The Kook Left Raises its Banner

Mark Noonan28 Comments

From the Washington Times:

President Obama’s smooth path to the Democratic nomination may have gotten rockier Monday, after a group of liberal leaders, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, announced plans to challenge the incumbent in primaries next year.

The group said the goal is to offer up a handful of candidates from various fields and areas where the president either has failed to stake out a “progressive” position or where he has “drifted toward the corporatist right.”

“Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored,” Mr. Nader said in a news release. “The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters.”…

For some, this is just a chance to be extra-pure liberals…Obama hasn’t toed an entirely socialist line (ie, he hasn’t instituted a dictatorship and simply enforced socialism, law and constitution be hanged), and so they are going to prove to themselves that they are true blue.  On the other hand, there are cynics who know that if there is a kook left challenger to Obama it will allow Obama to shift right and still hold the base.

Unless someone like Hillary breaks ranks, none of this will amount to much.  The Democrat machine will ensure overwhelming Obama victories in the primaries and caucuses but the fact of kookism on the march will allow Obama to position himself in what he (and his MSM sycophants) will call the center…able to point right and left and say, “I’m the one who has a reasonable, balanced approach”.

It won’t work, of course…the kook left won’t be able to gain traction and neither will Obama ever appear reasonable.  People have tuned him out – no one is terribly interested in what he has to say.  We’ve got a long, miserable road to travel to get rid of Obama…all through it will seem as though Obama is doing this, that or the other thing.  But, in the end, the race will resolve itself upon the Reagan Question:  are you better off than you were four years ago?  If the answer is “no” for a majority, then Obama will be beaten.  Kook left challenges and attempts to appear centrist won’t matter at all, in the end.

 

The Results of Obamunism!

Mark Noonan15 Comments

From Gallup:

Three years after bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers jolted the U.S. economy into economic turmoil, job creation has rebounded from post-collapse lows, but economic confidence and consumer spending remain within the ranges seen in 2009. Gallup finds underemployment and unemployment essentially where they were a year ago…

All the trillions of borrowed and printed dollars – what did they get us?  Nowhere – in the larger sense, we’ve just marked time since 2008.  Oh, sure – we did “stop” the crash.  But we stopped it in mid-air; the crash still has to finish.  And now after devaluing our currency and piling up $4 trillion in additional debt, we’re going to get the rest of the crash we should have had three years ago.

Congratulations, Keynsians!  Heck of a job there, Barry!  All you’ve managed to do is make things worse.

Here Are the Palestinians

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Do you really want to know what the Palestinians are like?  Do you want to understand what sort of leadership there is?  What sort of public attitudes are encouraged?  Well, here ya go – from Palestinian Media Watch:

The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of 4 terrorist murderers, one of whom killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to killed twelve others, as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN. In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

The official PA daily reported that she launched the UN campaign last week, and noted that she is the “mother of seven prisoners and of the Shahid (Martyr) Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Hmeid.” However, the paper did not mention that 4 of her imprisoned sons are murderers…

These are the people the Israelis are supposed to make peace with?  This is an indication of a sincere desire to live in peace with Israel?

The reality is that the Palestinian leadership believes they will win it all, eventually.  From being an exiled terrorist group chased around the world by Mossad they have been allowed to become permanently domiciled in parts of the West Bank and in Gaza…who, 30 years ago, would ever have imagined this?  And, so, in their mind’s eye, where will they be 30 years from now?  So, naturally, they choose the mother of murderers to present their petition for UN recognition…using murder and mayhem has got them this far and there is every indication that more murder and mayhem will get them farther.

It is time to force these people to be reasonable…give them a week to declare, in Arabic in letters delivered to every single Palestinian, that they recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State, that they renounce the “right of return” and that Jerusalem is the undivided capitol of Israel…and if they don’t do it, announce that for each week they don’t, 1% of currently occupied West Bank land will forever be denied them.  And if they do go 100 weeks refusing, then start taking 1% of the land they current own, week by week, until they agree.  And if 200 weeks go by and they still don’t agree, then start kicking them out of the West Bank and Gaza and transferring them to Sinai and Jordan.

I know, harsh – but how are we to reach those who choose the mother of murderers as their symbol?  Someone name for me anything the Palestinians have said or done which indicates a sincere desire for peace.   We have to force it out of them by letting them know they are beaten and that their future, as a people in the West Bank and Gaza, can only come about via cooperation with the Israelis.  Or we can just drift along and let them, murder by murder, slowly take over the whole of Israel.

The Obama Plan: Raise Taxes and Fake Spending Cuts

Mark Noonan52 Comments

From the AP:

…The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes repeal of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending, $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said…

…Key features of the proposal:

–$1.5 trillion in new revenue, which would include about $800 billion realized over 10 years from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. It also would place limits on deductions for wealthy filers and end certain corporate loopholes and subsidies for oil and gas companies.

–$580 billion in cuts in mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion in Medicare and $72 billion in Medicaid and other health programs. Other mandatory benefit programs include farm subsidies.

–$430 billion in savings from lower interest payment on the national debt…

According to the linked article, 90% of the Medicare cuts will be in the form of reduced payments to providers – and while beneficiaries are expected to pay more, they won’t pay until 2017…in other words, not until after Obama finishes his putative 2nd term.  How much you want to bet that once the providers scream – and/or start refusing Medicare cases – that the cuts never materialize?

A trillion dollars of the “cuts” are from not fighting in Afghanistan…in other words, not money already appropriated and now cut, but a mythical figure placed on the table bearing no relation to what might actually happen in Afghanistan.

Lower interest payments on the national debt?  Fine – that’ll work until we hit 16 or 17 trillion in debt and our bond prices go “Greek” on us.

This proposal is nothing but a crock of political horse manure.  For cynicism it is hard to beat. We’re on the brink of economic and fiscal disaster and Obama comes up with a plan which doesn’t fix the budget and doesn’t help the economy.  All it does is provide him with some MSM/DNC talking points in his effort to make the 2012 campaign about Congress rather than himself (the tax hikes won’t fly and the spending cuts will be resisted by his own party…so when the plan fails to pass, Obama can say, “I tried to do it, but those dratted  Republicans stopped me!”).  The United States can go drop off a cliff…Obama has more important things to do, like getting re-elected!

2012 really can’t get here fast enough…and it won’t work, Barry.  We’re all on to the scam.  Twist things as much as you like – go ahead and go through your motions.  We’re still going to crush you and liberalism next year.  We’ve all had enough of this garbage.

HAT TIP:  Mish’s

German Banks Need $175 Billion

Mark Noonan1 Comment

From Reuters:

Germany’s 10 biggest banks need 127 billion euros ($175 billion) of additional capital, German newspaper Frankfurt Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported, citing a study by economic research institute DIW.

The paper on Sunday cited Dorothea Schaefer, research director for financial markets at DIW, as saying the ratio of banks’ equity capital to balance sheet total needs to rise to at least 5 percent.

A source said this month that the International Monetary Fund has estimated European banks overall could face a capital shortfall of 200 billion euros…

And from what I’ve heard, German banks are the healthy ones…you get to France and Spain and you start to find banks with really bad finances.

Bail outs and free money and borrowing and printing…all to keep Greece from defaulting and thus spinning the Eurozone down to destruction.  And what has it all accomplished?  Greece is still going to default (in a real sense, Greece already has…but the official announcement hasn’t been made by the Ruling Class, therefor the MSM doesn’t admit it, either) and once-stable economies – like Germany’s – are also being ruined.  All they did was throw good money after bad…it would have been better if Greece had defaulted two years ago.  Just as it would have been better if back in 2008 no one had stepped in to “save” the global financial system.  Sure, it stopped a Great Depression…but only for a little while.  We’re still going to get one.

It would be the irony of ironies if Germany’s financial plight proved the final trigger for the collapse.  The Germans – with long memories of pre-WWII financial troubles – kept their financial house in order.  To be sure, Germany’s welfare State is just as unsustainable as any in Europe, but at least the German’s had a handle on it…and Germans remain highly productive workers so they are at least generating wealth to pay their bills.  Not so in the rest of Europe…elsewhere, you do have the welfare State (often more generous than Germany’s) but without anyone willing to do any hard work, at all.  Now Germany threw her weight behind the irresponsible European Union members and will pay a price for being generous rather than realistic. The really bad news is that if Europe does fall apart, I bet dollars to donuts that the lazy parts of Europe will blame Germany…welfare bums don’t like it when the spigot is cut off and they tend to blame those who hold down a job.

HAT TIP:  Mish’s

A Smart Kid

Mark Noonan11 Comments

This was apparently first given a bit more than a year ago, but it is well worth listening to.  She sees through the scam:

It isn’t a matter of agreeing with everything she says – no fully matured, capable adult would.  Smart and perceptive as she is, she yet lacks the experience of someone who if 40 or 50 years old.  But she’s thinking – she understands that what was spoon fed to her in the public schools is not all there is.  It is amazing that someone who went through the whole grind to become valedictorian and yet retains originality of thought.

All is not lost – the youth of America have lots of problems and a gigantic burden we adults have laid upon them in the way we’ve wrecked the family, wrecked the faith and ruined the economy.  But they are not lifeless, the young…there is spirit there and a willingness to challenge and demand better.  I rest far more content after hearing this young lady speak than I have for a long while.

HAT TIP:  Zero Hedge

Steve Chapman: Maybe Obama Should Quit?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Yet more speculation that it would be best for Obama to not seek a second term – from the Chicago Tribune:

… there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.

That might be the sensible thing to do. It’s hard for a president to win a second term when unemployment is painfully high. If the economy were in full rebound mode, Obama might win anyway. But it isn’t, and it may fall into a second recession — in which case voters will decide his middle name is Hoover, not Hussein. Why not leave of his own volition instead of waiting to get the ax?…

Mostly he won’t because I suspect he doesn’t realize just how bad its getting…and even if he does, there still is that chance of a massive rebound in the economy and/or a complete implosion by the GOP.  Neither is very likely (in the end, we GOPers will end up nominating someone who can do all that is necessary:  merely be a credible alternative to Obama), but it won’t become crystal clear for months…perhaps too long down the road for Obama to quit and allow time for Democrats to pull it together and get a credible nominee.

To be sure, it would do Obama good to get out – as Chapman observes, even if Obama wins, second terms don’t tend to work out very well.  Obama’s second term would be harder than most – he would have managed to scrape to a win with an economy plunging back in to recession and he’d be dealing with a Congress likely completely controlled by his opponents.  The scandals brewing now would come to a head, then…nothing but a four year long headache for Obama.  Quitting now would mean an almost-certain Hillary nomination…and she could actually win next year; thus Obama would saddle her with all the headaches while he goes on to write his memoirs, make bags of money and perhaps become head of the United Nations in the by and by.

We’ll see how this comes out – it gets more interesting as more and more liberal voices join the Chorus of Concern.  But don’t mistake it – its not a worry about Obama:  it is entirely a concern that with Obama at the top of the ticket while Reid and Pelosi still lead the Congressional Democrats that the party is on the road to a blow-out defeat…the sort of crushing defeat which ushers in 50 years of the other guys running things.  The sort of defeat which could result in the dismantling of the liberal welfare State and the revival of an America that our grand-fathers knew.  Nothing can be more frightening for liberals than that…a confident, growing America running the world based on core, American values.  Makes ’em shudder just to think about it.

As of now, it is a million to one against Obama declining to run…but that is very different from “absolutely impossible” as it was just a month or so ago.  And its only a thousand to one against a serious primary challenger…far different from the million to one against a little while ago.

Liberals Afraid of Armed Americans

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Ah, the typical debate – from the LA Times:

On Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk is a bid to bar Californians from openly carrying firearms, legislation that could open a new front in the state’s decades-old gun control debate.

The measure, aimed at an increasingly popular tactic used by 2nd Amendment activists, would make California the first state since 1987 to outlaw the controversial practice of publicly displaying a weapon…

…Gun control advocates hope that California will now pave the way for the rest of the country to outlaw the practice.

“Openly carrying a gun with [an ammunition] magazine in your back pocket into Starbucks and other establishments creates a culture of fear and intimidation,” said Brian Malte, director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “It is irresponsible and dangerous.”…

I don’t know about you, but seeing someone openly carrying a weapon doesn’t intimidate me…by nature, criminals don’t want anyone to know they’re armed until they commit their crime.  Honest men and women legally carrying firearms, in my view, increases public safety:  it is highly unlikely that a criminal will commit a crime if some of the people in the area are clearly armed.  Criminals are not brave – they are cowards who prey upon the weak.  So, don’t be weak – be armed.

The liberal gun-grabbers, though, will never give up…somewhere deep inside them is a desire that all Americans be good, little slaves.  Disarming us is vital if liberalism is ultimately to gain full control of the United States.  Thwarted in one area, they’ll just try another…and they’ll keep at it and at it and at it until they have disarmed the American people.  Or, alternately, we stand so firm in defense of our liberty that it becomes the rock-solid law of the land that any law abiding citizen can carry whatever personal weapon he likes anywhere in the great Republic.

The Ultimate Motive of “Gunwalker”?

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Interesting take over at Pajamas Media:

…Gunwalker purposefully increases social unrest (increased gun violence/destabilizing Mexico), with the possible result of overloading the U.S. public welfare system (more illegal aliens fleeing the violence in Mexico and Central America). Gunwalker’s perpetrators could then use that influx to create an insurmountable constituency of poor seeking handouts from the Democratic Party. The hope of the strategy is to force a system-wide collapse of the current system, and then to rebuild the government in a variant of the strongest socialist model they think the public will accept.

It sounds too devious. It appears to fit.

Take Operation Fast and Furious in Arizona, the two suspected operations in Texas, Operation Castaway in Tampa, and the newer allegations of “Gangwalker” in the Midwest — they make sense only in the larger context of a Cloward-Piven framework.

These operations could not possibly succeed at interdicting straw purchasers, smugglers, and cartel bosses. No one actually involved in law enforcement could possibly believe that such idiotic operations could work. But these operations are logical when viewed through the context of their implementation as tactical applications designed to support a Cloward-Piven strategy…

Which is an interesting idea – with Democrats viewing illegal immigrants as “undocumented Democrats” the fact of lower numbers of illegals is dismaying.  No one knows for sure, of course, but it does appear that as our economy has deteriorated, millions of illegals have self-deported.  Even out here in Las Vegas, we can see it – enrollment in the public schools is down, and you don’t see nearly as many Latinos around as you used to.  How do you get them to come back if there are no jobs?  Perhaps you aggravate violence back home and scare them in to coming here?

I know, rather Machiavellian, isn’t it?  But what other explanation can you come up with?  Only others equally Machiavellian.  Unless one wishes to think that the people running the law enforcement departments are utter idiots (which is a possibility) you are forced to come up with a nefarious, secret reason for things like “Gunwalker”.

There is no logic behind it if the intent is law enforcement.  Remember what it amounted to – the United States government legally purchased firearms in the United States and then illegally transferred the weapons to criminal gangs.  My view has been it was an effort to re-start gun control:  send the guns down there, wait until hundreds of Mexicans are killed by them, then instruct the MSM to issue breathless, heart-rending reports about how American gun dealers are fueling violence south of the border (none of us were ever supposed to find out about “Gunwalker”…we only did because after a Border Patrol agent was murdered with one of the guns, some whistle blowers stepped forward).

If it isn’t rank stupidity, then it is a wicked plan to get something that should not be had – whether its gun control, more Democrat voters or an attempt to overload the welfare system in a Cloward-Piven strategy is unknown…what we need to do is unravel the scheme and see where the evidence leads.

Shocking News: The MSM Didn’t Do its Job!

Mark Noonan68 Comments

Just a bit flabbergasted by this from Rex Murphy at the National Post:

As the bad economic news continues to emanate from the United States — with a double-dip recession now all but certain — a reckoning is overdue. American journalism will have to look back at the period starting with Barrack Obama’s rise, his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in it to the present, and ask itself how it came to cast aside so many of its vital functions. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign — and it hasn’t reclaimed them since…

…The media trashed Hillary. They burned Republicans. They ransacked Sarah Palin and her family. But Obama, the cool, the detached, the oracular Obama — he strolled to the presidency…

This is, I guess, all a bit of a surprise for Murphy – but, for me, the surprise is that in 2011 anyone could still be shocked by the MSM liberal bias.  I mean, come on:  let’s review:

1.  The MSM covered up relentlessly for the Clinton’s when Bill was in office.  No real questions about the massive, illegal fundraising (it is actually illegal for Al Gore to have collected a bag of foreign cash from a Buddhist monastery).  No real attempt to investigate just why the Congressional GOP decided to impeach (honestly, it really is illegal for a President to lie under oath and suborn perjury…even if it is “just about sex”).

2.  Hillary was allowed to coast to the Senate in New York without the MSM ever asking just why a first lady of no discernible gifts or experience should be allowed to carpetbag her way in to the Senate.

3.  Al Gore was puffed up like no tomorrow in spite  of his part in illegal fund raising and his definite lack of intellectual heft, executive experience or leadership ability.

4.  John Kerry got a complete pass on how badly he lied about American soldiers in Vietnam and was allowed to present himself in the MSM as a war hero, rather than being correct portrayed as a back-stabber who threw his war comrades under the bus in order to ride anti-war, liberal sentiment in to high office.

5.  And then comes Barry – the fifth in the series.  And someone is surprised that the MSM carried his water?  Covered up for him?  Slandered his opponents?  This isn’t about a love affair with Obama; it is the MSM determination that whomever opposes a Republican will get good press.  Sure, there was probably an added zest to MSM lies and cover-ups as they were thrilled that they got to do it for a black man (convinced, as they are, that we’re all racists, this was just another way for them to stick it to us, in their minds)…but had Hillary got the nomination, they would have been just as sycophantic to her, just as slanderous against McCain (and Palin) and just as determined to re-elect her as they are, today, to re-elect Obama (stories of the MSM turning on Obama are false…one or two MSMers with a shred of honor might, but most of them will never stray from the party line).

This is what the MSM does – and I was delighted the other day to hear Rush refer to an AP reporter as the “stenographer” of the report…that is pretty much it:  whatever comes out of the DNC and the Obama campaign will be slavishly retailed to the American people.  A few oddities will creep in – the MSM does like to be able to refer to those few instances where they spoke the truth (usually on page 3 or later and always outweighed many times by the lies and cover-ups)…but the basic thrust of MSM reporting will be the burnish Obama and his Democrats and slander the Republicans.  And if the GOP wins next year, the MSM won’t learn their lesson, at all…they’ll just keep slandering the Republicans and wait for the next liberal messiah (which will be fun for us, because it will probably be governor Cuomo of New York).

It doesn’t matter how stupid a Democrat is:  the MSM will say they’re smart.  It doesn’t matter how corrupt a Democrat is:  the MSM will always say that the GOP is more corrupt.  It doesn’t matter how incompetent a Democrat is:  the MSM will just say he has an unusual leadership style.  Short of murdering someone on live television, there is nothing a Democrat can do to break MSM support…they will always find some justification for him; some excuse for failure; some slander to hit back at the GOP with.  In a real sense it has gone beyond bias and turned in to slavish devotion…that the MSMers feel any dissent from the Democrats is treason to all that is good and beautiful in the world.

And, so, don’t anyone act surprised…but, also, don’t anyone act concerned.  The people have tuned out the MSM – automatically discounting any bit of nonsense they put up and learning to read between the lines, just as citizens of totalitarian nations are required to do.  By filling in the gaps with what is not reported, but is obvious, the truth is made clear…and made doubly so by the increasing number of people relying on the New Media for the full story.