The Post-Tucson Era
Easy To Borrow, Hard to Pay Back
The same irony holds true on debt. The new ceiling of $14 trillion is really $14 trillion, and the borrowing shows no sign of much abating. Markets are getting edgy. Any slight spike in interest rates could explode annual debt servicing costs. Obama can talk of higher taxes and “defense cuts,” but the only way one can balance the budget is to address entitlements, specifically Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. (The fact that Obama is not calling for 50% income rates, a VAT, and expanded Medicare and Social Security benefits suggests that even he grasps that more of the progressive agenda is tantamount to political extinction [pardon the metaphor].)
Riding the Tiger
Yet when one cuts (pardon the metaphor) defense (70,000 ground soldiers slated over the next four years to disappear), one must expect that the DMZ, Iran, Hezbollah in Syria, Lebanon, the Hindu Kush, China/Japan, China/Taiwan, Cyprus, the Balkans, the former Soviet republics, Venezuela, the Mexican drug state, and on and on will remain relatively quiet, or that they are really none of our business anyway when a vacuum is sensed and parasitic regional parties rush in to fill it. One can argue that we were on the tiger’s back in an unsustainable position. Perhaps. But getting off the tiger’s back is neither easy nor safe.
In Theory or In Fact?
I’m not sure that the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2011 is going to be all that easy either. Will the transgendered and transsexuals demand parity? And if not, why not? Will the overtly gay soldier create edgy atmospheres that the quietly gay did not, and what will be the ramifications of a more overt otherness, if any?
Some will say that now overrepresented white, Christian southern males will insidiously discover the new landscape less inviting and quietly begin leaving or at least not enlisting in prior numbers. If true, will that be good riddance for the new progressive Army or a bad thing when the spirit of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee is needed in places like Fallujah?
Will gays be eligible for the sort of “diversity” affirmative action that is often a consideration in officer promotions that we have seen with women and minorities? Will populations self-select, in which certain branches of the military create inexplicable niches, perhaps in the fashion of male airline attendants?
And if so, does it matter at all? Will small combat units on the front line worry among the bullets much about the overtly gay in their midst, or in Sacred Band fashion supposedly forge new ties of solidarity?
Will ROTC return to liberal campuses? (I think rarely). These were questions that were apparently so politically incorrect and impolitic as not to be raised, but will be adjudicated by facts in 2011. And the political repercussions among the general public may not make the December 2010 widely celebrated decision so widely celebrated.
Addressing the Misdemeanor, Sighing about the Felony
The same is true of the START treaty. We are already hearing, in rather characteristic post-Soviet style that equates magnanimity with weakness, of Russian plans for quite ambitious missile-defense systems and unilateral interpretations of the applications of the treaty. Yet that cynicism is small beer in comparison to the reality that such showboating treaties usually address the minor problems and ignore the insolvable real ones — in this case North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. So we may well have a START treaty where none was needed, and a nuclear confrontation where there was no treaty. And what will that say about the power of paper to make us safer?
9% Heaven
It is a commentary on how desperate we are that Americans are supposed to become giddy over news that a new 9.4% unemployment rate is slightly closer to 9% than 10%. Yet as long as ObamaCare scares away jobs, and record deficits and new regulations frighten businesses (along with the administration’s now entrenched “spread the wealth/fat cat” rhetoric), it is hard to see the jobless rate getting much below 9% (Bush was tarred by John Kerry in 2004 for his “jobless recovery” when unemployment for a bit went over 5.5%). What $4 a gallon gas will do to hiring is anyone’s guess.
Lulls and Storms
So to sum up: Obama just returned to his 2004 “no more red state/blue state” healing speech modes that would provide years of cover for the reality that he would soon become the most partisan senator in the Congress. I congratulate him on dispelling in a few minutes the entire leftist smear campaign. He soon saw the results of his calming in the polls and, no doubt, his appetite for more was whetted — especially given that his base capitulated so easily and in such humiliating fashion, in a nanosecond going from sounding like Michael Moore to a calm Gandhi.
Unfortunately, we are in a lull before the hurricane. For two years we have ignored the ramifications of ObamaCare that now begin to kick in; the consequences of going from $11 to $14 trillion in debt, with a trillion more in debt scheduled each year; the inevitable return of sky-high energy prices — and forgot that herky-jerky legislation that is pushed through to high-fiving (think prescription drug) often later proves either too costly or complex to be sustainable.
I was encouraged by Obama’s Tucson speech, but also believe he will not be encouraged by what lies ahead in 2011, most of it the result of his own making.
I don’t know. Call me silly but I turned off the the Tucson “speech” after the third or fourth (of 51) interruptions of rapturous applause.
Memorial? No. I don’t think that’s happened yet. Probably won’t be in the public eye when it does.
OK, You’re silly.
I guess Dwight likes political rallies. The slogans. The fainting. The panting. The tingly legs. No need to reason. No need to think. Just go with it Ted Kennedy style: “And I say to you today the dowhoeroarfe topondinkeedoo.”
Dwight was born about 70 years too late and a few thousand miles too Westerly. Were it not so, he’d have been singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” at the top of his lungs in some biergarten along with the rest of his fellow suck-ups and sycophants. Didn’t turn out too well for them then; won’t turn out too well for that type now.
I think Dwight may have been kidding. I also wonder if all the applause interruptions at the Memorial were out of ignorance. Maybe most of the people in the audience don’t attend religious services.They may not know how to behave at a memorial ceremony.
Victor: Say it’s so, Victor! You’ve now allowed me to return to feeling good about the odds favoring a dump of the “O” in 11/2012; now that would really by good news.
Please continue as you have.
Cheers.
Don’t get to feeling too good; that’s politically risky. Back in 1995, quite a number of commentators on the Right were dead certain that Bill Clinton would be a one-term president. That turned out not to be the case.
We have to stay focused and very, very determined to pitch The Won out of office. (What he might be good for once he’s no longer president is his problem. Maybe he can go back to community organizing.)
I would suspect that Barack Obama will become The Worst Ex-President to the point at which no one will even remember Jimmy Carter.
I don’t feel good either. There is no sign either side has learned anything from this tragedy, the 4th and 5th Estate reaction to which displays the “yellow journalism” we smugly think of as quaint and passé.
Though it is a natural curiosity, it is foolish to stampede out and check the political affiliation of an assassin so as to prepare to emphasize which political party’s stock has gone up or down; it IS news but it is built upon and distorted.
Since it doesn’t and won’t make a difference, it is only politicizing murder which in this instance, was true of both Right and Left and not the actual murderer himself. It is “doublethink” to frantically strip away or build the political affiliation of a murderer, since it is a political move to deny ones own politics passed off as dispassionate scientific statistics involving maps, abscissa and ordinate.
A piece of the true cross in this instance would be for either Right or Left to find an MSNBC or Fox News t-shirt once worn by Loughner to be held up to a gasping crowd like the shroud of Turin in a torch-lit moment of true victory. In this case, Loughner could be given a “witch test” to see whether he weighs more than his t-shirt which would be ignored in any case as the far bigger fight is waged among the politicos who weigh each other; politicians names are used far more than Loughner’s and some of the victims are virtually nameless in a true tribute to how much they really matter in all this.
Can anyone tell me the name of the little girl lying under dirt without Googling it? Case rested.
From a leftist pov: the silence/toning down of rhetoric from the left *could* also be read that we have gotten the point, and are waiting for the right to give something back. (But I guess we are just nazi-dhimmi-muslim haters of america, no matter what? Eh?)
This dehumanizing of the people who disagree with you really has to stop. Disagree all you want, but stop caling the opposition monsters who want to destroy America.
This is where the rubber meets the road:
“Unfortunately we are in a lull before the hurricane. For two years we have ignored the ramifications of Obamacare that now begin to kick in, the consequences of going from $11 to $14 trillion in debt, with a trillion more in debt scheduled each year, the inevitable return of sky-high energy prices—and forgot that herky-jerky legislation that is pushed through to high-fiving (think prescription drug) often later proves either too costly or complex to be sustainable.”
We can’t kid ourselves either. We will quickly learn what the Republican’s plan is. Boehner can no longer carp on the sidelines, he has to produce. Repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with what? What is the Republican energy policy? What is the Republican answer to the massive national debt? What will they cut? What do they want to do about our over extended military and it’s share of the budget? Niall Ferguson suggests there is no question we must reduce military spending in the next few years.
$4/gallon gas, some think it will be more like $5 this summer. All those brand new F150′s will cost a lot more to operate. TV’s might be cheaper but feeding oneself isn’t.
I hope Obama, Boehner & Reid get it together. We don’t have the time to wait for Palin or Romney to save us.
I hope Obama, Boehner & Reid do not “get it together.” I expect Boehner to fight Obama and his dangerous policies. That is what this past election was about. I want Obama destroyed – politically speaking.
We are about to enter that realm where neither time nor space reside, where logic turns on itself and the mundane becomes the norm, we are about to enter ‘THE GRIDLOCK ZONE’.
There are worse things than gridlock. Passing legislation no one has read – or can read – is one of them.
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think the proposal in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress may have something to it: Two houses, yes, but one can only pass legislation with a two-thirds majority; the second can repeal legislation with only one third in favor of doing so.
If a law is so obnoxious that even a third of the people detest it, why should it be allowed to stand?
There are huge problems with this notion, of course. It’s almost comic. However, a legislature that legislates the way ours does is creating a straight-jacket for the people, and that’s not good, either.
We are about to enter that realm where neither time nor space exists, where logic disappears, where the mudane and tedious are the norm. We are about to enter “THE GRIDLOCK ZONE”.
Nothing of significance is going to happen until 2012 and not even then if Obama isn’t tossed from his throne (pardon the metaphor). Let’s hope he has a bumpy ride for the next couple of years and does no more damage. That in itself would be an great accomplishment.
Yes, replace Obamacare with nothing.
It’s the economy, stupid is still operative. This guy isn’t bringing it back. He shot us in the face with his drilling ban. Do you find ten percent unemployment stimulating? How do you like bailing out foreign banks and auto companies that take the money and hire overseas? Obama is an incompetent disaster, and there is no point in pretending otherwise.
Let’s not run the next old guy whose turn it is. I voted against McCain in the primary, and sure enough we got Bob Dole redux. How’d that work for you?
Another example of Leftist agression. Federal interference in healthcare is 100% unConstitutional. A patient’s treatment by a doctor is not interstate commerce. So, Dems propose Federal controls, and somehow, the question for the GOP becomes “What is our alternative?” What the hell? So, now everybody accepts the notion that the Feds can involve themselves in private medical practice, and the complete takeover becomes a matter of ‘how’ and ‘when’ not ‘if’.
Jacobite – if your alternative in nothing then fine. Let the Republican’s, the Teaparty, whoever be honest, be straight forward, look The People in the eye and tell them YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. Get the government out of all it starting with Medicare. You and your family are at the mercy of the corporate insurance industry.
I don’t think that will happen.
Are you asserting there was no government involvement in Healthcare prior to Obama? The insurance industry ran wild, free from any government interference? Repeal Obamacare means reset to 2009, not 1779.
I’d like coverage for catastrophic illness only, but those sort of policies can’t be sold in NY, and it’s not the doing of GWB or the Federal Government.
Strawman. No NEW entitlements. People who have been promised social security and medicare will still receive it.
Stick-it-to-us: 900B on political payoffs flushed down the toilet
Bailouts: Nobody really knows, but well over $10T
Obamacare: At least 3T over ten years. History predicts more like 10T for the first decade.
Accrued but unfunded SEIU pension obligations: well over 5T
SS shortfall over 10 years: about 5 T
Medicare shorfall by 2050: about 50 to 70T
Military budget: about 600B annually
Year when militrary spending is the smallest % of GDP since WWII: 2010
The age when a children can begin to understand facts like these is about 8 to 11.
But I don’t blame idiots like this poster. He is thoroughly brainwashed and incapable of independent thought. I blame the school system, and of course, the marxists who now control it.
Replace it with what !?! Replace it and restrictive insurance laws, thats what!
Across borders insurance. Limited tort awards. Heavy fines on lawyers for frivolous lawsuits. Govorment hands off on insurance restrictions.
But don’t get me started…
Now gone from the Obama rhetorical arsenal (excuse the metaphor) entirely are his old partisan Chicago allusions of both the campaign and last autumn—the potpourri imagery of knives, guns, enemies, punishing, kicking ass, relegation to backseat, get angry, getting in their face, hostage takers, [......]
I wouldn’t bet on that lasting very long.
I agree with you. Obama really can’t help himself, as he is really, at heart, just a rabble rouser. Unless he’s stirring up hornet’s nests (walking away whistling, but enjoying the show), I don’t think he’s happy.
Whatever O’s rhetoric, what the TPers have done has been far worse: swarming and intimidating politicians, “2nd Amdt remedies”, bringing guns to political meetings, waving “We came unarmed [this time]” signs, and on and on.
VDH isn’t doing the teapartiers any favors; he’s enabling them to keep doing things like that. He’s also not pointing out that the teapartiers’ coverage of this has involved a great deal of doublethinking. First they said the shooter was l/w based on what one of his friends said. Then, they said he wasn’t political based on what another friend said. And, for the last they failed to point out that that friend hadn’t seen him for two years. And – against their own interests – they failed to admit the possibility that, while the shooter probably wasn’t motivated by their ideology, he might have been motivated by their *tactics*:
http://24ahead.com/n/10310
P.S. Since teapartiers have various issues, I have to point out that, while I’m not in any way a fan of the ‘partiers, I’m not too much a fan of O either. In 2007, I tried to ask him something that would have made him look bad, and in 2008 I posted 24ahead.com/n/8247 . If your leaders had simply made those points over and over he might have lost. If replying to this post, please think first.
He started planning this in 2007, when the left was applauding assassination movies made about the then current sitting president and fantasizing regularly about this death.
Of course *now* the left are twinkle toes and all about civil discourse, now that they have the power of the federal government at their disposal.
The last 5 years of murderous rhetoric didn’t happen, the effigies of Bush (and more recently Palin) being burnt and hung, the dog whistling to the fringe left hoping for violent reaction and insurrection, none of that occurred.
No, the gunman, a 9/11 truther who believes that George Bush and evil corporations are responsible for bringing down the towers, whose favorite reading list contains the Communist Manifesto and who burns the American flag is apparently actually a *conservative* not a product of the deranged left after ten years of dog whistling by their enablers.
Now today we see that the left has *in reality*, provably just stirred up people and incited people to violence and we have death threats against individuals purely because of the lies, smear and slander of the left towards middle America in this matter (who just *had* their revolution by the way, congress now belongs to them) but that’s a-ok.
I do hope you lot keep pushing this line, there’s a hell of a lot of a-political people looking on in amazement and increasingly disgust.
Enjoy the political wilderness, you’ll realise (as Obama did when he threw you all under a bus in his speech) that you’ve made a big mistake exploiting this.
Conservatives are aware of the second man involved in the “incident” — the one who “said” he was shot that day and blew up and screamed out threats at the ABC meeting the next week.He is crazier than the one the MSM is focusing on. And he has quite an interesting background.
I agree, Obama 2.0 will not sell. Obama’s got two big ears with which to listen, but his big community agitator mouth will override those very shortly. He is what he is and to be anything else will make even his lefty base feel he is a phony. Gasoline will sky rocket by summer, as will home foreclosures and 10% plus unemployment will be revisited. It will be very painful to endure but it will seal his defeat in 2012. In the end, we will emerge a stronger country having rejected progressivism.
“And what will that say about the power of paper to make us safer?”
Indeed.
Thank you Doctor Hanson.
The world is full Sudetenlands to give away.
Why do we even have a statutory “Debt Ceiling?”
On WHAT have we spent our substance?
WHY is about one-third of our corn production diverted into ethanol?
And hundreds of other questions—-
While I have no love for, or case to make for, the most costly and disastrous on-the-job-training project in U S history (Obama as President), none of those things, each so symptomatic of our decline, are Obama-Specific.
Do the citizens of all Republics, all Democracies, become corrupted? Is that the historical evidence? Are there identifiable “tipping-points” at which corruption, rent-seeking, and devolution of powers to an “Administrative State” always occur?
R. Richard Schweitzer
Yes, There are tipping points in the rise and fall of nations. Most successful societies started small, with little in the way of aristocracies, central government, or intellectuals. The pioneers, or stepping stones to modern America were Phoenicia, Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence, Holland, and England. These all grew initially with republican virtue, open and relatively free economies, and a minimum of autocratic rule.
For example in Greece, the independent Hoplite farmers around 700BC established the independent self-reliant nature of the ancient Greek people. They were much like America’s settlers from 1620-1870, that created two hundred and fifty years of spectacular growth in America.
After an affluence is established by ordinary people, these societies get large, rich, complicated, and new elites take over–abstract thinkers who have little practical ability, but want to rule with their heads, their theories, their grandiose plans. They have what Dr Sowell calls enough “verbal virtuosity” to impress the people that they know best. That is when the tipping takes place. Woodrow Wilson’s “Progressive” era about 1920 was the point where America had tipped and, alas, has never looked back.
Reagan may have temporarily slowed the process, but once the academics, intellectuals, media, non-profit institutions, and public employee unions get the taste of power and latch onto the idea they can redistribute assets to their own supporters, democracy dies, and a swarming scramble of self-interest takes over. The short-term allure of hand-outs appeals to the laziest and soon, since everyone is doing it, as more and more individuals see no gain from the struggle, the hard working backbone of the nation is broken.
That is why Republics prosper, but as they mature and become populist democracies, they become terminal.
Citizens of prosperous republics become corrupted because we discover that we can vote ourselves largesse.
It starts out as compassionate “entitlements” for widows and orphans, “temporary” payments for the unemployed, old age pensions for (in theory, anyway) people who were never well enough off to plan and save for retirement. The corruption grows with “targeted” tax breaks and loopholes (let’s not pretend otherwise, all right? I become very tired of middle-class dishonesty on this topic), and increases further with demands for further exceptions to increasingly complex tax laws.
Then people begin to wonder why they pay for these marvelous things but do not receive them. Thus entitlements grow, and the tax code becomes increasingly complex, and the exemptions and exceptions increase until no one is entirely sure he or she has filled up his little form properly.
Were I the sort of person who proposed constitutional amendments, I would write one that said, in the briefest possible way that would pass legal muster: Charity is charity; it shall never be construed to be a thing to which any citizen, inhabitant, or visitor to the United States is entitled.
Such a statement would not prevent corruption of the citizenry, but it might slow it down a little.
Richard,
One third of our corn production is diverted to ethanol because its the most expensive, inefficient, time consuming, resource and labor intensive way of producing fuel known to man….all this “activity” (no mistake here) is conducted on the taxpayers dime..
Its federally subsidized “busy work”, tying up millions of acres, WAITING for the shit to grow, watching, watering, and WAITING, all season long…..WAITING…
Then harvesting, transporting, and investing MORE time and energy to squeeze it into a frigging liquid….
Or, if you were SMART, you’d poke a hole in the ground, where the OIL will gush up….FASTER and in greater VOLUME than you can safely control in most circiumstances, because there is SO MUCH OF IT.
A single acre producing more energy, astronimically faster, than 5000 cornfields (with no slumps in production due to bad weather, drought, pests, insects, etc etc etc)
Find it, drill it, pump it dry….while you simultaneously building Nukes AND explore the next frontier (fusion?)
Put the adults in charge, watching the corn grow makes as much sense watching the paint dry…only the Government could possibly see a benefit in PAYING for that.
“will Obama’s 2.0 work” Of course it will work. He better than anyone knows that he rules over a band of sheep. Leading them to the slaughter is just a matter of once again choosing the right words. He did it before and he will do it again. The Tea Party, not the Republicam Party might turn things around.
As Newt once commented “the Democrats are better at telling lies than the Republicans are at telling the truth.”
I could not believe that O. got elected in the first place.
…and after all he has done and all he has revealed about who and what he is, I can’t believe that his approval is above 13%.
I can top that. I still can’t believe Bill Clinton got elected in the first place and I am still(fifteen years later)in denial that he was elected to a second term.
I am very worried about the quality of the average voter in the US today. It seems that they have learned that they really don’t have much choice except to stay in the treadmill and keep begging for the next pellet.
I guess what I really fear is that their are more parasites, cowards, RINOS, and lefties than we who debate here.
Nickel, the problem is that so much of the conventional wisdom Progressives promote has been embedded as the “normal” in our society over the last 65 years or so, because (1) it initially sounds nice and (2) we valued the appearance of civility over the defense of principle, and refused to rise up and effectively challenge that conventional wisdom as soon as it first appeared.
As a result, Progressives were able to (dishonestly) frame the debate in their (substance-deficient) terms … and my fear is that this tragedy will be used to restore that status quo by muzzling even strident-but-non-violent criticism, such as that seen in the Congressional townhalls of the last few years.
That is one of the best summations of what has happened that I have read. Thank you.
Rich,
I agree, you “nailed” it…although I think Riveting is stronger, so dont change your name!
Bob Dole.
Or how about John McCain?
“…and after all he has done and all he has revealed about who and what he is, I can’t believe that his approval is above 13%”
You’re forgetting the 47% who don’t pay taxes are already on Obama’s side & they’d be jeopardizing their ability to “live free” if they vote for anyone other than the Dem. When O’s approval falls below 47% it means even some who don’t pay a dime “ain’t happy” & they express it in a poll, but where are they going to turn? Certainly NOT to the right!
That 47% are going to receive a rude shock when the money runs out.
Pity about that, but living on a stranger’s dime really does explain the old cliche, “Cold as charity.”
It is wise to whistle while walking past any cemetery, is it not?
Russia is already stating that they reserve the right to adhere cafeteria style to the conditions and terms of the START “tweety” printed on the back of worthless derivative stock certificates, to make sure paper is recycled.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110114/pl_nm/us_russia_usa_start
I’m sure this will trigger a flurry of strongly worded memos (pardon the metaphor).
Obama and the rest of the Left have gotten away with murder (just a metaphor, so chill, please) in smearing conservatives before. Wasn’t going to work this time. Jared Loughner was a bridge too far. Without solid evidence, no reasonable person would connect his world with that of the Tea Partiers, or politics in general.
Paul Krugman is not a reasonable person. He’s still conscience-dreaming a la Loughner of a Leftist victory on this one: “No don’t pull back. We’ve got them on the run. The red in tooth ‘n claw capitalists are immoral AND insane. This is the perfect example.”
In Paul’s Manichean world, the Liberal forces of good perennially defeat the Evil Grand Old Party. Almost as trite and pathetic as that of the mentally ill Loughner. Leftist delusions of grandeur, offered by a mad man without the defense of insanity.
Plus, there is the verry interesting story behind the man who threw the tantrum at the ABC-filmed meeting the next week. It seems he’s expressed interest in making necklaces from….Well, let’s just say he has an intriguing background. He was whisked away immediately by the authorities and put into a psych ward for “observation.” Hasn’t been heard from since, but his background is on the net, and conservatives should be aware of him.
I doubt that Obama can keep this up. Clinton moved to the center a place where he was comfortable, recognized as different from left and had spent much of his political life. Obama believes he is and is in the center of, well everything. I am mystified as to why people insist on comparing Obama to Reagan or Clinton. Other than being president in bad economic times he has nothing in common with Reagan. Without wasting time comparing them as people or politicians, Reagan could count on his policies improving the economy. At best Obama could benefit from the economy improving inspite of his policies. Neither he nor we are going to be that lucky.
I think it is time we stop kidding ourselves about President Obama’s intentions being honorable. They are to subvert the free market economy of the US, destroy our Republic and use the full power of the US military to enslave us.
I would say once you face up to that reality, you can see that Obama 2.0 is simply a strategy to blunt the overt criticism from the right and lull the sheeple back into re-electing him. And all this with the complete support and cooperation of the Republican Progressive Quizlings among us. Mitt Romney anyone?
No wonder they all hate Sarah Palin, she is the only major figure on the scene who hasn’t signed on as part of the cabal.
nickel:
Would you say that again please. Maybe someone will read and understand it.
Professor Hanson writes:
“Some will say that now overrepresented white, Christian southern males will insidiously discover the new landscape less inviting and quietly begin leaving or at least not enlisting in prior numbers.”
I believe that voting patterns in gay marriage referendums show that minority males and females are no less likely to object than are the white males mentioned above.
@3. bill: “Repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with what?”
_________________
Nothing.
Obamacare is a disastrous “fix” for a system that wasn’t broke; it was a system that wasn’t needed. There is no need for “health-care” insurance, just as there is no need for “grocery” insurance. Health care is an expense of normal living, like shelter, clothing and food, none of which are free, not even lunch.
Note: “Health-care” insurance is not the same thing as what used to called “major-medical” insurance. The latter is a necessary product to protect against catastrophic loss, analogous to liability car insurance.
How does a Congress come up with a bill than runs over 2000 pages, filled with “legalese” etc.? Did you note how “unheard” the insurance industry was during this whole time, relative to what has not become “Obamacare” for us?
The insurance industry is in the “protection” business, a profitable business, very much so.
Who do you think “really helped” in writing that wonderful bill now knowm as Obamacare?
Outside of our Defense Department, what other “industry” has as much information on Americans and our world as the insurance industry?
Think about this for longer than a nano second.
Mr. Politician and Mrs. Insurance have been in bed for a very long time enjoying each other’s company more than you might have ever realized or given time to consider.
Mr. Politician & Mrs Insurance have been in bed together because of govt’s incessant need to keep telling Mrs Insurance what to do….if you want to sell a medical policy (depending on the state), every policy sold in that state has to include “covered services” most people don’t want or need: it might be maternity coverage for teen girls or lifts for flat feet or smoking cessation counselling. According to “the state” (& now the federal govt) everybody’s responsible for somebody else’s problem & we have to spread “the risk” around. If you’re 57, a single male & don’t have a teen daughter, you’re paying for some 14 yr old’s baby. Don’t smoke? Well, if you start at age 48, you’ll be covered if you want to stop. People never think about how much it costs someone else so they can have a “cheap” co-pay for ordinary medical services that should be their responsibility. If we had true Major Medical policies based on individual “choices”, not state mandates, we wouldn’t have to put out 10-15K for “healthcare” & would be able to pay for doctor visits & simple medical procedures ourselves. Then again, we’re talking about individual responsibility. That’s something about which nearly half this country hasn’t got a clue.
You exactly nailed the problem Carolannie. The Democrat party is all about rights without responsibility and they have made a disaster of this nation. Now they want to “improve” on the disaster by ratcheting it up a notch with Obamacare. I think you would agree with me that it is high time every American starting carrying his or her own load. Maybe we could even start teaching it in school.
“because of govt’s incessant need to keep telling Mrs Insurance what to do”
Carolannie…hold on there. Mr. Government got involved when Mrs. Insurance company wrote all kinds of policies and then went belly up leaving those with claims empty handed, wherein such customers of this formerly profit oriented enterprise cried to their politicians to do something about this problem. Presto…Mr. Government then created laws, etc. to help dear policy holders from the new evil Mrs. Insurance company.
And the rest is more history of a love affair where profit and political power come together to create special pleasures for both…in bed, in love from time to time with each other!
Please provide a link to when Mrs. Insurance went belly-up and was unable to meet her obligations in regard to health insurance. I’m old enough to look around me and know that didn’t happen in the last 40 years, at least.
Exactly, Big. Well put. Every time the well-meaning have touched medical care, it has gotten worse, more expensive, more complicated, until it wallows helplessly in socialist quicksand. The same thing has happened to the tax system. The libruls, with help from our side I’m afraid, seek to use the system to make us better, instead of just paying the government’s bills (for that we must borrowers be). What an ungodly mess.
The libruls, with help from our side I’m afraid, seek to use the system to make us better, instead of just paying the government’s bills (for that we must borrowers be)..
As if they possessed the omniscience necessary to achieve that, Fred … what they do not get, is that even having the highest education, and the purest intent, does not mean that one has the capability to solve the problems of EACH and EVERY ONE of 300 million Americans FOR them via our system of laws.
OK, Ritchie, I said “seek”. “Find” was not implied and should not be inferred.
@3. bill: “Repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with what?”
Q : What replaced slavery when it was abolished ?
A : Freedom
Heh; Yea; I once had a coconut that I peeled like a banana, too.
Q. And what replaced freedom?
A. Jim Crow.
And which party was responsible for that?
What freedom?
Look at today’s former ‘slaves’. Yes, they have freedom, but in name only. Very few had broken the slave collars.
Their present day slave owners are the do-gooders who have no intention of cutting the ties.
The comparison with Clinton after 1994 is hardly valid. Those were days when America had a surplus and no crises. Furthermore no one accused Clinton of trying to undermine democracy, wrecking the economy or betraying America’s friend while encouraging her foes. Clinton did one thing wrong, trying to press a health care bill no one wanted. When he gave up that there was no reason to get rid of him. There are so many things wrong with Obama it is essential for the cause of freedom that he be removed from office ASAP.
Not only were the polls against the blame game, but the assassin is a Democrat. It is best for the Dems if they not talk about it anymore. They can only lose.
Obama hasn’t learned to not shoot off his mouth. It’s just that this was something he was going to get actively involved in as President. In other words, it was to be scripted.
He did a good job of it. I’ll give him credit. It was the right tone to take. He acted like our President is supposed to act. He benefited politically, but I do not care. The crowd, however, acted inappropriately. It should have been a somber occasion, but the Left simply have terrible understanding of humanity.
I agree, Obama did a credible job of sounding Presidential. But I can’t help but remind myself that the event was his, lock-stock-and-barrel (pardon the metaphor). He still owns it and the tone of the audience reflects on him regardless.
I think that the most glaring flaw in the Democrat Party is their lack of humility. They are all such perfect creatures, a fact of which they continually remind us of in a thousand different ways.
That lack of humility will defeat their very temporary even tone and conciliatory rhetoric sooner than we might think. They can’t help it – it’s not in their nature to be humble.
Death threats made to Tea Part member….
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/15/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-threat-20110116
http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/j-eric-fuller-video-dated-january-14-2011/
Keith Olbermann, Roy Wilson, Chris Matthews and all the other commentators blamed conservatives, the Tea Party and Sarah Palin for the tragedy at Tucson whipping up hostility. Now one of the victims has made a death threats against a member of the Tea Party.
Are they now, according to their own logic, an accessory to the crime?
Charles Schultz must have been thinking of the GOP when he came up with his Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown idea.
The GOP historically has performed quite pathetically in such situations. I’m sorry to say that I have no confidence in them. None. There are only a handful of GOP’ers with the character, maturity, and discipline required to enact meaningful reforms that will restore America’s prosperity and sanity. Ryan, Bachmann, DeMint…. That’s not enough. The balance of hand-wringing panderers will produce another Charlie Brown on his back, looking up at the sky scenario. And the nation will be bankrupt if we are not already.
It’s going to take a a great deal of pain, perhaps even catastrophic collapse, to focus people’s minds to the degree necessary to take the required medicine.
Turbulent times lie ahead.
“…an elegant speech that was also both sober and judicious.”
This writer has fallen into the same spider trap as some other conservative writers.
Just because others agree doesn’t mean it’s NOT naive.
(from http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41181)
“Of course, this call to civility came after the President’s allies spent four days loudly indicting conservatives as accessories to murder, a campaign that led to a frightening surge of death threats against one of their primary targets, Sarah Palin. It’s a little like coming home to find that one of your kids has beaten the other one to a pulp, and sternly instructing them both to knock off the roughhousing.”
The Left rely not only on their messiah and sheep, but also on the naivete of their opponents.
“Will Obama 2.0 work? Perhaps, especially if conservatives ornate the Clinton ’96 analogy with their own Bob Dole in 2012.”
What always amuses me is that the main stream media and all the democratic partisan hacks today are saying that Obama is “re-inventing” himself or “moving towards the middle.” I don’t care if he moves back to Kenya, are we supposed to forget that the first two years of his administration ever happened?
Are we to simply forget how Obamacare was rammed through Congress against the will of the people? Are we to forget all of the bailouts, union paybacks, and “stimulus” that only stimulated more debts and a few union jobs? Are we to forget the AIG and GM and Chrysler takeovers? Are we to forget the Gulf Oil spill and his lame reaction to it, or how horribly he has treated our allies like Britain and Israel? And are we to forget how much damage his policies have done to the economy, with 9% unemployment (which is higher if you factor in underemployment) looking like the new normal? Are we simply to forget all of this and say “Yippee, he’s moving to the Middle!” Are we to forget all of the lies, the insults, and the broken promises?
No, we will not forget and 2012 can’t come fast enough. At this stage of the game, I think America is ready to give George W. Bush a third term if he wanted it, even though the Constitution says that’s a no no.
We need to keep in mind that Bill Clinton’s improved political fortunes after moving to the political center in the mid 1990′s took place in the circumstances of the mid 1990′s — good economic times, adoption of Republican solutions in good part and foreign policy matters that did not disturb the country (although they should have). Those circumstances led to the result of Bill Clinton’s re-election in the 1996 presidential race. It was not as if the GOP had in 1996 some candidate other than Dole who was a game-changer in terms of the presidential race.
What will matter in 2012 is what happens between now and the 2012 election in the economy and with respect to national security and foreign affairs. A recent column of VDH discusses that in 2011, the tab becomes due, and consistent with tha prior coplumn, this column reviews the difficulties ahead for Obama.
If in 2012 the economic times are not good and if there are national security and foreign policy issues confronting the nation, then the analogy that will come to mind is 1980 when stagflation and the takeover by the American Embassy in Iran doomed Jimmy Carter’s re-election chances.
I predict that repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” will cause serious problems, but that it will be politically incorrect to to address those problems. The American military that was rebuilt after Vietnam will then again be in need of being rebuilt, but the political left will not understand that it can’t be rebuilt as a “progressive” military and really will not care.
I have no doubt that DADT will be a problem for those outside the military. The real measure will be whether it creates a problem in troop readiness. I teach at a University (one of the few conservatives) and am constantly amazed at the acceptance of young people for those different from themselves. The core of military culture is strong and remains strong. It weaves the virtues of “mission,” esprit de corps, sacrifice and discipline. Anything that detracts from those virtues is not acceptable within the institution. I don’t expect that to change given the culture of today’s young people.
Marvin, I hope you’re wrong, though given your position I doubt it.
The military has been and needs to be a moral organization, on a higher behavioral plane than common society. It is about behavior, not the individual, and no good can come of openly homosexual behavior in the military.
If soldiers cannot change the moral degradation of the service, I suspect they will leave and seek other forms of service to their families and their nation.
Ahem: This is from memory, not a site, so forgive me, Kipplers, if I miss a phrase or two.
We aren’t no ‘thin red ‘eroes’, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barracks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barracks don’t grow into plaster saints.
Madam, the military is and always has been ‘single men in barracks’, and they are not on a higher moral plane. They are normal people, and they will decide as normal, rational beings.
“an’ it’s Tommy this, and Tommy that, and “Tommy, ‘ow’s your soul?”
Deep breaths, here, and remember the military are not the bloody Templars!
“Madam, the military is and always has been ‘single men in barracks’”
No it is not. The military consists of GI’d soldiers. You sign up to serve, not express your sexuality as you please. If one doesn’t like they rules of conduct they don’t have to join. The military ought to be able to establish the rules of conduct that best fits the needs of the service and hence the nation. If the Marines don’t want openly gay soldiers then why do they have to cater to them because of political whim? I don’t understand the concept of discrimination and sexuality in the military. What was wrong with DADT, it’s none of your business?
Marvin, I don’t follow your “logic.” You go from the youth culture at what you call a conservative university, which you say is accepting of differences, to the military culture, which you say remains strong. What makes you think that there are not elements of the youth culture, even at a conservative university, that are deliterious to the military culture? One adapts to the military culture, not the other way around. And yes, the military culture remains strong, but repeal of DADT has not been implemented yet.
My concern is how DADT impacts the guys in the combat arms. They opposed the repeal of DADT. You are very, very badly mistaken if you think that the repeal of DADT will only be a concern outside the military.
Well if the polls are accurate.that could just happen.Especially when you have liberal suck-ups like mike huckabee.Saying barack obama is a great patriot,that only wants the best interest of america.called rush limbaugh,mark levin’Sarah palin,jim demint,and mike pence conservatives extremist.Just last night on his show.he called out anybody that would question barack obama’s sincerity.needs to shut up.Mike huckabee,is the gop’s version of jimmy carter.Just as george h.w.bush was the lapdog,for ted kennedy,the clintons,and the united nations of dictators(New world order)one world government,activists,pushers.Mike huckabee will be the democrat party’s,and the new world order crowds punk pooch.He has no vision,judgement,courage,or character.When it comes to seeking the truth vs.liars.His obsession,to defend the lies of barack obama,And trash conservatives,as extremist is proof of that.
So jimmy joe, why do you suppose Fox News has been promoing the Huckleberry for the last two years? Could it be that the script as written says that a good ol’ bible thumper like Mike can single handedly stop the Mormon Cultist and Sara Palin, Especially with the assistance of the revitalized Brit Hume?
Well, Professor, I for one was disappointed with the ‘memorial service’. What, no marching band? No half time show? No reading from the Koran What happened to the planned release of one thousand doves? Somebody, obviously, slipped up. And now we can look forward to another billion dollar campaign onslaught.
“…with all the requisite strained but not necessarily incorrect symptomatology”
Does that have a meaning? It has the VDH rhythm, for sure, but it is a phrase which deletes itself: -1 +1 =0
The dictionary is your friend.
Requisite means required. Strained means forced, that which does not come naturally. Symptomatology means all the symptoms exhibited by a disease.
It’s not a phrase I’d use, but it it is not, contrary to your assertion, meaningless.
Yes, but there are still all those that jumped the shark when the ringing from the first shots bounced off the walls in Tucson. Never, ever, underestimate the ability of the left to jump an entire series of sharks until they find one they ride to victory.
We’ll know by summer if we should just say no to both the Dems and the GOP and make the first steps toward a better world with the Tea Party.
I won’t go so far as to say that the loss of the election and the Tucson murders are bringing out “greatness” in Obama; let’s settle for skillful politician, who may work better when he has to compromise, than when the sole pressure on him was to appease is radical left flank.
VDH, to give him credit, sees this happening and tries to cushion the blow for you.
So if you guys have had your destruction of Obama meme ripped away from you, maybe we can get down to work and figure out how to solve, or at least limit some of our problems: employment, energy, health care, and the debt for four.
$3.2 trillion in debt in 2 years. Oil drilling moratoriums. Nationalizing health care. Printing money to buy government bonds. Race-bating Arizona.
…and you blame the right for not working with this disaster.
That last paragraph was Comedy Gold. Thanks, I needed the laugh.
Dwight, are you willing to consider ALL the possible solutions … as I see you are starting from the assumption that it is their job to solve these problems FOR us?
EMPLOYMENT: the best they can do is act to reduce the burden of governance and civil society upon businesses, so they can direct the freed resources into productive activities. Beyond that, it AIN’T THEIR JOB … it’s OURS … to solve our INDIVIDUAL problems regarding employment, from increasing our own skill set, to maximizing our own productivity, to being willing to change jobs to get a better one.
ENERGY: they need to stop government favoritism of specific forms of energy that are simply not ready to meet our needs — ethanol, solar, wind — and open access to development for ALL forms of energy, not just the politically-correct ones. This favoritism doesn’t just stop us from drilling … it creates black holes in R&D that can suck dollars and people away from development of better technologies than the “approved” ones.
HEALTH CARE: AIN’T THEIR JOB to solve this … it is too individual-specific to be effectively solved by a “universal” Federal-level program … it’s OUR JOB to find these solutions, through the marketplace and/or charitable efforts (for those who truly can’t afford care). The most they can do is get rid of the burdens and market distortions government has imposed upon our present system.
DEBT: Implementing the solutions above will go a long way towards reducing the expense of running government … and increasing government revenues through increased economic activity. The tax rates/tax system MUST be adjusted to optimize this process … even if it means cutting taxes on millionaires.
As for entitlements, actually managing Social Security and Medicare like any other retirement/insurance program … i.e. allowing investment in the private sector of the funds that back it up … would mitigate the need to cut benefits. This would require that nasty word “privatization”, to prevent these funds being used by our leaders as a Big Fed Fund to wag the markets for political advancement.
I’m not saying that I have all the answers.
I expect my leaders to say that, as well … and act accordingly.
What will bring back civility to public discourse, is for Progressives to have the intellectual backbone to declare that individuals “outsourcing” their problem-solving responsibility to a few Progressive Best and Brightest was/is/always will be a fool’s errand.
Until Progressives address that fundamental flaw in their worldview, in word and deed, the rancor will continue … for the alternative is to become Greece.
You have the direction toward which we will turn. You state the place more absolutely than the one we will arrive at, but we/they can work with that.
It’s clear from the reactions so far that 50% of the people here just need to insult Obama. That’s the easy part. Getting something good to happen in the next two years is harder. I am still throwing my 4-4-4 plan put there; I have no idea if the percents will work, but it has a relatively low number and kind of equity to it. It would take a while since they have already decided they are not raising taxes on the people over a million 4%, and the cutting spending 4% would be even harder to to do. I am prepared to compromise at 1-1-1.
I know that it is goofy for me to have the audacity to propose such a plan, but people are always putting out their proscriptions and things that need to happen here, without, apparently the slightest sense of HOW such a program could be put into place. My plan is based on the gimmick of the same number for raising taxes and lowering spending, simply to make the point that BOTH have to be done if we really want to balance the budget, or at least move towards doing so.
Now thats silly.
1. Dwight makes a perceptive point: before the last election the pressure on Obama has come from the Left rather than the center (not that he objected IMO).
2. …let’s settle for skillful politician, who may work better when he has to compromise, than when the sole pressure on him was to appease is radical left flank.
Maybe. It remains to be seen whether Obama will work better when he has to compromise.
I have become increasingly dubious about one-party rule, even when the ruling party purports to share my values. After feeling repeatedly betrayed by the GOP ever since Read-My-Lips Bush, I voted for divided government last November, not for the Republicans.
3. So if you guys have had your destruction of Obama meme ripped away from you, maybe we can get down to work and figure out how to solve, or at least limit some of our problems: employment, energy, health care, and the debt for four.
Unfortunately, Dwight mars an otherwise constructive post with this paragraph. Reader, if a rival approached you in this manner, would you be willing to let bygones be bygones and start over with a clean slate?
4. Or is that paragraph a preview of the revamped Obama style? Offer to “work together” with the opposition–and express the offer in a manner whose contempt and insult are plausibly deniable to independents but audible to the base (and audible to the opposition, thereby goading them into mistakes). For example, remember the middle finger surreptitiously (and deniably) given to Hillary during one of the debates.
I agree with you about the one-party rule. When either side holds all the power, they seem to have to give in to all the hungry mouths on their side which want to be fed.
As for my “destructive” lines, they were directed at the % of people here who hate Obama so much that they cannot conceive of working with him. Your point is undoubtedly correct that to get effective things to happen, one should essentially ignore the people you can never convert and work with those you can. If I had any true power, I would be obligated to follow your advice.
Let’s build something.
1. Dwight, that’s a reasonable response and I’m willing to take a step toward you on it.
2. I will have to see a more sustained outreach from Obama until I say the same about him.
3. Let’s build something.
I’m open to that. Iirc Adam Smith acknowledged that government legitimately can and should take on needed projects that are too big for the private sector. However:
3a. Unfortunately, or so I gather, much of the stimulus was misdirected, and now we have to pay that money back. IMO we should get our finances back in order before we can make major repairs and upgrades to our national facilities.
3b. According to some economic views, creative destruction precedes rebuilding. If there’s anything ripe for creative destruction, it is our metastasized corrupt incompetent political/bureaucratic establishment.
3c. Come to think of it, we could probably identify areas where the private sector wants to build but is impeded by legal/regulatory restrictions. Nuclear power is a possibility; maybe solar too. Remove those obstacles and the private sector may build on its own. (NB: I am most certainly not asserting that all legal and regulatory authority is counterproductive. On the contrary.)
Nice try Dwight.
Nothing doing.
Mr. Hanson is being circumspect here:
“Instead, all that was replaced by an elegant speech that was also both sober and judicious. Had a Republican given such a sensitive oration, the right would be praising the text for its undeniable logic, humanity, and sense. Many, in fact, in the conservative community did just that.”
So they did. Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, Brit Hume and others. They fell for Obama’s sweet talk in what can only be labeled another pep rally and where he stumped for “civility.” Of course his speech was “sober” and “judicious.” Obama’s “learning curve” might not be as impressive as, say, Mozart’s, who was composing operas and symphonies between the ages of nine and twelve, but it will have consequences, which Mr. Hanson alludes to. He’s merely learned to wear the Thespian mask to better effect to pursue his original agenda.
Therein lies the danger. Too many people will fall for his mask of civility, not realizing that his Tucson speech was an obscenity committed on the bodies, living and dead, of those attacked.
Ditto Sparrowhawk.Two years of outright lies,Bowing to our enemies.conspiring with our enemies.Committing treason,and convicting patriotic law abiding americans of racism.Perjury,obstruction of justice.Refusing to uphold the law,Citizens,and constitution.He swore to protect,and defend.Redistributing our resources to terrorist sponsored nations.Re-propping up dictators.And in one fake speech.Mike huckabee,Bill o’reilly,and the otherobama zombie groupies.Were slobbering all over themselves.Over this marxist mao se tung wanna be.We are screwed as a nation folks.The only conservatives speaking truth,and who have the wisdom,judgemant,and courage to see this radical islamic,and liberation theology communist gigalo”barack insane obama”Are being told to shut-up.So not to offend their messiah.and those like mike huckabee want to be president.President of what huckabee.Obamanation?
Sparrowhawk:
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and each in his time plays many parts”. Just ask Michael Steele if you don’t believe Mr. Shakespeare.
Bob Dole, John McCain.
Bill Clinton won reelection just because the GOP nominated the next old boring white male in line. Obama is praying Alah the GOP nominates Romney, Huckabee or Gingrich against him.
or Romney
I couldn’t resist doing this. When DADT was repealed, I called up the local Armed Forces Recruiting Station and advised them to start staying open for extended hours due to the tens and hundreds of thousands of new homosexual enlistees that would be mobbing the joint to sign up and volunteer for the Combat Arms.
We all enjoyed a hearty snicker.
At least until I asked them how the new policy would likely impact their existing recruiting targets.
(I really hated to kill a good laugh like that.)
I’m afraid as long as the economy stays in the tank, recruiting (and retention) will stay high. A month or two ago at CNN.com I read a comment from a woman whose son left the Marines, only to rejoin a year of futile job searches. Call it “delayed stop-loss.”
Obama, working in cahoots with the Pentagon, is making sure unemployment stays high as possible. It was vital for DADT to be repealed under this “depression draft”; otherwise the collapse in recruiting and mass exodus of current troops would force the regime into the Hobson’s choice of 1) abandoning its idiotic wars or 2) reviving the real draft.
Give the devil (pardon the metaphor) his due for not repeating his predecessor’s mistake of allowing the economy to expand during an unpopular quagmire war. Recall that in fiscal 2005 the civilian job market was so strong that the Army missed its recruiting quota, recruiters were caught red-handed engaging in gross misconduct such as falsifying documents, teaching recruits how to beat drug tests and threatening potential mind-changers with arrest, and stop-loss was rampant.
Obama can not keep it up. His agenda is his ego. Ego will trump all common sense.
Good speech writers, ie, ‘ad men’, can only go so far in selling anything. Hoffmeister, ex-ceo of Shell, is predicting $5/gallon gasoline by 2012…..If the administration continues to hype ‘renewable energy’ and ‘CO2 is killing the earth’, as every agency at the president’s disposal is doing, along with government-funded ‘science’ groups, will Americans start to wake up the the Al Gore scam?
After all, this is not 1993, and certainly not 1965 or 1935 when it was impossible to know the level of corruption in government; the internet provides investigative reporting not tied to ideology or funding by the government and other huge moneyed interests. Is this the beginning of a new ‘age of enlightenment’? We’ll see in 2012.
Re comments about Healthcare replacement: Several think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Institute, provide analysis and recommendations.
I agree that the level of investigative reporting done by ordinary Americans is much larger than anyone is calculating – I, for one, found, in my state of CT, $18M going to “Housing Authority of Chicago” and $22M going to “City of Upland” from the stimulus, neither of which exist in CT. I contacted my local newspaper with this info – the reply was, “intriguing, but we are swamped with other news.”
Mr. Hanson gives us another very good ‘the world in a nutshell’ summation. From a political perspective it is a rather harrowing read for the number of problems either caused by Obama or exacerbated by him.
While Obama’s Arizona speech was good for what it was worth it is more significant as an indicator of his panic that he will not get a second term. Obama can go down the Clinton ‘the voters have chastened me’ road all he wants, but it won’t work. No one with his record in office ever gets a second term.
The puzzle for me is that so many Democrats went along for Obama’s wild ride. Maybe they are not such canny professionals as we have been led to believe.
The speech at the Tucson RALLY turned me off! In the front row were worthless politicians and those that lost family were ignored in the back rows.
Obama highlighted a democrat Representative and ignored a Republican judge and didn’t seem to care about the others.
The Cheering Section was awesome and I did not notice the Obama Tee’s till later.
Would Reagan have done this? I think not!
It was crass, cheap and Chicago like.
I’d really like a T shirt from his next ‘State of the Union’ speech. Wouldn’t you?
Mr. Hanson gives us another very good ‘the world in a nutshell’ summation. From a political perspective it is a harrowing read for any dem because of the number of problems either caused by Obama or exacerbated by him.
While Obama’s Arizona speech was good for what it was worth it is more significant as an indicator of his panic that he will not get a second term. Obama can go down the Clinton ‘the voters have chastened me’ road all he wants, but it won’t work. No one with his record in office ever gets a second term.
The puzzle for me is that so many Democrats went along for Obama’s wild ride for as long as they did. Maybe they are not the canny professionals we have been led to believe.
After the fact would anybody accept Stalin, Hitler, Manson or any other tyrant saying “Oh Oh sorry I won’t do it again”. Or lets just “Move On and by the way please re elect me again and I promise to start saying the right words now”. Yes, his lockstep, mindless or like-minded followers. Obama 2.0 is very possible.
“indicator of his panic that he will not get a second term”
Maybe. Or maybe not.
It seems to me that Obama tried to do as much harm as he could to America on the assumption that he could not fool the voters twice. Remember his talk of being a one-term President?
I believe he now thinks he can be elected again, and is willing to slow down his take-down of America during the next 2 years because of the enormous opportunity to do America harm that another 4 years in the Oval Office would give him.
“I’m not sure that the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2011 is going to be all that easy either”
It is the purpose of government to select among competing moralities then enforce the chosen morality. There can be no freedom from the government’s chosen morality. Opponents and dissenters will be re-educated in proper morality.
At least two supreme court justices will not attend Obama’s state of the nation speech. They will not go because they wont subject themselves to the wolves of the left.
“….especially given that his base capitulated so easily and in such humiliating fashion, in a nanosecond going from sounding like Michael Moore to a calm Gandhi.”
Therein lies the problem. They only went from SOUNDING like Michael Moore. They ARE Moore’s…..they can’t help themselves…..it’ll be business as usual the next time Pelosi, Matthews AND Moore open their mouths.
Presidential re-election campaigns are first a referendum on the sitting President, and only if he is found wanting does it then turn to the opponent. Bill Clinton was able to ride the tech and internet bubbles, fostered the housing bubble and then triangulated with the help of Dick Morris.
For all of Daley’s Chitown acumen, he does not have a finger on the pulsebeat of the Nation. He may get rid of some of the foot in mouth problem, but the events problem will prove to be overwhelming to any ‘solution’ that is trotted out to increase the size and role of government during a ‘crisis’. The government is broke and the Nation is saddled with its huge debt and appetite for more of the economy.
That equation is now being seen across the Nation, which is why 71% do not want the debt ceiling raised. The American people have stopped profligate spending, reigned in their finances and are paying off their debt and they expect the government… all of them… to follow their good example. Government takes in enough per month to cover servicing existing debt, and more than enough to pay for necessary services after that. $2 trillion in income should be far more than enough for any government at any level to live within its means and cut back, deeply, on everything. Trimming of fat is no longer enough: getting within what is taken in and reducing the size of government and slashing the regulatory state is required so we can PAY OFF our debt and let NO ONE else tell us what to do as debtors to them.
We will not default on our debt. But we can and will stop spending. And if this Congress can’t do it, the next one, with 1/3 of the Senate at stake, will. And I very much doubt that the big time spender Obama can change his skin fast enough, deep enough, to do what is necessary… given how much of the unnecessary he has wanted.
Good piece as always. My one ‘well maybe, but I doubt it’ observation is one sober speech does not a career make. Missed in the ooh’s and aah’s of somber tones by the intelligentsia was the underlying OFA style of passing out tee shirts and prompting for applause. I don’t know about you Dr. Hanson, but I cannot recall a single memorial service I have attended where the mourners followed a laugh track.
While I consider the “memorial” entirely inappropriate, Mr Hanson cut down to the bone (pardon the metaphor) of the issues.
Another colorful article, Dr. Hanson. I do like the fashion in which you, effectively, debate yourself; But; You haven’t argued with yourself about his addressing ‘entitlements’.
He (meaning they/the Left/his handlers) have. It’s not well known, or debated, that ObamaCare would ultimately eliminate Medicaid and Medicare. But, cost less? Not hardly. Replacing these entitlements with an entitlement grossly more devastating to the American economy and medical profession. Do you really have any doubts about this?
And the fact that he is capable of a 180 degree stance on his statements is sadly overlooked in this treatise. Even the most rabid of his followers know he reads what is on his tele-prompter without reflection, while only thinking about where he wants to go on vacation next.
This speech about the tragedy in Tucson is nothing more but a twist on their basic tactic of “never letting a crisis go to waste”.
In summation; There was a crisis in dialog taking place, and they/he made effective use of it.
“Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me”. GWB (almost).
“He …have”. Sorry for the bad proofreading.
Victor, all I can say is, “ornate” seems to be a very cool verb, and this essay seems to be your invention of it.
VDH: Brilliant as usual, and succinct when appropriate — I particularly admire your last 1/2 sentence, that O will not be encouraged by what lies ahead, most of it of his own making. Jeez that’s good.
I would add that Boehner should keep things simple, not say too much, speak softly but carry a big stick, things like this:
-Here’s our bill we’re passing to increase our oil-production — we don’t have many chances to avoid economic suicide and increase a 1/2 million jobs — this is one — Reid and Obama can trash it at the risk of ruining our country.
-Here’s our bill to build 200 nuclear power plants — same ending as above.
-Here’s our bill to replace Obama-Health-Care destruction — with market-based reforms, getting fed govt out of states’ rights to solve their own probs, allow compet across state lines, etc.
–Here’s our bill to stop/rollback illegal immigration and create jobs for LEGAL Americans — same ending.
You get the idea. VDH — you should finish that for me, and should get it to Boehner asap.
I’ve been working to get a new nuclear power plant licensed for almost 5 years now. I’ve never seen the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission work so slowly or do such pointless nit-picking.
It almost seems like they have a command from On High to drag their feet. Which is EXACTLY what they had when they illegally stopped the review of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
This Administration is slow to allow new energy sources that are economic and eager to spend taxpayer money on illusionary gimmicks like wind and solar.
I think to sum up:
1) The tragedy speech was easy. He wasn’t proposing to send forth government officials to harass and pull money from anyone. It was just a reasonable amount of philosophy. That’s easy. It doesn’t involve government power. He did it reasonably well. Overall a pretty low bar. The only thing significant about it is that Obama used to have a hard time even with that low bar, but can now make it over.
2) Real policy will have real consequences. That will be much harder – and everyone will be watching.
3) Clinton was a really lucky guy. China was producing cheap goods, but wasn’t rich enough to pull in resources to raise commodity prices. It was the best of both worlds.
On top of it, we had a stock market bubble which didn’t burst until Clinton was almost gone.
Everyone says that Obama should be more like Clinton, but they don’t say how he should duplicate those situations.
“Will Obama 2.0 work?”
My guess is is that if the economy picks up by November 2012 it will probably work pretty well…if it doesn’t the Godlike Obama is dead meat, as in Jimmy Carter in 1980.
IMO, neither Obama nor any of his people have the slightest idea what they’re doing, so they’re totally reliant on good fortune and luck. The economy might perk up, despite their socialist idiocy, but it sure won’t improve because of anything these Stalin lite fools are doing.
President Obama may have seen a glimpse of 2.0 but seeing it, wanting it and achieving it is problematic for a number of reasons.
Having scented a return of his old popularity, giving into what would be necessary to follow up on it would require the President to move even farther towards the center and he is already at risk with some of his political base in his Bush-like policies.
A leopard cannot change his spots with paint and on a rainy day the paint will come off. Being constantly aware of a new 2.0 formula would be wearing for Obama and people will always return to their old habits. It doesn’t preclude the possibility of a new and opportunistically shrewd Obama but the likelihood that he will blurt out his true nature as he did with Gates and the Pennsylvania “racists” is a more likely scenario.
The greater likelihood is that Obama temporarily subverted himself in the name of the memorial to score some few political points rather than suffered a wholesale change and suddenly became a leader devoid of his old agenda to right the wrongs of the West. Obama is very much a descendant of W.E.B. Du Bois and shaking that off I see as next to impossible because without it, there is no Obama.
In order for the President to suddenly become effective in a manner that subverts himself to the greater good he would have to show something in his make up that is nowhere in evidence as Trinity Church doesn’t prepare one for the greater good but the myopic exact opposite; Obama is just one of the uncaring 4 prongs of society, gays, women, blacks and Latinos, that simply want their slice. President Obama’s need to give in to the reality of the real world has already caused him to look like Bush more each day and it is unlikely he will allow his few shreds of self to be more fragmented than they already are.
When it comes to the issue of change and transformation, the office of the Presidency has had its way with Obama more than the other way around and 2 years into the job, he is still trying to find his way.
Frankly he seems at once overwhelmed and bored by what he has taken on like a kid that starts off building a scale model plastic airplane with great enthusiasm which wanes as he realizes that to get to that final product will require discipline, learning new skills that are not as fun a holding a finished airplane and not something to be done in a day.
Nothing seems to faze Obama but that seems to be because he brought no skills to the office in the first place and his main weapon is his questionable charisma and a free affirmative action pass that works well at college but wilts under the reality of stepping up to the plate on ones own two feet.
Where this will all lead is difficult to say since the President seems to be still understandably learning on the job, a job that is leading him more than he is leading the country which is entirely understandable because other than a general overarching grievance against America’s past, he seems clueless as to where it is he wishes to go.
President Obama has been defeated at every turn, and like the Egyptians name every other bridge and street for Oct. 6 cuz it was their first, only and last good day of the 1973 War with Israel, Obama likely waxes nostalgic for the first, only and last good day of his own Presidency, Jan. 20. It’s been all downhill from there and Oprah Winfrey’s tears won’t lower the price of oil or create jobs and right now that model airplane lies abandoned in some attic in his own mind while the country, rudderless other than with the continued corrupt policies of congress, runs itself – right into the ground.
I suspect we’ll get Obama 2.0 because the Republicans have not learned any lessons from Nov. 2010. They’ll nominate a Gingrich or Romney and Independents will decide to stick with Obama, rather than place their fate with another Obama lite. RINOs are worse than Obama and although I don’t think as many Independents will vote for Obama again, I can see more of us sitting out the next election.
So the devil is back in campaign mode and his minions are falling in line, so what’s new or good about that? Nothing! Now we shall see if Americans have truly awakened from their slumber and are ready to do the hard thing and take responsibility for their country and demand truth and justice in the streets once again.
There is no Obama 2.0. There never will be an Obama 2.0. I confess that I did not listen to his speech. I have studied public speaking and know that given a speech writer, and a teleprompter, our President can deliver a good talk; I am sure he did. However, after Columbine, VA Tech, Fort Hood, and the slaughter du jour, I am turned off. (In the spirit of bipartisanship, I must say that Presidents Clinton, and Obama made their Republican opponents appear as drooling old white men.)
The prime purpose of the bully pulpit is to set the agenda. We just received and are digesting the report of the BR well disaster commission, which is slipping off page one, and now is only bankrupting little people along the Gulf coast. The President selected as Commissioners, a group of lawyers, anti – hydrocarbon environmental litigants, and regulators, but no engineers, or oil drilling experts. The final conclusions are that the government must regulate more, and charge oil companies more. Why am I not surprised?
The key issue in the gay marriage, or DADT debate is whether homosexual conduct is a mental illness, or simply a different life style, which should not warrant discrimination. To define this issue, the American Psychiatric Association(APA) established the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. Based on their report, homosexuality is no longer a mental illness, and efforts to act otherwise are considered bigotry. Of the six voting members of the Task Force, all were on record as supporting gay causes, most of whom are publicly self-identified as gay, while religious scholars were denied membership. Why am I not surprised at this “scientific” finding?
I loathe buying rev 2.0 of anything. They always fix an old problem,which I had already figured a workaround, but introduce three new unknown screw ups, which bedevil me.
We know we have a problem with nuts buying guns; there is no legal way to stop the killing. The President could form a commission to study the problem. If it was staffed by the NRA, or the Brady people, we would get two different scientifically based truths, which, by definition is impossible. With a technical background, I am turned off.
With the agenda the current Regime has, I would not be surprised to see Bills in Congress mandating a solar powered Air Force, wind powered Navy, and an Army that has to wear sandals, shorts, and straw hats. With all the savings going to pay the interest on our debt to China.
VDH,I have to disagree on this one. The key to Obama is to watch what he does, not what he says. This notion that he is transforming into a kinder, gentler Leftist is laughable. What amazes me are the number of conservative pundits so easily hypnotized by “O” speech. It’s 2008 all over again. It’s clear to me that Obama’s first instinct was to politicize the Tucson shooting. Unlike the Ft. Hood massacre, he chose not to caution the media and the public to not jump to conclusions about the gunman’s motives. He let the hate rage on for nearly five days. He mobilized Homeland Security and the Attorney General’s office – warning! Domestic terrorists and hate groups roam the land! Does anybody find it odd that Napolitano and Holder, of all people, were scheduled to speak at the memorial service? Why was the memorial held on a college campus with an audience of largely hootin’and hollerin’ Obama-adoring students? Why did the event have the theme of “Together We Thrive – Tucson & America,” complete with t-shirts, more fitting of a campaign rally? I have no problem with the president’s tribute to the dead and injured, but the idea that he repudiated the Left for trying to blame Conservatives for the crime is wishful thinking. His words are cleverly vague: anyone who uses words to wound or who attack those they disagree with are condemned. The Right thinks he’s talking about the Left, and vice versa. In the end, he lectures the country and calls for more civility – how does this square with his supposed message that heated rhetoric was not a cause of the tragedy? Now we hear that civility will be a theme of the SOTU address and donkeys and elephants should sit together! You know what’s coming next…if the elephants stick together they will be accused of being “mean.” It never ends with this crowd. Political posturing, 24/7.
Hanson skewers (pardon the metaphor) the target with his verbal sword (pardon the metaphor) leaving the blood (pardon the metaphor) of the Progressive agenda all over the slaughterhouse (pardon the metaphor) floor.
The GOP will have to resume it’s usual role of head in the sand politics to forget all that OBama did in his first two years in office. If this happens THEY (but not the rest of us) will deserve the government they get. I was outraged that Bush and his administration did not repudiate all Dem. claims about the lack of WMDs etc…….To forget obama’s acts would be even worse. I thought the GOP had learned its lesson in the 2008 election but maybe not.
Someone in the Obama White House is smart and took a page from the Dick Morris playbook which means that President Obama should triangulate and place himself in the “wise middle” and so disassociate himself from the far left.
But that in itself is just rhetoric. VDH is right that Mr. Obama cannot talk his way out of $4 a gallon gasoline, high unemployment and possibly inflation. Also I think his Left of center strips will always show its self.
“Will gays be eligible for the sort of “diversity” affirmative action that is often a consideration in officer promotions that we have seen with women and minorities?”
I’ve already heard discussions that this will indeed happen. it caused a lot of dissension to see minimally-qualified women advanced over more qualified males. We’re also expecting any day for a California congresscritter to nominate, very publicly, an openly gay high school student to one of the service academies.
“Will small combat units on the front line worry among the bullets much about the overtly gay in their midst…”
Depends on whether the soldier got there by dint of hard work, or is an affirmative action placement.
Medals awarded for “Courageous Restraint” because the infantry was too busy playing with their pee pee.
I swing from optimist about the Tea Party’s obvious successes to pessimistic about the marxists relentless will to destroy the country.
What VDH does not recognize, at least in this piece, is that political agression is a full time job by thousands and thousands of marxist operatives, who are lavishly funded by the people who would be the beneficiaries of an irrevocable coup.
Meanwhile, the Republican do play beanbag, seemingly confidant in their knowledge that there has been an 80 year ying and yang between liberals and conservatives, and eager to have their allotted few years of being the ruling elite.
The game changed dramatically starting in the 90′s and culminating in 2008. That might be a more important factor even than the awaking of the country to conservative thought.
that’s correct. there is not professional right like there is a professional left.
and the professional left uses your tax dollars to smear you and now I’m depressed.
You are so right to be pessimistic Proreason. Our new leader arrives in Washington Tuesday and Obama will be sufficiently fawning as if he governs a minor duchy. The new marching orders will be delivered to the thousands of Marxists by Hu, praise doled out for their success hertofore, and our Republican leadership remains clueless, powerless and sucking wind. We are surrounded, but no shots will be fired in this capitulation. The failure to repeal Obamacare is the least of our worries.
Dr. Hanson,
In your, ‘Then There’s Gas’ area of your piece, WHY haven’t we heard about ANY charges to Interior Secretary Salazar?
There’s PLENTY of finger pointing, federal lawsuits and ‘neener neener neener’ types of smugness by Holder and the DoJ going on.. ridiculous.
There’s a plethora of paperwork for public eyes to see Salazar focusing more so, almost solely, on ‘alterantive energy resources’ prior to the Gulf oil spill.
The Interior Secretay is RESPONSIBLE for the niceties of said oil platforms/ rigs being OSHA compliant, as well as in working order.
That’s dereliction of duty.. plain and simple. ANY civilian in Salazar’s position would be sitting/fighting with fellow ‘roommates’ liek Bernanke’s doing..
‘Who’ receives more profit from gas taxes – the Fed or ‘evil’ oil companies? Why the Fed of course.
Unbelievable..
I am not certain that there is a real jump in the President’s polling numbers: Rasmussen, by far the most reliable pollster, put him at -7; he is at +7 in Associated Press and + 6 in Gallup, but we know now, from the results of the November election, how little reliable were those pollsters.
—–
The best points for the Republicans are
- Sarah Palin’s tough-mindedness : she has more cojones than all of them together, and her refusal to play by the other side’s rules will oblige the Republicans to fight; her stubborn refusal to abide by Alinsky’s rulebook shows that there is no OBLIGATION or NECESSITY to be cowed, or brow-beaten, into submission : cool fact-based reason is the best answer and defence to hatred and illogic; and
- the fact that we are now at a point wherefrom the rethorics will not work anymore, because reality will be much more imposing; ask people from the former Soviet Union whether they ultimately believed the Pravda, or the empty store shelves?
—–
Thus, Mr Hanson is absolutely right : the reality of economic figures and social pain is going to hit hard and quickly.
Mr. Hanson, I can’t believe you fell for that fake, phony, grand-standish speech, although apparently you aren’t the only one.
Maybe you just forgot for 38 minutes (isn’t that how long this contrived, veiled attack on free speech, diatribe lasted?) that this is a Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, Andy Stern friend who was speaking?
Alas, how short of a memory conservatives enjoy, how easily swayed they are.
If anyone from that group comes knocking on my door, to tell me that now he has joined the St. Thomas Aquinas Club I’ll ask him to go find some other door to knock.
Agreed (see post #19). This claptrap came from the same individual who applied (in no particular order):
“I want you to get in their faces,” “if they bring a knife, we bring a gun,” asking Hispanics to “punish their enemies (other Americans!)”
among other fine examples of Leftist “Tolerance” (read: totalitarian boot dancing).
NO reason to buy into it. NONE.
Very well put Ed (here and in #19). I thought that Mr. Hanson could tell a pony, but failed to do so here.
BHusseinO will never have any credibility whatsoever, in so far as true conservatives are concerned. He’s a radical leftist, a phony and a totally unqualified to be President individual, among numerous other monkeys on his back, he’s carrying around with him.
His being installed in the Oval Office has seriously de-stabilized this Nation, polarized it to a level unseen before, and leading it to disaster. Nothing he says or does (short of resignation) will meet with my, and I assume all true conservatives’ approval.
Victor,
With all your winning articles, even you couldn’t fight the odds that one day you’d produce one that doesn’t pass the smell test. I guess this was your day.
My next paragraph was to try to apply a little truth serum on the comments section here; to suggest they be less cheerleaders to the great Victor, and more objective about his words. Knowing how they worship you (so do I), I thought not one of them would take you to task for your mistakes. For a really lousy article.
Then I came across Damselfly and thought, oh me or my, there’s still a straight shooter in the crowd of comments.
Victor, you totally and fitfully blew this one.
Fact is, the leftist mainstream media set up the uncivil narrative and Obama ran with it.
Ask yourself, Victor.
Why was uncivility even a topic in Obama’s speech? Of course, in two well written lines, Obama could have refuted the four days of blaming conservative uncivility on the shooting. But why did Obama go on and on about it. Go back to it and then go back to it? Especially since most Americans had already rejected the mainstream Krugman led lies, the lying left narrative? The one with no basis for existing.
It had no place at the memorial. Had no basis for being a topic of discussion unless Obama’s speechwriter from Northwestern saw it as a way to score political points.
This became not just a campaign pep rally, but a chance for Obama to tell the left, “I’m on your side” as well as,”I think we should kill the lying narrative now. It’s done its job. My polling numbers will be going up. I used a crisis just like Emmanuel told he to. Now, let’s cool it.”
Obama knew this was a chance to gain political points that doesn’t come every day.
Obama didn’t even need to name the terrible right wingers who caused the last screw to come loose in a poor deranged nut’s brain that was directing the acts of a 22 year old body that held a Glock equipped with extra long magazines.
CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC and the rest of the mainstream media had been shouting Palin and friends names from the rooftops. They were the real murderers. A wonderful Rush to judgment.
Don’t you understand, Victor? It was a perfect set up for Obama. The targets were all in a row. All Obama had to do was pull the trigger, which, of course, in this case, was his mouth.
24 hours after the Obama speech 400 new death threats had descended on Sarah Palin, perhaps Obama’s biggest threat when the 2012 election rolls around. A great crisis had not been wasted.
That Obama was betraying a great nation he couldn’t care less.
You know, I do believe that your posts to date have echoed the accurate perception that right wingers are the ones who have been chronically bitter, nasty, and screw-the-facts about anything and everything involving Obama — or common sense and fairness for that matter. And it’s a bit difficult for the average person to stay cool and civil with people who keep mouthing off so relentlessly all that bizarre, malicious crap, and who only amp things up when they get called on it.
The writers here ARE “the average person.
Also, wanted to stress again, it’s vital that we all know (and tell) the story of the “other guy” in this story, the one who was making threats at Tea Partiers at the next week’s ABC-filmed meeting. He is on record as having some very vile fantasies about specific conservative leaders. No, I don’t have the links, but they are easy to find.
We forget that what sunk the McCain campaign was the September 2008 meltdown that not only raised specters of a 1929 crash,
VDH
I was a professional commodities trader with quite a bit of time in the oil biz. Look at the charts of the 08 oil spike(5 months before a presidential election). There are a number of world wide players who could have engineered this artifical but politically deadly spike,Saudis, Soros, Russians, Big Oil,etc.
As it turned out they didn’t need to. McCain was such a blithering idiot of a Republican Blue Hair.
Or consider the “opportune timing” of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, once it became clear that the artificial oil spike you mention wasn’t quite doing the job.
But then, we talk about “conspiracies” and we all know what the loons of the left say about conspiracies: they don’t exist, except in the minds of wingnuts (or when they are doing the conspiring, in which case to them of course it isn’t a conspiracy.)
As for McCain, he has proven that “bob doling” Republicans are always there; look for one to show up in 2012.
Or consider the opportune timing of the suddenly errupting sub-prime mortgage crisis about a month and a half before the 2008 presidential elections, once it was clear that the artificial oil spike you referred to wasn’t quite doing the job.
But then of course we’re talking about “conspiracies” and you know what the lefties think of conspiracies: they don’t exist except in the minds of the wingnuts, or when they are involved in one, in which case it isn’t a conspiracy.
As for McCain, he proved that Bob Doling is alive and well in the GOP; look for a third Bob Dole to show up in 2012.
The posts under the name “B” and “On Bob Doling” are by the same person, me; I was under the impression that the first post under B was lost in cyberspace, and so I tried to post a second one through recollection under the “On Bob Doling” heading – obviously something went wrong in the transmission. To the extent that I caused the confusion, I appologize to PJM and the readers of this thread.
There were many unworldly “coincidences” two months prior to the most consequetial election since RR was elected.
- as you say, the unprecedented swings in gasoline prices
- the unprecedented culmination of the Real Estate crisis
- the unprecedented (in an election year) Stock Market crash
- the jump in Stock Market volume, matched only once in 60 years
- the unprecedented run on Money Market funds
- the unprecedented actions by the fed and Treasury
Election year financial activies have traditionally been very stable in this country, ticking up about 75% of the time. This had been very predictable, since the party in power has many tools at its disposal to keep events in check. For example, there was Bush’s small stimulus in spring 2008, which helped GDP in Q2 2008.
And the traditional indicators in the summer of 2008 tended positive: unemployment was ok, inflation was a bit high but all oil related; GDP was at historical levels; business profits were good. The underlying problem with mortgage loans had been known for quite a while without becoming a crisis. Consumer spending was strong. Interest rates were low.
Coming out of the Republican convention before the weekend of Sept 6 and 7, financial indicators were slightly mixed but close to normal. Paulsen and Bernacke had reassured the country vocally in the summer that the economy was sound. Barney Franks had recommended buying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
But then something unforeseen happened that weekend. It was leaked that Gallup, for the first time, polled McCain / Palin in the lead.
The NEXT DAY, market volume skyrocked. Lehman Bros came under a concerted attack (and was taken over the following weekend). Stock market action became immediately frightening. At midpoint of the next week, the Money Market run happened. Bernacke and Paulsen convinced Bush that it was an unprecedented crisis. Meanwhile, gasoline prices were crashing so far so fast that by the end of October, the price of gas was no longer an issue.
But 6 to 10 world changing financial events following 6 years of stability and a calm and reassuring summer couldn’t possiby have been caused because it looked momentarilly like McCain would win, could it?
We’ll never know. Nobody with any ability to research the truth has the slightest interest in finding out. It’s almost as if that series of would shattering events never happened.
Back at # 1 Fred Beloit wrote “I guess Dwight likes political rallies. The slogans. The fainting. The panting. The tingly legs. No need to reason. No need to think. Just go with it Ted Kennedy style: “And I say to you today the dowhoeroarfe topondinkeedoo.”
It didn’t have quite the national drama of GWB’s 9/11 speech (his finest moment, maybe) and I don’t recall Clinton’s Oklahoma City speech specifically, but most seem to acknowledge that it was one of his best moments. This speech was in that league for Obama. Some of you are damned if you are going to appreciate it or give O any credit; got it. But you really are in the small minority on this one.
We can trade insults on how the other side is so gullible…or bitterly obtuse, as the case may be, but now it is time to get something done.
“…but now it is time to get something done.”
I agree, IMPEACH the fraud in the WH.
The text, which I got to read just before Obama began speaking, was fine, barring the usual revolting sentimentality of a eulogy for people, particularly a child, one did not know. That is a fault shared by most public speeches given over the dead, and I did not hold that against Obama. Or at least, not more than I hold any invocation of unearned emotion (Frances Mayes phrase) against a public speaker.
The atmosphere made me ill.
The addition of “Gabby opened her eyes” infuriated me.
Aside from that? Not a bad speech as written. Too long, too sappy, and far too long on high-falutin’ rhetoric without meaning or substance (a constant fault of political speech), but for Obama, a solid B.
Moderate enough for you?
That’s still silly.
“his finest moment” or perhaps his most typical moment. For once, Dwight, we are close to agreeing about something.
I can’t disagree that little lenin is at his best when he speaks in such vague generalities that anybody can read anything into his words that they wish to hear.
After all, that is how our dictator became elected.
And that chin lift is to die for. If only he had that knack in his golf swing, he wouldn’t seem like such a girl.
But Dwight, will you ever be able to think about something other than Tucson. It really is becoming unseemly.
I have moved on. (except for following the recovery of Giffords, which I find simultaneously hopeful and painful.)
“I have to say, telling all the newly impoverished folks of the US to f**k off and take care of themselves, cause there aint going to be no tax raises to help out the poor seems like a weird policy these days. But hey, maybe jesus will provide. Good luck being the party of No, No way for the next 2 years. ”
Ah, yes, more of the self-righteous, entitled, compassion-at-gunpoint mentality that got us to where we are now. Just cloak your theft in “compassion” and mention “the poor” every chance you get – who could be opposed to charity?
The one thing that comforts me is that lefty “humanitarians” like these will be the first to get it in the neck once the money runs out. Just like the “progressive” revolutions of the 20th Century in Asia and Europe, the 0bama revolution is sure to devour its children.
Here;s what you’re missing. It is NOT a speech to be commended if it was written and spoken for the purpose of misleading the public into thinking he has changed from the “get in their faces” guy to the “let’s tone down the rhetoric” guy — which it was. As for callig it “trading insults,” that kind of belittling seems to be the left’s way to tell conservatives to shut up when we are pointing out important truths — and we know it.
Please forgive the 2 typos. PIMF.
I cannot imagine that the Mexican Drug State (to say nothing of China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Hezbollah, and all the others) will not cause us severe problems. The Mexican Drug State is simply on my mind because of 15 dead people in Acapulco.
Mexico can no longer keep even the tourist areas tranquil. I cannot foresee a good outcome from this, and I am not certain Mexico’s government can win.
Never mind the other possible crises; Mexico is right here on our border, and the war will not respect that line. We will need troops, and a large number of them, simply to keep their war on their side of the border.
Heaven help the desperate refugees.
The other crises are predictable, and will require that Obama’s administration either man up, or fold. I do not believe the American people, Tea Party, Republican or Independent, will take that calmly.
Since foreign policy is the President’s domain, this is a truly frightening scenario, and I am not sure, given the volatility of the current world, that the Obama administration’s dangerous weakness will not be truly catastrophic.
McCain became entirely too certain of his own genius (not to mention his own reflection in the mirror).
For just a moment there, I was reading Rodney G. Graves’ comment – he shares my household, but so far as I know, we’re not the same person.
I’m hoping this is seen by a moderator. I’m a little confused.
Chameleon? Wind sock? Sock puppet? Technically, aren’t we speaking of Obama .11 (AND soon .12)? Post election = Obama 2.0. Then, be afraid. Be very afraid …
Moderators,
There’s this method of internet sharing known as NAT. Thus two of us commenting from difference laptops share a single public facing IP.
Really, we’re not sock puppeting.
Oh, help!
My comments are gone, Rodney G. Graves’ are awaiting moderation, and I’m giggling.
I strongly suspect I’ve had too much to drink, so I’m going to stop refreshing, and go read something else. This should not be as funny as I am finding it!
Wow! when bush 43 got re-elected I was floored. Thinking that these “Elected Officials” don’t have major “Handlers ” behind them with “Major Agendas” is just plain foolish. History repeats itself under the same guise as always. First control of the currency, then control eduction to feed misinformation, then empire expansion funded by the masses, then collapse of the economy, then control of the food supply, then starvation of the masses, then police state w/ dictatorial rule and slave labor. Historical evidence from Babylon to USSR to Ukraine, Austria-germany more recently Palestine and several African Nations, The E.U is falling now. Just where in this socialist to communist dictatorial cycle do you think we are at. Mount Zion and Zionism are not the same. The dems. and reps. can’t save us now only hard constitutionalism and inditement of the “Players” now!!!
Obama will be having a great time. The one thing in which he excels is campaigning.
I have to say, telling all the newly impoverished folks of the US to f**k off and take care of themselves, cause there aint going to be no tax raises to help out the poor seems like a weird policy these days. But hey, maybe jesus will provide. Good luck being the party of No, No way for the next 2 years.
The voters in their wisdom put in the congress to create a dynamic, not to “kill” Obama. You folks are in the danger of falling of the ideological cliff, where you misread the fact that a lot of the people agree with you some of the time into becoming the fact that everybody on your side agrees with you all of the time. That just aint true.
Obama 2.0 is actually Obama 1.2.
Белковые диеты Жировые диеты Маложирные диеты Монодиеты Национальные диеты.
И вот вы мучительно перебираете в уме различные диеты для похудения и мысленно уговариваете свой организм мужественно выдержать нелёгкое испытание.
Правила, которым следует придерживаться во время диеты: обязательно употреблять написанную в меню пищу и не отступать от нее, так же придерживаться времени
15 июн 2007 Как похудеть, если вы любите плотно поесть перед сном? Что делать, если овощи и кефир – не для вас? Один ответ – кремлевская диета!
Диеты для похудения совместно с фитнесом – причина стройной фигуры; все типы диет, меню диет, кремлевская диета, вред и польза диет для здоровья – советы