Recently in Politics Category

Listening to the Charlie Sykes Radio Program, which is out of Milwaukee, I learned that CEO Magazine gave Wisconsin a favorable rating in its survey of the states and their economic climate to foster businesses. Wisconsin went up 21 spots from where they were in 2010 when the excellent Scott Brown Walker first took office.

And this recall effort that is taking place--as I understand it next month--is second in importance only to the presidential election. Scott Walker is doing exactly what he said he would which, to Dems, is cause for his dismissal. So much for democracy. I hope people in Wisconsin remember the unruly public sector unions taking over Madison and the pusillanimous Dems who fled to Illinois to avoid voting.

Why didn't I get the memo? Pity the job market if the Milwaukee mayor, Tom Barrett, whom the dead tree media protects, gets the nod over Brown. That may be in part because the photo ID legislation was struck down. By an activist judge on behalf of the NAACP; unbelievably, this same judge was later shown had signed the petition to recall Scott Brown!

Sunny just cracks me up! I found her by way of Maggie's Farm.



She reminds me of a young Catherine O'Hara.

I remember oogling over Ashley Judd in the pages of GQ Magazine in 1987. It's too bad she's a malicious feminist. That dog don't hunt.

Feminism is based on lies--the sexes, er, genders are cultural constructed is one I repeatedly heard at Indoctrination U--promoted by women who are angry.

And I know there must be a lot of blog chatter about the unseemly video Ashley Judd made over a politician's departure from a race, but I like what Catholic writer Jennifer Hartline has to say.

I'm not the only one questioning the wisdom of blending ethanol with gasoline. It's not just the net energy gain or lose, the decreased fuel economy compared with unblended gasoline, or the problems ethanol causes in fuel systems. There's also the economic effects, particularly the always ubiquitous unintended consequences ethanol brings to the equation.

...[M]aking ethanol (grain alcohol) from corn...is a fairly straightforward and cheap process, so even without the federal subsidy, so-called "E10" gas (90 percent gasoline, 10 percent ethanol) is cheaper than straight 100 percent stuff. But instead of simply allowing refiners to mix in up to 10 percent ethanol if the market and production environment made it favorable, the law mandated a steep ramp-up to full sales of nothing but E10 in a very short time. On the surface we would move that much closer to energy independence with this law. Well and good.

The not-so-advertised reasons for the law have to do with the strength of the agricultural lobby. The E10 mandate was a tremendous windfall for everybody who grows corn. While some ethanol from corn was being used voluntarily as a fuel additive before 2007, the mandate caused this use to skyrocket. By 2011, according to the Mosbacher Institute report by economist James Griffin, 37 percent of the entire U.S. corn crop went toward ethanol production. And corn prices soared from $2.50 per bushel up to as high as $7.50.

If the only people hurt were U.S. food consumers (not everybody drives a car, but everybody eats), it would be bad enough. But the U.S. grows and sells more corn than any other nation, and much of it is exported to poorer countries, where it is a staple in many diets. While the rise in corn prices was not solely responsible for the worldwide inflation in food costs that led to food riots in many nations in recent years, the timing is suspicious, and there is no question that the EISA law led to hardships for many poor people around the world who were now even less able to afford to eat.

It's not too often those pushing for mandates look at the consequences they may create. As long as those unintended consequences don't affect them, they don't care. Call it yet another proof that crony capitalism (better yet just call it crony economics because it really has nothing to do with capitalism) always causes more harm than good because only a few benefit and everyone else pays the price, with little if any return for what they pay.

"EYEtalian not white?"
"No, not really."
~ from the movie Zebrahead from the 1990s,

Liberals would rather blacks get so enraged by the Trayvon Martin shooting that they'd harm or even kill whites, as long as the script is followed of evil whites, good blacks.

That wasn't exactly correct with George Zimmerman. So, on the fly, they invented "white Hispanic."

If George Zimmerman is a white Hispanic, why wasn't Bill Richardson called that?

UPDATE: An unprovoked rampage by a black man in Washington DC bashing in (white) people's heads sends a man to the morgue, others to the hospital in critical condition. Maybe he was doing it for Trayvon? Blogger Lawrence Auster makes the connection between the DC police chief not finding a common link to the attack to the official in Canada who had arrested a bunch of young men for attempting terrorism and not finding a common link, other than they were young men. Ahem, check the race of the DC victims. It turns out the young men in Canada were all Muslim, a common link I guess we're not supposed to notice.

Liberalism: teaching people not to see with their eyes.

I just had a conversation with my mom. My fears were realized. She supports President Obama, thinks I get all my information from Fox News, which can then be rejected out of hand, and am unduly influenced by my father, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.

It's funny when I think that I caught a lot of flak from here for voting for Ron Paul...in 1988.

Now she's a divorcee who is unfortunately subsumed by the politics of envy. Needless to say, she watches the network news, both local and national.

She has no clue, as the TV news merely provides the illusion of being informed. And she knows how hard I work, and thinks as a consequence I should be a Democrat.

Here's the truth that JFK uttered that is still true today: A rising tide lifts all boats.

Google it, Mom.

It was just before lunch when I received a phone call from my wife, Deb. She was taking a lunch break from her microbiology class at the local college when she called.

You may ask "What was so important that she had to call DCE during lunch?"

I can tell you on three words: She. Was. Livid.

During the morning lecture her professor, in the midst of talking about microbiology, went off on a tangent. That in itself isn't all that remarkable. It happens from time to time. But this time was different.

The 'tangent' in this case was a political diatribe that lasted quite some time. All the professor did was spout vitriol and vile slanders on Republicans, praise the all-knowing and caring Democrats, demonized anybody who disagreed with Leftist ideology, and so on. Some of the other students were overtly agreeing with the professor, but others were uncomfortable as the diatribe continued. As the vitriol continued, Deb started getting mad.

I have to explain that while Deb is fiscally conservative, she has her liberal side (and by liberal I mean a classic liberal, not a "government-knows-best" liberal). I guess that makes her libertarian.

Did what the professor was saying piss her off? No, not really. As she told me the professor did have a few valid points (though very few). So what was it that was pissing her off? Simply this:

She had paid good money that we could not easily afford to take a microbiology class she needed in her quest to become an RN. She hadn't paid that money to be subjected to a leftist political diatribe that belonged in a Marxist Political Science 102 lecture.

She called me again a couple of hours later, telling me that she'd gone to her adviser to complain about what had happened in the class. At that point her adviser started spouting off as well. Needless to say, that pissed off my wife even more.

So what has she learned from this episode in her college career?

Institutions of higher learning are not about education, but political indoctrination.

So endith the lesson.

One would think the level of PDS would abate after a while, but it hasn't. The vitriol aimed at Sarah Plain hasn't done anything except grow amongst the leftist shills and drones, at least to judge by the comments made to this article at the Daily Caller wondering if Sarah was on the verge of announcing a run for President.

One would think the shills would at least come up with new claims, but they've been reduced to recycling the same old (and disproven) fabrications. You know the ones:

She's so stupid that she said she could see Russia from her house!

The only reason she's doing what she's been doing is because she's lazy and wants the money.

She's a quitter. She couldn't handle the job of governor.

Trig isn't her kid.

She's in the pocket of Big Oil.

Bristol got pregnant in retaliation for Sarah not aborting Trig.

The list goes on and on, ad nauseum.

One particular commenter kept making the point again and again that she quit her office as governor just to make money. I saw her comment at least a dozen times, meaning she was "pulling a Harrop", named after a regular commenter on the Wall Street Journal opinion section who used copy and paste again and again and again as if repetition would somehow make his words true.

This was the comment I wanted to post, but Daily Caller's comment system, Disqus, was having issues and I wasn't able to post. So here's my response:

Some of the commenters keep calling Palin a quitter because she stepped down as governor. Not once have you mentioned the real reason why she stepped down, have you? Let me refresh your memory since yours appears to be defective.

She quit because her legal fees were bankrupting her and her family. Frivolous ethics lawsuits were filed by a group of thirteen Alaskan Democrats (with help from the DNC). Under Alaskan law she had to cover her own legal fees. Answering those lawsuits took up almost 100% of her time and the time of her staff, meaning she couldn't govern. Those lawsuits were filed just for that reason - to make it impossible for her to govern. It doesn't matter that every single one of those lawsuits were found to be without merit and were eventually dismissed. Every single one of them. But that didn't mean she didn't end up with legal fees exceeding $500,000.

Since then Alaskan law has been changed which now covers the governor's legal fees for such legal proceedings. That didn't help Governor Palin as she still had to pay the fees she accrued during that time. Were you in that position would you have stayed in office even though it would leave your family destitute? Somehow I doubt it.

I have no doubts my words will in no way sway you true believers in Palin's laziness and greed because you have proven yourselves again and again incapable of independent thought. You can only think along those lines your programmers allow. Heaven forbid you should stray from the party line and think for yourself.

Basically, they've got nothing new while Plain has been showing she's far smarter than much of the left has ever given her credit for and has better handle on how things work than the present occupant of the White House. And that scares the Democrats to death.

Too bad.

I sacrificed otherwise useful time and watched the President's speech to a joint session of Congress. Did I hear anything unexpected? Not really, except for...

"...pass this bill right away."

Claims that everything in his plan would be paid for rang hollow, particularly when he explained where the money would come from: thin air. The so-called "savings" from the debt-reduction boondoggle, really a reduction in the amount of money the government was going to spend that it didn't have, can in no way be considered as a means of paying for the American Jobs Act.

Unfortunately his speech sounded more like a campaign speech than a policy speech, slamming Congressional Republicans for being obstructionist. I think I would be obstructionist too if I knew the 'plan' the President has put forward won't work and will cost too much. (I think Obama defines 'obstructionist' as Republicans who won't do what he tells them to do.)

One thing that clued me in that Obama really doesn't understand why businesses hire was his plan to reduce taxes on small businesses, one cut mentioned being payroll taxes paid by employers, citing the tax reductions as a means to induce businesses to hire more employees. But businesses don't hire employees to get a tax break that won't cover the cost of hiring. Businesses hire when they need more people to meet increased demand for goods or services, period.

While I agreed with him that our infrastructure needs a serious overhaul, I believe it's too little too late. Stimulus 1.0 should have put almost all $878 billion towards infrastructure improvements, not the measly $55 billion actually spent on it. Stimulus 2.0 will be throwing more money we don't have after the original money we didn't have and I think it will have an even smaller effect, except for expanding the deficit.

On more than one occasion he made mention of fairness and fair play. Unfortunately I think his definition of those terms is far different from just about everyone else's. It has nothing to do with equal opportunity and everything to do with equal outcome. Unfortunately he will get his equal outcome if he gets his way, all of it bad.

I think it's about time I start drinking heavily....

Listening to the plans President Obama has made to address the jobs problem, it is no surprise to anyone that he really doesn't have a plan, or at least not a new one.

If his $878 billion stimulus program had been used to actually address a number of problems within the country, those primarily being our crumbling infrastructure, rather than using it for political patronage, we might not have as much of an economic problem as we presently face. But far too many of us knew very little of that money would be used to stimulate anything but the growth of the federal government.

Will Obama's September 8^th speech try to make a case for spending even more money we don't have to pay for more political patronage? If history is any indication, then the answer is likely yes.

What the president really needs to do (but won't) is to rein in his renegade agency heads (NLRB or EPA, anyone?) who are making sure it's damn difficult for anyone to create jobs...except for government jobs.

What the president needs to do is to get the government out of the way of free enterprise to let it do what it does best - create jobs.

What the president needs to do is fire all his czars and advisers because, quite frankly, they have no idea what they're doing. Most of them are academics with little, if any, real world experience doing things like running businesses or meeting payrolls or dealing with an ever increasing avalanche of government regulations and paperwork that does nothing but cost time and money to deal with yet add little of benefit to anyone except bureaucrats.

What the president needs to do is realize that one of his predecessors, Ronald Reagan, was right when he said to America "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem."

What the president needs to understand that no one in government, and I mean no one is either smart enough or wise enough to run the American peoples' lives. After all, everyone in government is having a hard enough time running their own lives, let alone those of 300,000,000 other people in this country. Every government that has tried to do so has ultimately failed, resulting in widespread misery. Quite often those governments end with fatal results for members of those governments.

What the president needs to understand that no one in government, and I mean no one, is either smart enough or wise enough to run the American economy. History is littered with plenty of examples to show this is true. Unfortunately the president and many in Congress have ignored this truth, figuring that this time they'll get it right. (They won't.)

All I expect from the president during his speech is more of the same old crap he's taken from the FDR, LBJ, and Karl Marx playbooks, just put in new wrappings and hyped by the Lame Stream Media.

In other words, "There's nothing to see here, folks. Move along!"

Nothing more need be said about this one.

I find it interesting seeing President Obama blasting the House Republicans for their attempts to rein in profligate spending by attempting to cut a piddling $60 billion from the present budget, when he himself has run the country deep into the red with his $1 trillion-plus annual deficits.

To quote the President, twice: "Elections have consequences" and "We won". Both of those quotes have come back to haunt him. The GOP swept the House and gained seats in the Senate, a clear message the American people don't like what he, Pelosi, and Reid have done to us, our economy, and our pocketbooks. Yet he is unwilling to allow cuts of any kind even if those cuts amount to nothing more than a rounding error in comparison to the entire deficit.

He says wants to be able to bring about a 'compromise' with the GOP. Unfortunately it appears his definition of the term is still "Sit down, shut up, and vote the way I tell you to vote."

What an arrogant ass.

There was a huge demonstration outside the New Hampshire State House yesterday. As the Republican majority House voted on two budget bills, one which does away with so-called "evergreen" clauses in public employee contracts, many of those same public employees were protesting against the move (and the budget), saying the budget cuts went too far and that their collective bargaining rights were being taken away.

The House passed a $10.2 billion biennial budget (New Hampshire state budgets run for two years), a decrease of $742 million from the present budget. This move was made to address an estimated $800 million shortfall within the present budget.

It was no surprise the Democrats in the legislature wanted to increase spending rather than cutting it, tried to revise the revenue estimates upwards to allow for more spending (something they did for the previous two budgets, which is how the state came to be $800 million in the hole to begin with), and raise taxes and fees again to pay for more spending (something they also did during the previous two budgets with the result of less revenue being collected than projected).

Some of the budget cuts will hit services hard, but many of those services were boosted beyond all reason during the previous 4 years. Some see these cuts as a return to more reasonable and sustainable levels until the economy recovers. During those 4 years the Democrat majority House and Senate increased state spending 30%, well above the rate of inflation or population growth over that time. The frugality usually seen in the State House was nowhere to be seen during those 4 years. Now it's time for the state to live within its means.

The public employees unions were not pleased with the move to strip evergreen clauses from contracts. Those clauses allow an expired union contract to remain in force until a new contract is agreed upon and ratified by the union members. With the removal of evergreen clauses public employees would become employees-at-will (like most of the rest of us) if the old contract expires before a new contract is ratified.

I have a question I must ask of those public employees protesting inside and outside the State House: How many of you took paid time off from work to be there?

While there were supporters of the bills also at the State House, they weren't nearly as numerous as those protesting against them. It wasn't that there weren't more supporters of the legislature's efforts. It's that most of us were at work, making the money taxed to pay the public employees salaries and benefits.

Talk about irony.

Ir appears that PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome) knows no bounds. When such Leftist pundits like Bill Maher must resort to stating Sarah Palin is a "dumb t**t" in order to get a laugh, you know it's gone too far. On the other hand Palin takes it in stride, knowing the source of the remark, and knowing the feminist Left has no problem with her being disparaged. As she says, "I need NOW's defense like a fish needs a bicycle," borrowing a line from ardent feminist Gloria Steinem to illustrate her disdain for the organization.

It never ceases to amaze me the level of vitriol leveled towards Palin, or at her family. It shows how far manners and adherence to the unwritten rules of politics have fallen among the Left. This may end up coming back to bite them in the ass, as it should.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, both the Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for media went after Sarah's family, a long standing taboo. Candidates were always considered fair game. Their families were not. The Dems crossed that line and now they may never be able to step back across it. Even now they continue to hammer her and her family as if they are deathly afraid of her. Maybe it's because they are.

Apparently quite a few others feel the same way about how Sarah and her family are being treated. Others miss the point, like this person:

For example, when Bristol Palin said winning Dancing with the Stars, would be a middle finger to her and her mom's critics.

Try as I might, I can't see Chelsea Clinton saying that about her parents' critics (in public).

If people had been criticizing just Sarah, that's one thing. But they went after Bristol, her baby, and her baby brother. No one did that to Chelsea Clinton when Bill was in office. It's an apple and oranges comparison.

But for a lot of those slamming Palin, it comes down to this: The problem with our society in this media-soaked age is that we equate glibness with intelligence and cynicism with wisdom.* It certainly explains Bill Maher, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, and the rest of the usual suspects.

*This is a composite of two different comments from Ann Althouse's post on the subject.

Will the intensity of PDS continue to increase as we approach the start of the 2012 presidential campaign season? Without a doubt. Will the invective aimed at Sarah Palin by the Left reach a level of hysteria not seen since Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds? Absolutely. Will any of it stop Sarah from moving forward, regardless of her plans or political ambitions. Absolutely not.

Reading this Instapundit outrageousness that strongly indicates there is no equality under the law--some people are more equal than others--I think it's high time for conservative sensitivity training.

And it's an indication how socialist DemoRATS have become when a liberal like Harper Lee and her wonderful book, _To Kill a Mockingbird_, has so much relevance today. But the tables have turned.

Where's our Gregory Peck? It's almost too late. It's demographics, baby. And to think in 1994 Republicans, lead by Newt, completely dropped the ball in not abolishing affirmative racism.

I never realized until listening to this Jim Harper interview on the Cato Daily Podcast how demonstrably weak the current administration has been in fulfilling a clear-cut campaign promise, the so-called "sunlight before signing" provision. This calls for bills to be posted on the internet for five days or more.

According to Jim Harper, Cato's Director of Information Studies, the President is failing, meeting just fifty percent of the bills according to his promise. Where's the media uproar?

After looking at the ongoing protest by public sector union members in Wisconsin over the past week, one has to come to the conclusion that they really don't get it. And it's apparent they really don't care.

They have to face the facts that the gravy train promised to them by long departed Democrat politicians is gone. The state of Wisconsin doesn't have the money to keep supporting their unrealistic benefits and the governor is not going to take even more money away from the already struggling taxpayers in order to keep funding them. To quote New Jersey governor Chris Christie about the same issue facing his state, "It stinks, but it's reality. Other politicians made you promises they couldn't keep. I'm the guy who has to be here when the party's over." And so it is with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.

Dealing with a looming $3.6 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year, Walker has had to face reality and attempt to make the public employees unions do likewise. Unfortunately the unions have decided to put their fingers in their ears and chant "La-la-la-la-la-la-la! We can't hear you! Give us your money!!"

During the past eight days or so they have tried every trick in the book, used every canard there is, resorted to Godwin's law (bringing up the Nazi's by equating Walker to Hitler), and made the ultimate plea - "It's for the children!" - in order to make sure they won't have to make the sacrifices so many of the rest of us have already made in order to keep our jobs or our benefits or our homes. Somehow they've come to believe they are owed their jobs and benefits and the people actually paying for their salaries and benefits be damned.

Walker isn't helped by the fact that 14 Wisconsin state senators - all Democrats - decided to run away and thwart the will of the people by making sure there was no quorum, thereby blocking any votes on the matter. They may see themselves as heroes but what they are is cowards. To quote their mentor, "Elections have consequences." The most recent elections held just last November have proven that. Now that things aren't going their way they decide to bail and flee across the border into Illinois in order to frustrate the democratic process they swore to support? So much for democracy.

Perhaps the Wisconsin Secretary of State could declare those 14 state senate seats as having been vacated since those senators decided not to fulfill the oaths they took upon taking office. I'm not sure what Wisconsin's state constitution says about quorums when so many senate seats are vacant or whether the governor has to call a special election to fill them before a quorum can be considered. Either way, the office holders have abandoned their seats as they have abandoned those who elected them and their seats should be forfeit. If nothing else it would be an object lesson to those who would throw a wrench into the machinery that is the legislative process. They will learn that actions have consequences, too. And so will the thousands of closed-minded public sector union members protesting at the Wisconsin state house.

While I stopped watching CBS 60 Minutes quite some time ago, I made an exception for the piece linked below.

While the Left immediately went into attack mode against the Right shortly after the Tucson shootings, blaming everyone from the Tea parties, Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin as the instigators of Jared Loughner's deadly rampage, far cooler heads knew that no such link existed. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Loughner's actions were those of a madman and not those of a political assassin.

Who are 'they'?

The United States Secret Service.

According to studies performed at the behest of the Secret Service, assassins like Loughner kill or attempt to kill not because of politics, but from some twisted perception that by killing the subject of their obsession - which their victim is - their problems will be solved.

Their descent into madness follows a specific pattern, one that Loughner fit perfectly.

Not that this revelation will stop the Left from pinning the blame on everyone but the shooter, but it lets everyone else know Loughner was a psychotic paranoid with delusions of persecution.

It seems guest blogger Bill has some thoughts about the shootings in Tucson.

The shootings in Tucson have given me yet another reason to be very angry. Not because an obviously unhinged nut job got his hands on a gun and took a further step into his dementia. Not because there appear to have been warning signs across the board and no one in a position of responsibility acted as though they did. Not even for the fact that a Memorial that is singularly meant to be a reflection on those that have died and the lives they led was turned into political ideological masturbation. What is angering to me, is how the Congress reacted.

Violence of more egregious intent and scale occurs regularly in America, yet nothing is heard from Congress but crickets. How many large scale shootings, in Arizona to boot, have occurred as part of drug gang posturing just in the last few months? No, that's OK, that's to be accepted as "one of those things" and disregarded accordingly.

So what's the difference? What has really gotten these people so animated?

Someone dared pierce the veil of Politician's Insulation.

I'd love to be proven wrong, that Congress's dramatic reactions are little more than the gut reflex to the simple realization that they are actually part of the real world the rest of us little people live in every day. Only because this happened to one of their own do they act and react as they have. And what is that reaction? Attempting to pass laws punishing everyday Americans, in turn increasing the gap between Representatives and the singular source of their power. Among the many parts of this whole event that are deeply disappointing is the reinforcement of the reality of Political Elitism, something anathema to genuine Americanism.

Indeed.

The Left is divisive. And labels its opponents as extremist.

Here's Daniel Henninger:

The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. It is cultural, and it explains more than anything the "intensity" that exists now between these two competing camps. (The independent laments: "Can't we all just get along?" Answer: No.)

Here's Dennis Prager:

But the Left's modus operandi was never as apparent as it was this past week when it took a tragic mass killing of innocents by a violent mentally ill individual and transformed it -- within hours -- into an attack on the decency of the Right: specifically Sarah Palin, the tea party, Fox News and talk radio.

The same left, led by The New York Times, that warned against making any quick assumptions that Islam had played any role in Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 people and wounding of 30 others at Fort Hood, immediately declared that the Arizona murders were largely a result of a "climate of hate" induced by Palin and other conservatives.