Just a Note on the Fiscal Cliff

Mark Noonan32 Comments

Given the way Obama is getting insulting about the negotiations and, also, given the increasing level of hateful, eliminationist rhetoric from the left, my feeling is that we just dig our heels in and become increasingly unwilling to go along with the Democrat-led charade.  Agree to nothing.   Pass a bill out of the House keeping tax rates just where they are and cutting $1 trillion from FY2013 spending and then refuse to budge.  Also, refuse to raise the debt limit or pass any further continuing resolutions – pass a budget and then refuse to budge.

Does this carry risk?  Yes, it does – the American people might turn on us and toss us out of the House in 2014.  So be it.  I’m not about to be kicked and spat upon and then still be blamed for all the misery that Obama policies are bringing to the United States.  We can show our responsibility and patriotism by passing out of the House reasonable bills which actually address our spending and debt problems – let Obama and his toadies in the Democrat party and the MSM make of it what they will, and let the people decide next election time what they want.

UPDATE:  I was suffering from a really bad bout of stomach flu starting on the night of the 31st and continuing until just a few hours ago…so, I didn’t need Congress to make me sick to my stomach, for once.  Still, the additional nausea was unhelpful.

We really should have just passed a tax cut/spending cut bill and sent it off to the Senate to make of it what they will.  Look what going along with them got us?  Tax hikes, no real spending cuts and our brand so toxic that Chris Christie (who has killed his 2016 chances, entirely) not only throwing Boehner under the bus, but backing up a few times to run over him, again.  We’d have done better by sticking entirely to our guns.

And that is what we must do from now on – heck with Obama and his Democrats.  They are uninterested in what is best for America.  They just want to win.  Ok, so let them win – let them have it all…or, at least, as much as they can get with zero cooperation from us.  Just keep passing common-sense bills (which will be popular, by the way) and allow Reid and Obama to ignore or mutilate or whatever they want.  Can this eventually result in our loss in 2014?  Sure can – but so can nonsense like the “fix” to the fiscal cliff…how many GOP voters just said “heck with them” last night?  If we are to be defeated, then let us be defeated gloriously…and, who knows?, maybe if we fight for what is right, victory will crown our efforts?

New Year’s Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

I’ll make some predictions for 2013:

Does the fact that we’re entering the teens mean we’ll become moody and easily depressed?

Just wait till next year!  A thing always said by Chargers fans.  As they went 7-9 this season, they are keeping to their usual level.  But, the other thing all Chargers fans say – next year we’ll be 14-2 and go on to win the Super Bowl!

Chris Christie will be re-elected governor of New Jersey.  He’ll immediately be talked up as the front-runner for the 2016 GOP nomination.  This will be completely ignored by the Republican leadership who will be on the lookout for someone much more moderate and centrist than those crazy, TEA Party right-wingers we nominated in 2008 and 2012.

New York City Council Speaker (its that large that it needs a Speaker?) Christine Quinn, if she decides to run, will be elected Mayor of New York…unless she winds up squaring off with potential GOP candidate, and former Madam, Kristin M. Davis.  Given a choice between a political hack who will run on the fact that she’s gay and a madam, I think New Yorkers might go for the madam.

It will be announced some time in March or April that we are back in recession…just about the time we start to emerge from it (it started back in July or so).

When the I-pad 5 gets released I’ll once again fail to rush out and buy it.

The Syrian Civil War will come to a (temporary) end as the Assad regime crumbles…Civil War II will involve a battle between barbarians to decide who gets to rule over the carcass.

Hillary will be forced to cancel her Benghazi testimony over a terrible case of the hiccups.

In an effort to stave off bankruptcy, California will offer to sell Bakersfield to Nevada. Nevada will counter with an offer to cut cards for double or nothing.

In order to keep his promise for openness and transparency in his Administration, Obama will propose the creation of a Ministry of Truth.

Iran will announce that the earth-shattering kaboom was most emphatically not a nuclear test.

Obama will believe them.

The Department of Health and Human Services will announce that celibate religious orders will be required to provide health insurance covering birth control.  Oh, wait…that was a 2012 prediction.

Did the 2012 apocalypse disappoint you?  Well, cheer up:  only 3 years left until the Gorpocalypse!

What are your predictions for 2013?

War With China?

Mark Noonan8 Comments

It has been bubbling around out there, but if you haven’t been paying close attention, you might have missed the issue:

THIS is how wars usually start: with a steadily escalating stand-off over something intrinsically worthless. So don’t be too surprised if the US and Japan go to war with China next year over the uninhabited rocks that Japan calls the Senkakus and China calls the Diaoyu islands. And don’t assume the war would be contained and short.

Of course we should all hope that common sense prevails.

It seems almost laughably unthinkable that the world’s three richest countries – two of them nuclear-armed – would go to war over something so trivial. But that is to confuse what starts a war with what causes it. The Greek historian Thucydides first explained the difference almost 2500 years ago. He wrote that the catastrophic Peloponnesian War started from a spat between Athens and one of Sparta’s allies over a relatively insignificant dispute. But what caused the war was something much graver: the growing wealth and power of Athens, and the fear this caused in Sparta…

China is feeling its oats and, also, with grave economic, political and demographic problems, striking out in a foreign adventure might appeal to a Chinese ruling class which has no legitimate basis for its continued rule but which has so far proven unwilling to set in motion steps to create a legitimate government in China.  Japan, on the other hand, is rich and happy and not wanting to fight, but also fears that if they let China get her way on this then China will forever push Japan around.  The United States, on the other other hand, cannot afford to let China push Japan around because that would undercut our entire position not just in Asia, but the entire western Pacific…no one would rely on us if we left Japan in the lurch and everyone would scramble to make the best deal with could with China.  Certainly, there are the ingredients for war.

But there won’t be one.  At least, not right now.

China is in much the same position as imperial Germany was early in the 20th century – feeling stronger and frustrated that their growing strength has not led to their dominance of the globe.  Back then, Germany felt that Britain – governing one quarter of the earth’s surface but viewed by Germans as increasingly flabby – was the block in the road.  And, so, Germany wanted to challenge Britain – but couldn’t because the German army couldn’t get at Britain while the German navy wasn’t sufficient to beat the British navy (then, by far, the largest navy in the world).  China might want to make some nationalist hay over the Senkakus but when push comes to shove, they are islands and the Chinese navy is simply entirely inferior to the United States navy (and probably couldn’t even beat the Japanese navy, either).  A Sino-American war right now would only have one very swift result – the destruction of China’s navy and a return to the status quo ante (there is zero chance that any American government would sanction sending an American army to mainland China).  Unless the rulers of China are the most monumentally stupid people in the world, they know this and so as long as the US and Japan remain firm (but polite and willing to provide a face-saving solution) then the Chinese will ultimately back down.

This time.

China is, of course, aware of her naval weakness – and so has built one aircraft carrier and looks to build more, while also steadily upgrading their other surface and submarine forces.  As absolutely no one threatens China’s sea communications the only possible use China can have for a first class navy is to challenge the United States.  And as a matter of fact, all of China’s military build up indicates only one thing: at some future point, the government of China envisions war with the United States.  Not a war to the death like the World Wars, but a war to kick America out of east Asia and the western Pacific (China has asserted that their sphere of influence includes the Marianas Islands – a commonwealth of the United States, but also including the US territory of Guam).  We’ll have to see how that comes out and US diplomacy should be geared towards solidifying our alliances in the area while military preparations should work on destroying the Chinese navy and blockading the Chinese coast.  But, meanwhile, not much to worry about.  For the moment.

Regardless of the “fiscal cliff” issue – obAMATEUR WILL RAISE TAXES on EVERYONE Regardless of Income!!!

tiredoflibbs11 Comments

ObAMACARE is coming and it will affect EVERYONE regardless of income.  Open your wallets – BOHICA!

http://www.atr.org/trillion-obamacare-tax-hike-hitting-jan-a7393

How soon does everyone forget! – especially the mindless drones of the DEMOCRATS and the WHITE HOUSE.

There is more to come!  Remember, “we have to pass the healthcare bill in order to see what is in it” – the former (fortunately for us) speaker from Haite-Ashbury.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan:  A good point…if we let taxes rise then we’ll essentially just be sticking Americans with the bill for President Obama.  Obama cruised to re-election partially because taxes remained low while Obama went on a spending binge.  Now we have a chance to square accounts and let people know just what Obama and his Democrats are costing…and that might make people think differently in 2014 and 2016.  People thought that Hope and Change meant free stuff…well, it did…until now.

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan:  One of the alleged worries about going over the fiscal cliff is that the mandated cuts in spending will force us in to recession.  One can only believe this sort of idiocy if one believes that government spending got us out of the Great Depression.  Of course, any reasonable observer of what happened – ie, the Great Depression continued in unabated force as both Hoover and FDR ramped up government spending – knows that government spending didn’t do a darned thing to help the American economy.  And its not doing anything to help, now – in fact, by grossly misallocating resources based upon purely political considerations, its likely making the economy worse.  For those, however, who want to persist in thinking that the spending cuts will harm the economy, here is a report showing that the “multiplier effect” of government spending is zero.

As for me, I believe we re-entered recession some months ago…and we’re back in recession because government tax and regulatory policy has crippled America’s productive capacity.  Here’s a news flash:  if you don’t make, mine and grow as much stuff as you used to, you won’t be as rich as you once were.  Period.  End of story.  The fix lies in changing the tax and regulatory stance of the government to be pro-growth…and to cut spending so that we don’t have a complete financial melt-down spinning us in to decades-long recession.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan:  The NY Post has an article about people, once told how much their taxes will rise, are getting upset.  Good.  Given that the biggest bite will be among people who live in blue areas of the country, it is only just that they pay the piper for their absurd vote for Obama.  Oh, to be sure, it’ll hit me, too…but I live in a low-tax State and so I’ll be hit less than New Yorkers and Californians.  Boys and girls, ultimately the 2012 election was all about the fiscal cliff – meaning how to deal with spending and taxes to deal with the gigantic bill Obama and his Democrats have run up since 2009.  That people preferred to concentrate on how mean Romney was because he was rich or wanted to talk about their lady parts or worried that birth control wouldn’t be “free” is not my problem…here is reality:  we’re broke.  Obama has bankrupted the United States – and its either take a huge hit in taxes or give up the free stuff.  Pick one.

When the Law Becomes Tyrannical

Mark Noonan28 Comments

Mark Steyn writes up the story of David Gregory illegally waving a 10-round magazine under the nose of the NRA President and, in pointing out the rationale for arresting Gregory, hits a sore point I have these days:

…To Howard Kurtz & Co., it’s “obvious” that Gregory didn’t intend to commit a crime. But, in a land choked with laws, “obviousness” is one of the first casualties — and “obviously” innocent citizens have their “obviously” well-intentioned actions criminalized every minute of the day. Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry. Why is it so “obvious” that David Gregory deserves to be treated more leniently than a sixth grader? Because he’s got a TV show and she hasn’t?…

We have so many law these days – local, State and federal – that is almost a certainty that each of us, at one point or another, is in violation of one or more.  Steyn lists more examples of this and points out that when laws become capricious – such as when a little girl can be fined $535 for doing what little girls will always do – then we are no longer living in a nation ruled by law, but a nation ruled by tyranny.  Remember, there’s no way they can actually arrest all of us but the laws are so numerous that we’re all going to violate at least one of them at some point…so whether or not any one of us will be punished for our transgression really rests upon the whim of police and prosecutor.  Tick off a cop and he might haul you in on some bizarre charge; get a prosecutor with a burr up his rear and you might find the full weight of the law directed against you…or, you might not.  All depends.  And since it depends not on what you do but on what the authorities decide, you are living under tyranny.

And another aspect of tyranny is when the well-connected are let off – not just Gregory not being prosecuted for something which would have resulted in a world of trouble for any of us, but in the repeated stories we see in the news of the rich and/or famous getting off because they had the money or the connections.  We are no longer living in a nation where any of us can be certain of how things will come out – work hard, stay out of trouble and play by the rules…and you can still be fined, jailed, place on “no fly” lists…all at the whim of a government official and then its up to you to prove your innocence.

While we are living in the Error of Obama, not much will be able to be done about this, but if we do win back power (hopefully no later than 2016) one of the main aspects of government reform must be the massive repeal of laws and regulations.  Perhaps a commission could be set up to review each law and regulation and determine if it should remain, be repealed or be folded in with other laws or regulations for simplicity.  At bottom, as a citizen, it shouldn’t take me more than one day’s reading to find out everything which is illegal under federal law, and less than a day further reading to know everything that is illegal under State and local law.  If it takes a person longer than that to get through the law code (and I’ll bet no one could get through it these days in less than a period of months), then it is no longer a code of laws, but a license to oppress.

And a lesson to be learned here is to stop demanding that government “do something” each time some sort of crisis or problem develops.  That is the root of this – for about a century now we’ve turned to government to fix things and now we’ve got a government which is tyrannical.  High time when a problem comes up that each of us decides to roll up the sleeves and get a little dirty fixing it, ourselves.

I’d Like to Thank Nancy Pelosi…

Mark Noonan7 Comments

…as this time for ensuring that the Republican Party retains control of the House until at least the 2022 mid-terms:

House Democrats will introduce legislation to ban the production of high-capacity magazines on the first day of the next congressional session, the office of Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), one of the lawmakers sponsoring the bill, told The Huffington Post. The Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act will mirror a failed bill introduced during the 112th Congress…

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m more than happy to re-fight the gun control debate with the Democrats – even after weeks of demonization and in the wake of the Newtown massacre, support for gun rights polls high and the NRA remains more popular than, for instance, Nancy Pelosi.

Now, to be sure, Democrats are not introducing this twaddle with any hope that it will be passed – it is just mindless fluff being fed to their base which demands they “do something” about gun violence (no, not the gun violence in gun-controlled Chicago…our liberals don’t care about that; perhaps because its mostly black and brown skinned kids being killed?).  But it will force Democrats to go on record – and the House GOP leadership should ensure that all Democrat proposals for gun control are fast-tracked for floor votes.  Democrats in red and purple areas of the country (and even some blue areas which manage to combine being a hippy with owning a gun…we’re looking at you Vermont and Oregon) will have to vote against, GOPers will gleefully vote against…and all Democrats will be tarred with a “gun grabber” brush for the 2014 mid-terms.

Given that we probably will go over the cliff and we will be blamed for it (somehow or another an asinine proposal to raise taxes on “the rich” is resonating more with the American people than the stark fact that we’re bankrupt and need to cut spending), I was wondering what we’d do to regain political traction.  Here it is – handed to us on a silver platter.  Yes, our Democrats are better at the nuts and bolts of politics…but, remember, they are liberal and thus will continue to fall in to idiocy.  Therein lies our hope for a better future…

Norman Schwarzkopf: RIP

Mark Noonan2 Comments

An American hero has passed away:

Truth is, retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf didn’t care much for his popular “Stormin’ Norman” nickname.

The seemingly no-nonsense Desert Storm commander’s reputed temper with aides and subordinates supposedly earned him that rough-and-ready moniker. But others around the general, who died Thursday in Tampa, Fla., at age 78 from complications from pneumonia, knew him as a friendly, talkative and even jovial figure who preferred the somewhat milder sobriquet given by his troops: “The Bear.”

That one perhaps suited him better later in his life, when he supported various national causes and children’s charities while eschewing the spotlight and resisting efforts to draft him to run for political office.

He lived out a quiet retirement in Tampa, where he’d served his last military assignment and where an elementary school bearing his name is testament to his standing in the community…

Not many commanders get a chance like Schwarzkopf had – to do a massive turning movement against an enemy and utterly destroy him in the field.  That it took him only 100 hours of offensive operations to finish the Iraqi army puts him in the realm of past commanders such as MacArthur and Lee.  Make no mistake about it, it takes massive amounts of moral courage to do what Schwarzkopf did – all too many commanders go in to battle merely determined not to lose, but some rise above fear and take the risks necessary to win smashing victories – and victories which end up costing less lives than longer, drawn out, cautious campaigns lesser commanders think up.  We can only hope and pray that we have even one or two officers in the United States military of the caliber of General Schwarzkopf.  God rest his soul and comfort his family and friends.

George H.W. Bush in Intensive Care

Mark Noonan8 Comments

From Pajamas Media:

Former President George H.W. Bush has been moved into the intensive care unit, a family spokesman said.

Bush was originally admitted to a Houston hospital on Nov. 23 for a bronchitis-like cough, which has mostly gone away. But the 88-year-old has had a fever that has not only hung on, but has been rising.

“Following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever, President Bush was admitted to the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital on Sunday where he remains in guarded condition,” family spokesman Jim McGrath said…

No worries for President Bush – at 88 he’s lived the full life; given what I know of the man, he’s certainly not at all worried for himself.  But my prayers for his family and friends during this trying time.

Merry Christmas!

Mark Noonan22 Comments

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a good New Year.

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.
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The God in the Cave

Mark Noonan90 Comments

This is quoted from G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.

This sketch of the human story began in a cave; the cave which popular science associates with the cave-man and in which practical discovery has really found archaic drawings of animals. The second half of human history, which was like a new creation of the world, also begins in a cave. There is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were again present; for it was a cave used as a stable by the mountaineers of the uplands about Bethlehem; who still drive their cattle into such holes and caverns at night. It was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors of the crowded caravanserai had been shut in their faces; and it was here beneath the very feet of the passersby, in a cellar under the very floor of the world, that Jesus Christ was born But in that second creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots of the primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd. God also was a CaveMan, and, had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously colored upon the wall of the world ; but the pictures that he made had come to life.

A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded. It is at least like a jest in this; that it is something which the scientific critic cannot see. He laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and almost derisively exaggerated; and mildly condemns as improbable something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as something that would be much too good to be true, except that it is true. When that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy has been repeated, reiterated, underlined, emphasized, exulted in, sung, shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand hymns, carols, rhymes, rituals pictures, poems, and popular sermons, it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about it; especially one of the sort that seems to take a long time to see a joke, even his own joke. But about this contrast and combination of ideas one thing may be said here, because it is relevant to the whole thesis of this book. The sort of modern critic of whom I speak is generally much impressed with the importance of education in life and the importance of psychology in education. That sort of man is never tired of telling us that first impressions fix character by the law of causation; and he will become quite nervous if a child’s visual sense is poisoned by the wrong colors on a golliwog or his nervous system prematurely shaken by a cacophonous rattle. Yet he will think us very narrow-minded, if we say that this is exactly why there really is a difference between being brought up as a Christian and being brought up as a Jew or a Moslem or an atheist. T he difference is that every Catholic child has learned from pictures, and even every Protestant child from stones, this incredible combination of contrasted ideas as one of the very first impressions on his mind. It is not merely a theological difference. It is a psychological difference which can outlast any theologies It really is, as that sort of scientist loves to say about anything, incurable. Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether be likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savor of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God. But the two ideas are not naturally or necessarily combined. They would not be necessarily combined for an ancient Greek or a Chinaman, even for Aristotle or Confucius. It is no more inevitable to connect God with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten. It has been created in our minds by Christmas because we are Christians; because we are psychological Christians even when we are not theological ones. In other words, this combination of ideas has emphatically, in the much disputed phrase, altered human nature. There is really a difference between the man who knows it and the man who does not. It may not be a difference of moral worth, for the Moslem or the Jew might be worthier according to his lights; but it is a plain fact about the crossing of two particular lights, the conjunction of two stars in our particular horoscope. Omnipotence and impotence, or divinity and infancy, do definitely make a sort of epigram which a million repetitions cannot turn into a platitude. It is not unreasonable to call it unique.

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