Our Opponents

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Sarah Hoyt over at Instapundit went trolling trough Democratic Underground and came up with this gem:

…Let’s say that you have the ability to print your currency using your computer printer, and every merchant accepted your printouts as a valid exchange for goods and services. You need to pick up your dry cleaning? You printout a $20 bill and your cleaners hand over your garments without question. Same would be true for your mortgage, groceries, car note, etc. Your creditors even accept your printouts as payment on your debts.

Given this, how can you ever be broke? Answer, you cannot be broke. The U.S. government is not in debt simply because it can create currency to pay off the debt, and our creditors gladly accept our currency as payment on our debts. You see, the world needs our dollars because the world needs oil, and in order to buy oil, you need dollars, which means that the world needs to stockpile dollars, and that means that the U.S. can print all of the money that it wants without incurring massive hikes in interest rates to attract lenders…

This is beyond weapons-grade stupid – so stupid that  you are actually at a loss about how to answer it.  Last night after the debate I got in to a Facebook argument with a liberal who was flabbergasted that I believe sea power to be important.  She demanded proof that we need a powerful Navy!  She persisted in this view even after I noted that 90% of global commerce goes by sea and if there isn’t a benevolent power to keep the sea lanes open, that might be a problem.  A couple months ago I heard a couple people debating about the election and one of them was going to vote for Obama because “I’m worried that Romney is going to take away women’s rights”.  During the 2nd Presidential debate we had the questioner who wondered what Romney is going to do about “women making 72% of what men make”.  The point I’m making here is that we’re dealing with people – some of whom are actually intelligent and well meaning – who are so ignorant of the basic facts that they don’t even know what the issues confronting us are.

I’m a convinced democrat for the simple reason that anything worth doing is worth doing badly – meaning that the most important and crucial decisions of life (whom to marry, where to work, who gets to make the laws, etc) should be done by those least prepared by education and training to rule on the matter.  This is because if it is left in the hands of “experts” you’re either going to get boneheaded “experts” who make a hash of things or you’re going to get really effective “experts” who will create an inhuman tyranny.  Among the broad mass of the people, on average, you are going to get common sense most of the time.  You will, though, also get nonsense every now and again (and thus Obama is President).  But, on the whole, I trust that if my fellow fools of the world get to make the decisions then I’m going to be safer and happier.  But, my goodness, how did it happen that the quotient of people who are the big winners in the ignorant fool sweepstakes wind up so heavily concentrated in the Democrat party?

You’d expect that each party would have about an equal share of people who don’t really know what is going on – but we here on the GOP side, a few kooks aside, tend to know at least what the argument is about.  Our Democrats seem to be increasingly living in a fantasy world.  A place divorced from reality where the Navy is unimportant, access to birth control is a key issue and the government can never go broke because we can always just print up more money!

Something must happen on the Democrat side – a break must come.  Some how or another reality must eventually make an entrance over there.

An Insult To Intelligence (Presidential Debate – Open Thread)

Cluster47 Comments

The Obama regime, his surrogates, and the current progressive movement are an affront to intelligent people everywhere. Just this morning, two of the more offensively stupid surrogates of the Obama campaign, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Stephanie Cutter, were on the equally offensive MSNBC network spouting simplistic childish garbage that they evidently seem to think are relevant issues in this campaign. First there was DWS who was contradicting herself trying to hurt Romney in terms of foreign policy first by claiming that Romney was a warmonger and wanted to take us back to the “cowboy” policies of Bush, but then just minutes later stated that there was little daylight between Romney and Obama on foreign policy. To his credit, Chuck Todd called her on that mind numbingly stupid assertion to which DWS responded by saying that that was the problem – no one knows what Romneys positions are. And this woman is the head of the DNC.

Up next was Stephanie Cutter, the co chair for the Obama campaign and one of the emptiest heads I have ever seen. Her contention was that the binder comment by Romney was a big issue, and indicative of how out of touch he is with women’s issues like contraception and equal pay. Let’s just put aside the fact that younger, professional women are already out earning their male counter parts, the Democrats treat women, and every other group for that matter, as some monolithic voting block who only care about special interest issues that only affect them. It’s offensive. Women on the whole are vastly more intelligent than Cutter, and care much more deeply about a whole range of issues other than contraception, which is widely available and affordable. Let’s look at Cutter’s other assertion which was Romney’s big bird comment of which she characterized as Romney’s only plan to balance the budget – which is to cut NPR. Well anyone with a 5th grade comprehension level knows that that is not the case, but that doesn’t stop her from making the claim on national TV, which again is highly offensive to thinking people everywhere.

Of course when you don’t have a successful record to run on, then you have to deflect and I think Obama said it best – “if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.”

The third and final debate is tonight and Obama will do his best trying to scare voters, and I can’t think of anything more terrifying than a second term for Obama. Feel free to discuss what’s on your mind and please keep it civil.

Update:

My apologies to Ed Schultz for not including him in the band of mindless Obama followers. He is after all, the King of mindless Obama followers insulting people everywhere especially last Friday when he said:

“I’m getting more burned up the more I think about this! All right, now this is the locker room today. If this is too much for you, don’t listen to the radio show, I’m warning you. Women! Are you awake?! Do you know what this radical outfit wants to do to your rights in the workplace?!  Do you want them managing your vagina? Do you want them rolling back women’s rights 50 years? I don’t know! I’m just asking the question!There’s so many questions that we have to ask today!”

The Hunt for an October Surprise

Mark Noonan41 Comments

We’ve got two – count ’em, two! – potential October Surprises in the rumor mill:

1.  Obama inks a deal with Iran to give up the nuclear program.

2.  Bottom-feeding attorney Gloria Allred has some scandal to uncork on Romney (or Ryan) in the closing days of the campaign.

A deal with Iran is possible but highly unlikely – at best it would be some sort of nebulous agreement by Iran to say that they will consider the possibility of reviewing the option of negotiating a nuke deal with us at some future date.  Still, if anything is done then the MSM will go ape over it making it out as the most important foreign policy achievement since World War Two.  I don’t think, though, that it would affect the election – most people are not too concerned about Iran and, at any rate, those who are set to vote for Romney long ago tuned Obama and his Administration out – such a deal, if struck, would make a lot of MSM noise but essentially drop in to a bottomless pit of public indifference.

Something from Allred is also very much possible – remember, it was Allred who torpedoed Cain earlier this year, ruined Whitman’s campaign in California in 2010 and nearly destroyed Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial bid in 2002.  She does this by coming up with someone who claims to have been horribly treated by the Republican target and then counts on the compliant MSM to carry the ball.

Given the background we have on Romney and Ryan it does seem implausible that there is any sort of a sexual scandal – to be sure, either Ryan or Romney might have had indiscretions in the past (all of us are, after all, fallen human beings and prey to weakness and sin), but it seems unlikely.  It certainly seems to be highly unlikely that there is any such story of recent vintage to be told about the men.  I believe it would more likely be some woman who claimed discrimination by Romney in employment or, possibly, a story that at some point Romney (or Ryan) employed an illegal immigrant for some sort of domestic service.   Remember, there doesn’t have to be a shred of evidence in the accusation – all there has to be is some sort of connection with the accuser to Romney or Ryan.  As it will be set off late in the campaign, there will be extremely limited time (and absolutely no inclination on the part of the MSM) to check the veracity of the story.  Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit, in light of the Allred rumor, is advising that Romney inform the MSM outfits that – win or lose – any false accusation will result in a libel suit with all sorts of lengthy and embarrassing discovery launched against the MSMers who report a lie.  That is good advice – but while it might give some MSMers pause, it won’t actually defuse the hand grenade.

As the wheels are coming off the Obama cart, we must expect something to happen (as an aside, the fact that we’re getting these rumors indicates that people deep inside Team Obama know that doom impends – if they were really confident of victory, none of this sort of thing would be going on).  This will become even more true if polling by Wednesday doesn’t show any post-3rd-debate improvement for Obama (and it is highly unlikely that it will).  Obama is heading for a defeat and doesn’t want to be defeated – and his team is chock full of knee-to-groin Chicago political operatives.  Political operatives who not only want to win but are also likely worried about how a Romney Justice Department might view some of the actions taken since January 20th, 2009.

Will a scandal bomb work?  Would, say, the revelation that Romney employed an illegal or discriminated against women in employment throw the race to Obama?  Would, that is, such a late-in-the-game bit of scandal-mongering convince people that Romney is such a lousy person that its better to stick with Obama for four more years?  Highly unlikely.  It might shave a point off of Romney’s total, but as I expect he’ll get at least 53% of the vote, that won’t be enough.  But, on the other hand, it could work.  Time will tell if it is tried, if it is effective and whether or not Romney has prepared for this as he’s turned out prepared for every last thing which has come his way in 2012 – and my bet is that they do have a prepared response for anything Team Obama might throw at them.  But, we shall see – just get ready for anything to happen over the next 16 days.

 

Wanting To Take A Swing At Someone Is Racist?

Retired Spook14 Comments

RICORUN DISCLAIMER — I, RETIRED SPOOK, DID NOT WRITE THIS.  THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY AMAZONA WHO ASKED ME TO PUBLISH IT FOR HER.

Picking up on the theme of the Lawrence O’Donnell video posted by Cluster in the previous thread, The Huffington Post accurately reported a comment made by Tagg Romney after Tuesday’s debate:

Mitt Romney’s eldest son weighed in on the second presidential debate on Wednesday, joking that the debate’s contentious nature made him want to “take a swing” at President Obama.

During an interview with North Carolina radio host Bill LuMave, Tagg Romney said that hearing the president call his father a liar made him want to “jump out of [his] seat and … rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him.”

He continued: “But you know you can’t do that because, well first because there’s a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because this is the nature of the process, they’re going to do everything they can do to try to make my dad into someone he’s not. We signed up for it. We’ve gotta kinda sit there and take our punches and then send them right back the other way.”

A young man felt defensive of his father after seeing his father called a liar on national television, and joked that his emotional response was to “take a swing at him”. This is not a story.

Yet David Sirota, a Denver Liberal, claims it is, and has done his best to make it a story. Worse, to make it story not about a man joking about an impulse, but about an entire landscape of alleged racism.

Racism? But of course.

Sirota has a radio show in Denver, Rundown, in which he and conservative Michael Brown offer points of view from both sides of the political aisle. As the spokesman for the Left, Sirota explains that this comment could not have any foundation OTHER than racism, and on the radio show Thursday (during a segment when Brown was not there to insert a touch of sanity into the proceedings) he expounded on this at great length.

I listen to the show sometimes, and have so far found Sirota to be rational and inoffensive as he has explained his Liberal perspective on many topics. But this week he not only veered wildly from this approach to political news, he devoted about half an hour to his insistence that Tagg Romney was coming from a position of what he repeatedly called “white privilege”. He lied, and he invented wild-eyed theories about what would have happened if a black man had said this about a white candidate.

The lies: That Tagg Romney had “fantasized” about doing harm to the president, and that he had said he wanted to “punch him in the face”.

He repeated the claim that the young Romney had been “fantasizing” about this horrible act of violence, implying that Romney had engaged in an ongoing fantasy and had not just spontaneously described his frustration at watching his father attacked by using a very mild metaphor of “taking a swing at” the attacker. Sirota not only repeatedly, insistently, characterized this as a desire to engage in real violence, as a desire to inflict harm on the President, but as a “fantasy” of Romney’s.

In fleeting moments of what I can only consider inadvertent honesty, he did use the word “impulse” a couple of times, but always returned to the theme of “fantasizing” about doing harm to the President.

He also claimed that Tagg Romney had elaborated that he “wanted to punch the President in the face”.

He repeatedly identified Tagg Romney as being a major spokesman for the entire Romney campaign, trying desperately to link Mitt Romney to this overwrought portrayal of seething rage and elaborate fantasies of violence against the President. It was quite shameful.

Not content to lie about what Romney said or a wholly imagined “fantasy”, Sirota spun even more wildly into typical Leftist rhetoric, expanding this comment into an elaborate explanation and condemnation of what he called “white privilege”, going on at length about his claim that this stemmed from a callous assumption that privileged whites can say anything they want to or about black people. The convoluted effort to make this a racial matter would have been funny, if it had not been such an illustration of the toxicity of the far Left and its irrational obsession with branding everything said by a conservative as coming from a well of racial hatred.

And then Sirota elaborated even more, repeatedly claiming that if Obama had a son who made this kind of comment about a white opponent, it would result in a “race war”. He was apparently quite impressed with this phrasing, as he repeated it several times.

I originally thought to just write this rant off as a Left-leaning commentary that got out of control, but Sirota mentioned that emails were already coming in, and was quite smug about generating such opposition to this outrageous statements. And then he put them in writing, in an article in Salon.  So this was not just a Bidenesque blurting of poorly considered emotion. It is a true and accurate representation of the beliefs of a spokesman for the Left, one who identifies himself as such in his radio show bio, whose very presence on this show is as one giving the point of view of the Left.

I mention it because it is a sign that these bizarre distortions of fact into a stew of lies, accusations, and outright insanity are not limited to the fringes of Leftist lunacy, but are mainstream Left. Sirota has been a voice of moderate, rational, Leftist philosophy, and to see him fly so far off the rails, into such a detailed and emphatic racist temper tantrum, with such nasty accusations that spiraled from attacking Tagg Romney to trying to implicate his father and the whole campaign in the invented race-based issue to substituting an invented “fantasy” for a spontaneous comment to wild-eyed assertions of out-and-out “race wars” if the racial identities were reversed, made me realize how pervasive and deep-seated this vicious projection of so many vile characteristics is, and what a major component of Leftist philosophy it is.

Sirota never questioned his assumptions. He never once took a breath and examined what he had been saying and tried to sort out what was real from what had bubbled up from his own belief system and world view. He just freely intertwined his own bigotries with the simple comment by Tagg Romney, and created a whole scenario, in which the actual comment played such a minor role it was lost in the hate-based hysteria of claims of violent fantasies and race wars and white privilege.

I think the most toxic heritage of the last four years will be the creation of sanctioned hatred and racism. I believe that prior to the callous decision of the Left to create, nurture, encourage and incorporate claims of racial hatred and to apply this to every perception of every word and action of the political opposition, this kind of seething rage was limited to the lunatic fringes of the movement. But it is now so mainstream in the Left that it has become the default response to anything any conservative says, about pretty much anything. We, as a nation, can recover from economic disaster, and with the right leadership we can deal with threats from our enemies. But I think it may take generations to heal the wounds created by using race as a weapon to turn people against each other, to brand people as morally inferior, to spawn hatred and distrust and even violence.

I understand that the Left’s use of race in the despicable ways they do has the added advantage, in addition to that of Divide and Conquer, of providing to those who use it a short cut to the Higher Moral Ground—-by applying these vile characteristics to others, they can assume moral superiority, without actually DOING anything to justify it. But the harm done to the nation is frightening.

Morning In America

Cluster48 Comments

I have a sense of optimism this morning that I haven’t felt in a long time, and that optimism is grounded in the belief that Romney will win this election and restore confidence in America. The polls today, and over the last couple of days reflect an unimpeded resurgence by the Romney campaign that electorally, will put him on top in just over two weeks. Gallup has it 52% – 45% Romney, a new poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research has Romney up in Pennsylvania by 4 points, Rasmussen has Romney up by 3 in Virginia and Florida, for the first time ever RCP has Romney ahead in the electoral count 206-201, and maybe most shocking of all is that Romney’s favorability rating now tops Obama’s. However, I will say that as of this morning, Rasmussen does have the candidates tied at 48% and Rasmussen is the poll I trust more than others, but that being said the momentum is clearly behind Romney and at the most crucial time.

So what are the events that led to this turn around? Several in my opinion, chief among them, Libya. Voters are realizing that the misguided foreign policy of Obama is starting to have a very alarming impact on the security of this country and the cover up of the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens is unforgivable, and Romney will crucify Obama on that issue on Monday. Obama’s first debate was abysmal, and Biden’s arrogant debate performance did not set well with women and independents. The continued slow growth of the GDP, the manipulation of unemployment figures (California not reporting), and the lack of any real economic plan going forward from Obama also led to the resurgence of Romney who has put forth a very common sense 5 point plan to get this economy back on track and the experience to get it done. But most importantly is the false caricature of Romney that Axlerod and Obama tried to sell. People are realizing that Romney is a compassionate, knowledgeable, experienced leader, and are realizing that the perceptions of Romney that Axlerod tried to sell, are just wrong. This quote from Obama is coming back to haunt him:

“If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”

Obama is running on small things (think: contraception, tax cuts for the rich) and trying to paint Romney as someone to run from. Romney is running on big things (think: tax reform, medicare reform) and giving people a reason to be optimistic and confident, and that will result in a win.

And Romney’s performance last night at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner is a must see! He is not only compassionate, intelligent and a leader, his comedic talents are pretty sharp too.

Economic Growth

Retired Spook29 Comments

This AP article is at the top of my home page this morning, and, after reading it, this little light went on in my head about the main difference between the approach to government by Obama and Romney. Actually, it goes back to a comment I made the other day about the relationship between economic growth and employment. Obama believes government can create jobs, and actually claims his policies have done so. But there can be no meaningful private sector job growth without economic growth. In each of the last 3 years economic growth has been slower than the previous year, and yet, according to the BLS, unemployment has declined from 10.1% to 7.8%. That’s sort of like a college student telling his parents that his grade point average has gone from a 2.5 to a 3.0, but he’s only attended half of his classes. It’s just not believable.

Now are there things that government can do to affect economic growth? You bet, and our lack of economic growth is largely due to uncertainty in the market place caused by things governments have done over the last 4 years. And no amount of stimulus or QE infinity can erase the negative effects of bad fiscal, monetary and regulatory policy.  Government can’t just say to a private company: here’s some money — go hire someone.  The purpose of business is not to provide jobs.  Business exists to make money, and employees are nothing more than a by-product of a successful business.  Progressive Democrats (I know — redundant), by and large, don’t seem to be able to grasp this simple concept.  A President Romney may not be able to do any better, but a growing number of people think he couldn’t do any worse.

I know we have business people who frequent this blog — I’m one myself.  Let’s have a discussion about the circumstances under which you’ve hired people, how government actions, tax policy and regulations affect your business, and what changes a President Romney could make that would have a positive effect on the growth of your business.

 

3 Weeks (And Debate Open Thread!)

Cluster123 Comments

We are 3 weeks out from arguably one of the most important elections of our lifetimes and the polls are tight, but Romney has the momentum, as do the Republicans overall. Nothing could be more indicative of that than in Missouri, where Todd Akin was written off a few months ago, but has come back and as of yesterday, now has the lead. Senate and Congressional races are tightening all over the country as the election day draws near largely due to Romney’s strong first debate performance which will be equaled tonight, as Romney will continue to dispel the caricature of him the Obama campaign hoped voters would believe. Obama wasted an inordinate amount of time during this campaign trying to convince voters that Romney was some evil, uncaring rich man and that Republicans in general were an anti woman, anti gay, anti black, pro rich party and now that voters are starting to pay attention, and actually see Romney first hand as they will again tonight, they are realizing that that caricature the Democrats have put forth, isn’t even close to the truth. So Obama now is left to defend his abysmal economic record, and floundering foreign policy, which is indefensible.

Tonight Romney will have a chance to interact with everyday people in the Townhall forum and we will again see someone of incredible compassion and intelligence, who is in command of the facts, who does understand the plight that so many Americans are enduring, and someone who will put forth common sense plans to turn this economy around. On the other hand, Obama will try and convince everyone that he just needs more time.  Regardless of how the debate turns out however, you can expect the liberal media to crown Obama as the winner as they have too much invested in Obama and they know that another poor performance on Obama’s part will seal his defeat.

On another note, in past elections I had seldom voted a straight party ticket having always found a local Democrat or two that I found preferable over the Republican candidate, and this year is no different as the Democrat candidate for the Senate in my state is not a bad choice over the Republican candidate, however this election cycle is much different in that a vote for any Congressional and Senate Democratic candidates, is a vote for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and that is completely unacceptable. So I will vote a straight party ticket this coming election day and I encourage everyone to do the same.

George McGovern in Hospice

Mark Noonan3 Comments

1972 Democrat Presidential candidate George McGovern is in hospice – from NRO:

I see that George McGovern has been moved to a hospice, presumably because the 90-year-old former B-24 pilot, winner of the Distinguished Flying Cross, senator, and presidential candidate is coming to the end of his life…

McGovern is, of course, the pinko’s pinko.  He was so far to the left of the American mainstream that Nixon – of all people – buried him under one of the largest landslides in American history in 1972.  I remember my dad with his “Democrats for Nixon” sign…and that must have been hard to swallow, but McGovern was just too far out there for any rational Democrat to vote for.

My, how times have changed – and in 2008 we gave 53% of our votes to someone even more left than McGovern!  We also gave our votes to someone who couldn’t hold a candle to the courage and honor of George McGovern.  Leftist he is, but also an American patriot…no chance that Mrs. McGovern only became proud of the United States when her husband was nominated for President.

My prayers for George McGovern as he passes from this life to the life of the world to come – if patriotism, bravery, gentleness and generosity count for anything, then I am confident of where George McGovern is heading.  This does not mean, of course, that I’m not looking forward to a repeat of 1972 on November 6th, even if the margin isn’t quite as wide.

 

Our New eBook: The Audacity of Harry Reid (Bumped)

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Matt and I decided that since Harry Reid was using the Senate of the United States of America to issue slanderous attacks on Mitt Romney that it is appropriate to bring up the Harry Reid we came to know as we wrote Caucus of Corruption.  This new eBook, The Audacity of Harry Reid, is available on Amazon for your Kindle, or Kindle app on your smartphone, and it not only covers some of the issues we wrote about in 2007 but brings the story of Harry Reid right up to the 2012 campaign.

Here is the link to the book.   The price is a mere $2.99.  This is a quick read but shows the depths of Reid’s hypocrisy when he attacks anyone over their finances.

Global Warming Hoax Update

Mark Noonan45 Comments

From the Daily Mail:

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years…

Just to re-state my views:

1.  It is not certain that average global temperatures have been rising.  They may be, but we lack sufficient exact data over a long enough period of time to make an absolute assertion one way or the other.

2.  If average global temperatures are rising we do not have sufficient data to know if they are rising towards some historic norm or rising higher than a historic norm.

3.  If average global temperatures are rising above an historic norm then we do not have sufficient data to determine if this will be a net negative or positive for the species inhabiting the planet.

4.  If global temperatures are rising we do not have sufficient data to determine what would be the primary cause of this increase.

5.  It seems to me that the tiny fraction of a fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere which is caused by human activity is unlikely to be the culprit if, indeed, average global temperatures are rising.

6.  Given all we don’t know, any plans to deal with an alleged increase in average global temperatures are not based upon hard science but upon the merest guesswork.

7.  I refuse to massively change the way we live based upon mere guesswork.

The reason I call it a hoax is because it is always Number 7 which is the real bone of contention – with all we don’t know, the global warming alarmists yet insist upon massive tax and regulatory changes to society (all of them tending towards an increasingly undemocratic form of government).  As this works out to a massive power and wealth grab by a self-selected group of global elites, it has in my mind the mark of a hoax – a scam, if you will.  The day I see jet-setting global warming enthusiasts move in to a mud hut after leaving one last warning for me, then I’ll sit up and take notice.