Mish’s has the link to the news article – a carefully written report that says everything is swell and the Fed is certain that we’re in a good, solid economic recovery and thus their only concern is just when they’ll raise interest rates to combat the inflation which simply must follow upon the Keynesian stimulus we just finished.

But what if the inflation fails to materialize? What if the whole stimulus thing doesn’t work? Ah, then we have to be prepared – and so there is in the report voice, but very muted, that there’s just that chance things aren’t going to work out as predicted:

…”If events in Europe evolve so that they have a more severe and broad impact on financial markets, then the scope of the problems for the U.S. could be magnified,” Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said in a speech last week….

…”The European sovereign-debt situation is serious, and there are many unanswered questions about how events will unfold,” James Bullard, St. Louis Fed president, said in Tokyo on Monday…

This is known as hedging – it is members of the Federal Reserve making statements which will allow them, post-crash, to claim that they saw it coming and warned us about it. They’ve got their number crunchers who have taken Keynesian economics as a law of nature and thus they’ve come out with “stimulus = inflation = economic growth”. But the problem is we’ve had all the stimulus in the world for a year now and, if anything, the global economy continues to deflate (you might recall – buried under the stories of allegedly increasing retail sales – word that Wal Mart and other retailers are severely cutting prices to try to lure buyers back in to the stores).

If we are deflating and the Eurozone crisis is as bad as some think (and it is) then the double-dip is right around the corner and no one wants to be caught like Bernanke was prior to the past recession – gleefully assuring one and all that nothing could possibly go wrong (as an aside, I don’t think the recession ever ended – the “double dip” will just be a more severe down turn than the slump we’ve already got…I know that GDP numbers show growth, but my bet is that after all the data are in, several years from now, someone will calculate that without the stimulus of entirely borrowed money, no growth would have registered, at all). Brace yourself for it, good people – and, remember, it won’t be all that bad. Poverty is good for the soul, in the long run.

He just gets better and better:

Gonna be real hard to not back him for President in 2012.

We’ve ceded control to the drug gangs who control our border because we refuse to:

About 3,500 acres of southern Arizona have been closed off to U.S. citizens due to increased violence at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The closed off area includes part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge that stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told Fox News that violence against law enforcement officers and U.S. citizens has increased in the past four months, forcing officers on an 80 mile stretch of Arizona land north of the Mexico border off-limits to Americans.

The refuge had been adversely affected by the increase in drug smugglers, illegal activity and surveillance, which made it dangerous for Americans to visit.

“The situation in this zone has reached a point where continued public use of the area is not prudent,” said refuge manager Mitch Ellis.

There is no such thing as an open border – if we don’t rule it, someone else will. In this case, it is Mexican drug lords – and I’ll bet in connivance with the Mexican police and army in the area.

Let no one tell you that border security is racism in disguise – border security is the simple application of justice and anyone who advocates anything other than strict border security is a fool or a knave.

Not backing down an inch – but greatly clarifying. From Mark Hemingway over at the Washington Examiner:

…Daniels called me to say that he’s dead serious about the need for the next president to declare a truce. “It wasn’t something I just blurted out,” he told me. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”

He’s emphasized the need to focus like a laser beam on the existential threats facing the country — the two big issues he’s previously identified being the war on terror and the country’s precarious fiscal position. “We’re going to need a lot more than 50.1 percent of the country to come together to keep from becoming Greece,” he said.

He did, however, want to clarify that he’s not just singling out controversial social issues. “I’m talking about all divisive issues,” he said. Clear and unified priorities are the only way he sees the country rallying around common purposes…

I, on the other hand, am a firm believer in the scheme, the whole scheme and nothing but the scheme. Taking my cue – and that phrase – from Lord John Fisher, First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty during his reform of the Royal Navy in the early 20th century. He got a much more powerful navy, vastly more prepared for war at no more cost than the old, weaker and less ready navy. While his special area was narrow, he showed how you go about fixing a broken governmental system – you take it apart and put it all back together the way you want.

And since Governor Daniels is repeating his statement with emphasis and without retreat (for which he gets a tip of the hat from me – courage is a rare and vital trait in a leader, and Daniels has it), I’ll repeat mine: you can’t have a truce. A truce would have been akin to trying to build a modern, efficient naval fighting force while allowing the dinosaurs to continue on in their old, inefficient ways.

Our opponents don’t look at issues in separation – any advancement of the leftist goal is good and will never be surrendered. You give them an inch, they’ll take the mile, and then demand one more inch, in preparation for taking one more mile. And it doesn’t matter if they don’t get it this year, or next year, or the year after. Patience is the one virtue they have shown – they’ll wait for years, continually grinding away at our position, knowing that they’ll eventually topple it, if given time and never hit back.

If we surrender the initiative on, say, gay marriage, then the left will just continue to press it. If we say, “let us put aside this contentious issue and concentrate on rebuilding our economy”, the left might say they agree, but that would simply be a tactical lie – the very next day they’d be back at it, pressing their agenda and if anyone on our side subsequently brought up the fact that they were, indeed, pressing their agenda, the left would scream that we’re bringing back partisanship at a time when we’re all supposed to be working together to rebuild the economy. What we’d find is that while we, acting as patriots, fixed the economy, the left had busily besieged several places we thought safe during the truce.

We have to fight them all, and all down the line. The left must be destroyed in order to save our nation – ripped out of the body politic root and branch. Exposed for their corruption and de-funded. We might beat a tactical retreat from time to time from direct assault, but we must never entirely let up the pressure. Flexibility is an absolute requirement – but we must never say, “we won’t battle on this issue, if you don’t”, simply because they’ll lie and say they agree, and then just go on as before.

As they plan to continually press us, we must change the dynamics and continually press them…force them to defend the destruction they have wrought and convince ever more Americans that liberty and safety are best secured by limiting the baleful influence of the left.

I understand where Governor Daniels is coming from – and should he win the GOP nomination at some point, I will vote for him, as he’s been an excellent governor – but he’s flat wrong on this truce idea. Battle, continual and aggressive until the war is won – that is what we must do.

Very interesting poll from Rasmussen:

Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33% who are Very Angry.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% say they are not angry at the media, but that includes just nine percent (9%) who say they are not at all angry.

As Rasmussen goes on to note, there’s no way to differentiate between the way some might feel about CNN and others about Fox, but it is still amazing that we’ve got this result.

The result dovetails with my view that in 2010 is all about people being at war with the status quo. I’ve been calling it the “Second American Revolution” because of this – the way we’ve been doing things are being rejected by the people. A complete overturn of the power elite is what is desired – including in media.

We’re on the verge of a gigantic change in our political system.

Need more proof that Obama has done a piss-poor job handling the oil spill situation? A new Public Policy Polling survey shows that Louisiana voters think Bush did a better job after Katrina.

Our new Louisiana poll has a lot of data points to show how unhappy voters in the state are with Barack Obama’s handling of the oil spill but one perhaps sums it up better than anything else- a majority of voters there think George W. Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama’s done dealing with the spill.

50% of voters in the state, even including 31% of Democrats, give Bush higher marks on that question compared to 35% who pick Obama.

Overall only 32% of Louisianans approve of how Obama has handled the spill to 62% who disapprove. 34% of those polled say they approved of how Bush dealt with Katrina to 58% who disapproved.

Just goes to show that just because Obama can read off of a TelePrompTer doesn’t mean he knows a damn thing about being an executive. Obama’s incompetence is being seen clearly from both sides of the aisle, and this oil spill response  is pretty much the nail in the coffin of his White House stint.

I would normally ask, “what do you think the President will say?”, but as his people have pretty much released the entire speech, that is a pointless exercise. As is having the speech, at this point – why on earth make a big, Oval Office deal out of something you’re going to start massively leaking to the press 48 hours in advance? The Obamatons are getting worse by the day – now they can’t even come up with a good script!

At any rate, discuss the speech, the spill and all the rest right here.

UPDATE: Liberal Ed Schultz is pining for Obama to act like the fascist dictator all liberals secretly long for.

UPDATE II: House Minority Leader Boehner’s statement:

“While President Obama is speaking tonight, oil will continue to leak from the well and extend its stranglehold on the lives and livelihoods of the people in the affected areas. Even now, nearly two months after disaster first struck, the federal response remains inadequate and disorganized. Americans are rightly angry about this failure of government, and they want to know that their president is focused squarely on stopping this leak, cleaning up this mess, and finding out what went wrong.

“President Obama should not exploit this crisis to impose a job-killing national energy tax on struggling families and small businesses. Both parties should be working together to craft responsible solutions in response to this disaster. There’s nothing responsible or reasonable about a job-killing national energy tax that will raise energy costs and destroy more American jobs.

“President Obama will also reportedly address some of the financial issues surrounding the crisis, including the establishment of an escrow fund. These resources should be used to help the victims of this disaster, and not as a slush fund for trial lawyers or Administration officials seeking to paper over their own misguided decisions. BP should be held accountable for the full cost of this disaster – the taxpayers shouldn’t pay one dime – but that money must be directed to where it can be most effective in stopping this leak and aiding the recovery effort.

“I sincerely hope that the Obama Administration will not try to use a crisis made worse by its own failings to score political points on the backs of Americans living and working on the Gulf Coast. This moment demands a call to action based on our shared interest in stopping this leak, cleaning up this mess, and finding out what went wrong.”

A timely reminder of the stark reality – from Gordon C. Chang over at Pajamas Media:

…Senior Chinese officers, on the other hand, have no trouble telling us how they really feel.

In February, Colonel Meng Xianging promised a “hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.” sometime within the next 10 years “when we’re strong enough.” “We must make them hurt,” said Major-General Yang Yi this year, referring to the United States…

Do read the whole thing as it is a great look at our mindless China policy. Once upon a time, having China on side was a good idea – but that time ended when the Berlin Wall came down. Since that time, China has become the most potent threat to America’s long-term strategic interests in the world.

The analogy I use for US/Chinese relations are those between the UK and Germany early in the 20th century. Deeply intertwined in economics, talking right past each other in politics – and with Germany’s (China’s) military feverishly preparing for armed conflict. I fully expect eventual war with China – because they will attack us, likely right out of the blue, probably starting with a cat’s paw attack by North Korea or some other distracting event.

For all of China’s alleged success, China remains a corrupt, unstable tyranny incapable of delivering, long term, the desires of the Chinese people. Coupled with this fundamental flaw is a growing Chinese nationalism which wishes to flex muscle – both as a means of distracting the Chinese people from their plight as well as righting what some Chinese consider to be historic wrongs (namely, that we’re in charge, and they’re not – Middle Kingdom arrogance has never left China).

American policy should be guided by the threat – and thus we should be working diligently to build and re-build alliances with nations under direct Chinese threat: India, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan – and some sort of working relationship with Vietnam regarding area defense (be best if Russia could be brought in, but Putin’s Russia is even stupider than we are over China). Our Navy should be greatly increased, as should our long range bomber force – and building a couple more active Army divisions would probably be wise.

Only time will tell what will come of China – but I envision eventual economic collapse (and I mean in the next year or two as all the Chinese bubbles burst) which will leave China in acute stress. Some time after that, I figure they’ll attack in some manner. Better for us to be prepared for it.

Not at all surprising – from the Washington Post:

In both houses of Congress, a host of other committee chairmen and ranking members have reported that they have millions invested in business sectors that their panels oversee, according to a Post analysis of financial disclosure records through 2008, committee assignments and lawmaker investments by industry…

…Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), for instance, served as chairman of a subcommittee responsible for overseeing technology-oriented efforts to improve homeland security, intelligence, information sharing and risk assessment in 2008. At the time, she disclosed more than $1 million in holdings in companies involved in intelligence and homeland security contracting, including Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems…

Now, we Republicans can’t act all high and mighty on this issue – some of ours are doing this, as well. Though, naturally, Democrats lead the field in such shennanigans.

There are two things wrong with this picture:

1. lawmakers should never be financially beholden to the businesses they regulate.

2. Business is so highly regulated that its hard for Congressmen not to be beholden to the people they regulate.

The solution is quite simple – knock it off on the over-regulation, and prohibit sitting federal, State and local officeholders from owning stocks or corporate bonds during their tenure of office – and make sure we include spouses and children in this ban.

Will that be hard on people thinking of going in to public life. Yes. And that’s a good thing – public service is supposed to entail great sacrifice; in fact, the more onerous it is, the more likely we are to get good men and women rather than the corrupt hacks we overflow with now. They can hold all the land, family-owned businesses and government bonds they like – but they can’t hold a stake in profit making enterprises they can give a leg up to (can’t they benefit their family-owned business? Sure – but that is a lot easier to see, expose and drive cretins out of office over).

We need a government which works for the whole people, not just for the special interests. To get this, we’re going to have to be increasingly harsh towards those who seek public office. Essentially, we want to make it so that only people of the sternest republican virtues will even seek office – then we can rely on government once again.