The Rise and Fall of Barack Obama

Cluster59 Comments

It’s been an interesting six months for The One We Have All Been Waiting For. Shortly into his still-hard-to-believe second term, it seems that the disenchantment is growing rapidly due to a continued struggling economy, high unemployment with no real concerted effort to do anything about it, his feckless foreign policy, and of course the scandals, which seemingly grow by the day. A new CNN poll shows just 45% approval, down 8 points from just a few months ago, and fueled by a 17 point drop in those folks 30 years old and younger. It seems as though the younger generations “hope and change” has been met with the reality of progressive policies, which only bring about bigger government and less opportunity. It’s not as though we didn’t have history to look back on, or that they were warned that this would be the eventual result, so it’s hard to be sympathetic.

Yesterday, Mr. Obama spoke to a considerably smaller crowd then the one that met him in 2008, and gave a yawn of a speech. Or as Nile Gardiner from the The Telegraph so aptly put it – “a weak and underwhelming address from a floundering President”. Obama’s speech contained meaningless platitudes that have been uttered so many times, by so many empty leaders that they resonate with no one. Sadly we have three and half more years of listening to his empty speeches and living with his harmful policies, but have no fear, the white guilt that drove the Democrats to nominate Obama in 2008, has now morphed into gender guilt, as the Democrats and the progressive media are quickly falling in line behind Hillary in hopes of keeping their oligarchy alive. It’s actually kind of a slap in the face to Democrats around the country isn’t it? No one within that party stands a chance at the nomination if Hillary decides to run. She has been pre ordained because of her gender, her lineage, and the fact that she was tossed aside in 2008 in favor of someone who represented a more appealing minority.

The Democratic Party has devolved into a paranoid oligarchial cult followed by a sycophantic media and a mindless constituency afraid to death of right wing strawmen. It’s actually comical when you think about it. But what’s not funny is their authoritarian tactics, particularly the monitoring of Sheryl Attkinson’s personal and professional computers, the domestic monitoring of emails and phone calls, and the level of scrutiny directed towards conservative political groups. Fasten your seat belt folks, it’s going to be a bumpy few years.

Giving America Away

Cluster44 Comments

On the heels of the nine robed justices decision to over ride the sovereignty of my state, I was compelled to write a scathing article full of four letter expletives but discovered that E.W. Jackson recently said it much better than I ever could:

A few years ago the Obama regime filed a lawsuit against my state for the audacity of actually upholding federal law in terms of immigration. That lawsuit was not only a violation of my states sovereignty, but also wasn’t in keeping with federal immigration laws as they are currently written. And now, the nine robed elitists on the SC, decided again that AZ was incapable of governing within it’s borders as they threw out Arizonans desire to have proof of citizenship before casting a ballot, preferring instead to uphold the federal requirement of simply checking a box claiming that you are a citizen, which is a very weak standard. Yesterday however, Marco Rubio proposed an amendment to the immigration bill which would raise that standard nationwide by requiring proof in the federally written motor voter law, but that’s provided the immigration bill passes, which is uncertain at best. Considering that the immigration bill calls for amnesty now, and border security later, I hope like hell it doesn’t pass. It’s 1986 all over again where Congress promises to secure the border in favor of immediate amnesty and we all know how that turned out. This AZ election decision and the current immigration bill obviously pleases the open borders crowd and the Democrats who are always in pursuit of a new block of constituents to give our treasury to, in return for votes, but these two decisions are harmful to the country overall, as they have the potential to create absolute chaos in the border states. Thousands of immigrants will flock across the border with amnesty just around the corner, and then subsequently vote for the politician that promises them the most, and why wouldn’t they? If we are so stupid to allow that to happen, why wouldn’t someone take advantage of it? This is not only outrageous, it is a violation of state sovereignty, a violation of common sense, and an offense to every intelligent American. E.W. Jackson eloquently said – “keep the federal government out of my state, out of my healthcare, out of our schools, and out of our lives”. Which leads me to quote the great Smokey Robinson – “I second that emotion”!!!

Libertarianism

Cluster85 Comments

Jonah Goldberg recently wrote an excellent article over at National Review Online:

In a much-discussed essay for Salon, Michael Lind asks: “If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?”

Such is the philosophical poverty of liberalism today that this stands as a profound question.

Definitions vary, but broadly speaking, libertarianism is the idea that people should be as free as possible from state coercion so long as they don’t harm anyone. The job of the state is limited to fighting crime, providing for the common defense, and protecting the rights and contracts of citizens. The individual is sovereign; he is the captain of himself.

It’s true, no ideal libertarian state has ever existed outside a table for one. And no such state will ever exist. But here’s an important caveat: No ideal state of any other kind will be created either. America’s great, but it ain’t perfect. Sweden’s social democracy is all right, but if it were perfect, I suspect fewer cars would be on fire over there.

Ideals are called ideals for a reason: They’re ideals. They’re goals, aspirations, abstract straight rules we use as measuring sticks against the crooked timber of humanity.

Goldberg goes on to say that the progressive movement is only moving America towards the tried, failed and archaic system of statism, wherein our lives are largely dictated by leaders who are purported to know what’s best for all of us. Been there, done that, throughout history and it has never turned out well. How liberals and democrats can cite this as “progress” is beyond me.

I increasingly find myself on the libertarian side of the political equation, having been disappointed with the “conservative” movement far too many times. The less of an authoritarian figure that is in my life, the much better off I am – and that is both from a political and personal standpoint. I would much rather fail on my own, than succeed as a result of someone else’s decisions. Sadly I believe we have abandoned that ideal as a country and now far too many of Americans would prefer to be “employed” and work and live at the direction of someone else, rather than take a risk and seek their own path. The other day one of our resident progressives asked what did “conservatives have to offer”, which I found to be extremely disheartening. Too many people have simply lost sight of the spiritual and professional fulfillment that complete liberty can bring. When you are left to your own, failure is a given, but so is the potential abundance of spiritual awareness and financial rewards. You never really know who you truly are, until you have only yourself to rely on and I wish more people would take the leap to experience that.

Happy Father’s Day y’all!!

Global Warming Update

Cluster19 Comments

A while back, Rusty, one of our resident progressives and I, debated the global warming issue specifically as it related to human involvement. I cited several sources wherein it was noted that temperatures had leveled off over the last decade despite continual measurable  increases in carbon emissions. Well this fact has even now caught the attention of the “quite liberal” Gray Lady:

The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace.

Amazingly, despite the fact that previous claims of rising temperatures as a result of carbon emissions by global warming alarmists have now been proven false, the movement to control personal activity continues. And dovetailing into Mark’s previous thread, the global warming issue, or climate change issue, or whatever it is called today, IS just another mechanism for control over the population sought by governments. And even more harming to America is the fact that this cause has become global, and many world governments are hoping to legislate our activity and redistribute our wealth in the name of climate change. Restricting our freedoms? You’re damn right, and those freedoms are being assaulted on many different fronts. The worst enemy to an ever expanding and controlling government is an educated and armed populace, unfortunately the “educated” part of that equation has waned considerably over the last few decades, and the “armed” part of that equation is currently under attack. Thomas Jefferson once said that a “democracy requires eternal vigilance”, and for those of us who hope to keep liberty in tact, we had better start stepping up to the plate.

America: Land of the Unfree…Are We Still the Home of the Brave?

Mark Noonan50 Comments

Reading that headline, you might think that what I’m on about is the NSA and IRS scandals – and that does play a role, here, but the fact of the matter is that I’ve been worried about the erosion of our liberties for quite some time.  I just happen to have concluded, as of today, that we are simply an unfree people.

Scanning our emails, etc is just a symptom of a larger problem.  If we were a free people it wouldn’t be that our emails weren’t scanned but that no one in government would dare to even suggest it, let alone carry it out.  Free people keep the government on its toes – these days, fellow Americans, it is government which keeps us on our toes.  We can’t even turn around without first obtaining a “by your leave” from the government.

Do you think you own property?  Paid the mortgage and the title deed is in your hand?  Ha!  You don’t own it.  You’re just renting it from the government – they call it “property taxes”, but rent it is…and if you don’t pay the rent, you’re off the property.  And, worse than that, if the government figures that someone else can pay more rent than you, then they’ll take “your” property from you and hand it over to the other guy.

Do you think you’ve got freedom of speech?  Go to a college campus or corporate break room and merely state the Catholic position on homosexuality.  You’ll be lucky if you’re only fired from your job or escorted off campus by the police.

Do you think you’ve got freedom of assembly?  Tell that to all the groups with “patriot” in their name back in 2012 – the IRS deliberately oppressed them for the simple fact that patriots wanted to gather together and petition their government.

Do you think you’ve got free exercise of religion?  Oh, for crying out loud – try to maintain a cross in honor of fallen soldiers of even mention God at an official function at school.  You’ve got the ability to go to Church – but if you take what the pastor preached and try to apply it in the public square, you’ll swiftly learn just how free you are to exercise your religion:  hardly at all.

To be sure, there is a vestige of freedom left – more from a force of habit than anything else.  Because until rather recently we were free it hasn’t become entirely ingrained in us to knuckle under, nor ingrained in government to immediately wipe out all dissent.  The tattered remnants of liberty are still left to us – and therein lies the question: are we brave enough to seize our freedom back from those who have usurped it?

That, quite honestly, I don’t know.  But we do have the capability – while government is still yet weak enough that it can be forced back in to its proper role.  We can, if we are brave enough to face the hatred and spite of our rulers and their misguided followers, simply vote out the oppressors and pass the necessary laws to restore freedom and restrict government.  If we are brave, then we will do it – and we will be, once again, the land of the free as well as home of the brave.  Time will tell what path we choose – the brave path to freedom, or the cowardly path to slavery.

Edward Snowden, NSA Leaker: Hero or Fool?

Mark Noonan32 Comments

Well, he outed himself – a former CIA and NSA employee until just recently working as a contractor for the NSA is the man who leaked the spying plan.  Now, what to make of it?

I’m not sure if he’s a hero or a fool – but he does have some guts because at the very least, Uncle Sam is going to want to drop on him like a ton of bricks.  Whether or not that happens remains to be seen – now that he’s self-outed and not easily detainable by the government, things might not go so bad for him.  What he’s done, in strictly legal terms, probably carries a lot of “20 to life” terms.  We’ll have to see how this plays out.

I’ve been pondering this whole mess and I’ve come to the conclusion that the ultimate problem we have is a misunderstanding of just what the threat is.  The government – especially under Obama, who is desperate to propagate the myth that Islamist extremism poses no great threat to the United States – is engaging in massive intelligence gathering in a desperate effort to stave off terrorist attacks before they happen.  Of course, we have seen how well this works in Boston.  Now, of course the government probably has thwarted a large number of attempted attacks – but can’t tell us about them because to do so would reveal sources and thus jeopardize ongoing efforts to keep after the terrorists.  But, also, Boston does show that even the most massive intelligence gathering leaves gaps.  In other words, no matter how much data they mine on us and everyone else in the world, they will never catch all the terrorists – and the terrorists will keep after us, forever, unless we stop them, permanently.

Permanently stopping them means going to war with them and chasing them to the ends of the earth and killing or taking all of them.  Now, will we do that?  Not now.  Not just because Obama is unable to see the threat, but because America is tired of fighting the Islamists.  American wars can go upwards of 5 years, but no longer – we just don’t have the patience beyond that.  Especially if there’s no clear-cut goal in sight.  We’ll have to wait until the Islamists hit us again, very hard, and then hope we have leadership which sees the path to true strategic thinking.

Meanwhile, I think I’ve had enough of this intelligence gathering.  We need laws specifically prohibiting any government employee, at any level, from obtaining or retaining data on any American without a warrant – and the warrants must have an expiration date, upon which the target of the warrant is informed of its existence and 100% of the data collected in connection with it – seriously; all the original documents mailed to the target so he can see what was found (I’d like it to be no more than 90 days, but others I’ve discussed it with say it has to go longer – but it must have a drop dead date).  Intelligence gathering overseas and among foreigners I don’t give a darn about – knock yourself out, NSA.  But on Americans?  No.  Dad fought on Saipan and Grandpa in the Argonne to stop this very sort of nonsense from happening.  Enough is enough.

 

A False Recovery, Part II

Mark Noonan109 Comments

From Mish’s:

Inquiring minds are digging into the stunningly bad Quarter-Over-Quarter decline in wages and real wages across all sectors…

…The BLS notes “Unit labor costs in nonfarm businesses fell 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the combined effect of a 3.8 percent decrease in hourly compensation and the 0.5 percent increase in productivity. The decline in hourly compensation is the largest in the series, which begins in 1947.”…

This is just lousy.  Now, before any of you out there get all “that’s just GOPer doom and gloom”, Mike Shedlock (Mish) was firmly anti-Bush 2001-09 and stands entirely outside the GOP.  He’s not in any way, shape or form one of us.  He’s just a genuinely independent observer and economic analyst.  And his conclusion?

The Fed and Obama are both engaging in counterproductive policies that discourage hiring, especially hiring of full-time employees.

Of course Obama will respond by asking for a raise in minimum wage (giving further incentives to businesses to seek ways to get rid of employees), and the Fed will vow to keep interest rates low (enabling companies to borrow money for next to nothing to do just that).

Between the Federal Reserve (entirely committed to Keynesian idiocy) and Obama (also entirely committed to Keynesian idiocy), the ability of the United States to recover from the 2008 crash has been crushed.  And to make it all worse, the twin policies of Bernanke and Obama are setting us strait on the path to renewed, and much worse, crash.  The only way we can get out of this mess is to produce our way out of it – by creating wealth.  That takes making, mining and growing things in a free market…not subsidizing green energy scams or dinosaur auto makers; not printing more fake money and piling up more debt; not by re-paving an already paved road and hiring more diversity coordinators for the Department of Departmental Affairs.

 

 

A False Recovery

Mark Noonan62 Comments

Lately, our liberals have been pumped over the stock market rising to record highs – to them (you know, the people who were occupying Wall Street in 2012), this is proof positive that Obama’s economic policies have worked.  I’ve been pointing out since 2009 that pumping fake money in to the economy merely allows everyone to hide the true economic facts and that eventually there will be a renewed collapse.  This inevitable collapse will be worse than the original crash as there is more debt and fake money infecting the economy.  I quite honestly didn’t expect that Bernanke and Obama could keep the ball in the air this long – I also didn’t think that anyone, not even a Ruling Class bankster like Bernanke, would be stupid enough (apparently) to think that he can print money forever.  These days, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dow hits 20,000 – after all, when the latest ISM – Manufacturing report came out today showing economic contraction, the stock markets initially surged…likely because people believe that bad news means Bernanke will print even more, thus shoving stock prices higher.  But, still, reality is out there.

The reality is that Europe is in a crushing recession – indeed, with youth unemployment in some countries in the 50% range, its in a crushing Great Depression.  China’s economy wobbles along mired in hidden debt and massive corruption (and very fake official government economic reports).  And, I believe, we are in recession – and a recession with a nasty stock market and real estate bubble (sound familiar?).  This article over at Zero Hedge is the best description of our circumstances – and just why a high Dow isn’t a sign of economic health.  I heartily recommend reading it.  It concludes thusly:

A good case can be made for the fact that there is no recovery and that we are just beginning our decline. The efforts of government merely served to drive us more deeply into debt and stave off normal economic healing. If this observation is correct, all that has been accomplished is a postponement and accentuation of the pain to come. My economic sense tells me that is the case.

Whether you accept this conclusion or not, don’t be fooled by the performance of the stock market. There is little other than inflationary Fed policy to justify financial asset prices. Furthermore, recent performance really isn’t special as those living through the 1930s learned. In fact, what has happened recently doesn’t even measure up to the initial rebound that occurred during the Great Depression.

Time will come when this cannot be sustained.  Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year.  Pain cannot be avoided – a crash must and will come and it will hurt.  The only thing we can do is try to get some policies which will allow us to climb out of it swiftly.  Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to get such policies on a national scale until Obama leaves office.

How Liberals Treat Conservatives

Mark Noonan51 Comments

From Pajamas Media:

Government targeting of conservatives is not confined to a couple of federal departments, as demonstrated by the events in a small District of Columbia employee relations board. A letter obtained by PJ Media documents open racism and hostility toward pregnant and conservative employees in the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board (PERB). The letter also demonstrates that lawless hostility toward conservatives is a characteristic of all levels of government.

According to a resignation letter from its executive director, this District of Columbia government board responsible for resolving employee disputes with management has engaged in racist hiring practices, discrimination against pregnant women, and hostility toward conservatives…

Detailed in the articles are complaints from liberals at PERB that the African-American head of the PERB hired a white male, while another person proposed for hiring by the board should not be approved because her work record allegedly showed a “right of center” political ideology.  The resigning head of the PERB – Ondray Harris – seems to have merely been a fair-minded man who followed the law in his hiring decisions.  This, apparently, is an outrage to liberals who view government as their private preserve. 

How are we supposed to work with such people?  Where can there be bi-partisan activity with people who clearly hate us with a white hot passion?  As we on the right work for victory – and we will be victorious, in the by and by – we must remember these things and take the necessary steps to ensure that all those in government who have abused their authority are removed from office – and if this takes firing half the people working in government, then so be it.

Wars Don’t “End”: They are Won, or Lost

Mark Noonan35 Comments

In light of Obama’s recent statement that the war must end, I just wanted to point that out.  Wars don’t end, they are won, or lost.  And if you want to know the difference then think of it like this:  if you aren’t winning, then you are losing.  Anyone want to argue that we are winning the war against that ideology which launched an attack on us on 9/11?

Obama is abdicating his responsibility for the safety of the United States.  He wants to pretend the war is over so that he can move on to other things.  His bet is that nothing particularly nasty will happen between now and January 20th, 2017.  He may be right about that – the Islamists are likely to be busy in Libya, Egypt and Syria for the next few years and while they will seek to launch attacks on us, their primary goal will be to consolidate their control over those Muslim nations.  But the war goes on – we may want it to end, but they don’t want it to, and in war it only takes one to tango.

Unless we fight them they will not be stopped – and the longer we refuse to fight them, the stronger they will get and the more bloody and difficult the eventual war will be.  Like the leaders of Britain in 1938, Obama had a choice between war and shame – he choose shame.  He’ll get war, too.  Though the really terrible part of the war may not come as long as Obama is in office.  But come it will – the Islamists are certain they are on the wave of victory and that they will conquer the entirety of Western Civilization.  You might think it foolish.  It might well even be extremely foolish – but it is no more foolish than Hitler thinking he could conquer the world.  It doesn’t matter if its foolish – if the fools think it can be done, they will try it.  And, right now, the fools very much think it can be done…and we’re doing nothing to convince them otherwise.  Indeed, we’re encouraging them – by Obama’s actions – to think that they’ve got it made.