While having a Free Willy is not necessarily a concern for public policy, it can become so when the owner of the organ in question is an idiot.
Of course, we should note that if Weiner were a Republican, he would have already been forced to resign, by his fellow Republicans…but the party of John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank is ok with such things…
Barry Rubin writes a sentence to explain what Obama does not understand:
The changes in the region are producing more extremism, not more moderation.
There was a window of opportunity for us. It started when Baghdad fell in 2003 and lasted about a year. Little remembered about that time is how deathly frightened the tyrants of the Moslem world were. For the first time since World War Two the United States was engaged in forcibly liberating nations from tyranny. Afghanistan in late 2001, now Iraq in the middle of 2003. So frightened were these tyrants that Ghaddafi gave up his nuke program, Syrian began to loosen its grip on Lebanon, Pakistan shut down its nuclear arms bazaar and even the Iranian government started speaking in muted tones about the United States. We could have forced through real change – change which would have allowed non-Islamists to rise to power in the Moslem world.
But everyone reckoned without the global and especially the American left. They were even more frightened than the Islamists – they saw not the liberation of peoples but the palpable return of an American supremacy outside any global, leftist control. A damned cowboy and his bitter-clinger Christians in America were going to start doing whatever they wanted! There would be no need for the UN or for NGOs…dimwitted hicks would not seek root causes but would just go on and kill or capture evil doers! The global left could stand this – and, in America, the liberals in control of the Democrat party had an even bigger worry…that success in these efforts would lead to President Bush’s re-election. And so they went after Bush and our effort in Iraq…providing so much negative comment as to work out to pro-terrorist propaganda. And the terrorists took heart in this – certain that just as in Vietnam, the political left in the West would ensure an eventual paralysis of American might.
It didn’t work out quite as well as the left and the Islamists would have liked – they would have preferred that our effort in Iraq had completely failed. President Bush was made of sterner stuff than they figured and in spite of all attacks, he managed to secure victory. But he wasn’t able to follow up the victory with the logical, next step – taking out Iran and/or Syria. Because of this, the Islamists backed by Iran were given a new lease on life…given, that is, the ability to become more powerful and experienced and to trigger and/or take advantage of the massive popular discontent in the Moslem world. Now these Islamists, on the ropes in 2003, are poised to take over Egypt and then country after country in the Moslem world…and all of these emerging Islamist governments will either be tools or at least allies of the Islamists in Tehran.
Obama, as Rubin notes, does not understand this. He and others like him are calling this the “Arab Spring” as an echo of the Prague Spring of 1968…I guess these liberals (a) don’t realize that liberals didn’t lift a finger to help the Prague Spring and (b) that the Prague Spring was an utter failure…it resulted in even more tyrannical government throughout the Soviet bloc. These liberals think that these uprisings are going to result in a new, democratic and peaceful middle east…they would have done so, had they happened in 2004 under direct, American auspices. But they are being done increasingly at the direction of Tehran and associated Islamist groups…they are bent on an anti-democratic, anti-western, anti-Israel line. Under liberal pressure, America abandoned the field of reform in the Moslem world and Islamism stepped right in to the vaccum.
The overall situation is going to get a lot worse and a lot more dangerous before it ever gets better. The good news is that Islamist ideology is false and thus regimes founded on it will fail – just as Iran’s regime is failing even while managing to keep power by means which make Syria look a bastion of sweetness and light. Because of the coming failures of Islamism we will find ways and means we can thwart their aims and direct their people towards real liberty in the long run…but we’ll be a decade or two fixing this mess, and we won’t even be able to start fixing it while a clueless Obama is President of the United States.
And I’m real sorry about that – you see, we must keep historic memories alive, especially when it is about a horrendous, foreign conquer taking over lands which belong to others and then occupying them indefinitely. Over at PJ Tatler, they have quoted an account of the fall of Constantinople on May 29th, 1453:
Nothing will ever equal the horror of this harrowing and terrible spectacle. People frightened by the shouting ran out of their houses and were cut down by the sword before they knew what was happening. And some were massacred in their houses where they tried to hide, and some in churches where they sought refuge. The enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter. When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions.
Just as we must set right the “Palestinian nakba” so, too, must we correct the historic wrong done to Byzantium in 1453. I hereby declare that the Jews must give back all lands taken from the Moslems the very moment that the Moslems give back every square inch of Christian lands they occupy.
Fair is fair, right?
This is a gift that keeps on giving – DNC boss Debbie Wasserman-Schultz quoted over at Hot Air:
I think the president was clearly articulating that his position — the Democrats position — is that we need comprehensive immigration reform. We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy. And that is not only a reality but a necessity. And that it would be harmful if — the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries, and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrest them all. I mean that was the legislation that Jim Sensenbrenner advanced a couple of years ago.
Yeah, that is just like Republicans – mean and hateful. How dare they want to arrest undocumented immigrants! As if these people had illegally crossed the border, or something!
For sheer stupidity and blind adherence to politically correct idiocy, this is hard to beat. And I really hope the Democrats run with this point of view – please run ads against the GOP telling the American people that the GOP figures that people who illegally came here should pay a price for so doing. In fact, I’ll donate to help cover the costs of running such ads.
There is room for plenty of debate on the illegal immigration issue but there is one thing I’m absolutely certain of: a very solid majority of Americans don’t want amnesty or anything that even hints at it until the border is secure. No matter what else you want to do, until you’ve made it next to impossible to cross the border any proposal for immigration reform will fall on deaf ears. Democrats don’t get this – as the above quote indicates, they think they can scare up the most votes by using rhetoric to hide the fact that we have illegals (calling them “undocumented immigrants”, eg) while at the same time playing the race card (Republicans want to be mean to “undocumented immigrants” because they are racists). This will blow up right in their faces.
While Democrats are self-destructing on this issue, there is one pitfall we GOPers must avoid: becoming a party which blames everything on immigrants. Remember, border security is a matter of simple justice – justice to those who legally come here but also justice for those who are ruthlessly exploited by criminals when they cross the border illegally. The proper, moral, Christian response to this issue is to ensure that the laws are fairly enforced – but always remember that the illegals come here because we have essentially invited them. Illegal immigration is not the fault of the illegals – they are just taking advantage of a loop hole we opened up very wide. The blame for the problem should be laid squarely where it belongs – on a coalition of race-baiting liberals and those corporations greedy for cheap, illegal labor. Place the blame where it belongs, explain where true morality lies and we’ll crush the Democrats on this issue. And we’ll be helped each step of the way by Democrat dunderheads like Wasserman-Schultz.
The world continued to fall apart:
Anti-government protests commenced in Morocco.
Moody’s is set to downgrade Japan’s bond rating.
Greeks, increasingly worried about having to get off welfare, went on a riot.
Chinese stocks fell for the 8th straight trading day.
Yemen protests get increasingly bloody.
Gold surges towards a new high.
European retail sales drop like a rock.
The Euro Dance With Death over Greek finances continues.
All in all, a pretty lousy weekend for the world…glad I decided not to read much news until Monday night.
As it comes from al Jazeera via the Guardian, I take this with a grain of salt…but it is something to be looked in to:
Armed westerners have been filmed on the front line with rebels near Misrata in the first apparent confirmation that foreign special forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict.
A group of six westerners are clearly visible in a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves…
If they aren’t American, then they are no direct concern of ours – but if they are American, then we get in to all sorts of legal issues stemming from the War Powers Act. The French and British do have plenty of good special forces to do this sort of thing, so it does no good to jump to conclusions…but if Obama has US troops on the ground in Libya after he’s ignored the time limit in the War Powers Act, then we’d have one heck of a problem. We’ll have to see where this leads.
From the Washington Times:
t’s no secret that members of Congress qualify as political insiders, but a new report strongly suggests that they also may be insiders when it comes to trading stocks.
An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios…
I know you are just shocked, shocked to hear this news.
But does everyone, now, begin to understand? Can’t you see it? Can you see why there is such a powerful effort to preserve and expand Big Government? It is because those who are juiced in to it make bags of money off it. Sure, they’ll throw the regular folks a welfare bone, but that is just to keep them thinking that the purpose of Big Government is to help the people. Its not – the purpose, from start to finish and without exception, is to enrich those on the inside.
It is said that democracies perish when the people figure out they can vote the property of others in to their pockets. This is not exactly accurate – democracies perish when small minorities of people figure out how to bribe the majority in to ignoring the fact that the small minority is having a rake-off. Think of it – if we voted to have the Federal Reserve print up $3 trillion and divvy it up amongst the people, we would essentially be stealing from ourselves and each of us (ever man, woman and child) would have got $10,000. That would have been bad, but at least fair…but what happened was that the $3 trillion was that it was diced up among probably just a few million people…with the rest of us getting either nothing, or a few hundred a week in unemployment benefits. But all those who said “don’t do it” were accused of wanting to stop the unemployment benefits. It worked like a charm.
This bit of sharp practice in the stock market is just a tiny portion of the money being stolen by the Ruling Class. Honestly, it is probably the least destructive bit of theft they engage in. Vastly larger sums are taken by unionized government contractors; colleges and universities; Non-Government Organizations; people and corporations who donate heavily to politicians.
The cure for this is not a thicket of new laws or a new government organization – all that would do is bring more people in to the scam to steal. What needs to be done is to reduce the size of government. The fewer things government does, the fewer people government needs, the less they can steal. This does not have to mean cutting the amount of direct benefits to the American people – it just means that government should not be disbursing the benefits; should not be over regulating the market place; should not be continually tinkering with the tax code. If, for instance, you want to provide health care for the poor then your best bet is to ask the charity hospitals out there to get together and map out the amount of resources they need to provide basic and major medical care to the poor…and then just give them the money. You can rely on it that more poor people will get better care at far less cost than it is today…because there won’t be a bureaucrat and/or a crony capitalist having a rake off between taxpayer and beneficiary.
The solution is simple, though very difficult – anyone who thinks it over knows that the solution is to get the government out of the way. The hard part comes in where those who live off of government don’t want to go away…and that they have managed to convince millions that if the government doesn’t take care of them, they will die. But the trick can be done – and, as a matter of fact, it must be done…we’re bankrupt; all our money has been stolen and there’s simply none left. They say the thought you are to be hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully…hopefully the fact that we’re teetering on the edge of financial ruin will concentrate our minds.
TIME Magazine’s Joe Klein made a rather ridiculous claim this past weekend while on Chris Matthews’ show.
JOE KLEIN, TIME MAGAZINE: The other thing is there’s still tension between [President Obama] and Petraeus about what exactly, how exactly to close out Afghanistan. I’d say the relationship is pretty good, very, better than it was with Bush because the military hated the fact that he wasn’t really doing the job in Iraq.
It is worth noting that in the same discussion, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times mentioned how “the military was not behind the Libya campaign.”
One can’t help mentioning two more things in response to this absurdity.
First, a new Gallup poll shows that veterans and active-duty military personnel give Obama lower marks than non-military Americans.
Second, I present this:
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan:
Regarding that Gallup poll Matt linked to – Obama is just no Commander in Chief – the troops will do as they’re told because they’re good troops, but one thing veterans demand of those who put them in harm’s way is a conviction that there is no substitute for victory. Obama doesn’t have that conviction, and the military and veterans know it.
Can a chick in leather who rides a bike become President? Time will tell…
UPDATE: From the comments over at Hot Air:
Something most people will not say is this. At this point Palin is not indebted to any special interests. She has made no deals for cash, no quid pro quo. all of her money more or less has come form small donors, she funded her 2010 campaign with small doners, she is funding this RV tour with small donations etc. She owes nothing to no special interest yet. She can do what she wants if she gets the nomination. And that more than anything is what scares the power brokers. they don’t have a leash ove rher because she doesn’t need them yet…
Precisely – and they are afraid of her. The entire Ruling Class – including the GOP part of it. They are frightened out of their wits that she – or someone like her – will get in to power and not give a hoot about the system.
