I caught Secretary of State Clinton’s statement just a bit ago and while I haven’t come across a transcript of it, the most telling part of it was where the Secretary of State asserted that the United States finds the recent Saudi intervention in Bahrain to suppress dissent acceptable. Clinton couched it in terms of the Bahraini government having the right to “call in” forces from the Gulf Cooperation Council, but the naked fact is that the United States has disinterested itself in the fate of Gulf movements aimed at change of government.

This seems to have been the price extracted for Arab support of the no-fly operation in Libya – an operation, it must be noted, which does not have any stated goal other than a nebulous “protect civilians”. Essentially, we have indicated that while we’re ok if the Libyan rebels, under the cover of no-fly, manage to oust Gaddafi…but we won’t do anything to advance that goal, nor will we offer any support to any other Arab/Moslem people who desire a radical change in government. We want stability.

Its the old, old game with them – what is there today must be perpetuated in to the future so that US policy is never called upon to change. If people have to suffer under brutal and corrupt dictatorships then that is the price they’ll have to pay because foreign policy “experts” figure that any actual armed conflict is worse than any state of peace, even if it is the peace of the grave (and, of course, as long as the shooting goes on behind prison walls; Gaddafi’s crime in State Department eyes is that he started massacring his people in public).

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are just doing as they are told – but it is in conformity with their basic world view. This world view asserts that stability is worth any price, that the UN (which, by the way, had Libya on its human rights panel) is necessary for any action, that the weakest and most corrupt member must call the tune, that American power is to be subservient to the goals of non-Western interests in general, and non-American interests in particular.

I do hope that under the no-fly regime that the Libyan people manage to oust their particular tyrant and that the successor regime is in some respects civilized (a highly doubtful prospect, but anything is possible). But I think this is the end of rebellion, for now. Further explosions are bound to happen as the corrupt regimes of the Moslem world continue…but for this day,and for this time, it looks like the whole world is gathering together to sustain the brutes currently in power.

From Gallup:

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was at 10.2% in mid-March — essentially the same as the 10.3% at the end of February but higher than the 10.0% of mid-February and the 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is about the same today as the 10.3% rate Gallup found in mid-March a year ago.

Given the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been playing around with the employment numbers (and always in a way that helps Obama and his Bankster buddies….hmmmmm….), we should probably look towards Gallup to get a real idea of where unemployment is. And this probably does understate it given that if labor force participation over at the BLS was at the 10 year average we’d be at nearly 12% unemployment right now (but we can’t have that sort of official number…it would harm the “we’re recovering” meme).

Bottom line – the “recovery” has been anything but, and worse is probably coming.

You betcha! Headline from Reuters:

U.S. to deploy more ships to support Libya planning (emphasis added)

Planning? Planning!?!?! For goodness sake, Libya’s military is, at best, fourth rate. We’re not talking about taking on an air force with any ability to sustain active hostilities. Sure, they can bomb open towns unopposed…but it seems that Libya’s pilots and ground crews are foreign mercenaries who won’t want to tangle with a real air force; additionally, it appears that most of Libya’s most modern planes (and they aren’t all that modern) are not in flying condition. We’re not talking about taking on the Luftwaffe or something comparable to a mission against Hanoi in 1970…we’re talking about policing the skies above Libya to give the rebels a breather and allow Gaddafi’s loyalists to draw the proper conclusions about his long-term survivability. This should be able to be done right now – not a few days from now.

And a few days from now it will be – if you look in to the article we’re talking about deploying the USS Bataan on March 23rd…five days from now. This is just playing around…meanwhile, latest reports are that Gaddafi’s forces are continuing offensive operations…

Weak. Pathetic.

From Life News:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said today that Republicans who favor cutting taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business need to give up their quest because the Senate will not agree to it…

What he really means is that he will not agree to it – Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, will ensure that it doesn’t come up for a vote…because he knows that if it does, it’ll pass easily. Other than dyed-in-the-wool liberals and a couple RINOs, no one in the Senate is really going to go to the mat to maintain Planned Parenthood’s funding. The American people don’t support abortion funding, the nation is broke and Planned Parenthood has been revealed as an utterly corrupt organization…cutting them off would be popular…but the Culture of Death simply owns the Democrat party leadership, and Harry is now doing his Master’s bidding.

From the Asbury Park Press:

The century-old Bangs Avenue School — renamed for President Barack Obama just a year ago — will be closed as a neighborhood school this summer, largely because of a steep slide in the district’s total enrollment the past decade.

Bruce N. Rodman, the state-appointed monitor who oversees the district’s finances, Thursday ordered that elementary students be reassigned to the city’s two other elementary schools as of July 1…

What a gigantic absurdity – naming a school after a living, serving President! And when they named it, did they not have a clue, at all, that perhaps enrollment didn’t even justify it? How incompetent a sycophant do you have to be to name something doomed after your Dear Leader? But, it gets even more silly:

…The district plans to keep the Obama name as it uses the school building in a different way.

At the same time, the school district is applying for federal school improvement grants that could bring $2 million a year for three years to a distressed building. The funds were being sought for the Obama, middle and high schools.

They’ve named not just one but three schools after the President. For goodness sake, are we living in Stalin’s Cult of Personality? Just how many Obama schools are out there? Someone needs to drag an arts grant through liberal neighborhoods to see what turns up! Additionally, it is just so liberal that they are looking for federal grants – grants, that is, from a bankrupt government – in order to spruce up their other two efforts at being lickspittles.

You begin to wonder – do these people in any way, shape or form even feel American? Americans don’t do this sort of nonsense. We don’t name schools after men who are still in office…men who may be tossed out on their ear at the next election. I know the Europeans gave him a Nobel without Obama actually accomplishing anything, but I didn’t think that anyone who shares my citizenship would be that idiotic.

From CNBC:

…A special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February, according to data released Thursday, surpassing the old high in July 2008. The Chained Consumer Price Index, released along with the more widely-watched CPI, increased 0.5 percent to 127.4, from 126.8 in January. In July 2008, just as the housing crisis was tightening its grip, the Chained Consumer Price Index hit its previous record of 126.9…

This is no surprise to most of us – we know as we buy our food, pump our gas and otherwise just live day to day that we’re being squeezed. My father-in-law hasn’t had an increase in his Social Security check in years…because Uncle Sam says prices haven’t risen. And by the official number, it hasn’t – but the CPI has been driven down by the collapse of home prices and, astoundingly, the main CPI number deliberately excludes food and energy prices.

If you are in the market for a house, this is good times for you – I recently saw a house which originally went for about $350,000.00 sell for $80,000.00 after foreclosure. But if you already own your home then you are highly likely to be “underwater” and, in addition, your pay has likely stayed pretty much the same for the past few years…meanwhile, the food, gas and clothing you buy has been steadily rising in price.

There are two reasons for this state of affairs. The fundamental problem is one of production – we here in America do not make, mine and grow enough of our own stuff. This makes us dependent on foreign supplies and thus we have little ability to keep prices down by ramping up production on our end. The second reason is, of course, the massive printing of money by the Federal Reserve. In order to bail out insolvent banks and keep stock prices high, Bernanke has printed up bags of money. And you should really let that sink in: in order to keep rich people rich, Bernanke has essentially been picking your pocket by way of the printing press. Every time he whistles up another bag of cash to bail out a bank, the money you have becomes worth less. Bernanke might as well pull a gun on you and demand your wallet – though we’ll never get anything as straightforward as that out of him. Amazing to think that the man at the head of our financial affairs falls lower in the honor stakes than a mugger.

Here’s the bad news – there are already rumors that after the latest round of “quantitative easing” is finished yet another will follow. Why? Because liberal economic theory seriously contends that printing money is helpful and, additionally, if Bernanke were to shut off the spigot, stocks would lose half their dollar value in a flash. Can’t have that, now can we?

From Rasmussen:

Just 22% of Likely U.S. Voters say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of confidence found since before President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.

According to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, March 13, 72% of voters now say the country is heading down the wrong track, also at its highest level since before the inauguration…

I’d like to see an in-depth study of those who think we’re heading in the right direction…you’ve got to be a bailed-out bankster or some such to figure things are going well. Even if you believe that Obama is doing the right thing, no one fully conscious of the facts can be other than dismayed at the course of events.

This just says it all about President Obama and his entire Administration – from the Washington Times:

As a thank-you to its most famous customer, Amtrak is renaming the train station in Wilmington, Del., after stimulus “sheriff” Vice President Joseph R. Biden – after the project received $20 million in stimulus money and came in $5.7 million over the initial announced budget.

Spokesmen for Mr. Biden, who said he personally fought for stimulus money for Amtrak, didn’t respond to messages Wednesday or Thursday…

The only thing which says “waste” more than Amtrak, itself, is the absurdity of naming a station after a living man…and then going massively over budget on the project. One wonders – Biden is Catholic. I’ve heard he frequently prays the Rosary…for goodness sake, I can’t imagine how a Catholic could ever envision any set of circumstances which would allow him to sign off on something being named after himself while he lived. There’s a reason, you know, why the Church usually waits a very long time before proclaiming someone a saint…better to wait until all the evidence is in, you know? Biden might end up the greatest Vice President in American history…but a bit more than two years in to his term, its a bit premature to be building monuments to him.

This is what you wanted, however, my fellow Americans. A majority of you voted for precisely this. No backing out of it now – you are free to recover your honor in 2012 and vote to end this imbecile regime…but you’ll never get past the fact that, once upon a time, you really thought that Barack Obama and Joe Biden were the answers to America’s needs…

Ann Althouse got a nice, little missive from the gentle and caring liberals of Wisconsin. You can read the drivel here, if you like. I’d like to point out something to those liberals who are going on a tear and trying to scare us on the right in to silence.

No matter what you do, we’ll never stalk you. We won’t show up at your homes or places of work. We won’t try to make you look over your shoulder, wondering when an attack might occur. We won’t try to stop you from speaking your piece, no matter how nauseating it is. We won’t do all that because we’re Americans – and Americans don’t act like that.

On the other hand, if we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. This is no kidding. This isn’t bravado. This isn’t a threat – its a promise. You want to start a war then that’s fine. We’ll finish it.

UPDATE: At least one liberal gets it – and all honor to him.

But what will it actually amount to? From Reuters:

The United Nations authorised military action to curb Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday, hours after he threatened to storm the rebel bastion of Benghazi overnight, showing “no mercy, no pity.”

“We will come, zenga, zenga. House by house, room by room,” he said in a radio address to the eastern city…

The French air force’s main bomber isn’t really such – its more of a fighter-bomber, the Mirage 2000N, capable of carrying a 14,000 lb bomb load and a range of less than 1,000 miles, and that with drop tanks which presumptively eat in to bomb load. In contrast, the American B-1 can carry 125,000 lbs of bombs for 3,400 miles. The French do have an aircraft carrier – just the one, the Charles de Gaulle, which comes in at 42,000 tonnes and has an air wing of 35 aircraft. In contrast, the USS George H. W. Bush is 102,000 tons (which is a bit different from “tonnes”, but the ship is still very much larger than the French ship) and has an air wing of 90 planes. Boiled down, I doubt the French have the capability of enforcing a no-fly zone – only the United States Navy and air force can make it happen…and thus far there seems to be no move by our government to take the immediate and rather brutal efforts which will be necessary to keep Gaddafi out of Benghazi (latest reports put his forces 60 miles away).

French, American or Bangladeshi, if anyone is going to stop Gaddafi they’ll have to get moving right quick…and that is where my doubt is: I don’t think our leaders really want Gaddafi out. I think they want stability – even if its the stability of the grave. I hope I’m wrong – I hope our President finds his backbone and is right now reviewing the military plans to take out the Libyan regime…but I’m not hopeful.

UPDATE: Over at Hot Air, Allahpundit notes a report that we’re working on military action in the next few days. Gaddafi is 60 miles from Benghazi – “a few days” puts him in the city. For crying out loud, if you’re going to go to war then go to war. We’re either entirely half-assed here, or my theory of “stability” is correct.