a time when US demand for oil is plummeting — taken together… this means that the price of oil over the next year or two will be cut in half.
Think not?
Anybody who says that the current stock market rally above 10k is a sucker’s rally — also has to aknowledge that the oil price rally to 80@barrel is a sucker’s rally too–and the price of oil is headed to its lows–and for reasons listed above.
That means there will be little inflationary pressure, a stronger dollar and little need for the fed to raise interest rates for the next year and maybe two.
(low oil prices have the same effect as firing workers–they increase productivity–& set the stage for the next rebound)
(Volker raised interest rates to kill demand –in order to kill inflation —back in the early 80’s because inflation was roaring along at 10-20%. What frightens people about the specter of Volker is the prospect of rising interest rates at precisely the wrong time….but that’s not what Volker is about this time round.)
Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas in a new audio message released Sunday threatening more attacks on the United States. ABC News
If this is not enough of a reason to run Eric Holder out of town on a rail then what would be? It has become apparent that the decision to short circuit the interrogation of the Christmas Bomber came from Holder himself.
Does Al Qaeda have a better ally in the USA than Obama’s AG?
LOTM @ 55: Epstein’s description of the great stone face obsessed by control cries out for discussion.
http://easyopinions.blogspot.com/2009/04/richard-epstein-discusses-barack-obama.html
Yes… well, I’ve never sat in a room with BHO, but like several on BC here, I think I know what we have here, and while that Epstein interview is very interesting, I think on the “stone face” issue, he *may* be mistaken, or misleading. When Obama is “on stage”, he considers the stone face a professional mask. Even Obama knows, pretty much (or entirely) consciously, that he’s doing it. It’s not some twisted psychosis, it’s a part he’s playing, and apparently puts off in other situations. He wants to appear like those Soviet era posters, looking up into the future.
His worldview is post-colonial above all – he apparently hates the British because they disrespected his father, and he hates the west with an inchoate fury for the cultural if not actual imperialism they hold over dar al-Islam, the cultural icons of which he as an aspiring pseudo-intellectual sees his fellow western sophisticates also disparaging. So, that makes it unanimous, in his mind.
Obama just seems so happy when he can sit back and wave his hand and indulge in a little litcrit academic claptrap, that for me is the key to the rest.
Epstein’s best comments are about Obama distributing wealth we do not have. That is the community organizer, all the way. Creation of wealth, is not his problem, something he does not even imagine he might break. He defers all such matter to Geithner, Summers, and Bernanke, God help us. I repeat again, Obama’s must appalling comments for me, during the campaign, is where he said, repeatedly, that for matters of science, all he has to do is ask for it, and the scientists will do it, just like that. Shazzam!
Alexis @ 115:
I vote for western Pennsylvania as the site of the “World Trade Center Replica”. I think the replica ought to be a fortress complete with anti-aircraft guns and a ten-mile “no fly zone” built on a new military reservation.
Just curious, but what made you think of Western PA?
As a resident of the Pittsburgh area, my first thought at your suggestion was, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
My second thought was, “Okay, but only if us yinzers can write our own ROE.” One Shanksville is enough.
Union legacy voting aside, the people here are pretty good no BS folks. On both football and gun ownership, I’d wager we’d give Texans a run for their money.
PB/118; what mystifies the dickens out of me is why Obama & Holder would stick their necks out like that –i mean, look at the risk/reward –reward of coddling terrorists is electorally nil at best in their home country, and risk of a homeland terror attack that could have been prevented under the Bush admin policy –is HUGE. What gives? This makes no sense.
The stock answer, “ideology” is nonsense –how will the ideology they presumably seek to advance survive a single significant homeland terror attack?
Charles @ 117: Anybody who says that the current stock market rally above 10k is a sucker’s rally — also has to aknowledge that the oil price rally to 80@barrel is a sucker’s rally too–and the price of oil is headed to its lows–and for reasons listed above.
That means there will be little inflationary pressure, a stronger dollar and little need for the fed to raise interest rates for the next year and maybe two.
(low oil prices have the same effect as firing workers–they increase productivity–& set the stage for the next rebound)
Um, … that last is certainly a misstatement, firing workers doesn’t raise productivity in normal circumstances, only if they are standing around idle, does it help.
As to oil prices, I sure dunno. Five years ago, nobody forecast $80/barrel until much later, maybe 2020. Then we had the runup to $150/barrel, and you can still argue about just why that happened. Then it sagged down to under $40/barrel during the 2008 meltdown.
There are of course two factors, demand, and the relative strength of the dollar. Barring a new T. Boone Pickens world of windmills and natural gas, the demand for oil will remain high, I think, even in a very weak economy, and that applies both to the US and China, and the rest of the world, too.
The stock market runup, OTOH, I think has been effected by the feds purchase of financial shares, if not even shadier secret PPP manipulations – which I strongly suspect. That may affect oil prices marginally, maybe $10 or so. It also strengthens the dollar, which is a second influence on oil prices, say a second $10. So, my back of the keyboard guestimation is that oil might fall to $60 or so, but no lower, in any likely scenario. The Dow, needs to fall to 9500 just to find it’s 200ma, and could easily fall to 8500 just on a technical correction after the last year of boost. Those are my numbers, make what you will of them.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$INDU&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p91120908939
“Just as Dorothy and Toto exposed the ordinary man behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz,” the voters in Massachusetts revealed that, in this White House, there is no there there.
It’s all smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, held together with glib talk, Chicago politics and an audacious sense of entitlement.
At the center is a young and talented celebrity whose worldview, we now know, is an incoherent jumble of poses and big-government instincts. His self-aggrandizing ambition exceeds his ability by so much that he is making a mess of everything he touches.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/end_of_cowardly_lyin_mRWfJbYLRlOqRxirNUoCxO#ixzz0dYMil5c0“
We want a filet mignon. Preferably with red wine and a candle and conversation.
Thirty two years ago, I wooed and won my wife using my good looks and charm. Now I remember that on our first date she ordered steak tartare. Thanks for bursting my bubble, Teresita.
MX@97: the subtext of Wretchard’s posts is that the old order – MSM, big banks, Dem power brokers, lobbyists – is increasingly unsustainable
Resource scarcity – “peak oil” – can potentially rearrange the old order, without resorting to revolution – in the streets or the boardrooms.
Peak oil – or any naturally occurring resource – is that which can be economically extracted – and we are there with oil – especially the light sweet crude from the Middle East, which means that the cost of extracting additional oil will increase – deep sea deposits, shales, tar sands, etc.
On the demand side, it is hard to see decreasing demand, but I’m not going to run through all the scenarios (for a small fee I would reconsider ::)). Continued development of Third World countries is assumed as an operating premise.
According to those who have run through the numbers, the (near) future demand-supply pressures will increase shipping costs to the point where it becomes not simply cost effective, but necessary, to build local economies to sustain indigenous populations that can no longer afford the transportation costs of imported goods.
I am not a futurist so I’ll leave it there, but all the speculative talk of forcing or at least nudging institutional decentralization and modularity in the current context of Too Big To Fail as a pivotal component of the Old Order, may get an unanticipated push from the energy sector (won’t matter if Washington is ready or not), which is changing much faster than anyone seems to acknowledge, starting with resource depletion, but soon to be aggravated by Third World industrial demand.
That baby head size is also part of the altruism gene and even our upright walk and flexible hands –because of the big brain, human babies are actually born ”too soon” and have to sort of finish up fetal skull-size develpment in the months after they were born. Since this plants mom as firmly anchored to the newborn as she would have been had not the early-birth evolved down from what (skull-size wise) should’ve been a gestation twice as long, survival depended on the dad having enough attachment to be ready to defend them with his life, but more subtly to be able to carry food back to the mother –meaning, upright walking, and hands that could carry. Folks might think, ”that’s too pat” –but what we see now are only the descendants of those early humans who managed it, pat or not. Those that didn’t manage it lost out in the big brain race and disappeared. maybe we et ‘em (*burp*).
I get up this morning thinking that Obama will probably have some kind of nervous breakdown by the 4th of July – maybe with Michelle filling in for a few days while O gets some R & R and then I stumble into this thread…!! You guys have got him bundled and strapped into a padded room or a suicide or a military coup…woa nelly…America has been here before with incompetent men as presidents (50% of them?)…remember, the founders accounted for this in building the system, too…America has been through worse, lots worse…there will be some bumps but everything will be OK.
122. Josh:
The Iranians are basing this years budget on
$60@barrel.
So I think its safe to say that $60@barrel is
conventional wisdom.
There’s a very important piece of information built into this CW. Its this. Its generally thought that world wide demand will be slackening this year. Why? because economies worldwide will be generally weaker.
How much weaker? If worldwide demand is down a somewhat then +-$60@barrel will be the range and if economies are much weaker the price of oil will be much lower.
My point was aimed at those on the board who think that the stock market will go way down. I’m suggesting that if the stock market goes down–that will mean that the economy is going way down and that oil demand will fall further faster than it is currently falling…and therefor …oil prices will fall much further.
If economies really go into the tank world wide as some on this board argue– then oil prices will really go into the tank –but the effect of lower oil prices is stimulative.
Oil prices are a countervailing influence.
I have always read that higher unemployment resulted in higher productivity because fewer people were called to do the same work. But you could make the case that unemployment just means that fewer people are doing less work so productivity is a wash. Which is true may depend on what part of the down cycle you’re on.
Rex Murphy: Canadian, Newfoundlander, Rhodes scholar, wordmaster par excellence.
“Obama was a chandelier presence in a world of political moles.” (Past tense)
…-
“Rex Murphy: A president in need of a pickup
It was but a single day shy of a perfect year from Barack Obama’s inauguration, when a previously unheralded, not emphatically gifted, Republican candidate, Scott Brown, won the Senatorial election in the state of Massachusetts. The Senate seat in question was not just any seat: It wasn’t so much held, as owned and occupied, stamped with the family coat-of-arms, taken under the political equivalent of copyright protection, by Ted Kennedy. This seat was Democratic in the same way we say water is wet, birds twitter, and reality TV grinds the living nerves.
Yet Scott Brown, a guy who campaigned in a five-year-old pickup truck (GMC Canyon), starting the race 30 points behind the Democratic candidate, stared down campaign jolts from ex-President Clinton, and President Obama, and won Tuesday night by a five-point margin. Truly, the planet has begun to heal, the rising of the seas has begun to slow.
Scott Brown’s win was the real report card on Barack Obama’s one-year presidency. He may have given himself, in an interview with Dame Oprah of Afternoon Fluff, a B+. Voters of Massachusetts were more clear-eyed and rigorous. They went, let us say, with a “gentleman’s D.”
How did this happen? Obama was a chandelier presence in a world of political moles.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/22/rex-murphy-a-president-in-need-of-a-pickup.aspx
I have to laugh when I hear Dems refer to O as a “leader”. A leader doesn’t diminish the people he leads as O does in every speech he gives on foreign soil. A leader does not continue to blame the previous administration for its own lack of progress. A leader does not pass off the management of his agenda to another body of buffoons. A leader doesn’t hire a staff full of hacks to implement critical aspects of the operation he manages.
120 bogie wheel
what made you think of Western PA?
Actually, a WTC memorial in the heart of Yinzerland would make a history-rich trifecta for the Commonwealth– Valley Forge is near Philly, Gettysburg is two hours’ drive west of my hometown, so it’s time western PA got some recognition. We are in another war, after all, no matter what PC terms O cooks up to disguise the fact.
And all this time I thought the president was a last ditch defense against the Congress and the Courts. That the president was supposed to represent all the people not stand in opposition to them. Or to throw his lot completely in with one faction or the other.
Regarding impeachment, it seems to me that any of the following would be an impeachable offense and when gathered together, certainly would make a case for showing the incumbent the door:
1. Accepting illegal overseas campaign contributions.
2. Covering up for and aiding and abetting illegal activities; i.e., DOJ dropping the new Black Panther case.
3. Voter fraud in funding, aiding and abetting ACORN.
4. Giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war; complete with pictures of him bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia. See also no one seems to know who approved the latest terrorist being treated as an American citizen, nor who approved trying KSM in New York City on American soil as an American citizen.
5. Opening the White House to gate-crashers, and then refusing to assist with the subsequent investigation.
6. Theft — choose your topic, whether it’s the government take-over of GM, flying a gazillion fellow Democrats to Copenhagen for the climate change fraud, or using taxpayer money to fly a big hunking airplane over Manhattan to give a joyride to your Democratic contributors.
7. An on-going pattern of preferential treatment and racism, wherein he is consciously and with malice aforethought attempting to redirect the funds of one segment of the population into the pockets of another segment of the population. See also “stupid white cop”.
///
REgarding the comment above about Michelle stepping in to take over for Obama should he become incapacitated, I think that’s absolutely a possibility. It’s been done before (see Woodrow Wilson and his wife Edith). I just think that by the time something like that would have happened, neither of them will have the support needed to continue such a fraud by the Secret Service or the Pentagon. I do *not* think our military will pledge its allegiance to Obama, but will uphold the oaths they took to support the Constitution, and there’s nothing in the Constitution about people with guns swearing fealty to witchey wives with a fondness for cardigan sweaters.
regarding head sizes of babies: human babies don’t have fused skull plates, so the head can elongate as needed to get through the birth channel.
regarding obama: he isn’t a lenin or stalin or hitler, he’s an onanist. my guess is that he will step down “voluntarily” due to a “medical condition” before the end of his first term.
should we lose a city to a terror attack, we wouldn’t have martial law and a decline into dictatorship. the dems and leftists would be held responsible, as the great herd turns on them and drives them from power (and maybe out of the country altogether). it would serve as a huge aide to unblocking the political and cultural paralysis this country is suffering from now. for a start we would take all the oil areas away from the arabs, and push china back into their “pen”.
Some needed cheer for USA:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704509704575018990188917592.html?mod=WSJ_ArtsEnt_LS_Books
(demographics –a trend NOT agin us!)
Josh @ 122 said:
“The stock market runup, OTOH, I think has been effected by the feds purchase of financial shares, if not even shadier secret PPP manipulations – which I strongly suspect. … The Dow, needs to fall to 9500 just to find it’s 200ma, and could easily fall to 8500 just on a technical correction after the last year of boost.”
I agree about the PPT manipulations. I’m betting that the DJIA will drop significantly below 8500, i.e. we’re doing a repeat of the Great Depression. However that bet assumes an efficient market and the PPT breaks that assumption. To repeat Karl Denninger’s familiar rant: Before economic healing can take place, we need to default on the huge bad debt that is out there and allow price discovery to take place. In the process of defaulting on the bad debt, we need to allow the major financial institutions to declare bankruptcy and prosecute CEOs who committed felonies.
Geeze Louise @ 125 said:
“Resource scarcity – “peak oil” – can potentially rearrange the old order, without resorting to revolution – in the streets or the boardrooms.”
Peak Oil is currently driving petroleum and energy pricing. Ultimately it was Peak Oil that put us in our current mess, i.e. the Powers-that-Be saw Peak Oil coming along with the rise of China and shifted out of manufacturing into a Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) economy. That was a major error. Thirty years ago, we should have begun shifting out of fossil fuels into a nuclear energy based economy and negotiated some sort of international minimum wage requirement as a precondition for global trade, i.e. don’t require our unskilled workers to compete against someone in China working at $10/day. Yes, I know this is 20-20 hindsight but morphing into a FIRE economy was economic suicide.
Somewhat OT, I would argue that for most of Humanity’s existence (hunter-gatherer), social hierarchies were “flat” and women were relatively but not absolutely monogamous. Because any man pissed off about mate poaching could stick a spear in people and simply take off with his relatives. The murder rate among Hunter-gatherers is about 4% a year, mostly but not exclusively men. And mostly for that reason.
The explosion in population and evolutionary influence by agricultural societies with far greater resources created complex political resource patronage. There is not much politics among Hunter Gatherers because little is needed, nobody has much of anything. Rome, Athens, China, and Egypt had a lot of politics because there were a lot of resources to distribute.
Among them, women. Women could, and did, “share” powerful men in polygamy, leaving about 80% of all women reproducing and only 40% of men. Again, given the time and “flatness” of hunter-gatherers, this shows how few men reproduced in Agricultural times. Women benefit from polygamy — a fraction of a fabulously wealthy King’s resources spent on a child is better than ALL of a poor man’s.
“Weak” Agricultural societies not needing much resources to grow food practice matriarchy, i.e. women do most all of the work, select the best singer/dancer/warrior to mate with, another for another child, as in West Africa, Chav Britain, or the Black Ghetto. [Substitute Welfare for putting plants in the rich tropical soil.]
Neither of these produce men widely and deeply invested in society. Hence the chaotic, violent nature of the Matriarchies and frequent revolutions of angry young lions in the desert/bush seeking to overturn the Pharoah, Caliph, Caesar, etc.
It was only the unique mixture of Christianity and Western Pagan tribal rough equality that led to monogamy, which is not the usual state of human affairs (women HATE IT, preferring lots of Alpha-dominant men).
Western society is cracking up with the defacto “soft” polygamy and drone status for most men, who are not Alpha (Extreme sports BASE jumping weekend, office professionals — or Masters of the Universe Wall Street types, or addict/guitarists with “an edge” or your Jersey Shore Guido types like “the Situation.”) This is particularly true for younger men who find in their twenties they are invisible.
Muslim society is cracking up wealth spreads to the drone males who lack (due to polygamy) any hope of a “real” wife. Made worse by Polygamist big men marrying and then divorcing many wives (Mohammed bin Laden, Osama’s father did this 18 times). The Big Man’s discarded sex toy is not something even drone men in Muslim places want. Its made worse by available pornography and prostitution.
Thus the desire to kill themselves (and infidels) to gain sex AND love in the afterlife.
Islam was pretty stable in the 1820′s-1940′s. Because Muslims were poor and isolated. They didn’t know how bad they had it.
Neither Obama or Bush are capable of grasping this (though you’d think descendant of polygamous Obama SR. would know this well) much less explaining it to America — we will ALWAYS have Muslims attacking us until we make them so poor for a couple of generations that they don’t even know how bad off they (drone Muslim men lacking Big Shot status and thus, wives and love) really have it.
Even less are they able to explain the chronic under-investment of most men in most women, particularly those of younger men. Who see the roles available to them as drone or hyper-stud.
W “If politics is all he knows and all he is good at then 2010 will be a rough year indeed, not just for Obama, but for everybody.”
Wrong word..here is the right word:
whiskey “Obama can campaign all he wants (and it is ALL he knows).”
Believe it or not, Obama’s politics are being directed by others, both inside and outside of this Republic. Obama was chosen by unknowns (right now) because he had a pretty face, could string words together well and had his personality and soul shaped in a manner that qualified him for being their deadly premeditated tool to bring down America then to merge her into a Global Socialist/Communistic Cabel, partially U.N. inspired and and directed. Then this corrupted America along with the U.N. would not only rule the world but destroy any and all Nations freedoms.
Sound like your average conspiracy theory? Maybe, but I’m betting it is closer to the truth of the matter and even if not, those that see America in trouble will continue to attack and then the results would be even more uncertain. And as slavery is worse than death, then let us fight to the death, because Americans will not give up their freedoms nor their Republic.
W “If my prediction proves substantially true, then I believe 2010 will be another year of waste and paralysis, but this time, with nobody listening to Obama. It will be as dangerously close to being in a vacuum as possible without going into outer space.”
I think I prefer rather than let them continue to spend our money that we don’t have and to meddle and pass bills that we don’t need.
We punish them.
I vote we put them all on unpaid suspension and a fine of 2 thousand hours of REAL community service for each of them in their home states, while we find replacements for them.
JMH ““If Bubba and Shrub could do it, anybody can.” So they voted for a hipster who made them feel good about their own pathetic selves. “I’m cool, I voted for a Black guy.””
I think you nailed it, but don’t forget to include “white guilt”, or maybe you did in using the word pathetic. But the hard left just wanted to continue the take over of America.
And his backers have surrounded Obama with idiots and lackeys that have no experience or training or if they do – it is all bad, wrong and tainted with Marxist policy.
The blind, deaf and loony leading the same.
Tcobb Great, simple and so so correct.
LOTM “The point behind this quaint comparison is that Obama is not acting like an American here but like someone who has been indoctrinated in an alien culture. When faced with a problem he divides it into two parts, threats to the society (including its institutions, traditions, culture and economy) and threats to his own authority. He focuses all his efforts on the latter. His response to economic catastrophe, enemy aggression, and public repudiation is not to correct the threats to the society but to produce more political theater, that is more “activity.””
Most Correct, see my previous remarks and the remarks of others here and elsewhere. We’ve got a real honest echo chamber going on here, but all for the right reasons.
“Someone should have taught young Barry Soetero to tell truth and shame the devil. Now it is to late.”
He was taught the opposite and had no one to tell him different. As many of our children are being taught and have been taught for the last forty years. Much to our shame.
Mongoose “It is like we are stuck in a time-loop, but everything gets more frayed and battered with every new loop.”
Good analogy and as you know the more out of kilter it becomes the more unstable it becomes until it tears itself apart.
zhombre “Nat Hentoff was right on the money about this guy: he’s very possibly the most dangerous and destructive President we’ve ever had.”
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
someone “The system is broken because the ultimate gatekeepers, the people failed. The people shouldn’t be able to be fooled by those other gatekeepers. If they can, then they, the people, are the problem.”
As I have wrote and posted many times:
“We conservatives and others haven’t liked the choices our representatives have been making for about the last fifty years. But being the silent ones we just kept working and hoping that our government would somehow see the light and the errors in their ways. And being gullible we kept voting for those that lied and said they were for conservative ways and measures and a smaller government.
While of course the progressives and closet communists kept eating out bigger and bigger pieces of the federal and state governments and polluting the minds of our children.
So there you have it. Our continuing bad judgment, inattention and mistakes. We have to bear much if not all of the blame. Especially for electing Obama.”
Papa Ray
Yes, I know this is 20-20 hindsight but morphing into a FIRE economy was economic suicide.
Of course, how could it be otherwise than suicide? It only works in the short term if the Chinese want our dollars, but why should they? And darned if they aren’t waking up and asking that same question.
But I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision that we give up all manufacturing, nobody could *really* be that stupid. Could they? Don’t answer that.
Anyway, “FIRE” leaves out other service jobs, Macdonalds, medicine, law, entertainment, government. And, we still have agriculture. Hmm. As long as we have water, California is leaving a lot of good land empty for lack of it.
Whiskey – you should drop into the museum at the LaBrea Tar Pits in downtown Los Angeles. They have dug a skeleton of a woman out of their pits and re-assembled her. Smallish little adult person and they’ve made her up to look like an Indian, but the interesting thing is the large hole that’s been bashed into her skull. I don’t believe the mastadons or saber-tooth tigers went around bashing holes in the skulls of female humans, so I’m thinking murder victim.
Your on-going arguments about current women choosing rich nerdy types or testosterone-poisoned knuckle-draggers doesn’t seem to match up with the reality that life in the caves was just as harsh for women humanoids as it was for men, head-bopping-wise. And, if current existnce in the Middle East is anything to judge by, it was even harder for women, because the boy humanoids always enjoy taking their frustrations out on the girl humanoids when they get back to the cave after a day of fruitlessly trying to reinvent the wheel.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/01/23/magic/#comment-125
I don’t yet buy Peak Oil, but I can accept that the remaining 70% of oil left in the ground is going to be tougher to get out than all that West Texas or Saudi sweet crude. Which for many Peak Oil theorists is more or less the same thing, the real issue being at what point energy prices start to force changes to lifestyles, supply chains, and real economic pain. Or rather, they would insist that Peak Debt and Peak Aging (meaning the point at which developed countries enter a demographic/debt trap that can only be escaped through hyperinflation, a radical slashing of social benefits back to pre New Deal levels, or some combination thereof) are just immediate follow ons to Peak Oil, rather than preceding it.
There is DEFINITELY something to the supply chain argument – namely, I read in BusinessWeek that the cost of sending a shipping container from China to the U.S. (probably through the Port of Long Beach) had TRIPLED due to the oil price run up, from $60 per barrel to $145 (for some reason it was more than just a linear correllation, perhaps because of the multiplier of ship diesel plus truck fuel plus plastic packaging all going up at once). The implications of expensive oil for China’s perceived cheap labor advantage (a comparative advantage I have argued is illusory, especially when one factors in that Indians have an edge in numbers of English speaking workers) and continued ability to claim 10% annual growth with a straight face are obvious.
Peak Oil is a concept that sells itself. You may not believe in Peak Oil now but you probably will five years from now. To some extent I’m agnostic about the global warming nonsense because the whole “carbon thing” goes away after Peak Oil fully clamps onto our collective hind end.
A path to understanding Peak Oil is recognizing that a mining operation almost never ends because the ore body was depleted, e.g. there is still plenty of gold in California and silver in Nevada. What kills a mining operation is the cost of extraction exceeds the value of the ore extracted, e.g. the gold mines in Johannesburg, South Africa became so deep that they had to be abandoned because they were uneconomical.
Really whiskey, you go off the deep end here. Your so called “soft polygamy” ends in just monstrous divorce settlements
Extra-marital affairs do not constitute polygamy–they are considered illicit and immoral and almost always end badly, most often in divorce and broken homes.
Most women will not engage in them, and those who do are often gold diggers and fortune hunters, or profoundly emotionally immature. The vast majority of women will not tolerate, should they have any choice, a polygamous relationship, soft or otherwise, and they most certainly do have a choice in the modern world. And this is true outside of the West as well.
You are here more engaging your imagination than your reason and experience. Yes, celebrities have access to a lot of women–or perhaps “females” would be the better term–but once they get married and have a child they risk career and fortune by continuing down this path. They most certainly are not taking care of the entire female side of the clans of all their lovers, which is a reality that practical polygamy entails.
Do you really believe that throughout most recorded history 60% of the male sex have been excluded from women? Do you have an conclusive, uniform and universal proof for this, particularly outside of Asia?
It would be a hard thing to cover up, particularly after say the second millennium BC.
We certainly see plenty of evidence of monogamy in the middle orders throughout Ancient Egyptian records and burial sites and not much evidence of harems, and, obviously, in the whole of the greco-roman traditions the same applies.
To assume that 40% of the male population supported the entire Female sex is rather a hard pill to swallow. There seems to be no architectural, official, literary or artistic record of these sort of arrangements world wide.
Josh“Obama just seems so happy when he can sit back and wave his hand and indulge in a little litcrit academic claptrap, that for me is the key to the rest.”
One of my group has nerves of steel and a mind that assimilates facts and nuances like a computer aided psychiatrist. He watches every video that Obama has been in or made all the way back to even before he was a Senator and he believes that not only is he a narcissist, a hater of whites, a man who thinks that words should be used not only to deceive and tell the world how great and humble he is but as weapons against all enemies. Of course,as a narcissist anyone who does not adore him and agree with him is immediately classified as an enemy.
He agrees with you about the “stone face” and being a good actor. I’m sure Obama feels like all of this is just necessary to rule the “little people”.
“Yes, I’d seen weakness in other men— Gramps and his disappointments, Lolo and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”
Barack Obama [From the book - Dreams From My Father]
And remember…This is the father who abandoned him!
(Even if Obama didn’t actually write this book, as many believe, you know that he had to sign off on it before it was published.)
Papa Ray
bogie wheel “I’d wager we’d give Texans a run for their money.”
In your dreams
Football in Texas is a fracking RELIGION and if weapons of all sorts, types and calibers were counted we would rival or surpass ANY [e]uropean nation.
Don’t mess with Texas
Papa Ray
—None of them have picked up a rifle and fired in combat against people trying to kill them. —
Provably false. A 10 year veteran (Desert Storm), I went to a tea party bonfire just last week. A valued experience was having a sprited conversations with an 83 year old World War 2 veteran. Trust me, there are veterans at the Tea Party, admirable ones.
Zuckerman got scammed by Madoff. Now he’s getting scammed by Obama. Can’t the elites trust anyone anymore? They are getting nervous, because they expect the little people to get screwed but not themselves. The elites thought Obama was one of the beautiful people. But he’s not. He hates them and is pimping them around, but a lot of them (but not Mort) are going to keep coming back for more.
Fox reports that Zee Roh has appointed David Plouffe, his 2008 campaign manager to a place in the inner circle at the WH in order to win the 2010 mid-terms for the Dems.
In the WaPo, Plouffe gives us some hints of things to come before November.
He says that Americans voted for Democrats in 2006 and 2008 because we wanted change. Then he outlined strategies which look and sound like a repeat of the disaster of Obama year one.
Note that Cap n Tax and Immigration are not on the list!
Peter Boston said…
“If this is not enough of a reason to run Eric Holder out of town on a rail then what would be? It has become apparent that the decision to short circuit the interrogation of the Christmas Bomber came from Holder himself.
Does Al Qaeda have a better ally in the USA than Obama’s AG?”
No.
OTOH, it could be argued that the Manchild President/National Organizer is Number 1.
People WILL die as a direct result of “Mr.” Holder’s actions.
“An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead. ”
Carl Gustav Jung
Obama is a Narcissist, as are many who reach high levels of achievement. His history; absentee father, a self-absorbed mother who essentially rejected him, frequent moves which left little ability to develop deep personal relationships… this certainly is fertile ground for a narcissistic personality type.
He is gifted with a strong intellect and ability to bring others into the circle of admiration around him. That is what he needs to counteract his own emotional pain.
‘I am not worthy of love. I must find some other way.’
Under stress, he tends to retreat to the aloof intellectual persona which we are now familiar with. He also tends (as now) to reach out to find another arena which he can succeed in if the current one fails. He will then (as now) surround himself with those who have verified his own self worth in the past.
Narcissists do not shrink from challenging situations, they pursue them. They are not satisfied with an average domestic life. They need strong forces to counteract an unmet inner need.
The ideal candidate. The worst sort of president. I like operators. “Slick Willie Clinton’ was the best at that. He had little pretense about himself internally. Neither did Bush, nor Reagan. Predictable and manageable from the electorate POV.
I think that painting Obama as an idealist, socialist or otherwise, is incorrect. Ideals do not matter to him. He was led by events and his own awesomness to think that he really was ‘the one’.
The danger part is that a personality like this, if truly rejected, may become unstable.
Spindok
President Obama and his cronies in the White house are political opportunists and not leaders. They have nothing but style and no substance. They are not problem solvers. They are not real leaders.
A real leader analyzes the problem and presents it to the nation to get them to buy into the solution by identifying and participating in it.
Obama and Comrades do nothing but work to consolidate power, and in doing so leave a vacuum, especially with respect to our national security. Our enemies can sense our weakness and are on the move. Since we will not take the offense, we sit here in defensive mode, waiting for the shoe to drop. Witness the Christmas Undie Bomber fiasco. Between the jihadis and the PLA, we are real prepared. An EMP burst on the east and west coasts would bring this country to its knees.
Obama and the Congress have done what bin Laden could only dream of doing—destroy our economy, national defense, and our currency. So now, just who is the real enemy?
Josh “As to oil prices, I sure dunno. Five years ago, nobody forecast $80/barrel until much later, maybe 2020. Then we had the run up to $150/barrel, and you can still argue about just why that happened. Then it sagged down to under $40/barrel during the 2008 meltdown.”
Josh you know what really causes oil price variations. Politics, pure and simple politics and the stupid greedy people that make off hand remarks or policy decisions or talk about those same decisions as if they know what the hell they are talking about. Politicians know this. Well, maybe some don’t but the majority know that words are weapons and can be be used by many. The Kingdom and others sure know it.
In fact those tools that manipulate our money on Wall St. can even have their effects on oil prices. And of course world events both good and bad have their effects.
Yes demand and the dollar (for now, until they go to some other currency) are the normal factors.
I wouldn’t worry about windmills, except that the Chinese are building most of them that we buy and getting new Natural Gas refinerys will be almost as impossible as getting regular petroleum refinerys, at least here in the U.S. But boy not in China. Even if they are not as profitable as they were, China is building at least 15 new petroleum refinerys as we type.
You know when the last refinery in the U.S. was built. I forget but it was some time ago. NO body wants a refinery in their back yard, just like they don’t want a Nuclear Plant in their neighborhood. The eco-terrorists and just plain public ignorance is the reason. That and the democrats because they want to be petroleum independent. They are fools we will have nothing to replace petroleum for fifty years or more.
Their next target is doing away with coal and coal refinerys. The known resource that we have that would last us five hundred years. They don’t like the big holes that are the result of taking coal out of the ground and the emissions in the air.
As far as peak oil and it’s arrival. If you talk to those actually in the business of finding it and getting it out of the ground, almost every one will tell you that there will not be a peak in oil as long as the prices stay where a profit can be made. There is plenty of oil in this old planet. We have actually only been sipping at it for the last 100 years or so.
Heck, in West Texas if the price goes up and stays there they open up the old wells and using modern tech start bringing up thousands of barrels out of wells that had been welded over for years, and that is exactly what they are doing right now.
As anyone knows, America, Canada and Mexico have massive untapped crude reserves. ON LAND. Then you have the huge massive reserves that are just off our coasts. You know like the ones just off Florida’s southern coast that is being stolen right out from under our noses by non American companies and governments. But we can’t have any of that because of our government and the eco-terrorists.
OK..got to go start supper. Beef tips with fresh mushrooms, homemade brown gravy and brown rice. With steamed fresh veggies, giant fresh grapes and brownies that are now in the oven. And milk of course for the kids.
I think I will require a large Russian Tea about now.
Papa Ray
Mongoose: To assume that 40% of the male population supported the entire Female sex is rather a hard pill to swallow. There seems to be no architectural, official, literary or artistic record of these sort of arrangements world wide.
Even today, in the world of Islam, polygamous marriages only constitute 1-3% of all of their marriages (The New Encyclopedia of Islam(2002), AltaMira Press. ISBN 0-7591-0189-2 . p.477). Since this is only a fraction of the incidence of Muslim males who are gay (5-8% going by global norms) and Islam only allows up to four wives (and presumably the average is one or two other wives) the amount of females “taken out of circulation” by Alpha Males is more than balanced by the number of males who aren’t even in the market for females. Whiskey has a thesis of “Sex As Destiny” which ignores basic facts such as this.
I have traveled throughout the Muslim world. Polygamy is quite rare in my experience, particularly outside the Arabian Peninsula. One has to ask, just were do these other 60% of males who are “excluded” come from in the first place?
spindok @ 150: “An inflated consciousness … inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.”
ouch.
but it’s not necessarily a black and white thing. er, y’know what I mean. that is, you can be 67% inflated, but still not totally psycho-ceramic. people are complex. Obambus has a little bit of objectivity and self-deprecating humor, except I’m sure he thinks it contraindicated in his present circumstances, and I suppose he’s right.
A thread @ Belmont Club always provides an interesting, informative and provocative experience. Thank you Richard Fernandez, and ladies and gentlemen, glad I could contribute in some way. Usually I feel outclassed.
via: The Corner [Jack Fowler]
Boy oh boy does New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin ever nail it today. From “End of O’s Cowardly Lyin’”:
We the people of the United States owe Scott Brown’s supporters a huge debt of gratitude. They didn’t merely elect a senator. They ripped the façade off the Obama presidency.
[begin block quote:
Just as Dorothy and Toto exposed the ordinary man behind the curtain in "The Wizard of Oz," the voters in Massachusetts revealed that, in this White House, there is no there there.
It's all smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, held together with glib talk, Chicago politics and an audacious sense of entitlement.
At the center is a young and talented celebrity whose worldview, we now know, is an incoherent jumble of poses and big-government instincts. His self-aggrandizing ambition exceeds his ability by so much that he is making a mess of everything he touches.
He never advances a practical idea. Every proposal overreaches and comes wrapped in ideology and a claim of moral superiority. He doesn't listen to anybody who doesn't agree with him.
End block quote]
I feel that the above cannot be an ad hominem attack, if only for the truth (of it) on it’s face.
CS
There is another race of interest in Illinois. Mark Kirk vs. Patrick Hughes. I saw the story at the Free Republic.
Mao purges AGW. It’s O’s fault.
…-
“India, China refuse to sign Copenhagen, say Dem defeat in Mass. has weakened AGW push
The Hindu ^ | January 24, 2010 | nwrep
The Indian and Chinese governments have had a rethink on signing the Copenhagen Accord, officials said on Saturday, and the UN has also indefinitely postponed its Jan 31 deadline for countries to accede to the document.
An Indian official said that though the government had been thinking of signing the accord because it “did not have any legal teeth and would be good diplomatically”; it felt irked because of repeated messages from both UN officials and developed countries to accede to it.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon seeking a number of clarifications on the implications of the accord that India — with five other countries — had negotiated in the last moments of the Copenhagen climate summit in December, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“That letter, and the defeat of the Democrats in the Massachusetts bypoll, has forced the UN to postpone the deadline indefinitely,” an official said. “With the Democrats losing in one of their strongholds, the chances of the climate bill going through the US senate have receded dramatically.
“So if the US is not going to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent, which was a very weak target anyway, why should we make any commitment even if it does not have any legal teeth?” the official said.
China also appears in no mood to sign the accord.
“With the deadline postponed, we are not going to sign now,” said a Chinese official now here to take part in the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) meeting to chalk out a climate strategy.
The meeting of the four environment ministers Sunday is likely to end with the announcement of a fund they will set up to help other developing countries cope with the effects of climate change, said an official of the environment ministry.
Only four countries — Australia, Canada, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives — have signed the Copenhagen Accord so far, though Brazil, South Africa and South Korea have also indicated their willingness to do so.
Though Australia and Canada have signed, they have not indicated the greenhouse gas emission reductions they are committing under the accord — something developed countries are supposed to do.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2436391/posts
For those discussing the sexual ratios, polygamy, rape, etc. in the Islamic world — studying the statistics in the CIA factbook can be fascinating — especially those dealing with sex ratios, mortality rates by sex, etc. in Islamic countries (and China/India too, of course, but that’s a different discussion).
Anyway, I’ve searched high and low on the internet for insights into the fascinating and often very skewed stats across Islam which can be found at CIA factbook, but to little avail.
T Boone Pickens is back on TV saying the US needs to get off dependence on foreign oil–and the way to do that is to go to gas. US natural gas reserves have ballooned in the last 24 months from about a 15 year supply to a 100 plus year supply. The Indians switched their trucks over to gas some years back to cut their demand for foreign oil way back. Something like that is what Pickens is arguing for I think.
Looks like a good idea to me.
I see that Obama is now pushing this plan sponsored by Senator Conrad that calls for yet another blue-ribbon commission to look at this deficit problem and then reccommend solutions. What do you call this but politics as usual once again? Worse, nothing is supposed to happen with it until after November, conveniently, after the elections.
This is another attempt at Gramm-Rudman, a law described as, “An awful idea whose time has come” by no less than Phil Gramm himself? These kinds of things, Gramm-Rudman, the BRAC’s, etc, are all efforts to punt hard decisions on spending to somebody politicians can blame as they try to have their cake and eat it, too. So much for “hope and change”, whatever that was, this is the same old Potomac Two-Step, only with the highest stakes ever. The US government has got to float trillions in coupons this year. Trillions. This year.
Leadership is required here, but as was noted above, that’s hardly Obama’s strong suit. Obama himself described his role as the man in the background serving “to provide the vision for change” as he put it. He was to provide the vision, doling out little parcels of change like it was a commodity, and everything was going to fall into place.
Another thing that’s stirring up some consideration among the financial set at the Fed and the Treasury is the CoCo bond. What’s that, exactly? Well it’s a complex financial instrument that serves as a bond until bad things happen then it converts over to an equity, thanks to some accounting magic. Do you think that, after the parade of horrorshows resulting from the wonderful world of mortgage-backed derivatives, that what the world needs is another complex financial product that’s dimly understood?
If so, you just might not be hope and change material, sad to say.
Das “America has been here before with incompetent men as presidents (50% of them?)…remember, the founders accounted for this in building the system, too…America has been through worse, lots worse…there will be some bumps but everything will be OK.”
Yep, that is what I told my soon to be wife when we discovered the condom had broke. It cost me thirteen years of misery (but I did get two great kids out of the deal) and over a hundred thousand dollars in property and funds when her lawyer finalized the deal.
But yea, in the end everything was OK. For Her.
Charles “But you could make the case that unemployment just means that fewer people are doing less work so productivity is a wash. Which is true may depend on what part of the down cycle you’re on.”
Sorry but that sounds like…well it sounds not true. Less people working in most companys means more time to complete a job or project. So productivity and customer satisfaction goes in the toilet. Then of course in our nanny state we have to still pay those that are not working but at home watching tv or out breaking into somebody’s house. That kinda negates the positives in a sucking manner.
ma Thank you so much for the link to Rex Murphy and his excellent post.
A few snippets if you please:
“Let us begin with the observation that some cars should just stay in the showroom, some horses should stay in the barn. A campaign can flourish on style and image; the presidency insists on substance. The pitch is not the product, the trailer is (sometimes) anything but the movie.”
One more:
“Which brings us to hubris. Nice to walk through a cloud of incense, but don’t look for a daily fix. Obama’s celebrated cool has translated for many into its flipside: extravagantly unearned self-assurance. With a persona that oscillates between professor and hipster, he patronizes — he’s either smarter or cooler than anyone else in the room, and, worse, looks very pleased to be both.”
Like he suggested: “He should take a ride in that pickup”
But of course he never, ever could. It would not, could not even be considered.
Obama will end his life like many others that flashed upon the world stage wondering what the hell happened and who can he blame. His handlers, his advisors, anybody?
HIS SELF will never occur to him.
133 NahnCee
Thank you, you left a couple out but otherwise did great in my ol’ opinion.
Yea, their pushing of racism is a crime in of itself. Also, fashion crimes must count.
Spindok I think that painting Obama as an idealist, socialist or otherwise, is incorrect. Ideals do not matter to him. He was led by events and his own awesomeness to think that he really was ‘the one’.
The danger part is that a personality like this, if truly rejected, may become unstable.
I think that you either don’t believe that his path and actions are also guided by others [backers] and [advisors] or that he has control over them. I think that the first is true and the second is not.
But your are right that if a narcissist is rejected, they become unstable… and I will add… dangerous.
zhombre “A thread @ Belmont Club always provides an interesting, informative and provocative experience. Thank you Richard Fernandez, and ladies and gentlemen, glad I could contribute in some way. Usually I feel outclassed.”
Your participation is also appreciated, but would add that everyone has something to contribute, if for nothing other than what most of my posts do.
To give everyone a shocking look at an ol’ Texican’s perspective and his ignorance. But I think it has value if only to see… what once was, can be so again.
So as long as Richard will put up with my ramblings I will be here.
OH…Meanwhile in Texas:
A Day at the Gun Range with Governor Rick Perry
Everyone in my group is much older and I am going to say better shots with both handguns and long guns. We enjoy our days at the ranges but they are all outside. We shoot no matter what the weather is and practice what we preach. But glad to see that the Gov. shoots even if it is with a woman’s pistol.
Papa Ray
“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once. “
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
Saw on tv two nights ago a reporter checking in on the anthropologists in Peru perusing Nasca ceremonial centers.
Turns out the ceremonial centers were right next to the Nasca lines. Giant airports and hummingbirds you can only see in their entirety from the air. These things have had people speculating since airplanes were invented.
Some answers are coming out.
Scientists studied the ground underneath the lines and found that the ground was severely compacted compared to the ground around them. They also found that scattered on the pottery around the area were pictures of a kind of cactus known locally as a Peruvian version of peyote. As well, they found oyster shells from 100 miles away on the coast scattered all over. Then they found that the buildings in the area were not meant for permanent habitation –much as was the case of the buildings around Stonehenge. Their conclusion was that the Nasca lines were meant for large processions of the populace–who would come in from hundreds of miles away–some of whom were quite stoned out of their minds –hmm hmm.
This evening I saw a program about some amazonian indians–who were in contact with modern civilization but kept to their old ways. their shaman would take some hallucinogenic culled from a local plant and skim off the bad vibes from his tribesmen.
What to think? Well if a leader can’t move the people — then he has to at least make it look like the landscape is changing. And if you wish to change the world then the first thing you
must change is yourself.
So why do you think they call it dope?
(Because there is a true spirit, the body creates its own interesting drugs, reality properly apprehended in ones right mind –is just amazing, the world is moving much too fast for real players to stand on ceremony.God is in his heaven and he is with us.)
Nahncee — Why YES women and children are often the target of murder in hunter-gatherer tribes. Generally NOT of the same tribe, but of different tribes. [Think about it -- relatives, etc. don't like folks who kill their kin and tend to do something about it. There is no law.] This is borne out by those observing primitive, stone age tribes. Violence across tribal boundaries is intense and comes to visit women and children too. Which is not surprising — each tribe does its best to wipe the other out.
Habu,
This really is a debate over semantics rather than content. On occasion I have made the same point that you do. The problem is that doing so works up to a point as a debating tactic but it elides a basic principle we should focus on.
The sovereignty of the people, after that of God, is the basis of the polity in a Lockean system. The people express their sovereignty through the legislature. In the original American Constitution that was done through the House of Representatives biannually and in state legislatures elected annually. No district exceeded the size of the ideal polis, about 60,000. With only a fraction qualified to vote politicians were closely tied to their communities. That made us a Democracy.
The Founders were schooled in the schema laid out in Aristotle’s Politics and Polybius’ Histories. They did not want a pure Democracy because they were very aware that Aristotle said that was a degenerate case of Constitutional Rule and even if your basic principles were less Aristocratic then as Polybius described Democracy tends to degenerate into Ochlocracy or Mob Rule. They were rejecting Monarchy, which posses the virtues of decisiveness and unity or freedom from faction. The vice it is associated with is a tendency to arbitrary rule that degenerates into Tyranny.
The traditional 3rd way between Monarchy, in which according to Hobbes sovereignty is conferred down by God to an anointed ruler, and Democracy, based on sovereignty conferred on humanity by God in biblical times, was the Republic. The American system is a functioning Republic.
However the classical ideal of the Republic in Rome failed and lapsed back into a Monarchy. Why did that happen? The problem is that every Republic before America was an Aristocracy based on the sovereignty of a narrow and artificial elite. In Aristotle’s schema they degenerated into Oligarchy. The virtues of an Aristocracy are the leisure, wisdom and loyalty of the rulers. The vices of an Oligarchy are corruption, intrigue and the fundamental illegitimacy of the system in a theological sense. God may anoint a king or may have anointed all Believers but he never anointed the Lords. The most aristocratic elements in society are the judges and the Officers of the State. In Madison’s Constitution the most overtly aristocratic component was the Senate but the Senators were themselves selected by the most Democratic element in the system, the state legislatures. Officers, civil and military and the members of the Judiciary, are all subject to confirmation by the Senate. Similarly the component closest to Monarchy in the Executive branch was chosen by Electors chosen by those same most democratic bodies, the State legislatures.
The genius of Madison and his peers was that they crafted a system in which the virtues of all 3 archetypes are brought together in a balance that checks the vices and tendency to degenerate that each are prone to. The legitimacy of all elements are rooted in popular sovereignty. That was the great innovation that distinguished the American system from that of the idealized but failed Roman Republic. The Executive is a limited Monarch based on the authority of Republican Electors and with officers confirmed by the Republican Aristocracy of the Senate, as are all members of the Judiciary. The authority of the Senators and Electors themselves rested on the legitimacy of the State legislatures who derived their authority directly from the Sovereign people. That is why we are a Democracy embedding a Constitutional Republic, with a controlled Monarchial element. Each is nested within the legitimacy of the element that precedes it.
The Electoral College is a subject that I have seized upon with particular enthusiasm. Mark Steyn has said he gets to be a Demography bore and everyone else gets to choose their own peculiarity. Regular visitors to the Club have heard my suggestions as to how to restore the original intent of the Founders on this topic in boring detail.
My hope that this possibly entertaining digression will not become another occasion for a sterile dispute between people who agree about more important matters.
To be blogged under the title “Locke’s Russian Dolls.”
SAINTS beat VIKINGS!
(jeez –sounds like the Holy Roman Empire)
bogie wheel & PA Cat:
I originally thought the World Trade Center Replica should be built in western Pennsylvania because strip mined coalfields would be available at a cheap price. If the area were turned into a flat plain for a national monument, the coal companies would save a bundle on reclamation costs. This would also limit the extent to which any government would exercise eminent domain.
On the other hand, the World Trade Center Replica could replace that awful “crescent of embrace” with something far more appropriate. Think about the implications. Since the National Park Service already owns the land, we can replace that awful “broken circle” with a better message. We can kill two birds with one stone.
I suspect that the National Park Service may be willing to give up jurisdiction over the Flight 93 Memorial to the Defense Department if it could acquire territory elsewhere. For example, if the territorial extent of the White Sands National Monument could be expanded, I think the National Park Service would be happy. (And yes, making this happen will likely require bureaucratic horse trading between Interior and Defense.)
The Replica would need to serve a purpose and not act as a mere museum. The idea of building the full scale Replica as a military fortress bristling with weaponry appeals to me.
Hmm…. comments seem to go into the aether….
[edit] Except the one where I whine about it!
LOTM #166:
THAT was a fantastic expositon on a Republic-if-we-can-keep-it.
With a persona that oscillates between professor and hipster, he patronizes — he’s either smarter or cooler than anyone else in the room, and, worse, looks very pleased to be both.
Mr. Genius President needs TOTUS and a podium displaying his official seal to talk to a group of sixth-graders. Photo at the link– http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/01/pitiful-obama-needs-teleprompter-to.html
Powerline: Should he (Bernanke) stay or should he go?
Looks like the announced opposition to Bernanke is symbolic, votes are there for his reconfirmation.
IMHO, the strongest argument for keeping him is that he’s not a complete idiot, and Obama could easily appoint someone worse.
However, my strongest argument for dumping him is that I would vote to dump anybody in that position at this point in time, as a healthy political heuristic for bad times.
Cowboy,
Obama must enjoy sitting back and watching Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner and Larry Summers do the work while he does the presentation. While the archetype redeemed himself by serving as a shield for those he came to as an exploiter in BHO’s case he achieves only the weakening of those forces that would rescue the victims of totalitarianism.
Itzhak Stern: Let me understand. They put up all the money. I do all
the work. What, if you don’t mind my asking, would you do?
Oskar Schindler: I’d make sure it’s known the company’s in business.
I’d see that it had a certain panache. That’s what I’m good at.
Not the work, not the work… the presentation.
To be blogged under the title “The anti-Schindler.”
“Comrades!
The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because ‘the last decisive battle’ with the kulaks is now underway everywhere. An example must be demonstrated.
* 1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers.
* 2. Publish their names.
* 3. Seize all their grain from them.
* 4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday’s telegram.
* Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometers around, the people might see, tremble, know, shout: “They are strangling, and will strangle to death, the bloodsucking kulaks”.
Telegraph receipt and implementation.
Yours, V. Lenin.
PS: Find some truly hard people.”
Mr. X (94): Oh very definitely, whiskey’s theories have some trace of validity. The problem is that he seems to think that they Explain Everything.
Bev/174; nice reminder –let me add some more to what it appears Axleprod and Roam Ephemeral might be reading not as a warning but as a how-to manual:
“War Communism”, the Red Terror, and Lenin’s Famine
Almost immediately after they seized power, Lenin’s Bolsheviks inaugurated an endless stream of economic decrees and policies. These proved to be disastrous, resulting in a horrific famine, depopulation of the cities, and an enormous decline in living standards. So unpopular were these policies that after they were finally altered in mid 1921, Lenin tried to re-write their history. It was at this point that the Bolsheviks economic policies from 1918-1921 were dubbed “War Communism,” and declared to have been a temporary expedient forced upon Lenin’s government by wartime conditions. In fact, so-called “War Communism” began before serious fighting erupted, and continued after the Whites had been decisively defeated. It was not a wartime expedient; it was the policy that Lenin wanted to pursue in war or peace. As Pipes explains, “War Communism as a whole was not a ‘temporary measure’ but an ambitious and as it turned out premature attempt to introduce full-blown communism.” (The Russian Revolution) As noted earlier, Lenin’s ideas on desirable economic policy were vague at best. So upon taking power, he looked around the world for inspiration; what caught his eye was the “War Socialism” of the German Kaiser.
The primary features of War Communism were:
-Uncontrolled inflationary printing press finance, ultimately leading to hyperinflation and nationwide reversion to barter
-Near universal nationalization of manufacturing; widespread nationalization of retailing
-Stringent price controls upon and forced requisitioning of agricultural products; state monopoly on grain purchases
-Forced labor for civilians as well as the military
The package fit together quite logically. The tax system had broken down, so the Bolsheviks just turned on the Czar’s printing pressing to fund their activities. At the same time, the prices of most goods were fixed, so as the money supply increased without limit, the legal prices became less and less realistic. Rationing cards replaced rubles as the means of acquiring goods. But if money no longer bought goods, then what was the point of working? Hence, the imposition of compulsory labor.
The Bolsheviks’ forced labor policies gave new life to the concept of irony. The men who had proclaimed themselves liberators of the workers and denounced the exploitation of labor suddenly discovered the joys of serfdom.
(close quote)
The Worker’s Paradise alright. bad as it always is, the ambitious ones note the long careers, the dying natural deaths while still supreme leader, of the Lenins, Stalins, Maos, Castros, and think, “hey, this stuff looks pretty good –at the top!”
Re Baby head size and pelvic floor circumference…
It seems that may have something to do with a curious fact. The late Neanderthal, as well as Cromagnon (including late Strandlopers) had larger heads than we have. An adult average was 1600 ccm, while we have 1450 ccm (there is some variability, smaller skulls at 1100 ccm and large skulls at 2100 ccm boundary, the later which are a result of a caesarian as Teresita hints).
It may be possible that Neanderthal demise is related to the increase in skull size, not by HSS hunting them out of existence. In comparison of physique, Neanderthals would be terminators–their bones were twice as thick and apparently they had a larger muscular mass. A heartfelt hug by a Neanderthal would result in a permanently altered thorax of the recipient HSS member.
As Cromagnon is concerned, at about 12kya boundary (the beginning of the current interglacial) we find only the small skulls. It is possible that the same factor was responsible as with HSN. We had a greater variability and greater numbers–the larger skulls simply were not viable.
Not always the case, though. somewhere around 70kya, we were on the brink of extinction, with some 2000 individuals representing our entire species (Y chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA bottleneck both indicate that same period. Another happened at 12kya, with an estimated figure of 15,000 individuals, and another at 3.5kya with an estimated figure of 400,000).
One way out of the skull size conundrum would be to become coneheads. Judging from Ica (Peru) skulls displayed in the local museum, that avenue has been also tried. The skulls are explained as a result of a head-boarding… the problem is that the skulls are larger than normal, at least based on some reconstructions that looked at the geometry and projected possible cranial capacity–somewhere about 1750 ccm and larger. So, that apparently did not work either.
If we ever started establishing space based colonies (low gravity), our heads would start to expand and bodies become frailish; possibly our eyeballs would enlarge too, because the wider cranium may accommodate them as an adaptation to lower light conditions. We would look much like these, ahm… grays.
Mongo, yea it looks good from the top. Somehow, that’s where liberals eventually see themselves. But there can’t be that many nomenclatura members, all powerful and with unlimited resources. The rest, pretending to be working (whether in jobs or in forced labor conditions) can support only a limited number. So the rest that wouldn’t make it to the top would become a low level apparatchiks (LLA), with a 1.5 to 2 times better living standard than the rest. Not that bad (relatively), but when something goes wrong, these LLAs would be used as a scapegoat pool.
Lifeofthemind @ 166 said:
“The genius of Madison and his peers was that they crafted a system in which the virtues of all 3 archetypes are brought together in a balance that checks the vices and tendency to degenerate that each are prone to.”
Actually Madison, et al lifted that political concept straight from the historical writings of Polybius. Polybius incorrectly perceived that system as how the Roman Republic worked but in reality it was an ideal the Roman Republic aspired for but never actually achieved.
Perhaps the best memorial for the dead of 9/11 (and the countless millions of dead in the Millennium War) would be one in another country altogether. A quarter-mile-deep, glass-lined hole in the West of Saudi Arabia. For building this monument, choose a time when the wind is WSW.
Let’s just hope 177. twobyfour never gets elected to the Senate!
I’d hate to see the look on his daughter’s faces when he starts advertising their pelvic floor dimensions.
Apropos of the dissipation of Teh Won’s magic: Gerald Warner’s editorial in the Telegraph just a year ago is worth rereading:
This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence – la trahison des clercs – in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right. . . .
The burnt child, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not fear the fire. After the Blair experience there is no excuse for anybody in Britain falling for Obama. Yet today, in this country, even some of those who remained sane during the emotional spasm of the Diana aberration are pumping the air for Princess Barack. At a time of gross economic and geopolitical instability throughout the Western world, this is beyond irresponsibility.
To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes booming through the public address system on Washington’s National Mall can only excite scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing ‘those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents’ comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents. . . .
It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions. Yet Western – and British – commentators are cocooned in a warm comfort zone of infatuation with America’s answer to Neil Kinnock. We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.
It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe.
These are frank, even ungracious, words: they have the one merit that, unlike almost everything else written today about Obama, they will not require to be eaten in the future.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/8157367/Barack_Obama_inauguration_this_Emperor_has_no_clothes_it_will_all_end_in_tears/
about the muslims polygamy, you forget that men can easily repudiate their wives, it’s why the appearences show mostly “monogamy”, they have a 2nd or 3rd marriage on, leaving the former spouses without ressources. This is one of the nowadays maghrebin women demands, how to get some compensations once they are repudiated
Since I am at the bottom of the thread I will get to the point. Wretchard, JMH, and other poster who speculate the Big Zero will just attack, deflect, and self-congratulate are correct. The SOTU speech will be empty for excuses and barbs.
I do find my self in agreement with 56/whiskey that the law can be quite flexible and Congress can define High Crimes and Misdemeanors in whatever way it wants.
28/GBritian’s case about impeachment is close but actual legal impeachment of the Big Zero is not necessary – just enough heat so that he leaves the kitchen.
For example, if the Judicially turns against him and finds something so repugnant that the odds favor legal impeachment the Big Zero will exit stage left get back to where he came – Chicago.
If the Big Zero is impeached there will be a small power vacuum and Joe Biden will take the his place. This may be very efficacious for the country because the radical dems will have been slapped down and more moderate dems will fill the vacuum. I think it is high time that a high profile dem get the boot – and hard.
These radical dems have been using swing by the heels racial/populist tactics that stink to high heaven. Joe Biden, in all his soporific blundering glory, will be guided by more moderate dems – unlike the hideously disgusting race based divide tactics that the Big zero utilizes.
I think impeachment would be very health for this country. In the end the rabid Chicago style hatchet men will fade into the mist. The noxious stench of race baiting will be aired out and we will be stronger and better off.
166. Lifeofthemind
Nice evasion. Your previous line of “sorry habu , etc and then a pitiful presentation of your position was quite startling and a bit to arrogant. At that point you did not equivocate. Now comes the cascade of this and that.
LOTM, you’re wrong.
Instead of reading all you wrote I would be more interested in the succinct answers to the questions I put forth.
Democracy mentioned anywhere in our Constitution?
Does the word appear in the Declaration of Independence?
Was it the Founder’s intent in any way, shape, or form to have a democracy?
How many oaths have you sworn fealty to a democracy in your life?
LOTM, I have no idea what your major was in college but I have two degrees in Political Science with a concentration on ancient and medieval political theory. I know a few things about the Constitution and how it came about…you were wrong.
I will be skeet, pistol and rifle shooting for most of the day.
Have a nice day.
L/184; and behind Biden, Madame Bug-Eyes
Now that the Supremes have slapped down campaign finance restrictions by resorting to the almost unheard of technique of reading the Constitution they can move on to other subjects dear to the heart of the Left. Obama has gone over the top in attempting to set up a Federal grade school curriculum and fund local schools that submit to his authority directly from Washington. Apparently this is a deliberate effort to circumvent the authority of the State of Texas. Fortunately he made a ridiculous hash of the event by setting up his teleprompters in an elementary school classroom.
As the Carnivorous Conservative asks, “Is This Obama’s Pet Goat Moment?”
All of this is completely unconstitutional. Fifty years ago Richard Nixon in a debate with John Kennedy said that while the Federal government could help in school construction it should never pay teachers salaries lest it then decide what those teachers should teach. He was ridiculed for his 5 o’clock shadow and lost the election. Listen to the Kennedy Nixon debate. Even better listen to the whole debate. At 8:00 on of this clip he discusses education.
Blogged under the title “Nixon Was Right.”
Eggplant,
Thought I agreed with your point. Madison et al were aware of the flaw and sought to correct it.
Habu,
Your resort to argument from authority and irrelevant focus on terminology rather than a concept is an unworthy debating tactic. I have defined my terms and demonstrated how the Constitution supports my position. I will have no further discussion with you on this subject. Why you persist in picking fights with people over issues that are not worth arguing over instead of seking to see how both are working to a common purpose is disturbing. Please stop personalizing these issues. If others wish to offer criticism that applies to the issue under discussion, the essential nature of Democracy and a Republic and how those concepts apply to America, then I welcome their assistance.
WaPo:
Myopic, Irresponsible and “potentially” dangerous.
Did the Obama administration blow an opportunity in the Flight 253 case?
UMAR FAROUK Abdulmutallab was nabbed in Detroit on board Northwest Flight 253 after trying unsuccessfully to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear. The Obama administration had three options:
It could charge him in federal court.
It could detain him as an enemy belligerent.
Or it could hold him for prolonged questioning and later indict him, ensuring that nothing Mr. Abdulmutallab said during questioning was used against him in court.
It is now clear that the administration did not give serious thought to anything but Door No. 1. This was myopic, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
Well duh!
Instant Interrogation Rules the Day.
50 minutes or less will do.
“The administration claims Mr. Abdulmutallab provided valuable information — and probably exhausted his knowledge of al-Qaeda operations — before he clammed up. This was immediately after he was read his Miranda rights and provided with a court-appointed lawyer.
The truth is, we may never know whether the administration made the right call or whether it squandered a valuable opportunity. ”
Yes we can!
Habu: Democracy mentioned anywhere in our Constitution? Does the word appear in the Declaration of Independence? Was it the Founder’s intent in any way, shape, or form to have a democracy?
The Founder’s intent was that only adult white male property owners could vote; enslaved Africans, free black people and women were not extended the franchise. Senators were not directly elected by the people like Congressmen were. We got better. So much for your appeal to the Old School, Habu.
The Founders, after much discussion, adopted a mongrel representative system.
The Chief Executive was elected by direct vote. (Electoral College notwithstanding).
The House of Representatives was elected by direct vote and the number of members was determined by local population.
The Senate was selected by state legislatures and each state was equally represented.
The Constitution says absolutley nothing about enfranchising only white property owners, etc.
Article 1. Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
I think that the report card on the Amendment that called for direct election of Senators is still an open subject. I can understand the Post Civil War thinking that lead to the Amendment but am much less sure about the wisdom of making a Senate seat a popularity contest in a two party system that values party allegience at the expense of local interests.
An article for Whiskey
“Alpha Wives: Why are more American men marrying women who make more money than they do?” Jhttp://bit.ly/8WQpcU
uh, may-be you have a chance to play the alpha man at home
Doug @ 190: The Obama administration had three options:
4. Question him on the spot, and send him to Allah immediately as an enemy spy and saboteur.
Perhaps not the best option for various reasons, but certainly an option nonetheless.
PA Cat @ 182: This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria …
Yes, the irrationality of the Obamatons, most especially among those who believe themselves so rational.
Peter Boston @ 192: Yes, I agree on the Senatorial selection. And of course the support of slavery was the great compromise to bring in the south, the Founders certainly did not consider it a feature. As to the franchise for women, the original view was the government could be run by just property owners, you needed a broadly representative electorate, but not necessarily universal, as that was seen to have its own problems. Given today’s actual voting patterns, where 30% or more choose not to vote, perhaps this somewhat selective granting of the franchise makes some sense after all. Also given the limited educational and other sociological patterns of women’s life at the time.
OK…lets act like American adults here. The definition of America’s Constitution or the actual intent of her founders is not something that WE need nit pick and argue about.
Let us ALL just say it is the greatest most valued document in the world. Most especially to American Citizens.
Let us ALL pledge to Preserve it.
Let us ALL put our lives and treasure on the line to Protect it.
The United States of America can be saved. It will be saved.
Any person that does not believe that or works against the above is an enemy of America and it’s Citizens and will be defeated.
Believe it. Pledge it. Act on it.
Papa Ray
The definition of America’s Constitution or the actual intent of her founders is not something that WE need nit pick and argue about.
I disagree. The further we move from the Constitution in thought and time the greater the need for more and more people to learn what it actually says.
Peter Boston: @ 196: Just want to agree with you, again. Read the Federalist Papers! These are some of the most amazing political documents ever written! No, that’s too modest, they are The Most Amazing Political Documents Ever Written! The scholarship, the wisdom, the rationality, is certainly unmatched today. And, that’s why we’ve made it, as far as we have.
And, no offense, Papa Ray, but if I’m going to Believe it, and Pledge it, and Act on it, I am certainly going to Read It First!
Now, must everybody do so? No, I suppose not. But it’s best if everyone is given some catechism, some liturgy, of the American story. Especially to prevent crazy leftoids from hijacking “the narrative” among those who have not yet heard the facts. And, it’s a great story!
(hey, somebody should, for example, acquaint Obama with some of it)
I really regret the very sketchy history as it was taught in my school days. Just facts, dates, and who cares. It was twenty-plus years later before I went back and read up enough on my own, to even begin to appreciate it.
Well, I would hope that all here have read and studied it.
I would also hope that the nit picking I have seen here in this thread (and other threads) would come to an end.
Your idea of what it says is for you to believe and if you expound on it and argue it that is OK.
To an extent. But not the extent I have seen here.
Don’t worry about those that come here. Worry about others that are liberal idiots.
If you want to argue or educate those people go to their websites, their forums.
They are the one’s you need to be arguing with.
I invade and argue with them all the time. I’ve been hounding and trying to get their brains to work for years.
How many of you have gone behind enemies lines and fought with them with your words, ideas, and our Founder’s words?
Do it, if you want to have an impact go to those that have lost understanding of what the United States was and was meant to be. Educate them.
Papa Ray
I disagree again. Lots of people read BC and never leave a comment.
I also think it unwise to assume that most people have read the Constitution, or that many who may have referenced it have taken the time to consider the reasoning behind the language.
Also, Teresita’s comment about disenfranchisement was wrong and cannot be left unanswered.
Myself, I don’t go to the Interwebs to proselytize. I go to discuss. I look at most online discussions as somewhere between a classroom and a bar, as a student or patron, generally, not the teacher or bartender. I know there are many who go for other reasons, to argue, to convert. It’s not a great medium for that. It takes reading of hundreds of pages of text to put across some ideas, and even on forums for academic topics, I see very few people who will take a reference and go off and do the reading, and come back to have a worthwhile argument or discussion. The most common pattern on the webs seems to be people who just like to trot out their opinions. Especially on the leftoids, the close-mindedness is astounding. I’m glad if there are those who want to go there and try to enlighten the enlightenable, but it’s not me.
Dead thread and all, this is the SOTU speech.
Jan 27 2010 SOTU
163. Papa Ray:
I don’t care to argue the point about less employment=more productivity. Its the sort of thing you see the talking heads say on tv. It might be a fool lie for all I know. Wouldn’t be the first time that sort of thing came from the boob tube.
But then judging by your response, it doesn’t sound like have an expert opinion either.
If I run across anything online– I’ll post it.
Mark Steyn filling in for Rush this morning, and blowing the roof off the joint.
Also, more good stuff at Powerline: A “modified, limited” course correction about the likely SOTU and such. Elsewhere I saw some stuff that Obama will offer new “middle class” incentives, a little Clinton smallball, it sounds like.
“Myself, I don’t go to the Interwebs to proselytize. I go to discuss. I look at most online discussions as somewhere between a classroom and a bar, as a student or patron, generally, not the teacher or bartender. I know there are many who go for other reasons, to argue, to convert. It’s not a great medium for that.”
Reasonable assertions, but actually nothing more than excuses.
You sure try and sound like an authority here on BC. On most you do a good job, but your (in my opinion) preaching to the choir and sometimes wasting your time and many others time.
You think that the ones that just come here and don’t comment don’t know or care about the view that you take? Well, that’s like whistling down a dark path and never turning on the light, if they are that disinterested or don’t want to comment, they won’t be swayed by your arguing or disagreement with those that post here.
It may be hard and uncomfortable to go out among the people of the left. They may ridicule and scorn you but you never know if you might just say something that will start someone to actually thinking instead of just swallowing whole the leftist and/or democrat mindspeak. I believe your talent and knowledge would be of better use there than just here.
But mainly here, No. I don’t buy it and have said my piece. Have a good Monday.
Papa Ray
P.S.Yes Steyn was cooking. He needs to do this more often.
You sure try and sound like an authority here on BC.
I do? Sigh. I surely don’t mean to. I try to make coherent statements, that’s all. Does that sound like an authority? These days, maybe. Or maybe it’s a comment on the medium, because so many people just use it to vent. The trotting out of one’s ignorance, being proud not to know, seems to be a very common pattern these days. And of course the Interwebs is famous for having no filter, anyone can post, coherent or not.
So, please, when reading my posts just assume I am drunk, whatever my credentials or intentions, perhaps that will help.
Josh,
Your position seems right to me. The concept was originally to have voting by Heads of Households. Servants, especially indentured servants, who could be white, did not vote in elections for colonial councils. Slaves were a bastard concept of permanent inherited indentured servitude. It would be worth researching how independent women who were Heads of Households and Free Blacks were viewed in different parts of the country. My argument was that until very recent times, and for some of us even now, saying that the electoral franchise would be exercised by households was the point of the Census and was seen as making America a Democracy consistent with the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty.
Papa Ray,
Agree with your sentiment in #195 that everyone here is an adult and people of goodwill should be encouraged to participate. That means people have the right to be wrong. With luck ideas are sharpened, evidence is presented and positions are either reinforced or gracefully corrected. The danger is when people try to shut down debate.
Josh
Your credentials are fine with me.
If anybody thinks they are going to change anybody’s thinking on Kos I have some fine Florida swamp land that I bought from Bernie Madoff that I would like to speak with you about.
Teh Won has yer middle-class bait-and-switch magic right here:
President Obama and Vice President Biden Preview Initiatives for Middle Class Families
Discussion Previews a Key Theme for State of the Union Address
Washington, DC – Today, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will hold a meeting of the Middle Class Task Force, where they will lay out key investments for middle class families. Today’s discussion will preview one of the key themes of the President’s State of the Union address, which include creating good jobs, addressing the deficit, changing Washington, and fighting for middle class families.
President Obama said, “We are fighting every single day to put Americans back to work, create good jobs, and strengthen our economy for the long-term. The additional steps laid out today focus on easing the burdens on middle class families who are struggling in this economy, and providing the help they need to get ahead.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-and-vice-president-biden-preview-initiatives-middle-class-families
Who wants to guess the composition of the Middle Class Task Force?
Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about since Obama’s speech in Elyria, Ohio. Other wiser people have talked about the “It’s not about me” aspects of the speech and his proposed tax on the largest banks, so I’ll leave those alone, but there is one part of the speech that sent a chill down my spine; the “We want our money back!”
Here’s my question (well, actually a couple questions): Do the executives of the major (or even small & mid sized) banks that they have no friends over on Pensillvania avenue? That whenever Barack Obama needs to motivate his base, he’s going to pull these men and women out in front of the country as scapegoats; and if one or two of them get hurt or killed in the process…well, it sucks to be them? Do they also realize that there is nothing that they can do that can change their standing? Even if they completely cave on the issue of executive pay (which I don’t think they can,) in another six months it’ll be something else, like the banks are trying to destroy the recovery by not lending, or they engage in predatory lending, or yadda yadda yadda. The other question is that if they know they’re being backed into a corner, can they fight back? If they can, will they?
KRB
Rape victim receives 101 lashes for becoming pregnant
Frakkin moose limbs.
I ask those BC-er’s familiar with the DMSO to comment on this:
In the last day or so, the Democrats’ electoral prospects have dimmed somewhat. In Maryland, Beau Biden, the heir-apparent to Joe Biden, cancelled his expected run for his father’s seat in the Senate. The appointed filler has repeatedly refused to run for the full term. Maryland is as much of a Democrat fiefdom as Massachusetts was, with the Bidens being the reigning family. This is like having one of the actual members of the Kennedy Clan refusing to run in Massachusetts, for fear of getting beat. The Md. Senate seat was rated as a toss-up by Cook before Beau bailed.
In Arkansas, Democrat Representative Marion Berry has announced that he will not run for re-election. His statement is … interesting.
From POLITICO:
“Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.
“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.”
Anyone want to comment further on his connection with reality, NPD, and the odds that the SOTU is going to be eligible for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction to go with his Nobel Prize for not being Bush?
If the Congress-critters believed that, their Kool-aid has been spiked with Ecstasy.
Subotai Bahadur
Lifeofthemind @ 189 said:
“Thought I agreed with your point. Madison et al were aware of the flaw and sought to correct it.”
You did. Your earlier mention of Polybius didn’t register (I read your comment too quickly). My apologies.
Who wants to guess the composition of the Middle Class Task Farce?
Fixed it for ya.
212. The senate seat would be for DE (Delaware).
Likely it will end up with Dem candidate John Carney, former DE Lieutenant Gov, who did not get the nod for the Gov seat or be appointed the seat warmer for Joe Biden’s remaining term. ==> By the way, the current DE Gov. Markell won the seat because he shook more hands than Carney (Carney thought it would be in the bag for him, so to speak).
Anyway, the Republican side will most likely be Mike Castle, current state representative and my congressman. Who is a certified RINO or moderate republican if you are more kind. One of the 8 Repub voted FOR Cap’n Trade, he’s for clean water and environment, education, etc. (in other words, Dem talking points). I wrote to him after the Cap’n Trade vote, that was the last time I will ever vote for him. And nothing I see has changed my mind.
Just because Beau Biden is not running this term, doesn’t mean the seat will go to Castle. After being shouted by an old lady (‘ruining the future of my grandchildren’) in the first twonhall mtg last summer, Mike Castle stopped all appearances to meet with his constituents.
We have two choices: ‘Sir Robin’ Mike Castle and John ‘Carney Clown’. Hopefully Brown’s win will usher in more candidates to choose from.
#210 Kae Arby
In answer to your question(s):
“Kulaks (Russian: кула́к, kulak, “fist”, by extension “tight-fisted”) were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union.”
“According to Marxism-Leninism, the kulaks were a class enemy of the poorer peasants.”
“The average value of goods confiscated from kulaks during the policy of “dekulakization” (раскулачивание) at the beginning of the 1930s was only $90–$210 (170-400 rubles) per household.”
“In May 1929 the Sovnarkom issued a decree that formalised the notion of “kulak household” (кулацкое хозяйство). Any of the following characteristics defined a kulak:
* use of hired labour;
* ownership of a mill, a creamery (маслобойня, butter-making rig), other processing equipment, or a complex machine with a mechanical motor;
* systematic renting out of agricultural equipment or facilities;
* involvement in trade, money-lending, commercial brokerage, or “other sources of non-labour income”.
By the last item, any peasant who sold his surplus on the market could be automatically classified as a kulak. In 1930 this list was extended to include those who were renting industrial plants, e.g., sawmills, or who rented land to other farmers. Grigory Zinoviev, a well-known Soviet politician, said in 1924, “We are fond of describing any peasant who has enough to eat as a kulak.”
“Stalin requested severe measures to put an end to the kulak resistance. In a speech given at a Marxist agrarian conference, he stated that, “From a policy of limiting the exploitative tendencies of the kulaks, we have gone over to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class.” … The kulaks were to be liquidated as a class and subject to one of three fates: death sentence, labour settlements (not to be confused with labor camps, although the former were also managed by the GULAG), or deportation “out of regions of total collectivization of the agriculture”. Tens of thousands of kulaks were executed, property was expropriated to form collective farms, and many families were deported to unpopulated areas of Siberia and Soviet Central Asia.”
————————-
There was only one remedy for the use of the State’s power of life and death to commit mass expropriations and murder that would have stopped it then. We are not yet in the same corner …. yet. We will know by November-January.
One wonders who will audition for the roles of Denikin and Kolchak? And if they will be both better people and have better success.
The quotes are, I admit, from Wikipedia, solely because they were handy and had the Cyrillic characters I wanted to include. I do not accept Wikipedia as an unconfirmed source, but in this case I personally know the subject well and that in this instance the Wiki is true. YMMV.
[n.b.: I also have had the privilege of a long and detailed conversation with a MAN who was an 11 year old Cadet in the Tsarist Army when the Revolution broke out. He fought in the White Army against the Communists, was on the retreat down the Trans-Siberian Railroad, made the trek in a blizzard across a frozen Lake Baikal, and who was one of those evacuated from Vladivostok at the end. If we reach that corner, it is going to be bad beyond the wildest dreams of most. Each will have to make the choices made by the Founding Fathers.]
Subotai Bahadur
Re: Teresita @ 211:
Watch this about 7:45
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY_B2NzFUHk&feature=related
That film was also based on a unit that was deployed to Afghanistan after the Soviets had occupied the country for nine years.
# 215 Always Right.
That was a bout of cerebral flatus. I stand gratefully corrected. For some reason I wrote Maryland for what was obviously Deleware.
Subotai Bahadur
Way too windy at the range.
For those who read this site and haven’t taken the time to follow the lotm v Habu kerfuffle a quick review might be in order. Lotm after a soliloquy on an aspect of our governmental structure casually threw in a patronizing remark …. One meant to brace me…”sorry Habu” was the quote , as if his word out was THE word and I was wrong.
Ok fast forward through several comments about whether this country is a Republic or a democracy. Not once did Lotm answer that this country was a Republic.
Finally in his exasperation he pulls one of the oldest rhetorical tricks and attempts before leaving the field to redefine the discussion in his terms. It’s a neat attempt but he fails. Why, because the ongoing conversation had asked too many questions, I had brought too much firepower from the Founders to reinforce my argument for the question to simply be redefined and scored as a coup for Lotm. But at least he won’t be responding, according to his word. But he’s fully entitled to restate that.
Teresta decides to join the fray and with this pathetic donation:
191. Teresita:
Habu: Democracy mentioned anywhere in our Constitution? Does the word appear in the Declaration of Independence? Was it the Founder’s intent in any way, shape, or form to have a democracy?
The Founder’s intent was that only adult white male property owners could vote; enslaved Africans, free black people and women were not extended the franchise. Senators were not directly elected by the people like Congressmen were. We got better. So much for your appeal to the Old School, Habu.
Note the last line So much for your appeal to the Old School, Habu Now this is a lesbian woman who has taken an oath to defend the Constitution she calls “old school”…..wow. BTW for those who would like to visit her site, have at it; http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/ believe me it’s toned down from its original state of being simply a lesbian solicitation site…..
I guess she doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care, that the traditional family unit is the basic structure for a healthy society. Lesbians are not included in the definition of the traditional family structure ….but then that must be old school too.
So here we are. Lotm can’t bring himself to admit that we are a Republic and a lesbian believes the Constitution is “old school” Ain’t it a great country?
Just got a little windier here too!
214 Josh
Right on!
Whiskey’s assertion that only 40% of men throughout history reproduced comes from an article from Roy Baumeister :http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
Baumeister, I believe asserts genetic studies show that only 40% of males reproduced versus 80% of females.
Now time to don my tin foil hat.
Yesterday Karl Denninger asserted that Bernacke from 9-19 to 9-24 ’08, in the midst of the financial panic, pulled $125 billion ( a substantial percentage) in excess liquidlty from the American financial system, and he says he can prove it. Now Bernacke’s behavior during this time was extremely odd for a Fed Chairman. All previous FED Chairman that I can remember were extremely evasive in their pronouncements, particularly in times of crisis. Yet, Helicopter Ben’s behavior at the time was the equivalent to yelling “Fire” in a crowded moviehouse with poor exits. The market, and the electorate’s view of the economy took a huge dump and election was handed to Buraq as a result.
Couple that behavior with Paulsen’s demands for almost unlimited financial power in TARP and one has to wonder what the hell was going on?
#216/Subotai. Thank you for the chilling reminder.
#60/maineman. Your comment made an excellent starting point to draw the 17-yo DD into what became a riveting conversation last night. Thank you for putting into words what she and I sensed on a base level. Does a narc-sociopath generally have a co-dependent partner who validates/feeds the beast?
Yes indeed comity is what we need. No need at all for a site to generate dissenting opinions once five of six contrbutors agree on a thread … just fall in line and have a harmonic moment.
Unsk/222; that sounds like Maiden Lane III –Fed created a company long about in there to funnel a hundred cents on the dollar to SocGen and a couple other Franco-Belgian banks which had high exposure thru Goldman Sachs to the AIG bust out. I have no idear why ML3 had to do the check-writing –it must have been a way for Goldman and JPMorgan to pretend like they were not acting as the Fed and Treasury during that time.
Mr X
interesting video ! (I watched the followings)
it wasn’t a fun party to be a russian soldier
Subotai . . .
I always enjoy your history lessons. I studied a lot of history of communism and Russia, but have forgotten most of it. However, I do remember enough to know that bad things can happen anywhere–even in our wonderful United States.
I recently read half of Solzhenitzen’s Gulag Archipelago. It’s rather long and boring, but everyone should read it anyway. It’s amazing what happened to the idealists who supported the Russian Revolution. A lesson all liberals should learn (but won’t cuz they can’t).
Habu . . .
Please stop picking fights with people. This is not a debating society. It’s a bar and informal classroom, where people gather round to discuss the news of the day. There is no point to picking on Josh and others. Maybe they know something you don’t know.
227. Promethea
Geez, are you lost in the deep woods. To read you is to say this is a cut above a beauty parlor/hair salon where people simply gather to gossip.
You may treat it as such. I prefer to challenge those whose opinions differ from my own. You may chose to characterize that as “picking fights” which is your prerogative.
I think the readers are owed differing opinions. That my style may not be in the tea and crumpets diplomatic genre that those of tender feeings like to comfort themselves with … well history is littered with various styles and approaches to communicatining ideas and information.
What good would this site be if it wasn’t for differing opinions, or in your world a debate. If you can’t hack the load simply skip my contributions.
Have a nice day.
@ 227 My whole shtick here is comparing the USA to late great USSR…or more accurately, Russia under the oligarchs during its most recent ‘Time of Troubles’ in the 1990s. Just substitute Goldman Sachs et al for Khodorkovsky Menatep Bank, Berezovsky, Gusinsky, etc.
I’m sure Marie Claude noticed the Soviet military intel officer Capitan Razvedchik played by Aleksey Serebryakov (who usually plays tough guys in Russian films) say: “In the whole history, no one…ever…succeeded in conquering Afghanistan. No one…ever.”
One could say that whoever made Afghanistan Muslim conquered Afghanistan –also before that Cyrus the Great and Temujin (Genghis Khan) too, but neither stayed on, at least not in the imperial config, anyway.
Just what do we expect to gain from “conquering Afghanistan”?
From my front porch it looks like we would have to be a major occupying force for decades to come simply to keep some low level sense of security for the AF-G’s
Of course we could simply be using the entire thing as a giant war fighting exercise, continuing to feed the military industrial complex with huge contracts to research weapons for other engagements. Under those circumstances, hey, let’s just keep shoot’n ‘em up.
But I go back to my initial question.
Just what do we expect to gain from “conquering Afghanistan”?
beats me, habu. we don’t have a war president, and that’s a bad president to fight a war with.
164.
So the Nazca lines were all about….
Large numbers of stoned people walking in procession in the desert along lines that described shapes that could only be seen in the mind’s eye of their high priests who drew them.
Why did they stop walking stoned along the Nasca lines?
According to wikipedia:
There are several theories as to what caused the demise of the Moche political structure. Some scholars have emphasised the role of environmental change. Studies of ice cores drilled from glaciers in the Andes reveal climatic events between 536 to 594 AD, possibly a super El Niño, that resulted in 30 years of intense rain and flooding followed by 30 years of drought, part of the aftermath of the climate changes of 535–536.[4] These weather events could have disrupted the Moche way of life and shattered their faith in their religion, which had promised stable weather through sacrifices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche
At the top of one of the Moche temples anthropologists found the bodies of hundreds of people with their skulls bashed in. Radio carbon dating showed that the time of their deaths coincided with a massive el nino mentioned above that wiped out the civilization. apparently the high priests were sacrificing people in a vain effort stop the rain.
This sort of thing suggests that its always a good idea to go back and re read the book of Genesis.
charles, if the Mocha had passed cap & trade, they’d still be up there in the altaplano, mashed on peyote & laying down them giant critter outlines –