“Do You Know Who I Am”?
Ginger Gibson and John Breshnahan of Politico explain why Bob Menendez may survive being accused of having sex with underage Dominican girls. “In New Jersey, that may not be enough to topple the Hudson County political boss, who runs the political machine for a part of Jersey known for being rough and tumble and who easily won reelection last year.”
Democratic former Sen. Robert Torricelli, who left the Senate a decade ago under his own ethics cloud. “I think Bob Menendez is a very tenacious person, and he has the advantage of six long years and a fairly forgiving political environment in New Jersey.
“I wouldn’t be wasting time on a Bob Menendez political obituary,” he added.
Other reasons they give include:
1. Menendez is the “lead Democratic Hispanic voice on immigration reform in the Senate”
2. Top Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, are backing Menendez.
3. His good buddy “Dr. Melgen and his family have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and committees, including $700,000 last year to Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC that spent nearly $600,000 on Menendez’s successful reelection campaign last year.”
4. New Jersey is “a sophisticated electorate that is very focused on policy issues”.
5. “Menendez has survived previous ethics controversies, which leads many in New Jersey to believe he will get through this one as well”.
6. A Republican somewhere, sometime in the past must have also done it.
Those are convincing arguments.
The bottom line is: “New Jersey political insiders tell POLITICO that even if it is proved Menendez had sex with prostitutes, he can survive that hit politically. Menendez wouldn’t even be the first sitting senator to weather a prostitution scandal; Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) admitted in 2007 that he had called a D.C.-based prostitution ring. Vitter, however, did not admit to having sex with prostitutes and the Senate Ethics Committee did not investigate the matter.” Maybe they’ll find some way for Dr. Megelen (a name susceptible to anagramming) to take the fall for this fine upstanding public servant.
Then the public can turn to relatively unimportant matters like Syria’s attempts to transfer nerve gas and missiles to Hezbollah. That resulted in an Israeli attack on a Syrian facility and rising tensions in the region of which more in another post. One might think this is more important than petty Washington politics but as Barry Rubin notes, maybe not.
The reason he’s so scared today is because the recent crop of political leaders is so corrupt, inept and cynical that he shudders to think about whether they are even in to lunch. It’s not so much Hezbollah that worries Rubin, it’s whether there’s anyone in Washington who can handle Hezbollah. Or al-Qaeda, China, or Russia.
Why Chuck Hagel is Really So Scary: He’s Typical of the Current Rulers? … Can you imagine the kind of mentality that would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and the national security of the country in the hands of a man like Hagel? … There is a deep malady of ignorance and very bad ideas in the American foreign policy leadership and it has lost the correction mechanisms of criticism from the mass media and academia. Hagel is really rather typical of this group but just not adept at pretending otherwise.
The incoming secretary of defense may be many things and yet still be many cuts above Robert Menendez. And to compare the two — whatever you think of Hagel — is probably doing a disservice to Hagel. But the two are going to work together since Menendez is slated to head the senate foreign relations committee. One can guess the senator knows a great deal about foreign relations already, though not in the way you would think.
Rubin’s larger point though is exactly on target. Nominating people as damaged as this is going to have real world consequences. Not consequences in the partisan political sense, but in the more fundamental sense that they’ll allow bad things to happen from stupidity, cupidity or simple indolence. These individuals: Menendez, Napolitano, Hagel, Jarrett, Obama — and until recently Hillary Clinton — are the last line of defense not just of the United States but of world security.
If you wouldn’t trust Menendez and Dr. Megelen with your daughter then why would you trust them with your life? Because we are, in a sense, doing exactly that. They have the power; the keys to missiles, the power to print money, the writing of the drone list. They won. Jonathan Swift once remarked that “when a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him”. That is slightly wrong to-day. It should be rewritten as “when a true scumbag appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the papers declare him politically invincible.”
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Tip Jar or Subscribe or Unsubscribe
hope they buried John Adams face down so he’s comfortable now.
Dr. Megelen (a name susceptible to anagramming)
Indeed!
So: if things do go bad for the good doctor and the Senator, maybe they can hightail it to the interior of Brazil.
We are in the best of hands…. God help us,
Bob
As was covered under the exceptions post, Menendez is a liberal and thus by definition a good person. Eliot Spitzer was a liberal but not a minority and may have pissed off the wrong people. Having sex with underage prostitutes in foreign countries, even traveling with that intent, is a federal crime but it only applies to the wrong kind of people.
American politicians accept ready-made scandals (as in blackmail) in exchange for promotion. The more scandals you accept, the higher you rise until you’re Bill Clinton claiming you did or didn’t rape so-and-so. Or Obama saying you don’t know Bill Ayers. Or Menendez saying you don’t like Caribbean girls.
As long as they stay on-script, “what does it matter?”
When we say that the good Senator had sex with underage prostitutes are we applying our laws or theirs? If these girls are of legal age in the Dominican Republic and engaging in legal activities then he may have pushed back the limits of our sensibilities but has done nothing illegal. Since we live in an era where Democrats are above both social and legal norms, I don’t find it surprising that Menendez will escape sanction. Honestly, if he hasn’t broken any laws then there should be no fuss. His political future is in the hands of welfare recipients, government workers and the effete so I don’t see him leaving Senate over this episode.
The most disturbing thing about the Menendez incident isn’t what he is, but how he climbed so high. There is little apparent correspondence between the genial, avuncular packaging and the product inside the box. You would expect a passing resemblance at least. Imagine how it would be if you opened a can of fruitcake to find nothing but spiders in it.
You’d sue the company. But in this case who do you sue? What failed in the quality controlled process? A lot of things. The question is raises is: how many more? There’s really no reason to suppose that Menendez is in any particular place in the moral distribution of the great and the good. Is he average? Below average? Or is he in fact better than normal?
How would you know? This is like one of those 1950s movies where the suspicious pilot taps his compass because it doesn’t seem right and it starts spinning round and round in circles. Or when you hold your wrist watch up and both hands, and the second hand as well, point to ground.
The instruments are out. Where is our indomitable ship of state now? Well we could ask the New York Times, or the Washington Post. But you see what the problem is.
The most disturbing thing about the Menendez incident isn’t what he is, but how he climbed so high. There is little apparent correspondence between the genial, avuncular packaging and the product inside the box. You would expect a passing resemblance at least. Imagine how it would be if you opened a can of fruitcake to find nothing but spiders in it.
Fruitcake, indeed.
But such “quality” is typical of most state and local legislatures, and even of much of California’s congressional representation, such as I’ve seen of it.
Again, what seems lacking is anything *else*, the best don’t just lack all conviction but have long since retired from public life, leaving us with the worst – who should be full of conviction, as in convicted.
Thought I heard Menendez is blaming it all on Republican dirty tricks.
–
But an American public who voted a guy named Barack Hussein Obama INTO the presidency TWICE – can hardly be expected to have other standards, or perhaps any standards at all, except perhaps the most twisted possible.
Senator Menendez’s picks are very, very, likely to be so young as to defy the term (legally) willing.
Even ultra-liberal Italy forbids ‘employment’ of sex-workers below the age of eighteen.
Menendez flew in for the “Pretty Baby” experience — for everything else in the book is already on tap in Washington DC. — Don’t kid yourself.
==========
Politicians and sexual perversions travel together like Caligula and family.
==========
Decades ago Ma Bell had a telephone workers strike in New York City. The back-up in new service requests stacked up into low Earth orbit.
So, over a three-day Memorial holiday, a top-line New York ‘house’, catering to the UN and other similar low-lifes, was still able to get A L L of its numerous rotary phone systems shifted over before the month was out!
(Rotary phones = multi-line, push-button, commercial setting phones. The ones a secretary uses — as in the older movies like “The Apartment.” The ‘rotary’ adjective refers to the rotary switching ‘wiper’ used to internally shunt from line to line. They cost p l e n t y and were not normally even an option at most residences — no matter how much you willing to pay. The phone company didn’t have the wires in place out front, period.)
For, both the top phone executives and union executives interceded to have just this particular customer to receive ‘special handling.’ What a trick installation that must have been.
There were over seven rotary systems, mapping at least six lines each. It had to require additional trunkage to be brought up from the Point of Service to the phone farm.
Imagine the sight: a rank of phone service vans straight down the block. It was never revealed whether the installation service was payment in trade, either. Hazard a guess.
==========
Such set-ups operate in every national capital 100% of the time.
Which, again, points to the Senator as being a staggering pervert. Only dire perversions would cause a man to fly hours away — when top shelf pros are on tap at a moment’s notice.
==========
Ordinarily, such a man would be tailed by the Secret Service. However, they’re too busy themselves.
==========
One reads of the dissolute of Rome. DC is positively aping that age.
And, no, this time it’s not different.
During the Presidential Campaign I commented on a “fear of Competence” among the ruling class to explain why the Democrats get a pass for an economy in the tank while the media joined the Obama campaign in savaging Romney. The status and prosperity of the ruling class requires mismanagement at the center even as they grab more power (mismanagement allows the power grabbing).
I now think there is little desire in the country for a well managed D.C. and there is little future for the Republicans in being the party of competence. There are lots of people who think the Federal Government is too big and too expensive and too intrusive but they want a credible plan for doing less — not doing all the stuff they dislike better. The people who want more government are less likely to get what they want (basically, free money and favors) from a well managed political system.
So I guess we will have to wait for a “fear of incompetence” to develop. We will need to survive multiple catastrophes before that occurs.
A more interesting line of inquiry is how many of these goofs have been compromised and are being blackmailed by Beijing, Moscow, Riyadh, etc. If I ran their intel agencies I would have every expensive prostitute ring in DC and elsewhere ‘penetrated’.
“Can someone help this poor man? He does not know who he is.”
I always wanted to answer that way, or by saying “Bag Sir. Your name is Dirt Bag.”
Former Senator Kerry is notorious for asking the title question. He is now America’s Mr. Diplomacy. No scandal worries though. He only loves himself.
In other news the NYT reports that “the Justice Department, along with state prosecutors, plans to file civil charges against Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service, accusing the firm of fraudulently rating mortgage bonds that led to the financial crisis, people briefed on the plan said Monday.”
They are seeking damages in the “ten figures”. What percentage will the lawyers make on this?
Who are the Black Hats and the White Hats in this movie? Or is there any point to asking that? And are the Europeans any more honest? Maybe the Chinese are the last bastions of commercial honesty. Do you think?
Or have we left the Age of Aquarius and are now embarked upon the Sea of Consequences? Well on thing’s for sure. Barney Frank didn’t see this coming. How could anyone?
I stopped being in awe of powerful men when I observed a number of them and how they acted in the presence of attractive young women. I was never in awe of powerful women, because I’ve heard too many of them speak their minds — such as those minds were.
I figured out a long time ago that feral cunning, persistence, and a lack of shame are the most important tools for acquiring power. Actual competence at whatever entity one is heading is often of little consequence because there are often plenty of competent underlings for the alpha-ferals to lean on.
Meanwhile, when asked about the exploitation of women by Menendez the National Organization for Women said, “…..chirp…….chirp……”
They were probably asking for it anyway……..
The GOP and Conservative PACs should *mount* a national ad campaign-
DEMOCRAT SENATOR MENENDEZ stiffs underage prostitutes.
Democrat leadership *withdraws* from discussion.
hdg @ 10: During the Presidential Campaign I commented on a “fear of Competence” among the ruling class to explain why the Democrats get a pass for an economy in the tank while the media joined the Obama campaign in savaging Romney. The status and prosperity of the ruling class requires mismanagement at the center even as they grab more power (mismanagement allows the power grabbing).
Ouch. That has the sting of truth.
So I guess we will have to wait for a “fear of incompetence” to develop. We will need to survive multiple catastrophes before that occurs.
So does that.
dr @ 14: I figured out a long time ago that feral cunning, persistence, and a lack of shame are the most important tools for acquiring power.
As Merlin says somewhere in the later Amber books, something like, “You can get power, if that’s all you want”, but he was speaking of magic, or abstract, power. Political power is as you say, but a lot of it involves certain tricks of communication and appearance that I think are more benign than “feral cunning” might suggest. Not to mention a little luck and timing.
New Jersey is “a sophisticated electorate that is very focused on policy issues”.
Policy issues? I can’t remember any “policy issues” being discussed in a senate campaign here for about three decades. NJ is like California and many other blue states; a dead dog can win here as long as it has a “D” next to its name.
“New Jersey voters are sophisticated and focus on policy issues” That about says it all doesn’t it? I believe it was General Omar Bradley who said something like “The problem with our age is men are technological giants and moral midgets”
This is our problem with the fleabitten grifters , hypocrites and degenerates who people our elites. They think they can create a paradise with their grand pronouncements . In reality they can’t manage the squalid ratholes of their own lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScfUfsUlGro
The remarkable thing is that things can work even when we are not led by angels. The interesting thing is why.
Ben Franklin believed that a Washington which looked exactly like the people was the best of all worlds. Why? Because the good, the bad and ugly impulses would net out if you had a diverse portfolio that kept changing.
But once you started having a capital city which consisted of just one kind or archetype of person — let’s call them the Beautiful People — then they were bound to converge to a certain point. You lost the diversity. The diversity that counts isn’t black, white, yellow or brown. It’s insiders vs outsiders.
And while the insiders might style themselves as being from the “reality based community” or the “evidence based” universe, or from Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard exclusively, when they become all the same thing then they cease to strive among themselves.
And that’s bad news for the rest of the world.
We would lose the Aliens vs Predators effect which alone kept us safe. The concept of checks and balances is simply this: no one tribe of monsters must be allowed to establish a dynasty. When the Alien nails the Predator, yay! When the Predator zaps the Alien, yay again. As long as this keeps up we’re OK. The real danger occurs when one side or the other gets a “permanent majority” because then they are bound to notice us.
What is ‘problem’ and what is ‘symptom’? It may be that Menendez Rampant is in the ‘symptom’ category. Anyway, we ought to have some sympathy for the poor man. Didn’t he & his brother shoot their parents a while ago? So hard to keep all this stuff straight.
Meanwhile, there is zero interest within the Political Clique (including their wholly-owned media subsidiary) in real news. Apparently, a government panel recently recommended that the last atom-smashing collider in the US should be shut down. Just think about that! The Political Clique have turned their backs on the future which once beckoned so brightly.
The ‘problem’ goes back to the Democrat victory in the post-Watergate 1970s. That electoral victory separated the Democrat gentry nomenklatura from the American people; it separated the media from truth; and it set us on the long & winding road to the present brink of chaos.
Fortunately, the current situation is unsustainable. But the path back to sustainability is going to be littered with ruined lives & dead bodies.
I am convinced that ALL Democrat politicians are both corrupt and debauched. Not all of them have been caught in the act yet.
You will all be pleased to learn that Robert Menendez is now officially chairman of the senate foreign relations committeee. He “got the position on Friday afternoon, after the resignation of Sen. John Kerry from the chairmanship took effect. Kerry is now the Secretary of State, succeeding Hillary Clinton.” Well who said s**t never flowed uphill?
The Politico article was completely right. It didn’t matter a damn. Why would it? Did you think it would? Did anyone even think it would make a dime’s worth of difference?
Now let’s all move on and talk about why the lights went out at the superbowl.
If upfront with your perversion
You don’t need a fake conversion
You can play with teenage girls just as you choose
Or with boys if that’s your fancy
‘Cause you’re proud to be a nancy
And you start the party off with bootleg booze
Things are swell the laughs are hearty
All because you’re in the party
That does not pretend to be what they are not
Everyone just laughs and says he’s
Just himself and if he does please
More than one girl at a time well then so what
If you’re Dem then nothing matters
Reputations hang in tatters
You are re-elected and you spend and tax
Take the money kiss the honey
There is nothing that’s more funny
Than Republicans who cannot face the facts
Life imitates art. Car 54, Where Are You?
No problem. He’ll survive. He’s a dem. See Gerry Studds.
I believe F.A. Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom answered the question of why people like Menendez rise to positions of power . The chapter entitled “Why The Worst Get On Top” describes the phenomenon in detail. I think Don Rodrigo’s succinct explanation is good too
“I learned long ago that feral cunning, persistence, and a lack of shame are the most important tools for acquiring power”
So now there’s a Russian woman who may be involved in the Menendez story: Svetlana B.
And they’ve just officially made Menendez the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. He’s in. He’s the Honorable. The distinguished gentleman from wherever to oversee the foreign policy of a great state. What could go wrong?
The most interesting aspect of the unfolding spectacle is that suddenly the powers that be feel no seeming need to even keep up appearances. They are completely unaccountable and don’t care who notices. “We won,” as they like to say.
So who stands guard when the officials brush aside all attempts to inquire into their comings and goings? The obvious answer is no one. The enlightened and tolerant set have outsmarted themselves this time, but good. For having admitted the biggest of camels at the outset the Democratic Party — indeed all of official Washington — can hardly strain at gnats.
“I’ll have more flexibility Dmitri”. What’s going to stop him now? And guess who the woman to watch for 2016 is, according to the Washington Post. Janet Napolitano. Does Lena Dunham get it yet? What about Alan? What about Noam? I hear the King of Saudi Arabia is offering $50 M to anyone who can tell a story to make his horse laugh? Any takers?
wretchard@13: Who are the Black Hats and the White Hats in this movie?
There is no honor among thieves. S&P had the audacity to lower US AAA bond ratings in 2011.
S&P has to learn to play fairly.
This is the best of all possible worlds.
So, he is now the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations….so, wasn’t he just practicing foreign relations?
Rimshot. Sorry. Slinking off now…/ erc
Richard,
This sorry tale has many parallels in Australia. The ruling “Labor Party” has sunk into a very similar Union and University based mire very like the Democrats. Ruthless Human Rights lawyers prosper.
Never-the-less progress is being made. Labor has been defeated in most of the states and is most likely to loose power nationally.
The strength of the Murdoch Press has been a plus, but the scandals and incompetence of the regime has been crucial.
There is hope for the USA yet.
I hear the King of Saudi Arabia is offering $50 M to anyone who can tell a story to make his horse laugh?
plenty of horses asses in DC you can make laugh for free.
“The most disturbing thing about the Menendez incident isn’t what he is, but how he climbed so high.”
I used to tell people something as a joke, but which I now believe is the literal truth: You can pick 535 washed up drunks at random off skid row, and you will have a higher average intelligence and a better general class of person than you would find with our current batch of Senators and Congressmen. Menendez is simply par for the course.
The scum also rises
I’ve often said that only the tiniest fraction of scandals and malfeasance going on in the political world ever comes to light. Watergate was considered the biggest scandal in US history, but I have not the least doubt it absolutely pales in comparison to things that go on routinely in most administrations. Think of it, if Nixon had been a Democrat nothing would’ve come of it in the slightest. People were outraged when he tried to use executive privilege to keep the watergate tapes from getting out, but when Obama calls executive privilege on all the documents related to fast and furious he’s hailed as some sort of hero for sticking it to the Republicans. The only way scandals grow into monsters that can take down powerful politicians is if the press is willing to dig and persist in keeping them in the spotlight. That will never happen against a Democrat so they feel invincible, and with good reason. I wouldn’t so much say that our defective political products are filled with spiders, but rather cockroaches. Roaches are experts at scuttling into the darkness whenever someone turns on a light, then crawling back out again to feast on the decay of society and multiply.
TPM:
I doubt being a Republican had anything to do with the Watergate scandal. Richard Nixon had the nerve to cross the FBI, particularly its associate director Mark Felt (who had regarded a promotion as his due).
Future generations will regard Watergate as a coup d’etat by the FBI against the Presidency. Previous presidents had been deferential to J. Edgar Hoover, while Richard Nixon sought to establish presidential control over the rogue agency.
I’m the Juggernaut, b*tch! (Sorry, too much X-man. Apologies to Stan Lee.)
If the Senate can’t muster the will to oust these obvious frauds like Menendez, Vitter and Fauxchahontas, their behavior can only be explained as complicit. Fraud and vice are the privately accepted norms there, and this lot signify the unfortunate few who merely got caught.
We all know the Senate as an institution is currently broken and incapable of performing its duties as a legislature. It has become a vehicle to stymie the legislative process as Constitutionally understood. The Senate serves today as a nullifier of Congressional action or oversight so that the Executive Branch might exercise more discretionary power. When it has acted, such as in the budget ceiling debacle of last year, this has served to wrest powers of the purse away from its Constitutional abode, the House. Toss in no budgets and what we have is a Senate purposed toward one thing: providing a Constitutional vacuum for the presidency to fill.
Until Reid is removed or (Katy bar the door) is provided a majority, the rot will fester more and more.
wretchard 28,
“So now there’s a Russian woman who may be involved in the Menendez story: Svetlana B.”
What is it about Ophthalmologists? Can’t they see trouble coming?
After the public learned that Society Osteopath or pimp Stephen Ward had fixed up HM Secretary of State for War, Brigadier John Profumo OBE PC, with call girl Christine Keeler, who was herself linked to a Soviet Intelligence officer, Profumo resigned. This probably helped bring down the Conservative Macmillan government. Profumo then devoted himself to cleaning toilets in a charity and slowly rebuilt his good name. He was given a CBE by Maggie Thatcher in 1975 and died in 2006.
Bob Menendez is not fit to shine John Profumo’s shoes.
Others have pointed out that sooner or later, the upside down world these guys have been building is going to teeter too much for all the jury-rigged supports they have to toss in place to keep the structure upright.
Someone made the comparison to a kid on a bike who doesn’t really know how to ride it. We’ve all seen this – the kid begins to lose control, and swerves a little. Being inexperienced, the kid over-corrects, and quickly steers PAST the intended path, SWERVING the other way. Each time, because the kid was NEVER ACTUALLY IN CONTROL, the over-steering increases the amplitude of the swerve. Finally, the inertia of the bike either steers it into some obstruction, or exceeds the tires’ grip on the road, and Kid and bike part company.
Anyone with a little knowledge of physics knows that the forces involved in a crash increase enormously in scale as the speed and mass of the moving bodies increase.
We have M O R O N S (doesn’t even matter anymore if they’re perverts and murderers) steering the biggest freight train in history, heading for a tight turn. Something bad is about to happen, and they’ve disconnected the brakes, cause they aren’t about to let anyone tell THEM what to do.
When the crash comes, any of the Leftist S**t heads who survive will be blaming everyone but their own dumbasses.
The only thing we can do is brace for the crash, and try to be prepared to pick up the pieces afterward.
You can see the warning “Pride Goeth before a Fall” in letters of fire on the horizon sky. That’s been around for a long time, but there’s a major portion of the human DNA, I guess, that programs people to ignore it. It must be like the fabled impulse of the lemmings, when they get overpopulated, to run headlong in a teeming crowd, heedless of where the mob takes them. I’ve heard they don’t really MEAN to commit suicide, just too damn stupid to sort things out in the middle of the stampede…
Sound familiar?
Well, it’s way past time to be trying to convince people to start laying aside provisions for possible “interruptions to service.” At the end of JANUARY there were still lots of loyal Democrat-voting communities in New Jersey, Long Island, and Staten Island without power, living in shitty little tent villages. According to some reports they’re being kept inside 8-foot hurricane fences by armed guards. A few stories are getting out, but the traitors in the MSM are mostly shutting up. (Those are the ones who will spend an eternity in the lake of fire. Just looking for a guaranteed place in the big man’s palace, where they get to gobble the crumbs and gnaw the bones tossed from the main feast.)
Here’s a link to blog.lawyers.com about how FEMA is just about to retire from the business of helping SANDY victims. Dated 04 Feb – the day we just lived through.
Well, what difference does it make?
Now, THERE is a fit quote to remember Hilary by…
Forget it Jake, its Washington.
The Democratic Party succumbed quite awhile ago to having Party loyalty, loyalty to those above you in the leadership, as the most important factor that leads to advancement in the Party. Top down management from the national level. Nomenklatura, the model. They came into this likely through the influence of the large city machines that they developed in the 1800s.
This made them the easiest target for a coup when the New Left decided to seize a Party as a platform to extend their power. It is a system which can lead to early wins but later leads, inevitably to; “We all know that Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party.” Kerry, Hagel, Dempsey too it seems, all just what happens when competence is not required, even harmful, to advancing ones position.
There was a limit, but with the press in pocket they now are moving into a new world of stupidity at the top. Testing to find where the next limit is to be found.
The US has been for a long time so prosperous that it really didn’t matter who did what. Hagel could screw things up very very badly but there is so much excess capacity in the US military that any threat could be dealt with in some way or another.
The problem is that the political elite are putting their last chips on the table, all in. In almost every endeavour the decisions of someone in Washington is the last thread that holds things together. Clinton lost North Africa. What can Kerry lose before it gets awful close to being intolerable? Lew only has to mess up on the timing and signals and blow a Treasury auction to create mayhem. The wrong word, the wrong hints, the one regulation too far.
There is a deep, very deep assumption among almost everyone in decision making situations that what happened yesterday will happen tomorrow. Not only politics, but business as well. Times have been very good for a long long time, the store of seed corn is very deep. Or it was last time we looked, and that was a while ago.
Oddly I’ve been noticing from the oddest and unexpected places a nervousness, a hesitation, a vague deep rumble of some old and powerful fears. Maybe it is the realization that the Democrats are not Bill Clinton Democrats, but Chicago Democrats in fact, you know, the ones who aren’t paying their bills. Maybe the realization that an election won on the basis of forcing insurance companies to pay for contraceptives was really really silly, and a scary realization that the guy who won had one great thought and that was it.
Back in 2008, looking at the world as various places hit very hard times, I said that it is no longer financial, it is social cohesion. I thought the US would probably be a good bet for coming through in pretty good shape. Europe and many Asian countries are too brittle; unable to even countenance discussion of the issues on everyone’s minds, they lost the ability to see reality until it has run them over.
I think the US is going to see some serious movements in the coming year. I don’t think it will be partisan; frankly the Republicans are part of the problem. I suspect neither party will come through it looking anywhere near what they look like now. I suspect we will see the collapse of a few news organizations, a long time coming. The continuing impoverishment of anyone not sucking the teat of government will be the vector of discontent, and it will change from ‘why can’t I’ to ‘how dare you’.
Interesting times.
Just another pedophile scandal from the ruling class. These things are common in Europe but are exposed only when the police accidentally stumble across them (they certainly don’t actively look for our nobles’ pedophile rings). It’s human nature to use one’s authority for sex, as natural as any sexual orientation, and should be respected.
THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794
I was looking at the number of states that are fighting the Obama Care Exchanges, 31 of them I believe. Polling is showing a trend of increasing distrust in Washington on the part of both left and right. The number of Sheriff’s calling defiance on gun control, and etc. I’m starting to think that Constitutional Convention has hit a 50% possibility to reduce the power that has concentrated in Washington DC. Instapundit has talked about it but know I think it is much more probable.
Cowboy @ 38: “We all know the Senate as an institution is currently broken and incapable of performing its duties as a legislature…Until Reid is removed or (Katy bar the door) is provided a majority, the rot will fester more and more.”
Those are not the only alternatives. There is no doubt that, somewhere, someone who has sworn the oath and who has the means at his disposal is confronting the dilemma faced by Sulla, by Cromwell, by Pinochet in our time. Reid and the Democrats believe they have thought of everything, have covered all the bases, but it is not so.
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,
which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!”
History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
Let’s make Menendez an Adam Clayton Powell Jr. for a new centurry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack
The man is perfect fodder for the late night talk shows, Jon Stewart, Jay Leno…
David Letterman? Not so much!
Maybe we’ll go after him next, Willow Palin’s Revenge.
Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
The Democrat’s War on Defenseless Girls.
“You better put some ice on that.” – Bill Clinton
The Republicans control the house, the impeachment process begins in the House. Start impeachmnet proceedings and throw Harry Reid a hot potato.
MachiasPrivateer @ 48: “The Republicans control the house, the impeachment process begins in the House. Start impeachmnet proceedings and throw Harry Reid a hot potato.”
The Republicans are not what you think they are. The problem is systemic, and they are in it up to their necks.
gokart @ 49- Do not become confused by the target rich environment. Go for the BIGGEST chink in the enemy’s armor. Start taking down some relatively big fish and watch the chicks begin a rush toward the Right. Have you seen Kirsten Powers lately? She’s come a long way baby from being Anthony Wiener’s “date”.
But do them one at a time.
CHU LIED, DOLPHINS DIED!
FREE KURT MIX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4
derek #43:
“….but there is so much excess capacity in the US military that any threat could be dealt with in some way or another.”
That makes me think of Wake Island in WWII. We honor the men who fought for their defiance against hopeless odds (although when told about the “Send us more Japs.” message, after the war the survivors said, “We said WHAT? You gotta be kiddin!”) but we do not dwell on the multi-level incompetence that put them in that position.
Even given the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wake could probably have been saved with a relatively modest amount of support. We could have sent subs, if nothing else.
In the US Military there exists what I call the Wake Island attitude. Suck it up, tough it out, quit yer bellyachin’, make do. Handle it like Wake Island. Not a bad attitude for a military, but every time I hear that I think, “Yeah, but the guys at Wake LOST. I would rather win.” The Wake Island Attitude is not a bad attitude, but it’s also a damn poor excuse.
“….but there is so much excess capacity in the US military that any threat could be dealt with in some way or another.”
I’m sure the same thoughts ran through MacArthur’s mind when he sent Task Force Smith off to Korea as a arrogant demonstration of power. Hadn’t we just five years before shown the world the mighty American war machine? As documented in Clay Blair’s the Forgotten War, the immediate post war period was spent gutting the military of resources, indoctrinating the ranks instead of training [to appease the locals overseas], and promoting managers over leaders in the uniform services. Tens of thousands of live later, not one of the politicians responsible for that paid the ultimate price too many of the ‘little people’ did. For all of Jefferson’s belief in the ‘consent of the governed’, it is solely based upon Lincoln’s ‘last full measure of devotion’. The Politburo found out one day what happened when no one showed up to defend it.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2591755-the-forgotten-war
#51 RWE:
It was possible that Wake Island could have been saved. Admiral Pye, who had taken over as interim CINCPAC, deployed a Carrier Strike Group out towards Wake but chose to withdraw because he did not want to risk what was left of the fleet. That was not an unreasonable decision in December, 1941. And no, a few submarines would not have made a difference. Submarines have never stopped an invasion. The Asiatic Fleet deployed its submarine force against the Japanese Philippine invasion force to no effect. The Mark 14 torpedo didn’t work very well early in the war and it is doubtful that the submarine force would have successfully engaged at Wake.
JJRedfan @ 40, derek @ 43 — Absolutely! Something is going to go very badly wrong, maybe even terminally wrong; that is the easy prediction. The harder part of the prediction is when? and how? (Although maybe the how deserves one of Hillary!’s “What does it matter?”)
There are too many hows. One of the lesser ones is the lack of depth in the Democrat clique. Barry Soetero’s Czars are all charisma-deprived party hacks. His Cabinet members are over-the-hill non-performers like Vietnam Veteran Kerry. And the excitment about the next Democrat to occupy the throne surrounds then-septuagenarian Hillary! This is so reminiscent of the group of aged placeholders who followed Kruschev as the Soviet Union slid to its destiny.
Tolkien had a line about something too long removed from good to retain vigor. That is what we are witnessing in today’s Political Clique.
It is time for the rest of us to wake up and smell the coffee. There is going to be no soft landing, no democratic election that turns the corner. We are sliding into a period that will likely be as devastating as Europe’s Thirty Years War. The human race will survive and move forward after that, but the intervening times will indeed be ‘interesting’.
STOP THE PRESSES! JESSE JACKSON JUNIOR AND HIS WIFE IN PLEA BARGAINING WITH FEDS!
http://www.suntimes.com/18014137-761/feds-investigating-finances-of-former-ald-sandi-jackson-sources.html
gokart @ 49 – You were saying before I so rudely interrupted you?
TPM @ 35,
“[...] but I have not the least doubt it absolutely pales in comparison to things that go on routinely in most administrations[...]”
And in their media lap-dogs, too. The take-home from Rupert Murdoch’s “troubles” in Britain (his news corporation had to fend off charges of phone-tapping official Britain) is not that Murdoch’s media empire is a filthy, no-good, Capitalist-Dog tabloid-monger who “spies.” It is that Rupert and sons’ company is England’s approved scapegoat.
It is common knowledge that every “news” organization in Britain, from the quasi-domestic BBC to the French AFP, tap into, eavesdrop on, and film the daily goings-on of British politicos, royals and celebrities with alarming regularity.
But only Murdoch stood trial for these crimes. Which makes Rupert Murdoch almost like Jesus or Joan of Arc: he’s paying in personal credibility for the BBC’s gross crimes.
c @ 38: Until Reid is removed or (Katy bar the door) is provided a majority
rant
He HAS a frickin’ majority, don’t start echoing the leftard idea that nothing can be done without a super-majority therefore poor Harry is just helpless.
/rant
Wretchard @ 23 – Now let’s all move on and talk about why the lights went out at the superbowl.
No problemo, Sir!
The New Orleans Times-Picayune has a story http://www.nola.com/superbowl/index.ssf/2013/02/super_bowl_blackout_could_be_t.html#incart_river
Look at the diagram. You will see at Position 2 a box marked “switch gear” with two lines emerging to the stadium lights. One line tripped and the other did not. The likely cause was that Beyonce’s generator was hooked up to the line that failed. Her generator was big enough to handle the whole load for Line 1. So the excess power flowed backward through the switch gear into the “Direct line to Superdome” This reversed flow tripped the network protector http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_protector , as designed. However, the generator was still able to support the load until, six minutes after halftime ended, someone shut down the generator, leaving Line 1 with no source of power.
BLACKOUT!
And nine months from now there may be some new Americans!
Back in the Seventies, I sold solid state network protector relays designed for ConEd in the wake of the Northest blackout of 1965.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965
They even made a movie with Doris Day after 1965 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063801/?ref_=sr_1 and another after they got hit again in 1977 with James Mitchum. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077241/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
#17 and #27:
My experience with men of power was up close and very personal on two occasions. Both occasions involved interceding on behalf of “ladies in distress,” and the distressers were both accomplished men used to power. One instance came to blows — I ended up throwing one of those guys down a flight of stairs (oops). I really tried a softer, reasoning, defferential approach first, but he would have none of it. The second instance and individual went much more smoothly, and was very civilized, and everyone just felt a bit awkward afterwards. I suffered no consequences from the first instance because the individual in question was busy burning bridges and ruining his life at the time. He was a close Kennedy family friend. The second guy was a retired Senator (D. Midwestern state), and didn’t know dick about China, as I found out from talking to him on the subject.
re: the Hagel “containment” remark – Barry Rubin picked up what most missed – that Hagel was being cleverly ambiguous – merely supporting the Presidents “strong position” on containment (the “position” itself remaining unmentioned) and NOT explicitly supporting “containment”
but I think Rubin errs in not seeing the aw-shucks doofus act that followed as part of that ambiguous positioning
he was clearly enacting the Biden-same-sex-marriage script – at his own, or someones behest – enunciating a position that everyone knows is shared by POTUS but which POTUS “cannot” yet enunciate himself
that’s why the ambiguity was missed – “everyone” “knows” that this administration has no intention of preventing or actually prefers Iran to go nuclear (let them Jews sweat a little for a change!)
it was a role traditionally played by the court jester … and Hagel is certainly well qualified to be that.
tdiinva #53:
The point is they did not even TRY! And no, our subs would not have stopped the invasion by themselves but they could have at least tried to make the IJN pay a larger price. Like the loss of the Shuttle Columbia they did not even try. Wake is presented as an example of the indomitable fighting spirit of our military. But it is also an example of the indomitable avoidance spirit of our leadership.
At the Battle of Midway one reason the USN had so much trouble finding the IJN was that Betty bombers operating out of Wake were attacking the PBY search aircraft. The USN resorted to having Navy observers ride along in USAAF B-17’s, which could not hit anything with their bombs but did a fine job of finding the IJN.
By the way, a very good book on the WWII torpedo situation is “Hellcats of the Deep.” The book “ Silent Victory” goes into a lot of detail on how bad the MK14’s were but the Hellcats book explains it in a lot more detail, and covers new torpedo development.
“Do You Know Who I Am”?
Please allow me to introduce myself,
I’m a man of wealth and taste,
I’ve been around for a long, long year…Won’t you guess my name?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBecM3CQVD8
A soundtrack for the subject matter.
“I think the US is going to see some serious movements in the coming year. I don’t think it will be partisan; frankly the Republicans are part of the problem. I suspect neither party will come through it looking anywhere near what they look like now. I suspect we will see the collapse of a few news organizations, a long time coming. The continuing impoverishment of anyone not sucking the teat of government will be the vector of discontent, and it will change from ‘why can’t I’ to ‘how dare you’.”
Oh, please, let it be so
RWE: I looked for Hellcats of the Deep and the only thing that came up was “Hellcats Over the Phillipine Deep.” Is the that the title?
RWE @ 61 – Try “Hellcats of the Sea” by Charles Lockwood
http://www.amazon.com/Hellcats-Sea-Charles-Lockwood/dp/0553270591
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Lockwood
This Dr. Melgen guy likely not who he claims to be.
http://freebeacon.com/background-questions/
FBI raid to “investigate Medicare fraud” probably a cover to remove incriminating evidence before any other legal discovery process becomes active.
If most positions of authority and decision are filled with senators, is it any surprise that government is irresponsible?
66. stephen b
..This Dr. Melgen guy likely not who he claims to be..
What difference does it make?
They look alike. Maybe they are related and partners in crime.
F #64, Machias #65:
The book is “Hellions of the Deep” by Robert Gannon. I highly recommend it. You can get it over at Half.com for about $8. The astonishing thing is that a scratchbuilt team of academics and newly graduated guys, together with US industry, developed an air dropped acoustic homing torpedo much faster than the hidebound USN internal organization could even fix their Mark 14. They then went on to improve the rest of the US torpedoes. By the end of the war the USN’s in-house torpedo design and production organization basically was done for, as it should have been.
Over 20 years ago I bought a copy of Silent Victory for a friend of mine who works at China Lake designing rockets. Told him that everyone involved in naval R&D should read it. Now I have bought for him a copy of Hellions of the Deep.
OT: I see Obambus has announced he’s going to visit Israel, did they open a new golf course there or something?
70. Josh
Good time to bring the Iran/Israel conflict to a climax.
wretchard@20: “Ben Franklin believed that a Washington which looked exactly like the people was the best of all worlds. Why? Because the good, the bad and ugly impulses would net out if you had a diverse portfolio that kept changing.”
And you make sure that the elements of your portfolio are independent of one another, have staggered maturity dates and are picked by different analysts. Not a bad metaphor. The Founders may not have been angels, but they were a darn sight smarter today’s “Elite”. But against human stupidity (or perverseness), …
wretchard@28: “I hear the King of Saudi Arabia is offering $50 M to anyone who can tell a story to make his horse laugh?”
Barack, Buraq, what difference does it make?
gokart-mozart@47:
I am reminded of this classic slow-burn portrayal of Cromwell’s speech. (“An immoveable parliament is more obnoxious than an immoveable king!” Y’all are familiar with the re-election records of incumbent Congressmen, yes?)
Josh@70: “I see Obambus has announced he’s going to visit Israel”
He has hit on a new strategy.
New Jersey is a very corrupt state. But sex scandals sell copy… and that make this dangerous for Bob Menendez. Because it is not about sex (like Bill and Monica), but political favors in exchange for sex.
New Jersey and these two, perfect together.
From Casablanca:
Rick: “Your cash is good at the bar.”
Suit: “Do you know who I am?”
Rick: “I do, and you’re lucky the bar is open to you.”
“did they open a new golf course there or something?”
Close, they opened a new skeet range right next to the Syrian border.
am @ 76: they opened a new skeet range right next to the Syrian border
Oh good:
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/02/05/the-11-best-photoshopped-obama-shooting-pics-so-far/president/
The sad thing is that what is being predicted, is the optimistic case. It is going to be bad, real bad.
#77 Josh
Don’t know if you heard about it, but the fake Obama skeet photo is now proved to be fake. Thanks to the White House Press Office.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2013/02/05/skeeter-fake-looks-like-it/
You see, they listed the date that “Teh Won” was supposed to have shot skeet. And note that the picture is supposedly in broad daylight. Except the White House also releases the President’s schedule. The photo was claimed as being taken on August 4, 2012 at Camp David. August 4, incidentally, is also the Royal Birthday. In any case, they listed his activities for the day. And the news services printed it, which gives a pseudo-independent date confirmation.
The Liu2 kou3shui3 de5 biao3zi5 he2 hou2zi5 de5 ben4 er2zi5 spent the day playing golf, and went to Camp David for the evening.
At least there is a certain consistency with the regime and the bipartisan Nomenklatura. If they say it, it is a lie. If they accuse someone else of wrongdoing, they are doing it themselves. If they claim an innocent motivation for their actions, its real purpose is to seize power, money, or both.
Subotai Bahadur
Or when you hold your wrist watch up and both hands, and the second hand as well, point to ground.
Of course, the only reason this would happen is if someone had opened the watch and removed the gears. Does anyone else feel that this is exactly what Obama is doing? Removing all of the functional gears from the Federal Government? Why bother with Senate nominations when the nominees are going to sit alone in offices, powerless, while the government is secretly run in the shadows. Why does Hagel’s background even matter? He isn’t going to be actually doing anything? Like Hillary Clinton, he won’t be actually making decisions. He will just be the face and name on the television. When the real crises come, he will be sitting in the back of the room. If he is invited at all.
This is how you demoralize a country. You can’t convince the country that the Constitution is a useless old scrap of paper that no one follows anymore without actually making it that way first. No matter how fine that watch was before the gears were removed, there’s nothing to do with it but throw it in the trash. Or
melt it down for its metal. That old heavy Rolex is a piece of garbage. Let me show you some fine Timex models.