Via NRO’s The Corner:

From The Hill:

[Senate Budget Committee chairman] Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on Tuesday presented a budget proposal to Senate Democrats that calls for an even balance — 50 percent to 50 percent — of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the deficit.

The emerging consensus on Capitol Hill is there should be at least $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. To meet that goal, Congress would have to increase tax revenues by $2 trillion over the next decade with an equal amount of spending cuts…

They just can’t do it, you see? They can’t do other than spend. For liberals, there is just nothing else to do. This is because their whole mind-set is wrapped around getting in to power in order to use government to make things happen. There is no concept in them regarding people just living their lives without let or hindrance from anyone else.

To be sure, this plan does allege there will be spending cuts – but you can bank on that just as much as you could bank on the Democrats’ 1991 plan which called for $2 in spending cuts for each $1 in tax hikes. We got the hikes in taxes, never saw the cuts in spending – until Democrats were beaten out of Congressional power in 1994. In a happy, Democrat world – one in which they hadn’t lost the House in 2010 – the tax hikes would sail through, some pretend cuts would be done and then when they thought no one was looking, the spending would skyrocket up (did you know that EPA spending went up 25% between 2009 and 2010? Oh, you don’t? But what about that huge debate in Congress where it was demonstrated that a vital, national priority was a gigantic, 25% increase in EPA spending…oh, yeah, I forgot; there wasn’t any debate…it just happened when no one was looking).

And it happened because that is all liberals know – to spend money to hire bureaucrats to make new rules to make special deals. They will never, ever stop. If you could demonstrate it to them beyond a shadow of a doubt that a reduction of spending would make people, long term, happier, healthier and wealthier than they are today they would still reject the notion. Not because your argument was flawed, but because it is outside their frame of reference. A world in which people just get on and live their lives is not a world liberals understand – mostly because there is no place for liberals; especially no place for liberals to be in charge, and to live a high life with no worthy effort and on a government pay check.

It almost seems a pity that we’re going to have to crush these people – they will be like lost, little lambs once we’ve turned them out. But, we must do it, good people; for their own good, as well as our own. And maybe after they’ve spent a little time in the real, non-taxpayer-subsidized world, they’ll understand that, just perhaps, spending isn’t always the answer.

Mark Hendrickson over at Crisis Magazine explains – first taking note of the idiotic federal policies which have actually restricted the supplies of oil and corn (just to name two commodities), then pointing the finger at where the “general” rise in prices comes from:

…Bernanke and the Fed are not blameless here. If the prices of a small number of commodities rise while most prices do not, we would reasonably conclude that those price movements are dictated by supply-and-demand factors. But when prices in general rise, that is the smoking gun that points to an inflationary monetary policy.

Since the Fed’s QE2 program was launched last September, the Commodities Research Bureau index of 19 basic, widely used commodities has risen by almost 40 percent. Has demand risen and supplies fallen significantly for all commodities since September? The odds against such an improbable coincidence are astronomical.

Instead, the answer is obvious: The Fed has flooded the financial system with newly created money, and the inevitable result of a lot more money bidding for approximately the same supply of goods is markedly higher prices…

It is here, and it is likely here to stay for a while. I don’t think we’ll get a bout of hyper-inflation, but the government policies of Obama and the financial policies of Bernanke have given us a round of “staglation” to deal with. Stagnant economy, rising prices. The big worry is that there are still rumors that Bernanke may go for another round of money printing after he finishes the current bout. The worry, for Bernanke and the banksters, is that if free money isn’t provided by the Fed, we’ll have a stock market collapse and renewed recession. Of course, we’ll have that if we keep printing, too…it’ll just take longer to get there. You really can’t repeal logic – and when things are way over-priced (as things like stocks and housing were in 2008) then only allowing them to settle to their real value will fix the problem.

But that isn’t what Bernanke wants to do – and it looks like he might keep trying his print-madness for a while longer. And, so, just prepare for it. We endured Carter, so we can endure Obama…but let’s just be sure that we repeat the end of Carter, too.

From White House Dossier:

President Obama doesn’t seem to have even peered out his Air Force One window to view the swelling Mississippi, a minimal show of interest for which George W. Bush was pilloried when he took a peek at the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At least Bush bothered to look.

Obama is traveling today OVER the devastation being wrought by the Mississippi in order to get to events in Texas, where he will rally his Hispanic supporters with a speech on immigration in El Paso and then head to the Lone Star state’s liberal bastion of Austin for two fundraisers.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One, was asked whether Obama had bothered to get a view from above.

“I haven’t seen him do that but I haven’t been with him for the full flight so far,” Carney said…

Its “flyover” country. Places where people go to church and own guns. Places where, let’s face it, Obama isn’t going to pick up many electoral votes in 2012, no matter what happens. So, lack of interest…but also note what Obama was doing while ignoring the plight of the people along the Mississippi: heading to a State he can’t win to talk up a proposal (comprehensive immigration reform) he won’t push in order to galvanize hispanic support for 2012…and then he’s off to a fat cat fundraiser in one of Texas’ few liberal bastions. “Cynicism” doesn’t even begin to cover this.

You liberals picked him. You called him “the one”. You swooned with ecstasy at his 2008 rallies. He’s your man. You got what you wanted.

No, how does it taste?

Interesting – from Reuters:

A long-simmering movement by liberal stalwarts in southern Arizona to break away from the rest of the largely conservative state is at a boiling point as secession backers press to bring their longshot ambition to the forefront of Arizona politics.

A group of lawyers from the Democratic stronghold of Tucson and surrounding Pima County have launched a petition drive seeking support for a November 2012 ballot question on whether the 48th state should be divided in two…

This is a bit dicey for a conservative. The first thought is “good riddance” – you can set up on your own, tax and regulate yourself to your heart’s content and spin out of control in to complete collapse. The trouble with that is that then all those liberals will try to move to the conservative State…and even that wouldn’t be so bad, but then they’ll go right ahead and try to impose the same policies which just killed Liberal Land (here in Nevada we call it “Californication” – where liberals from California, fleeing the collapse of that liberal State, come here and start bothering us about environmental regulations, smoking bans and other such nonsense…all with the requisite tax and spending increases, of course). On the whole, it might be best to go with the “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” advice on this.

On the other hand, this could become a nifty experiment for the United States – blessed as we are with our (partially atrophied) federal system. It would be a grand experiment in what works. And lots of States can be carved up. Even Nevada can – Democrat-heavy Clark County (think: Las Vegas) can move out and keep Harry Reid…the rest of us (and, yes, I’d move…Pahrump really isn’t such a bad place to live) can be Reid-less and start to build a rational government without having to deal with quite so many liberals (or, really, any at all outside parts of Reno). Just look at the “red/blue” county maps from the 2008 election and you can see where States break up.

We’d not only have north and south Arizona, but north and south New Mexico; north and south Texas (though I don’t know if we’d convince those Texans to break up); east and west California; east and west Oregon; east and west Washington; north and south Illinois; east and west Pennsylvania – the rest of the States either don’t have convenient demarcation lines, or are too solidly red or blue. Have it done and see where it leads – liberals are always saying they are smarter than the rest of us and know how to make piles of money…let’s see how it goes when they are on their own…and how the red areas do once freed from liberalism. Within ten years, we’ll know what works.

From CNBC:

U.S. home values fell in the first quarter at the fastest rate since late 2008, real estate data firm Zillow said on Monday, suggesting that a bottom will not be seen until 2012 at the earliest.

Zillow said its home value index fell 3 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter, and was down 8.2 percent year-over-year…

The kicker is that we would have hit the bottom in housing in 2010 – if Obama and Bernanke had not tried to stop the crash with money printing and idiotic purchasing credits. We could have done something back in 2009 or 2010, but it would have taken (a) a bit of vision and (b) a little less concern for the views of the idiots who got us in to this mess. We did exactly what we shouldn’t have done, and now we’re going to pay for it.

A recovery of housing prices – meaning a return to 2007 prices – is entirely out of the question; but if we had just let things take their course, the crash would be long over and we’d at least have stabilization, with maybe a little uptick, possibly leading to a genuine economic recovery. Instead, we got government efforts which ranged from useless to counter-productive. And I don’t think we’ll see the bottom in 2012 – because in 2012 we’ll have the “ARMs” (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) from 2007 coming due, and to 2013 will probably see the bottom. Pretty much anyone buying a house right now is making a bad decision – except in a few markets, you will lose money, and lose quite a lot of it…and it may be a decade or more before you get back to par.

While he wages of sin is death; the wages of folly is poverty – we followed the fool course of fake money, debt and government-subsidized failure. We’re now going to get a lot poorer than we were. But, as I’ve said before, poverty is not necessarily a bad thing – and America can and will endure this, and come out stronger in the end. Provided, of course, we get the liberals who wrecked the country out of power.

From Politico:

…The Ohio Republican used a speech to the Economic Club of New York to unveil a staunchly conservative plan to offset a debt ceiling hike with spending cuts of a greater amount, putting House Republicans on a collision course with Democrats who want much more modest spending restrictions attached to the vote.

He also told a packed, well-dressed ballroom at the Hilton New York that the debt limit has no “hard date” — a sign he does not take seriously the Democrats’ dire warnings of default in a few months…

And he’s right about that. Democrats are trying to stampede a debt ceiling increase in the $2 trillion-range – enough, most likely, to ensure that no further increase in needed before January, 2013 (convenient, huh?). In service of this, Democrats are asserting that if we don’t jack it up right away, no questions asked (and no serious cuts needed), then we’ll immediately default and granny will have to eat dog food. This is utter nonsense – the merest political scare tactic. Democrats just don’t want to cut – not anything, if they can get away with it.

Default does, indeed, stare us in the face – but not on account of our failure to borrow more money. That is what the debt ceiling is about – it isn’t about taking care of current expenses and current debts, but of piling up ever more debt so that nothing of consequence in government is cut. But if we don’t cut spending, then it two or three years we will be up against the fiscal wall – either having to borrow at ruinous rates, or having to go in to default. If we don’t raise the debt ceiling a penny not only will we not default, we’ll be better off. That is the hard fact Democrats don’t want anyone to realize – if we cut spending, we can raise the debt ceiling to $20 trillion. It won’t matter – we’ll never hit it. We’ve got ’em by the short hairs here – they desperately want it and are talking themselves in to a corner where they have to have it…and so we can make them pay for it.

Boehner is playing this just right – and while he’s doing it, we GOPers and all fiscal conservatives have to stand behind him.

From NBC:

…Just a third of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction; less than four in 10 approve of Obama’s handling of the U.S. economy; and nearly 70 percent think the economy will get worse or stay the same in the next year…

As we said, a dead bin Laden doesn’t put gas in the tank – nor goes it pay for food, rebuild your home equity, or get you a job.

So says the Arab Times:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is allegedly training a large number of Kuwaitis, Bahrainis and Saudis in a private training camp located in Waheera, a remote area near the borders of Venezuela and Columbia, and intends to use them to carry out terrorist activities within their respective countries and other areas across the world in case Iran is attacked militarily, Al-Seyassah daily quoted a reliable source as saying.

The trainees are first sent to Venezuelan capital Caracas or Columbian capital Bogota via Damascus and from there, they are sent to the border region in cars, one of the militants who broke away from the Iranian group told the daily.

Reportedly, the training camp is run by some Iranian intelligence officers and others affiliated to the Revolutionary Guard in cooperation with Hezbollah and Hamas. The trainees were given courses in making bombs, carrying out assassinations, kidnapping people and transporting the hostages to other locations…

The story goes on to note that the financing for this is coming from drug running – apparently with the cooperation of the Venezuelan government. Is this true? The story is thin on proof – but the problem is that it all makes entire sense. Venezuela under Chavez has ambitions for regional hegemony and a decided enmity for the United States; Chavez has spent a lot of time buddying up to Iran and other powers hostile to the United States and there is evidence that Chavez has helped the narco-terrorists in Columbia. We also know from long experience of Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas. The pieces all fit.

While the story claims that the terrorists are to be used in case of an attack on Iran, the fact remains that any such terrorists could easily be transported to the United States to launch attacks for any reason Iran or Venezuela could think of. Our border is still mostly outside our control – and crossing it is controlled by drug gangs, it wouldn’t take anything more than cash on the barrel to have terrorists sent in to the United States (or, if they are running drugs, just a bit of drugs for the gangs to then sell in the United States). We are living in a fool’s paradise if we don’t recognize the threat – and the immediate need to find out for sure, and take the harshest possible measures against any such training camps (and, yes, this would include, as needed, sending special forces in to kill or capture anyone in the camps).

While our current Administration prefers not to deal with these harsh realities, the fact remains that the world is a dangerous place, chock full of people who hate us and wish to harm us. Obama did a good thing by taking out bin Laden, let’s hope he shows equal resolve here.

HAT TIP: Fausta’s Blog

Which is the best headline I can think of for this AFP story:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, opening high-level talks Monday, said the United States does not see China’s growth as a threat and sought greater trust to work together on global problems.

“Some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China’s growth. We reject both those views,” Clinton said.

“We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict,” she said.

Yeah, we gain so much from our dealings with China. Let’s see: there’s the low-quality garbage in our stores. There’s the continual reduction of our manufacturing plant. There’s the full-employment for Chinese slave labor. We also get an increasingly powerful Chinese military to deal with. Oh, and then there’s also that growing worry among allies that we won’t be there if China gets aggressive. And we must not neglect the fact that the brutal, corrupt, anti-human rulers of China get rich. Yeah, no threat at all – just grow, grow, grow, China; we’ll help you every way we can, because we get so much out of it.

Of course, the Chinese bought the Clinton’s many years ago – Hillary is just dancing to the paymaster’s tune. But, my goodness, what sheer idiocy – we simply must win next year. We can’t afford four more years of this.

And some people might wonder, from time to time, why I find liberalism so nauseating – from Guernica:

…We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president…

And that is our liberalism, folks – divorced from reality, wallowing in unreasonable hatred. Our criminal President? You mean the guy who was elected by the people of the United States and who got Congressional authorization – on top of repeated previous authorizations not just from Congress, but from the UN? That criminal President? Yeah, not only is he no better than bin Laden, he’s worse…after all, if you read all of Chomsky’s piece, you’ll note that he’s not at all sure that bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11…just this odd, turbaned guy that we went after for no discernible reason…

Except, aha!, there as a reason…we wanted blood for oil! We hate Arabs! We hate Moslems! We hate, hate, hate…and we’re all defense contractors; those of us, at least, who aren’t working for Haliburton! And when we’re not deliberately starting wars for profit, we’re beating puppies to death with tire irons.

But the hate, really, is all inside Chomsky and his like – and it is very sad to see. Your mind has to boiling with rage in order to get that disconnected from reality – to both think that bin Laden might be innocent, and President Bush worthy of a Nuremburg tribunal.

Here is a better take on the event:

…Although he admits it is difficult to rejoice when someone is dead, Father Marciano believes that the United States’ relentless pursuit of bin Laden, who he called “the chief criminal of the world,” will send a strong message to terrorists that they will pay a price for the harm they do to others.

“It was done right, and in this case, there was no other alternative,” he said. “You can run and you can hide, but our intelligence forces are going to get you.”…

That is what comes out of a man who doesn’t hate – out of a man who merely wants justice to be done, and peace to prevail. Killing is never something we should enjoy, or even want to have happen…but some times some people by their own actions put themselves so far outside the law that there is no other answer. That was the case of bin Laden – the blood of many thousands of innocents is on his hands; not people killed as an unfortunate result of honorable war, but innocents murdered deliberately, as part of policy. There is a gigantic difference between a bin Laden and any American President – whether it be Bush who started looking for bin Laden or Obama who finally ordered the deed done. And it is a terrible pity that all too many liberals have so warped themselves that they can’t see the difference.