Pretty good read on the state of the economy, in my view, from Hussman Funds. Do read the whole thing, but to nutshell it – the leading economic indicators are essentially predicting a recession, with only one particular indicator (the Purchasing Managers Index) not quite in line with everything else. It will be, though – just wait a bit.

Taking a look at the history of these things, John Hussman figures we’ll bottom out in stocks about a year from now, in employment near the end of 2012 (sorry about that second term, Barry, but thems the breaks) and housing some time in 2014. This is pretty much what I’ve expected – though I lack the analytic skills to put perception in to strong argument. Hussman does it very well.

So, we’re heading that way and it will be pretty bad. For the most part, there’s no way around this. We’ll just have to deal with it.

We are not supposed to speak ill of the dead and I do try to hold to that, but as I clicked on the news this morning and saw alleged Republican Orrin Hatch lauding Senator Byrd, I began to be outraged. It is not a heroic thing for Byrd to have served in the Senate since 6 years before I was born – it is absurd. In addition to that, what Byrd did while Senator was a criminal betrayal of the American ideal.

Think I’m being harsh? Here’s a list of some of the things Byrd had named after himself (from Citizens Against Government Waste):

Robert C. Byrd Drive, from Beckley to Sophia (Byrd’s hometown)

Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center at Wheeling Jesuit University

Robert C. Byrd Highway

Robert C. Byrd Federal Correctional Institution

Robert C. Byrd High School

Robert C. Byrd Freeway

Robert C. Byrd Center for Hospitality and Tourism

Robert C. Byrd Science Center

Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center of West Virginia

Robert C. Byrd Cancer Research Center

Robert C. Byrd Technology Center at Alderson-Broaddus College

Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, near Princeton

Robert C. Byrd Bridge between Huntington and Chesapeake, Ohio

Robert C. Byrd addition to the lodge at Oglebay Park, Wheeling

Robert C. Byrd Community Center, Pine Grove

Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarships

Robert C. Byrd Expressway, U.S. 52 near Weirton

Robert C. Byrd Institute in Charleston

Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing

Robert C. Byrd Visitor Center at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park

Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse

Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center

Robert C. Byrd United Technical Center

Robert C. Byrd Federal Building (there are two)

Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex

Robert C. Byrd Library and Robert C. Byrd Learning Resource Center

Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center

Robert C. Byrd Clinical Addition to the veteran’s hospital in Huntington

Robert C. Byrd Industrial Park, Hardy County

Robert C. Byrd Scholastic Recognition Award

Robert C. Byrd Community Center in the naval station, Sugar Grove

Robert C. Byrd Clinic at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine

Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science Center at Marshall University

Byrd doesn’t deserve a eulogy – he deserved flogging. By his oily political gamesmanship he helped to corrupt America. He turned the office of a Senator in to the Office of a Crook…using taxpayer money to pay off cronies, build monuments to himself, and bribe his own people.

Bryd’s fate is now decided – God will judge him with absolute justice. As with all people, I pray he obtains salvation in spite of his sins. But let’s not fool ourselves – never forget that Byrd did continual disservice to our nation and played a huge role in the moral, economic and political corruption of our society.

UPDATE: According to West Virginia’s vacancy laws, there will be a special election in November to fill the remainder of Byrd’s term. Can’t think of a better way to honor him than to ensure a Republican takes his seat.

The dog and pony show of Kagan’s confirmation hearings start today – though the WSJ does report there is that slight chance the GOP can derail her:

Republicans are keeping the option of a filibuster on the table as Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings get underway this week.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Sunday said a filibuster could happen “if things come out to indicate she’s so far outside the mainstream.”…

Which information is, of course, already out there – she’s a far left ideologue who has no judicial philosophy. All she has is a slavish devotion to whatever is fashionable on the left. If one moment its the fashion to oppose military recruitment because of don’t ask/don’t tell while the next moment you have to welcome gay-hating Sharia law, then that is all in a days work for someone, like Kagan, who has resigned her ability to think.

I think we should filibuster her – its not like Democrats will have held the practice sacred. Heck, they passed ObamaCare essentially by ignoring the filibuster rule, so under Democrat precedent, everything goes…and Kagan needs to go. She’s free to wreck Harvard all she wants – but we don’t need her on the SC, wrecking all of America.

UPDATE: According to Rasmussen, 42% oppose Kagan, 35% favor.

John Hinderaker over at Powerline reviews the rioting and vandalism and the complete unwillingness of the police to stop it and asks, “why do we have police?” A valid question, to be sure. Why have police if they’re not going to stop a riot?

And one, for which, actually know the answer.

The reason the cops aren’t moving seriously against the rioters is very simple – you do that, and you’ll get in trouble. The liberal narrative is that the thugs running amok are just kind, caring people who want to save the world – club a few of them in to submission and you’re going to have nothing but trouble. Reports to fill out. Investigations to endure. Possible loss of job. Just not worth it – better to just let them do their thing and then supervise the clean up after its all over.

Other stories are emerging that the police in Toronto are taking a harsh stance against one group of people – the reporters in Toronto who are informing the world both of the riots and the lack of police response to same. Allowing that to happen would upset the apple cart – meaning, if you get a story out there that creeps are rioting and cops aren’t stopping it, then that could be used to force the police to do something. And that, in turn, runs the very risk the cops don’t want to run…taking action which might get them in trouble.

The plain fact of the matter is that no one ever has a right to riot. No one has a right to block public thoroughfares. No one has a right to vandalize public or private property. People who do such things have placed themselves outside the law and if they don’t stop, after a clear warning and very short time frame, they are subject to a violent response from the authorities – up to and including deadly force as the police shouldn’t have to place their own lives unduly at risk to stop people who are acting quite insane in the public square.

But liberalism doesn’t allow such things – doesn’t allow, that is, the rational conduct of public business. First liberalism will create a fantasy world where some nefarious group (in this case, the leaders of the G20) are wrecking the world. Second, liberalism will write a script which has it that the authorities are always wrong. Third, liberalism will marshal the entire weight of publicity against anyone who reacts properly to a riot. Toronto’s riots are the natural outgrowth of the liberal world view – any place long under liberal governance will see the same thing happening; riots and lack of police response.

Those of us who care about civilization and the average, hard working people who live in it must take a different view. We must recover a willingness to see things as they are and react to them based upon thought – and as soon as you think about it, you realize that the primary victims of the rioters are average, work-a-day people who actually make society work. It is they whom society is supposed to be built for – not for people who want to smash things.

We need to work for a society where the honest and hard working rule the roost – not the dishonest layabouts who riot at the drop of the hat.

From Reuters:

…”I was surprised and extremely disappointed to hear that $18 billion in new assessments and fees were added in the wee hours of the morning by the conference committee,” Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown said.

He issued the statement after negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives emerged from a marathon session early Friday morning with a final compromise on a bill that would bring about the most sweeping financial rules revamp since the 1930s…

As usual, grafting Democrat politicians have slipped things in to the bill in the dead of night, planning on ripping us off on the sly. Its just the way they operate – when you’re dishonest enough to create the financial crisis and then claim you can fix it, this is par for the course.

We’ll see if Brown stands firm and whether the rest of the Senate GOP can muster the courage to block this boondoggle of government waste which won’t do anything to fix the problem, but will open up vast, new areas of Democrat corruption, if passed.

UPDATE: Senator Byrd’s illness (which I bet is life threatening, or they wouldn’t be announcing it) could also kill the bill. Amazing that America’s policy may depend on the fate of a man elected to the Senate 6 years before I was born. Term limits are a necessity.

Heck with a bunch of working people, we’ve got an environmentalist ideology to advance – from JS Online:

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India…

…The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.(emphasis added)

But we’ll get those back in green jobs. Some where. Some day. As soon as we get the dratted windmills to work properly…and their turbines delivered from China.

India wants the products; an American company is able to provide the products. Now, the US government has effectively killed US participation because of a quite mindless devotion to programs designed to thwart an imaginary threat of global warming. You think that plant won’t get built? If you do, then you are quite simply an idiot – someone will step it. Our jobs will be taken by some other nation not quite as hamstrung as we are.

Completely stupid – and liberalism in a nut shell.

J. Christian Adams, up until just recently a Department of Justice attorney, has blown the whistle on the Obama Justice Department with regard to their willful ignorance on the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case

The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.

Read the whole thing

This is illustrative of the Obama administration’s willful ignorance and total disregard for the rule of law. The Obama administration has put its imprimatur on voter intimidation, especially if it enhances his agenda and cements his power.

Expect more of this come November and expect more intimidation of voters and of citizens in general until the day that this thug regime is removed from power.

At the same time, expect a push-back from Americans who will not allow themselves to be subjected to these fascist, jack-booted tactics from a megalomaniacal regime whose aim is to not govern but to subjugate.

There is no American who should stand for this, and any move to excuse this flagrant abuse of power by any Obama apologist (or anyone else) should be presumed as coming from one who is, like Barack Hussein Obama, an enemy of liberty.

Seems that “courageous restraint” might not stick around quite as-is – from the Telegraph:

“There will be no change in overall policy but all aspects of tactics and implementation will be looked at afresh,” a Pentagon official told The Daily Telegraph. “The issue of ‘courageous restraint’ is a controversial one on the ground and there may be ways it can be modified.”

War is a brutal business and can’t be made otherwise – what is chivalrous in war is to not deliberately harm non-combatants. To offer mercy to the vanquished. But when someone starts shooting at you, “restraint” must be left aside and only once the shooting has stopped can restraint be exercised.

A dose of realty has been needed in Afghanistan policy, and its looks like we’re goig to get it.

John Mauldin rates it fairly likely:

…My take is that Bush cut taxes in 2001 and again in 2003 in the face of weak economic circumstances. Unless something changes, we are going to enact the largest tax increase in US history. And that will be matched by equally large tax increases and spending cuts by state and local jurisdictions. And we are going to do it at a time when the above research suggests that growth may be in the 1% range and unemployment will still be in the 9-10% range. Extended unemployment benefits will be long gone for many people. Housing will still be in the doldrums (more on that in next week’s Outside the Box) and housing prices are likely to fall from here.

Growth in the first quarter was revised down (again!) to 2.7%, or about half that of the 4th quarter of last year. Much of what passed for growth was inventory rebuilding and stimulus. The underlying economy may be weaker than the headline number reveals. And by the 4th quarter, there is very little stimulus.

Given the above, I think we have to increase the odds of a 2011 recession to 60%, and those odds will rise and fall based on the economic performance of the next two quarters.

Personally, I don’t think we ever really left the recession – in terms of real growth absent the massive, bankrupting bit of borrow-and-spend from Obama and his Democrats, my belief is that the private economy has not stopped contracting since 2007.

There is probably no way, at this point, to stop the GDP numbers from slipping back in to recession either later this year or early next. The only thing we can do is soften the blow – and the best means of doing so is to renew the Bush tax cuts.

This is not likely to commend itself to Democrats who are salivating over the huge tax increase – they think it will provide them the revenue to allow another round of vote-buying spending initiatives. They don’t realize that any revenue gains will be swiftly offset by renewed economic decline, and thus lower revenues.

Meanwhile, the debt burden remains – public and private. And once there comes a time when the money men figure that the governments of the world can’t meet their debt obligations, then there will be a run for the financial exits. We’re in for a long, rough year, at least.

Have a thing to do early Saturday morning, boys and girls, and so am unable to write something go for you in the AM.

Plenty to talk about – how about starting with just what make a person a crazed sex poodle?