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Mr. President: Re-Think This. Please.

Mark Noonan

The story:

Looking for a quick and easy boost in the polls, President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation: the United Nations. On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the UN Security Council.

No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the UN’s highest body. But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Qaddafi — who is expected to be seated five seats to Obama’s right — will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer that the perilous state of the nation’s economy, the health-care fiasco, and a summer of “post-racial” scapegoating will pale by comparison.

If the President does this, it will destroy the last shred of credibility he has among GOPers and Independents in America. News flash for you liberals: the United Nations is held in utter contempt by all non-leftists in the United States. Our President sitting at a table with the the dictators of Libya and Vietnam will be a national humiliation. He’ll look like a fool and we’ll all pay the price in diminished respect around the world (I know you liberals out there think that President Bush destroyed our respect – but what he “destroyed” as the willingness of global leaders to say nice things about us…but the way we fiercely defended right and justice for 8 years made us profoundly respected where it really matters). Only sheer idiocy or megalomania can account for a decision such as this.

I hope the story is wrong. If its true, I hope Obama changes his mind – he’s my President, too, and like him or not I need him to be effective on the world stage. This will undercut the ability of my nation to make its weight felt in the councils of the world.

What Media Bias? Part 159

Mark Noonan

If George Bush had hired, say, a member of the John Birch Society to advise him, it would have been a major news story – Obama hires a hate-filled, self-described kook of a commie…and what do we get?

From a Nexis search a few moments ago: (Ed. Note: time stamped from September 4th)

Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.

Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.

Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.

Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.

Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.

If you were to receive all your news from any one of these outlets, or even all of them together, and you heard about some sort of controversy involving President Obama’s Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, your response would be, “Huh?” If you heard that that adviser, Van Jones, had apologized for a number of remarks and positions in the recent past, your response would be, “What?” And if you were in the Obama White House monitoring the Jones situation, you would be hoping that the news organizations listed above continue to hold the line — otherwise, Jones, who is quite well thought of in Obama circles, would be history.

There’s been a little bit out there – some of the kooks on the left are making hay over the fact that Meg Whitman – of E-Bay and now running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in California – said nice things about Van Jones (this may toastify Whitman’s GOP chances – she’s already got two strikes against her – RINOish proclivities and a friend of John McCain – as far as the GOP base goes, and this is not going to be helpful, even though she’s now denounced Jones’ views). This Washington Post story has the most detail seen in the MSM, but even it is clearly a cover-up job.

But other than a few peeps, its mostly been a conspiracy of silence on what would be with a responsible MSM a massive news story. That such a hater and fool could commend himself to the Democratic leadership just shows how far they’ve fallen – and real journalists would have this guy for lunch, plus everyone who advanced his career, into the bargain. But, we get next to nothing. Naturally – because the MSM is a mere adjunct of the DNC these days.

UPDATE: Kooks of a feather – Van Jones was one of Ariana Huffington’s political directors in her quixotic run for governor of California. I’m telling ya, people, Van Jones is no one-off screwball – he’s mainstream on the left. The sort of idiocy he parrots is believed, deeply, on the left.

Weekly Recap (2009-09-05)

Matt Margolis

FHA Becomes the Next Bear Sterns

Mark Noonan

Amazing how very stupid the people who manage our money really are:

FHA-insured loans have more than tripled from 530,000 in fiscal year 2007 to 1.7 million thus far in 2009. The Government National Mortgage Association, which securitizes FHA loans, has boosted its mortgage-related issuance to $287 billion from $85 billion.

Yet during that same period, the FHA’s loan delinquency rate has climbed to 14.4% in Q2 from 12.6% two years earlier.

Adding to the concern, the FHA’s fund to cover losses has dropped to a projected 3% of insured loans. That’s a leverage ratio of 33-to-1, the level banking giant Bear Stearns was at before it failed.

At a time of rising unemployment, the FHA is lending money as if its boom times – anyone see anything wrong with this? Of course you do. Unless you’re a liberal, of course.

This does explain the so-called bottoming out of the housing market. Via the FHA, funds are being made available for loans all other banks are unwilling to fund due to the risk of the borrowers and the pressures of the overall economy. Once again, our tax dollars at work – stupidly, and for the benefit only of insiders. But the bottom created by this upsurge in FHA loans is false – the rising delinquency rate shows it to be a fraud. We’re lending money – essentially, taxpayer money – to people who shouldn’t be borrowing at the moment. When you loan to people you shouldn’t, you end up with high default rates.

And the worst part about is that since FHA is government-banked, it can actually go on longer with this sort of thing, thus making the eventual crash worse when it comes. Now, a wise President would pull up the reigns on FHA and tell them to knock it off…but that would kick out one of the “green shoots” Obama is using to convince us that all is going well. Adherence to Obamunist fairy tales is to be placed firmly in front of the well being of the American people over the long term.

Get ready for Crash II: I figure it for March, but it could come at any time over the next two years.

A Word to the Wise About Liberals

Mark Noonan

The Other McCain writes:

Think about this. Van Jones is a Yale Law School graduate (just like Glenn Reynolds) who according to a 2005 interview, had already landed a D.C. job after graduation but instead decided to move to the San Francisco area to become involved in a radical protest movement. He subsequently received a Rockfeller Foundation fellowship and, eventually, landed a “czar” job at the White House.

And yet, somehow, despite all his success, this Ivy League-educated Fortunate Son sees nothing but misery and oppression everywhere. Am I the only one who finds this bizarre?

The President of the United States of America sat for 20 years in the pews of a racist, anti-American church; the first lady only became proud of America once her husband started to have a shot at the White House; the Vice President is an ignorant fool; the Speaker of the House states that the CIA is always lying to Congress; the Majority Leader of the Senate has stated that everything he’s done since 2004 has been geared towards getting re-elected in 2010; the Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee is a tax cheat; the Secretary of Homeland Security worries that our troops might be terrorists-in-waiting; the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Defense has used defense funds to have an airport named after himself; one senior member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations was appointed to his spot by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson in 1959; the Secretary of the Treasury is a tax cheat…Van Jones? He fits right in there – nothing odd about him at all.

This is liberalism, boys and girls – its all bad; based on a false premise, it can’t do other than go completely wrong.

Certainly a Very Difficult Case

Mark Noonan

Of the young lady who converted from Islam to Christianity:

A 17-year-old girl who says she ran away from her Muslim family in Ohio because she feared she could be killed for converting to Christianity can remain in Florida for now.

An Orlando judge signed an order Thursday sealing a police report for at least ten days until lawyers for Rifqa Bary, her parents, and child welfare officials can read it. The report contains the results of a two-week investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into Bary’s family and home life.

There is no easy answer, here. We want to stay out of family affairs. Parents do have a right to impart their views to their minor children and even, to a certain extent, compel conformity to religious practices while the child lives at home. On the other hand, there have been cases of girls who strayed from Moslem orthodoxy being killed by Moslem family members due to a false view of what constitutes honor. As the girl is 17, in less than a year the case will be moot – at 18, she’s free to do as she wishes.

And that is actually what concerns me – why should the parents want to force a near-adult child back home? While there may be anger and hurt feelings, using legal efforts to compel conformity is unlikely to bring the child back to the fold, nor cure any of the anger and hurt. In fact, its only likely to exacerbate it and thus there is a concern that the only reason to bring the girl back is to enforce something upon her – not necessarily harming her, but spiriting her out of the country in to a Moslem land where women are essentially regarded as property to be disposed of.

On balance and knowing what we know of these cases, I’d argue for judicial delay – making no hard and fast ruling which might set a bad precedent, but tying things up until the girl turns 18, at which time it won’t matter, any more.

9.7 and 16.8

Mark Noonan

The unemployment and under-employment rate:

…The jobless rate rose to 9.7 percent; the so- called underemployment rate — which includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking — reached a record 16.8 percent…

A friend of mine’s husband was just laid off this past Tuesday; another friend’s son was recently laid off. At my work, we’re all just wondering when the next axe will fall.

There is no recovery – and whatever “good” the Spendulus could do has been done and the renewed slide to the bottom will just accelerate from here. We need to change the way we do things – we need to start creating wealth. Until we do, we’ll just slide down to the bottom and then sputter there for until we get rid of these financial sharks and socialists who led us here.

Phrase of the Day

Mark Noonan

Yet more inspiration:

…The time is arriving when we can have further tax reduction, when, unless we wish to hamper the people in their right to earn a living, we must have tax reform. The method of raising revenue ought not to impede the transaction of business; it ought to encourage it. I am opposed to extremely high rates, because they produce little or no revenue, because they are bad for the country, and, finally, because they are wrong. We can not finance the country, we can not improve social conditions, through any system of injustice, even if we attempt to inflict it upon the rich. Those who suffer the most harm will be the poor. This country believes in prosperity. It is absurd to suppose that it is envious of those who are already prosperous. The wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful…

…We need not concern ourselves much about the rights of property if we will faithfully observe the rights of persons. Under our institutions their rights are supreme. It is not property but the right to hold property, both great and small, which our Constitution guarantees. All owners of property are charged with a service. These rights and duties have been revealed, through the conscience of society, to have a divine sanction. The very stability of our society rests upon production and conservation. For individuals or for governments to waste and squander their resources is to deny these rights and disregard these obligations. The result of economic dissipation to a nation is always moral decay. – Calvin Coolidge

If only we had listened – but, we didn’t…and we allowed a grab-bag collection of socialists and speculators to take us for a ride. Now we’re trillions in debt, economically dissipated and deep in a morass of moral decay.

Our only way out? Work.

MA-SEN: Schilling for Senate?

Mark Noonan

Could be:

According to The Boston Globe, former Boston Red Sox ace Curt Schilling is contemplating a run for the vacant U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts previously held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

The Globe speculates that if he runs, Schilling — who starred earlier in his major-league career with the Philadelphia Phillies — will seek the Republican nomination in the special election that will be held Jan. 9 to fill Kennedy’s seat. If so, Schilling will face a steep uphill battle to win the seat, given that Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the Union.

But with the Democrat “brand” at a heavy discount, this could be the perfect time for a GOPer to slip in and win…especially as he’ll be able to campaign as the person who would force the Democrats to work across the aisle.