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Former President Clinton unveils statue in Kosovo
Good for Bubba, he deserves it.
It does make me think of the simpler times of 1999… Drop a few bombs, a couple of thousand troops… baam! Another little country liberated.
Maybe Bubba’s main credit was to pick the right battle. Who knows?
By the way, I wonder how Democrats went from that to what they are today. Truly disappointing.
Is it just me or a “White House Blog” sounds like something way too close to 1984 that should never exist?
I mean, what is next? Obama posting videos on You Tube where he makes fun of Republicans? Senators twitting during important votes? (I bet this is already happening…)
But going back to the White House blog… If at least they tried to make it non-partisan I would be less concerned with it. But the thing is blatantly political. Just today they posted this: “Word from the White House: Republican Leaders’ Plan to “Delay, Define, and Derail”
Remember that distant past of the Bush administration when Democrats accused Fox News of “following the WH’s talking points”? I mean, Obama doesn’t even need the Media anymore (even though he still got it), he is creating his own State Owned machine!
This is using power to stay in power in ways that we never seen before…
• To destroy private and public property (forcing the city of Seattle to overspend half of its budget on this instead of public projects) to show your disgust at capitalism is right and noble. To show up at town hall meetings and yell at Democrats because you think they will bankrupt the country is a disgraceful radical act.
• When Bush brings the deficit to 700 billion he is spending our money like a drunken sailor. When Obama brings it to 1 trillion he is just a mindful leader saving our economy while addressing inequalities of our society.
• When Bush brings Evangelicals to the White House he is a religious zealot. When Obama brings an Evangelical to his inauguration he is just a common sense middle of the road American
• To have President Bush elected in a contested election is proof of corruption and lack of transparency (even after we know that the controversial recounts would show the same result). To have a governor elected by 129 votes (out of 2.7 million) or a senator that was confirmed only after 6 recounts (and was losing until the 4th) is completely normal and shows the strength of Democracy.
• When Clinton, Gore and all major Democrats called Saddam the biggest threat in the world and bombed the country repeatedly they were wise statesmen. When Bush went to war for the same reasons he was a loony dictator.
• To create a national scandal about a Republican congressman that supposedly sent sex messages to congressional pages (in the end Foley was not even criminally charged) is fair politics. To go after a Democrat congressman who accepted more than 400k in bribes and had 90k stashed in his freezer is racism and partisan witch hunt.
• To make any mistake when justifying a war is an unforgivable offense that should be treated as a crime against humanity. To lie about the possibility of ending a war is just a fair political game.
• To call some allies “Old Europe” is a major diplomacy blunder. To give the Queen of England an iPod with your speeches in it or to bow before the King of Saudi Arabia is pure creative genius.
• To torture the admittedly mastermind of 9/11 is really bad. Unless you are Jack Bauer. Ah, and if other countries are torturing we are ok with that too.
• Rich people are horrible. Even the Cuban revolution was ok because you know, in the end all they did was to get rid of the ugly rich and choose a nice attorney to lead them! The only good rich people are we of course and our Hollywood brethren. It is no coincidence that they are our serfs.
• We love our Liberal Lions. Even when they have a weird family history of liking dictators like Hitler and Chavez. Oh, we have another one who loved the KKK, but he is so old we kind of forget about that.
• To call Bush the devil, monkey or stupid is the civil right of any right thinking American. To make any remark about Obama or any Black Democrat is a racist crime.
• When Bush says marriage is between a man and a woman he is showing how backwards and bigoted he is. When Obama says the same thing we don’t quite believe it.
• When Republicans cheat on their wives they are hypocrites that should leave office immediately. When Democrats don’t pay taxes they are just human. If you are a black Democrat we won’t even care if you clearly lied in your tax returns – you got to have at least 90k on your fridge to be in any sort of trouble.
• Soldiers dying in Iraq show that the war is a disgrace and we are stuck in a lost war. Soldiers dying in Afghanistan show that we fight for our beliefs and victory is just a matter of strategy.
• We are an incredibly backwards nation because we don’t have a health care system like Switzerland’s. We are also an incredibly backwards nation because we do have a gun policy much like Switzerland’s.
• To challenge Obama’s birth certificate makes you a disgrace to your party. To challenge Bush’s National Guard service or Sarah Palin’s son legitimacy makes you a concerned citizen.
In response to this piece of silly politicking.
Two new (albeit obvious and expected) polls that should make any Democrat nervous:
Majority of Americans doubt Obama stimulus results: poll
Poll: Americans want health care bill, but not the cost
This post could also be called “Republicans are not dead”. 2010 should be interesting, and 2012 should be very interesting.
During these times of troubling lack of direction and leadership in the Republican party it’s easy to wonder “what if”. What if the Dems are right? What if their “mommy” capitalism is the way? What if having Barak and his crying cats leading us softly is the best option?
Then I read this kind of stuff:
C.I.A. Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders
“WASHINGTON — Since 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials.
The plans remained vague and were never carried out, the officials said, and Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, canceled the program last month.
…
The program was designed in the frantic weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks when President George W. Bush signed a secret order authorizing the C.I.A. to capture or kill operatives of Al Qaeda around the world. To be able to kill Osama bin Laden or his top deputies wherever they might be — even in cities or countries far from a war zone — struck top agency officials as an urgent goal, according to people involved in the discussions.”
And there you go. No matter how much I try, I can never see myself voting for the party of pussies. The party that tries to give a terrorist organization the benefit of civility.
In a way Bertrand Russell was right when he said that “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.” When worse comes to worse, I’d rather be wrong and alive.
*Title inspired by this song which for some reason always reminds me of Democrats:
Two very interesting posts from the Secular Right blog:
First, a look at the relationship between income and politics. Overview of the results is:
Secular Right concludes that “the data shows the tilt toward the Right and Republicans is much greater among the wealthy without college educations than those with”. But the main point that this data shows to me is that the usual correlation between knowledge/education and liberalism is not real when you add income. That is, even though within groups democrats/liberals increase their number along with education, you can notice that across the income groups the percentage of Republicans usually increases along with income, while the percentage of Democrats/Liberals either declines or is pretty much flat with income.
Second post is about science and politics, and it shows this table:
Later it also shows some interesting data around ideology and ideas around nuclear power. Very interesting. I guess bias against science comes in many colors after all.
From the series “Liberals continue to kill us with good intentions”
Reform may mean good card users pay more
Return of fees, higher rates for ‘deadbeats’ who pay off balance, on time
FBI chief worried about Gitmo detainees in U.S.
Mueller says prisoners could radicalize others at high-security prisons
Quick fact: if the USA had the population density of Japan our population would be around 3.24 billion people. If we do the same calculation using Germany’s density, we would have a population of around 2.23 billion.
Apparently, some politicians (and the press, of course) don’t quite understand these huge differences. They are willing spend billions to build more and more trains, even though the few we already have are basically a failure.
That is some stimulus for you.
—x—
Think quick: if you are a state that basically depends on tourism and now with the economy being slow and all, what is the one thing you should never tax?
Ah, if that was so simple.
—x—
Every single time I hear these Democrats saying that we got this crisis because of greed, and that what we really need is some common sense and accountability I think of all these little examples of stupidity and shiver. Scary times.
Bad, bad pussy cat!
If I was a partisan guy I’d be having a grand time right now.
Watching Obama go through some of the insanity Bush went through (even though it is still a small subset of it) would make me rejoice. I would crack a smile for every improper joke, policy mishap or political fumble.
Unfortunately, all I can think about is: here we go again. Plenty of important things going on and everybody seems to focus on stupid details.
I mean, does anyone really think that these AIG bonuses are even close to be important in the current context? How about Geithner? Do people really think he has written and designed every little detail of all the humongous bailouts that are happening? Even worse, how that could be Obama’s fault? Do people have any idea of how big corporations (and that is what government tries to be) work?
Of course, there is plenty to criticize these people about. Why the press doesn’t focus on asking Geithner why he is taking so freaking long to propose the real bad asset purchase plan? And how about Obama proposing a ridiculously expensive budget (and somehow I haven’t heard yet that he is “spending like a drunken sailor”)? How come no one sees that Obama apparently thinks he is still campaigning (who in the world has time to do college basketball brackets and go to Jay Leno when so much is going on?), and so on and so forth.
But people like the circus. And Obama seems to love it too. It is a different show than the one we watched for the last 8 years, and probably even more pathetic.
Trade nominee Ron Kirk agrees to pay back taxes
So when is this going to end? I know Democrats not paying taxes is so cliché nowadays that it’s almost not worth anymore to talk about it, but really… how far can hypocrisy go before someone starts to do something about this?
UPDATE
Congress Approves Protectionist Measure That Could Spark Trade War
They *really* never learn…
Friedman writes for the NYT:
“While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.
Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.”
I wonder why Friedman thinks Obama is really “doing his best”. The person who was taking the lead to fight some of those “S.T.U.P.I.D” measures last week was actually… John McCain.
But in any case, Good Ol’ Dems are showing again why they are specialists in extending a recession into something bigger and uglier.
Fixer is in the house!
The love affair continues. Newsweek just can’t stop itself from slobbering all over Obama even though the guy has not even started to govern. Seriously, Fareed Zakaria’s article is truly pathetic. It has gems of wisdom like these:
“No doubt the national-security team Obama is announcing this week will be quick to tackle the many issues in their inbox, and will likely do so with intelligence and competence.”
“Strategy begins by looking at the world and identifying America’s interests, the threats to them and the resources available to be deployed. By relating all these, one can develop a set of foreign policies that will advance America’s interests and ideals.”
“How to think strategically? Dick Cheney provides an example—a negative one.”
All absolutes based on the most primal and unchallenged bias that Newsweek seems to be specializing on: Democrats – good; Republicans – bad.
But what puzzles me the most is how this “Grand strategy to fix the world” talk sounds so much like the “neocon” theories Bush was so criticized for… Are we saying that all that matters now is execution? Is the “change” here that we will be out of Iraq just so we can move those troops somewhere else?
Time might prove me wrong but I think that once the lefties wake up from their pink slumber they will find that Obama is not the peace loving/modern day reformer that they think he is.
In many ways, this might be JFK all over again.
UPDATE
In his own crazy and distorted way, Frank Rich agrees with me.
Obama says he won’t be smoking in White House
Most interesting:
“Website www.cigaraficionado.com says Gerald Ford, who served from 1974-77, was the last U.S. president to use tobacco on a regular basis. The White House no-smoking rule was imposed by former First Lady Hillary Clinton, now Obama’s nominee for secretary of state.”
You can call Hillary anything you want, but boy, was she a visionary of things to come.
Greg Mankiw talks about the new Team Obama:
“What would you call a group of economists who are skeptical of regulating mortgage markets, who think unemployment insurance and unions increase unemployment, who say that tax hikes retard economic growth, and who believe that the recovery from the Great Depression was a monetary phenomenon rather than the result of New Deal fiscal policy?
No, it is not a right-wing cabal. It’s Team Obama.”
Barack Obama Bundler Meets With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad On Wednesday
“Jodie Evans, a member of Code Pink and a bundler for Barack Obama according to his website, was part of a group of activists that met with Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Wednesday September 24, 2008.”
Democrats give Ahmadinejad reason to smile
“Democrat activists this week gave Ahmadinejad a huge gift by sabotaging a major bipartisan anti-Iran rally. More important to them than Iran, apparently, was the opportunity to marginalize popular Republican vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin.
In a nutshell, here is what happened: The rally was organized by wide coalition of mostly Jewish organizations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the respected non-partisan umbrella group that is the closest thing the American Jewish community has to single and unified voice. They assembled an impressive protest of the presence of Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, to sound the alarm over his nuclear weapons program, and to urge world leaders gathered this week in New York to act strongly-and soon-to prevent a nuclear Iran that would threaten America, Israel and the world.
The organizers secured a number of high-profile speakers, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, recent Democrat presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton and Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It is not yet clear whether Clinton was coordinating with Democrat strategists, but when she found out Palin was also invited, she bailed out. Too bad-having America’s two highest profile female politicians together on the same stage condemning the misogynistic (among its many attributes) Iranian regime would have been a powerful image.
Following Clinton’s lead, two of the sponsoring organizations-led by left-wing Democrat activists-demanded that Palin be barred from speaking lest the rally be a “partisan” event. The organizers pleaded with both Joe Biden and Barack Obama to speak, but both declined. Although Congressman Robert Wexler, a prominent Obama surrogate, was available to speak, the Democrats (including members of Congress) relentlessly pushed to have the Palin invitation rescinded.”
Ahmadinejad says terrorism requires talks, not military action
““Foreign troops in Afghanistan have always left in defeat. The British left in disgrace and the Soviets also left in defeat. There is no guarantee that Nato troops will do any better,” he said at a press conference when asked to weigh in on the situation in Pakistan following the Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad.”
Do I need to draw a picture here?
This is rich. After criticizing Republicans for choosing an inexperienced VP, Democrats are outraged with the news that Palin’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant.
Maybe they would be ok if she had an abortion.
That’s not all! Andrew Sullivan (and to think this guy appeared once to be a rational human being) is saying that Palin should release her medical records to disprove yet another slanderous gossip that her son is not actually hers!
Got to tell you: Dems must be reaaaally scared…
Let’s imagine for a second that God is not a democrat and that the damage caused by Gustav is small. Let’s also imagine it is possible to check that local and federal governments got their act together and that they at least helped avoiding disaster.
Who will get the props for it?
Will the press be honest enough to note that Mrs. Blanco, a classic Democrat, is out and the Republican Piyush “Bobby” Jindal is doing a wonderful job?
Is there any chance that someone mentions the Bush administration in a positive note? I am not even asking that black artists tell us that George Bush cares about black people… But who knows, maybe a little break on the hate mongering songs would be a nice thing to do?
I would also like to try and understand why Bush hated black people in 2005 and loves them now. Is he not a racist anymore? Was he not interested in ratings back then?
—x—
Something else that I bet will not be mentioned is that people left the city this time. The same people who said they didn’t see the news on TV or didn’t have money for a bus ticket, somehow managed this time. Is everyone smarter and richer now? Or are they just plain scared?
Of course, one of the consequences of Gustav not being a real killer will be that these same people will probably be less inclined to leave when the next storm approaches. I wonder how liberals think the government can solve this kind of problem.
—x—
Katrina has cost the US billions of dollars (I heard the number 11 billion somewhere). For how long should we continue to spend important resources repairing a city that doesn’t necessarily need to exist? I mean, if we were Cuba I would say “bad luck, we got to figure this out”. But New Orleans has always been one of the poorest and most problematic american cities to begin with, and this is a very large country with many sparsely populated areas. I am not saying we should abandon the city but we could change New Orleans to be a smaller port city and help millions of people to get out of there and go to empty states like the Dakotas or Montana. Nothing mandatory, we could just spend a fraction of the levy’s money in some tax breaks or government sponsored home loans.
Why would this be such a horrendous thing to do?
One thought that keeps coming up when I hear about this ‘crisis’ we are going through is whether people really understand what we are talking about here.
It is easy to get complicated and start talking about mortgage backed securities, debentures and other financial instruments. But let me dumb it down a bit: the current problem is all about irrational behavior.
One side of the irrational mess was created by consumers. People hear about other people buying houses for 100 and selling for 200 and think: I can do that! Then they not only invest all they have, they get loans and invest all of it. All of that done without an ounce of caution or logic behind their actions.
The other type of stupid consumer is the one that applies for a loan for something he clearly can’t afford. He even lies about his income or ignores that the word ADJUSTABLE means something that can be… adjusted.
Both of these groups are a very small sub-sets of the general public: close to 5% (as of the end of last year, 5.82% (!) of all mortgages were delinquent, the highest level in 23 years. 0.83% were in the process of foreclosure, also an all-time high)
But still, we have to feel bad for them and come up with schemes to ‘protect them’. That goes without mentioning that they only behaved that way in the first place because the US already protects them… No one can go to jail for making debts and not paying them.
The second part of the mess, more evident since the Bear Sterns debacle, is the creditor side.
These are the banks and financial firms that assumed that mortgages were a solid investment (because historically only 1% of them went bad) and therefore invested their pants in such securities. Again, because of leverage and crazy plans of trying to make easy money, when the risk went up (minimally to be sure) they were all screwed.
The argument is that the government HAS to intervene because if these ‘big players’ go under everyone else goes crazy and the market goes down in flames. The interesting part about this theory is that it completely ignores the fact that whatever damage we are talking about here has already happened!
Again, what the FED is trying to avoid is… irrational behavior by banks, who could stop lending to everyone because they don’t know who can be trusted.
I am not a radical libertarian who thinks we should go back to the gold standard and not have a central bank at all, but I wonder how far people will take this rationale. I mean, if we are going to start bailing out Wall Street companies and Real Estate speculators because the whole system might get afraid, when does that stop?
People talk about 1929 as if it was something that was created by some lack of government… If our only hope to avoid/get out something like that is the government then we are truly in trouble (it took almost 30 years for FDR and his super new deal to do so).
The best indication to me that there is no way that the government is the right solution here is to listen to what the democrats are saying. Check out what Hillary (the least loone of the two!) has proposed:
- Boosting consumer protections for credit cards and student loans and capping credit card interest at 30 percent.
- Easing home foreclosures by pushing for legislation to expand the Federal Housing Authority’s jurisdiction to guarantee mortgages and allow the agency to buy at-risk mortgages.
She wants to make risky behavior even easier!
And I haven’t even talked about the endemic corruption that always comes with these kinds of programs. Alphonso Jackson is nothing new.
So what to do? Can we really legislate stupidity away and get a better society? Or should we start thinking about ways to let the stupid pay the price for their actions?
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