Month: September 2011

Islamists in Libya

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Not a good sign – from Barry Rubin over at Pajamas Media:

Finally, we have evidence that Islamists and even al-Qaeda supporters will play a central role in Libya’s new regime. Up to now there has been reasonable speculation that the U.S. government and NATO might be installing an anti-Western, Islamist government in Libya. Now there’s proof that this is so.

The actual government remains in the hands of non-Islamists, technocrats, ex-regime officials, and moderates. But the armed rebels who actually made the revolution have voted and their idol is…an al-Qaeda guy. Political power, said Mao Zedong, grows out of the barrel of a gun and in Libya’s case this seems a very reasonable expectation.

According to Al Jazeera, the network recommended by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as fair and balanced, Abdul al-Hakim al-Hasadi, also known as Abdelhakim Belhaj, has been named commander of the Tripoli Military Council. He was formerly head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Moderates are understandably nervous…

The guys with the guns do tend to call the shots – and there is just about zero chance that NATO or the United States will start bombing the al-Qaeda affiliated rebels to shore up the non-Islamists. We can still hope that the non-Islamists have enough military force to keep the Islamists in line, but there is one thing you can say about the Islamsits…they do have propaganda convincing to at least that segment of the Moslem population willing to take up arms.  The best bet to make in Libya is that those who fought the hardest are likely to be Islamists, or open to Islamist propaganda.

Another problem hamstringing the rise of decency in Libya is that a good portion of the population is still apparently tribal in outlook…this can work to the advantage of those wanting a free nation, but it can also work against them:  those who are divided up by tribes will be confronting people united across tribal lines in the name of extremist Islam.  In any revolutionary situation, the most determined and disciplined minority will take charge…it was such during our own revolution, and we just hit the jackpot in that the people running our side of the fight were Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and the like.  I haven’t seen any Washington-like person rising in any of the Moslem revolutions of late.

Once again I have to go back to my first views on Libyan intervention – we should have done it much sooner and much harder.  Had we acted swiftly to destroy the Gaddafi regime then it would have been gotten rid of before large bodies of dedicated, revolutionary soldiers were built up.  Before, that is, a large body of Islamist troops were created.  There would have been in reality no rebel army…and thus the chance for decent people to be in charge.  In any military action, there must be celerity of movement and maximum force…if you don’t want to move quickly and with enough power to over-kill the opposition, then it is best not to move at all.  We may get the worst of both worlds…a half-baked military intervention to be followed by a regime overtly hostile to the United States (Gaddafi’s Libya was hostile, but also wasn’t bothering anyone for the past 10 years or so).

Pray that the good guys win…but be prepared for quite a mess in Libya.

UPDATE:  Islamists plot to take over Libya.

UPDATE II:  Libyan rebels round up  blacks as enemies.

 

IMF Official Expects Greek Default

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Over at Noonan for Nevada I note that Greek one year bonds have rocketed to an amazing 72%, now comes this Zero Hedge:

While the US was panicking over a double zero jobs report, things in Europe just fell off a cliff. As both the WSJ and Reuters report, it seems that the second Greek bailout, following repeated and consistent disappointments by Greece which has resolutely refused to comply with the terms of its fiscal austerity program, has just collapsed.And with the US closed on Monday: long a counterbalance to European risk pessimism, this week (especially with the news fro the latest FHFA onslaught against global banks) may just be the one that “it” all comes to a head. But back to Europe, and more specifically Greece, which it now appears is doomed. “I expect a hard default definitely before March, maybe this year, and it could come with this program review,” said a senior IMF economist who is keeping close tabs on the situation. “The chances for a second program are slim.” …

And remember, Italy and Spain are also on the financial chopping block – it has just been the belief of the Eurozone leaders that if they can save Greece, they can save the entire Eurozone.  Maybe that was true, but what has become clear by now is that Greece cannot be saved…the financial requirements to be placed upon the people of Greece are not politically possible for an elected Greek government to impose (additionally, in my view, even if the Greek people willingly embraced the austerity measures it would not be enough…Greece – like Spain, Italy and so many other nations – owes more than it can ever repay).  So, default.

Some rumors have had it that all the Eurozone leaders were ever trying to do was find a safe place to crash land the Greek economy…knowing all along that default was necessary, they just wanted it to happen in the least damaging manner possible.  I don’t hold to that view – Greek default being inevitable, the sooner it happens, the better.  The longer you keep trying to bail out Greece the more debt is involved and thus the bigger the hit when the default happens.  I think the Ruling Class of Europe really thought they could manage this…the Masters of the Universe never imagined that there wasn’t some way to borrow, print and steal their way out of the jam, as they have done so many times in the past.

But now they are rather stuck…no one in Europe wants to get further on the hook for Greece.  Default must happen, and keeping things afloat even for another full year won’t make it any better for those who continue to extend Greece credit.  Maybe there are one or two more rabbits for the European Central Bank to pull out of the hat, but I don’t think so.  Get ready for an interesting financial time.

Run, Sarah, Run!

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Real Clear Politics has a link to the Palin speech today as well as several quotes – this is the most important part:

…On crony capitalism: “So many of them, they arrive in Washington, DC of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy. Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money, to taxpayer dollars.”

“They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street. And their corporate cronies. And to reward contributors. And to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this. It’s called ‘corporate crony capitalism,'” she said.

“Like you, I’m not for sale. I believe in the free market and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids. It will lead to our downfall if we don’t stop it now.”…

She gets it – whether by insight or careful study, she understands the basis of what is wrong…we’ve got a self-perpetuating Ruling Class which has fastened itself upon American society.  They are like colonial overlords, or a visitation…they are not organically connected to us, but they rule us and bleed us dry so they and their hangers-on can prosper.  Unless and until we get rid of them, we won’t be able to restore America.

The people who run our system of government and economics will always stand in the way of reform for the simple reason that any reform will eject them from power.  There is no way that those who leech off the American people will voluntarily give up their place at the  trough.  They will have to be forced out – by peaceful, political revolution.  Sarah Palin understands this – so, to be sure, do Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum.  But Palin has the national name recognition and the instant ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars as well as mobilize an army of volunteers.

In spite of all the excellent qualities in the current GOP primary field – and whomever gets the nomination will get my enthusiastic support against Obama – my view is that Sarah Palin is the best option for the GOP in 2012.  Palin is the embodiment of the true American spirit…the self-reliant, hard working, family-orientated, ardently Christian core of America.  She is the sort of person who crossed the oceans to found America, and who then tamed a continent, built a democratic republic and made America in to the most powerful and generous nation in human history. We can get that America back – but only by revolution.  Of all the candidates Palin is not only most likely to do this, but she has the ability to run that long, difficult race which will be necessary for a revolutionary to win the GOP nomination and beat Barack Obama.

So, run, Sarah, run.  Become the leader of the revolution and let’s restore America.

How Liberals See It

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Cenk Uygur wrote a piece over at HuffPo about how Obama and Co just won’t get out there and fight…that Team Obama thinks they are winning and thus just don’t answer the GOP blow for blow.  For those of us who have been watching Obama serially insult and attack us since he became President, this attitude comes as a surprise…what do the liberals want Obama to do?  Shoot us?

Uygur’s opinion is applauded and repeated by many liberals in the comments, but other liberals are countering the argument with a plea for patience.  Obama, you see, had dropped in his lap more challenges than any other President.  Civil War?  World War Two?  Oh, puhleesse!  Give me a break…that’s nothing!  Think about what Obama was faced with:  a recession!  My goodness, man, can anything be more challenging than that?  And then look at all that cruel obstructionism from the GOP…for crying out loud, in the face of the beaten down, dispirited GOP all Obama had was absolute command of Congress and the slavish devotion of the MSM.  It is a wonder that Obama survived at all!

Interspersed are, naturally, the accusations that we’re all racists and that corporations and billionaires control us (one wonders if any liberal has ever asked what George Soros does for a living?).  It is really rather sad; pathetic, really.  It is people who simply don’t know…they were fed a fairy tale about what that wicked,  mean Chimpy McSmirk BusHitler was up to…and then they were told that Obama was The One who will make it all better.  Now that the fairy tale has entered reality and reality doesn’t measure up, they are just floundering around, looking for excuses or getting petulant that The One hasn’t delivered.

These are not people who are set for victory next year…from Obama on down liberals are just out of their depth.  We’re going to beat them like a drum – not easily because ignorant as they are, they’ll still have a billion dollars to spend and a nasty streak a mile wide, but we’re going to beat them.

How to Reform Education

Mark Noonan44 Comments

The geniuses of the left have come up with a way to improve education – from Yahoo News:

How would the nation’s school system be different if teachers were paid like engineers?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed last month that a significant boost in teacher salaries could transform public schools for the better by luring the country’s brightest college graduates into the profession.

Teachers should be paid a starting salary of $60,000, Duncan said, with the opportunity to make up to $150,000 a year…

Yeah, that’ll fix it.  The only problem we have with education is that we’re not spending enough money on it.  If we just “invest” a bit more, all will be well.

The truth is that we spend plenty of money on education – in fact, probably many times more than we need to.  But the funds are misapplied because the education system – from pre-school through graduate school – is not geared towards providing education for kids, but for providing well paid positions for incompetents.  Fundamental to this are teacher’s unions and tenure.  Get rid of the unions and tenure, and you’ll fix education within, at most, two or three years.  There will no longer be protection for idiocy, and so the natural common sense of humanity will start to take hold.

To be sure, a lot of other particular bits of reform spring to mind – such as, why do we provide loans, grants and scholarships for kids to become lawyers?  We have more than enough lawyers in the United States – but not nearly enough engineers and doctors.  So, cancel all loans, grants and scholarships for law degrees and re-direct the funds to medicine and engineering.  But that is in the details – and such reforms will always be stymied because of the main things wrong with education:  unions and tenure.  Unions and tenured educators don’t want their place at the trough disturbed and so strangle every effort at reform…while on the other hand they are always quick to come up with their own “reform” efforts which invariably demand more money for the worthless education system we already have.

George Will called the events in Wisconsin the “Waterloo” of the left…it may well have been.  Unions were taken head on and defeated…and the people of Wisconsin are already seeing the improvements in government finance, the Wisconsin economy and Wisconsin education.  Here’s the real kicker – there is more money in the Wisconsin education budget for hiring and paying teachers, now that the unions are cut out of the loop.   Once the word starts to get out that getting rid of the unions is just about a silver bullet, more and more unions will be got rid of.  It will snowball.

Eventually we can start educating the kids, again…and that will do more than anything else to restore American greatness.

The Democrat Plan: Smear and Fear

Mark Noonan7 Comments

From The Hill:

President Obama is struggling in the polls against would-be Republican challengers because voters don’t know the GOP contenders well enough yet, a top White House official said Thursday.

Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer expressed confidence that Obama would perform better against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Texas Gov. Rick Perry once Americans familiarize themselves with those GOP presidential candidates.

“My guess is that a significant portion of the people polled, the American people, don’t know what Mitt Romney’s economic plan is yet,” Pfeiffer said on MSNBC. “I’m confident they will know that he supports Cut, Cap and Balance, which would essentially end Medicare, end Social Security.”…

The only way to figure that Cut, Cap and Balance would end Medicare or Social Security is to lie about Cut, Cap and Balance.  As it turns out, flat out, bald-faced lies don’t seem to be a difficult proposition for Democrats.  And if your man can’t run on his record while his opponents have ideas that play well with the public then you have two alternatives:  either gracefully surrender, or lie like a rug about your opponents.

Rely on it:  from now until election day there will be an increasing crescendo of fear and smear tactics from the Democrats – to hear them talk about it, the GOP plan will be to kick granny off social security, kick sick people out of hospitals, kick kids out of school and bring back Jim Crow laws…all so we can give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

Democrats are not doing this to win support – one thing about popularity is that once it is lost it is very hard to get back.  The chances of Obama winning enthusiastic support from people who backed him in 2008 but have soured on him in 2011 are very small – unless some gigantic event entirely outside his control allows Obama to shine, there is little chance that the disenchanted will come back.  Democrats are doing this to fire up their base and dispirit independents.  But running a nasty, dishonest and slanderous campaign, Democrats hope to fire up the mindless rank-and-file left (who will actually believe the GOP wants to be all that nasty) while making politics so vile that independents stay home in droves…Democrats then count on their registration advantage and ground game to out-turnout the GOP on election day.

A party with a sense of honor wouldn’t do this – a party whose leaders cared more for America than their own power and wealth would run on their record and let the American people decide.  Of course, a decent, honorable party like that holding the Democrats’ current record would be crushed at the polls.  For the Democrat leaders, there is no upside to that.  They want to win – and this is the only way they can possibly win.  The bad news for them is that it won’t work.

I think that the Democrats’ primary problem in 2012 is that they have already been so nasty and slanderous since 2001 that the people have tuned them out.  When an Andre Carson claims that the TEA Party wants to lynch black Americans, it is considered outrageous and disgusting, but it is also considered par for the course.  People expect Democrats to act like that but don’t allow it to affect behavior.  There is a chance that when Democrats really pour on the filth it will work as Democrats hope, but my view is that it will just steel the hearts of both GOPers and independents to have done with the Democrats…to chastise them so severely that they may even learn their lesson and rethink their policies and tactics.

But get ready for it – they will be as nasty and disgusting as they can be.  They will lie about us.  They will insult us.  They will use the crudest appeals to liberal racism. They will send minions out to disrupt our events.  They will use false-flag tactics…liberal activists presenting themselves as conservatives and TEA Partiers mouthing racist sentiments.  They will give marching orders to the MSM and so the MSM will gang up on us and highlight every slander as if it were true, while hiding the truth about the left.  It will be a long and very difficult campaign.

And we’re going to win.

Turks Expel Israeli Ambassador

Mark Noonan17 Comments

From the Washington Post:

Turkey said Friday that it was expelling the Israeli ambassador and suspending military agreements with Israel, signaling a deepening rift between the former strategic allies in the aftermath of last year’s deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish ship leading an aid flotilla to Gaza.

The crisis with Turkey comes as Israel faces strained relations with another longtime regional ally, Egypt, over a deadly border incident last month, and it raises the prospect of Israel’s increasing isolation in the region at a time of tumultuous change.

Turkey announced its move ahead of the publication of a U.N. report that found that while Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, its commandos had used “excessive and unreasonable” force when they boarded the vessel, the Mavi Marmara, and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists…

That report is bound to be nothing more than another bit of UN Israel-bashing.  “Excessive and unreasonable” is a subjective judgment and, at the end of the day, Israel wouldn’t have had to use any force, at all, if the flotilla people had simply obeyed the law.  You go to break a blockade and you’re engaging in an act of war…Israel could have just torpedoed the flotilla and still would have been within the law.

But Turkey is taking this bogus incident as an excuse to expel the Israeli ambassador, and that means something.  Turkey, increasingly Islamist, is breaking its ties with Israel and lining on the side of the Jihadists.  This is a watershed moment – it is the end of any large, powerful Moslem nation even making an effort to be Western and civilized.  We can now expect increased pressure on Iraq to toe the Islamist line, especially if any sort of Moslem Brotherhood government emerges in Egypt.  We’re back to 1967 in middle eastern affairs but with a much more virulent strain of anti-Israel and anti-US sentiment in the area.

Our response should be to cut off all military ties with both Turkey and Egypt and refuse both nations any aid.  If we can keep Iraq in our camp that would be great…and we should offer strong inducements to the Iraqis to partner with us, lest they be swallowed up by Turkey, Iran or a combination of both.  But we have to be prepared for Iraq to cut ties with us, as well…they are placed in a difficult position and may decide that it is better to get along with everyone than count on an increasingly distant and distracted United States.

It could be that wiser heads will prevail and all this will blow over – but if the Islamic world really wants to fight, then there’s not much we can do about it, except to fight them.

President Zero

Mark Noonan24 Comments

From MSNBC:

…Nonfarm payrolls were unchanged last month, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the first time since 1945 that the government has reported a net monthly job change of zero. The August payrolls report was the worst since September 2010, while nonfarm employment for June and July was revised to show 58,000 fewer jobs…

…Despite the lack of employment growth, the jobless rate held steady at 9.1 percent in August…

He promised us that his stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%.  That, really, is all that needs be said – by his own standards, he has failed.

Nooooo, there’s no room to cut!!!

tiredoflibbs7 Comments

I am so glad the pResident has not rested since taking office and promising to fix the economy, create jobs, heal the earth…  ok he did not say he will not rest on the last one.  But the first two he did and we have seen NOTHING from this so-called “leader” but more of the same failed liberal policies of the past.   I know… I know…you drones can’t wait to cry “Republicans do it too”.  That was before the last election.  We now have some TRUE CONSERVATIVES working against the RINOs.

Here is a collection of government outrage stories from the last few weeks.  It’s just too easy to come up with this BS. There is more…. a lot more.  After next week’s “jobs plan” errrr “jobs summary” errr “reasonable list of policies” speech, there will be even more…

Environmental Enforcement Leaves Gibson Guitar Makers in Fear

Feds Give 4 States $5.8 Million to Protect Insect Habitat

USDA Gives $73,824 Grant To Connect Food With Bed And Breakfasts

DHS Giving $2.1B in ‘Preparedness Grants’ to Cities, Indian Tribes, Non-Profits, Etc.

Postal Service spent $4.3 million on union employees who did “nothing”

$500,000 for a windmill in Milwaukee

Pentagon pays $720M in late fees for storage containers

Gov’t Paying Farmers, Ranchers $112M to Protect Bird Too Numerous to be Threatened

HIV/AIDS group charged with diverting tax dollars to strip club

Taxpayer-Funded App Makes You Look Like a Neanderthal

$245 million for a desalting plant in Arizona that has never been used and still costs $6 million a year to maintain

Taxpayers Foot Bill For an App To Tell Workers It’s Hot Outside

Getting ready for a wave of coal-plant shutdowns

Are you tired of hope and change yet?  Still waiting for the change from someone who was “a new kind of politician” and not “an insider”.  His actions have said otherwise.

Will Unemployment Increase?

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Lance Roberts over at Zero Hedge thinks so:

Unemployment is potentially set to rise sharply in the coming months.  That is a pretty bold claim on the surface and one that flies in the face of both mainstream economists, and the White House which is about to unveil a new “jobs plan”.

Let’s take a quick look at some numbers:  8, 160, 400, 350, 12 and 5.  There have only been 8 weeks out of last 160 weeks that unemployment claims have been below 400 thousand claims.   In normal circumstances we are worried about recessions when claims are rising above 350 thousand claims.   Furthermore, jobless claims tend to plunge below 350 thousand a week within 12 months after the end of a recession.  Currently we are still holding above 400 thousand claims after more than two full years since the recession statistically ended…

But what about “5”?  He gets to that – the STA Composite Employment Index.  When it gets to “5” or less, it is a solid indicator of a recession.  Right now, it is at “5”.

But even without that, anyone with eyes to see knows that the economy is in bad shape – the mere fact that we’re sitting on 400,000+ plus claims for unemployment week after week after week shows that we are, at best, treading water…and more likely we’re slowly losing ground, in spite of all the new jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims we’re creating (of course, it must be noted that then the BLS says “X” jobs were created in month “Y” it is really no more than a guess…and it will be about a year before we know how many really were created in month “Y”…and if BLS guesses wrong…).  Along with the jobs picture, every metric of economic activity has been pathetic for a “recovery” period…and they are all trending towards worse.  Even when some statistic comes in higher than expected, it is not high enough to indicate a robust economy.

It remains to be seen whether or not Bernanke will print up a bag of money to keep us out of official recession through the 2012 election – I think it would be disastrous, and may not even give us fake “growth”.  But he may try it – the Ruling Class is worried about a political revolution in the United States next year and will pull out all the stops to ensure that Obama is re-elected.  Or, failing that, that the eventual GOPer is wedded to the current system.  These people don’t care if America is going to heck in a handbasket…all they care is that they remain rich and in charge.

Brace yourselves – we’re going to have to deal from now through election day with a bad economy and an exceptionally nasty, political fight.  We will win – and win rather big, I think – but it will take every last ounce of effort we can muster.  As for me, I’m excited about the prospect and looking forward to the battle…it will be honorable, it will be fun and it will change America.