The TEA Party Keeps Rolling

Mark Noonan36 Comments

And here’s why – from Pajamas Media:

I have been part of the kick off of the Tea Party Express bus tour as it starts its 17 day, 30 city tour, ending in Tampa, Florida on September 12th for the Tea Party Express/CNN debate.  The tour starts in Napa Valley, and then heads east to Reno, NV, then across the nation up to Maine, finally following the eastern seaboard South to Tampa Bay.

On Friday, August 26th, the Napa Tea Partyheld a dinner in celebration of the impending Tea Party Express launch.  Over 400 people attended a night of music, laughter, conversation and cigars (if you were anywhere near me!)  At the table I sat at, I met a gentlemen in his sixties who drills water wells. With his wife by his side, he told me that he has been drilling for near 40 years, and this is the first year – ever – that there is simply no work.  The economy has just stalled his business…

Things our lousy, our country is broken and our leadership incompetent when it isn’t corrupt.  That is why there is a TEA Party – patriotic Americans who want to rescue the nation.  And no matter how much slander and filth is heaped upon it by the DNC/MSM smear machine, it will just keep rolling on.  And this is just a curtain-raiser…in 2012 it will just stride from strength to strength as the people mobilize for a revolutionary change in our government.

The Need for a Nuclear Build Up

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Part of the problem with getting slip shod and thinking that the world has changed is that those who are determined and know it hasn’t changed can steal a march on you – China is doing this.  From the Washington Times:

China is expanding its nuclear forces with a new multiwarhead mobile missile and keeps its strategic stockpiles in deep underground bunkers, the Pentagon disclosed in its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military.

China is thought to have up to 75 long-range nuclear missiles, including hard-to-find, road-mobile DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to the report, which was released Wednesday. China also has 120 intermediate- and medium-range missiles…

The additional information that China has developed a massive underground network to protect its nuclear force indicates that China is reaching for a first class nuclear force – something which will give China the strategic ability to start wars, and then retreat behind a nuclear umbrella if the war does not go in China’s favor.  While the United States maintains sufficient nuclear force to destroy the Chinese population, we may lack means to strike hard a China’s nuclear force.  And massacring Chinese is not making war – no decent American government would ever contemplate doing that except in the extremity of the Chinese government massacring the American people via nuclear war.

While China is building a 21st century nuclear force, the United States has not produced a nuclear weapon in 20 years – and recent (asinine) nuclear agreements require us to reduce our aging force to 2,200 warheads or less – none of which, I’ll bet, are capable of penetrating China’s very hardened nuclear sites.  While the Strategic Defense Initiative  will increasingly protect us from an “out of the blue” nuclear strike, the fact that we lack “first strike” capability  (ie, the ability to hit it so hard that any response would be suicidal on China’s part) gives China immense strategic flexibility.

They can use this flexibility to start wars – on their own or via proxies like North Korea – with impunity.  If we fight and lose, China is happy – if we fight and win, we can’t fight it to a finish because China can retreat behind a nuclear umbrella and threaten a massive attack against the United States if we go for total victory.  We must redress this strategic balance.

First and foremost must come the most aggressive possible deployment of the Strategic Defense Initiative.  Technology is advancing so fast that we may soon have the capability even of thwarting a massed attack upon the United States.  This will go far towards curbing any Chinese nuclear-armed ambitions.  But crucial to a balanced nuclear strategy is the ability to wipe out all or most of China’s nuclear force in a first strike.  This will take new types of warheads designed for deep penetration, as well as the most advanced targeting systems to ensure we hit the target squarely.

It is time to wake up from the 1991 false hope that strategic nuclear thinking was obsolete.  We live in a world of nuclear weapons, and those weapons are simply going to spread, and more and more nations will develope the capability of hitting the United States.  As in all things military, the safety of the United States lays in maintaining an overwhelming qualitative edge.  In 1991, we easily had that over China – we very likely still do, but we won’t have it for long, if we don’t start rebuilding our nuclear force.  This is not a plea, necessarily, for more warheads than we have now but, instead, a plea that the warheads we have be of the latest technology, and fitting for our needs…and our need right now is to be able to destroy deeply buried nuclear sites (and not just in China – Iran and North Korea also deeply bury their nuclear forces).

The real world goes on, whether we will or no…time get back in to it as far as nuclear weapons are concerned.

 

Hurricane Irene Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Seems a bit of a fizzle – and Real Science is saying that it came ashore with only 33 MPH winds.  I don’t know about that – not nearly enough in the know to make a judgment.  So far, it does seem like the wall-to-wall news coverage is overblown…but, then again, what else is there to report?  Not like there are any wars involving American soldiers to report about; nor is it like there are any ongoing major revolutions and civil wars to cover; we know darn well that the economic news is boring because there is no risk out there of any sort of downturn…so, might as well cover the storm.

I know we have a bit of a national psychosis because of Katrina, but we should really understand what happened…it wasn’t a big storm so much as grossly incompetent government.  The city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana (under weak executives who were no more than mouth pieces for a corrupt Ruling Class) failed, and that is why so  many people died…under non-corrupt government both New Orleans and Louisiana have weathered post-Katrina disasters with no mishaps.  The bottom line is that the chances of a Katrina-like event happening again can only be calculated as the day by day odds of a major storm hitting an area long under liberal-Democrat control…if you don’t have both sides of that, then you’re not going to have too much trouble unless it is a truly gigantic Category 4 or 5 storm.

At any rate, my prayers for those under the storm – even a modest hurricane can cause quite a lot of damage and disruption and I hope everyone gets through it ok.

Liberal Nastiness Continues in Wisconsin (Updated)

Mark Noonan34 Comments

We have some video:

 

Which side is the side of reason and decency?  We report, you decide.

They don’t seem to realize just how nauseating they are becoming – from 620 WTMJ:

Protesters crowded the street outside Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood as Governor Walker visited the school Friday to read to children. The protests came just hours after someone vandalized the school ahead of the Governor’s visit.

“Some of these folks super glued our front doors at the prep school,” said Br. Bob Smith, OFM, the president of Messmer Catholic Schools, about the school on the corner of North Fratney and East Burleigh Streets.

He told Newsradio 620 WTMJ that a woman was walking in front of the school Thursday, asking people to protest.

According to Br. Smith, one protester said ” ‘Get ready for a riot,’ because they were going to disrupt the visit.”…

A riot at a Catholic school where the Governor is coming to meet the kiddies and read them a story.  Petty vandalism thrown in, too.  These liberals just don’t understand – they have no sense of proportion or any grasp of how a democratically governed Republic is supposed to work.

You fight out an election and then abide by the results…you don’t keep trying to reverse them with recall after recall, and you don’t make every last aspect of life a heated political debate.  A while back ago the same sort of disgusting leftists disrupted Walker’s efforts to honor the kids of the Special Olympics.  If the left really thinks this will win hearts and minds and get people on board to recall Walker next year, then they’ve got another think coming.  After a while, it is time to admit defeat, and start gearing up for the next election…not keep up an unending drumbeat of political vitriol.

Keep hate alive, liberals…we’ll know how to answer you, next year.

UN Idiocy

Mark Noonan2 Comments

From the PJ Tatler:

Did someone secretly swap reality with what the Onion writes as a parody of reality? There’s this little story about Maxine Waters apologizing to Castro (but the Tea Party can still “go to hell” since they’re the real enemy), and now this story about the UN’s nuclear watchdog swapping hands from Kim Jong-Il to the the world’s other rogue Communist family dynasty.

A top House lawmaker ridiculed the United Nations after Cuba assumed the rotating presidency of a nuclear arms control panel, replacing North Korea at the helm of the group.

Cuba succeeded North Korea on the 65-member U.N. Disarmament Conference in Geneva.

“It’s hard to fathom a more ludicrous image than Kim Jong Il passing the chair of the Conference on Disarmament to the Castro brothers, but that’s what passes for change at the U.N.,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee…

In reality there is no place in a global body for any nation not governed under American principals of government – most importantly that government obtains its power by the consent of the governed.  If a nation doesn’t have that, then it isn’t a real nation…the government isn’t a real government; such a ruling body is nothing more than a group of armed thugs latched upon a body of slaves.  Such ruling bodies have no moral authority whatsoever…not to even issue a parking ticket, let alone dealing with armament issues.

The whole concept of the UN is a fraud – cooked up by rather short-sighted bureaucrats in the waning days of World War Two where the four pillars of the global order were to be the United States, Great Britain, Chiang’s China and Stalin’s Russia – with France added in as an afterthought.  It was absurd from the get-go, and all that perpetuating it has done is create a gigantic amount of hypocrisy and lies regarding international affairs.  The actions of decent players in world affairs are hamstrung by a UN at the beck and call of tyrants.

That is not a world body for a nation with a sense of honor to belong to – get U.S. out of UN and have done with it.

Obama: “I’m Irresponsible and Unpatriotic”

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Well, that is the case if we take his own words at face value – from NRO’s The Corner:

…Two days ago, CNSNews unearthed a video that captured a July 3, 2008 campaign speech by then-candidate Obama. In it, he said:

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from 5 trillion for the first 42 presidents–number 43 added 4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have a 9 trillion dollar debt that we are going to have to pay back–$30,000 for every man, woman, and child. That’s irresponsible. That’s unpatriotic.”…

If that is the standard, then Obama is vastly more irresponsible and unpatriotic than President Bush…it took Bush 8 years to pile up $4 trillion in debt, Obama did it in 2 years, 8 months.

To be sure, it is doubtful that Obama really meant what he said – it is highly likely that he was just doing the typical liberal Democrat thing…saying whatever proved necessary to win.  Had President Bush lowered the debt by $4 trillion, Obama would have accused Bush of being unpatriotic and irresponsible for not “investing” in America…and If Obama charges up another $8 trillion by 2017 (presuming he is re-elected) he still won’t consider it unpatriotic or irresponsible.  And if the next President is Republican – in 2013 or 2017, doesn’t matter – and creates only $2 trillion in debt over his 8 year term, Obama and the Democrats will call it irresponsible and unpatriotic.

For a liberal Democrat, the only test is victory – if Democrats obtain more power and personal wealth, then it was good…if they don’t, then its bad.  Right and wrong, human decency, the fate of the nation and the world – all is subordinate to the power and wealth of our liberal Democrats, their RINO enablers, and their crony capitalists.  Keep that in mind any time a liberal Democrat speaks…they aren’t saying what is relevant and true, but what they think (and have likely poll-tested) will help them win.

Abuse of the Welfare State

Mark Noonan77 Comments

Writ large in Michigan – from Detroit News:

…Here we go again — the cold-harded GOP elitists are balancing the budget on the back of the poor.

More than 11,000 people will see their welfare benefits end on Oct. 1.

What will they do? Well, most haven’t considered working as an option.

The Department of Human Services sent letters to 11,062 welfare recipients, notifying them their checks are coming to an end. Included was a toll-free number people could call for information and assistance.

The hotline got 1,401 calls. Of that number, only eight callers requested help in finding a job.

Many of those being cut off have been on public assistance for 14 years. That’s not a safety net; it’s a hammock…

Except for those actually incapable of work – and, remember, I have an exceptionally high bar for that – all people must work.  I don’t care if its just picking up trash in the city streets, no one should ever be allowed to sit on their rear and collect any sort of government benefit.  Furthermore, in order to ensure that the search for work is diligent, welfare should never pay more 80% of a minimum wage job.  Any job, any where – even those “jobs Americans won’t do” and are thus filled by illegals – should pay more than government assistance.  Welfare should only be just enough to keep body and soul together until the recipient finds a job.

The best estimate that I have found of non-health care, non-Social Security welfare spending by the United States government is in the range of $350 to $500 billion per year (its hard to tell because Uncle Sam – determined to not make it easy for us – doesn’t have a category of spending called “welfare”…you have to dig around for it).  I’ll bet that State and local welfare spending adds at least 25% to that figure (and it is probably higher)…even at the low end, we’re talking more than $400 billion per year spent by government in various transfer payments to people who didn’t pay any “input” taxes (in other words, didn’t pay SS taxes, didn’t pay taxes which fund unemployment, etc).  I’ll bet that three quarters (at least) of that money is going to people who can work, but choose not to.

Add in the waste and fraud in Social Security disability, the number of people who get healthcare on the public dime without putting in anything, the drain caused by illegal immigration, and the money spent on worthless aspects of education (what is that?  Worthwhile education spending:  education spending which results in an engineer, teacher or doctor.  Worthless education:  spending which results in diversity coordinators, corporate bureaucrats and lawyers) and you’re probably getting in to the range of a trillion dollars per year of drain on the economy…money which is spent that has no net, positive benefit.  Money which just goes to leeches.

This has to change – and the welfare reform in Michigan shows why:  some people are so long on the public dime that they simply have no desire to get off it.  They must be forced off – work, or starve.  A complete audit of all recipients of government money must be done…and all able-bodied people with no minor children must be kicked off of government support; those with children must be forced to do at least some work in payment for their welfare; only those absolutely incapable of working (or on a program they directly paid in to over the years) should be allowed to remain.

There is still plenty of work on the low end in the United States…work which doesn’t need even a high school diploma (how many from the backwaters of Mexico and the third world who come here illegally have such?).  It is, often, hard and dirty work…but work is honorable, and all honest work creates personal dignity.  Better to be poor digging a ditch than poor watching daytime television.  Mind you, I’ll go ten thousand extra miles to help out anyone who is working hard and still not able to make ends meet…you put in your 40 hours and you’re still short, you can count on me to either work it through charity or, if need be, enact laws to ensure that you and your family have decent food, housing, clothing and basic health care…but the first step is that 40 hours of work.

We must become a nation of hard work, thrift and careful investment…massive reforms need to be undertaken, and none of them can really be done in isolation.  Big Corporation also needs to feel the hammer; Big government, naturally; all of us have to stand up and do what is right…after generations of coasting on  borrowed money.  The only way we keep our nation is if we work for it.  Period, end of story.  Anyone who says otherwise is simply not understanding the nature of life.

 

Buffett’s Obama Bail Out

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Why  did Buffett buy $5 billion of Bank of America stock? Mish suggests that Buffett was just trying to energize financial stocks, in general, as he’s up to the gills in them and puffing them up would allow him to unload all other financials before they go “poof”. That could be it, but I think there was more going on.

Warren Buffett’s most prestigious investment these day is President Obama.  If Bank of America had failed – and it is still “one foot in the grave, other on a banana peel” – then it would likely have served as the trigger for a general financial collapse…begin Great Depression II, end of any chance for Obama’s re-election.  While this would have hit Buffett hard financially there is still the fact that if you’re worth $45 billion and lose $10 billion, you’ve still got $35 billion left.  Buffett remains rich no matter what – ego is involved here.

Buffett has specially bought in to what Obama stands for…his image of himself stands or falls with the success of Big Government liberalism.  Buffett told us that Obama was The One; Buffett tells us that if we’ll just tax and spend some more all will be made well; Buffett tells us that it is us knuckle-dragging conservatives who got it wrong.  But if Obama fails, then Buffett got it massively wrong.  Buffett is not about to be proved wrong by a bunch of bitter-clinger adherents of that worn out, has-been Constitution!

It won’t work – Buffett has seemed like a savvy businessman because he’s piled up huge amounts of cash by milking the Big Government, fiat-money, usury-based economy for all its worth.  That economic model, though, has now gone on as long as it can.  We’re bankrupt; there is simply no more money to borrow, any more printing will just touch off ruinous inflation…its all done gone up the spout, as it were.  Buffett may think that if he throws around a few billion it will change the dynamic…all it will do is delay the inevitable, and not by nearly as much as all of Bernanke’s trillions in fake money.  Not only is Buffett about to be proved wrong, he’s also going to be proved a bad businessman…someone who can only make it in a ponzeconomy, but has no relevance to one based on hard work, thrift and careful investment.

UPDATE:  Buffett is also relentlessly avoiding taxes…this report shows that he’s arguing with the IRS over taxes unpaid since at least 2002.  Yeah, he really wants to pay more…

Christie’s Error

Mark Noonan31 Comments

From Politicker NJ:

Issuing a one-year moratorium on “fracking,” Gov. Chris Christie today issued a conditional veto of S-2576, recommending changes to the legislation that balances protecting New Jersey’s environment and drinking water and encouraging cleaner energy alongside the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

As currently written, S-2576 would permanently prohibit fracking in New Jersey, a drilling technique used for the exploration or production of natural gas, even as concurrent studies on the practice are underway by the federal government and no known natural gas deposits necessitating use of the fracking process have been proposed for development in New Jersey.

“I share many of the concerns expressed by the legislators that sponsored this bill and the environmental advocates seeking a permanent moratorium on fracking. We must ensure that our environment is protected and our drinking water is safe,” said Christie. “I am placing a one-year moratorium on fracking so that the DEP can further evaluate the potential environmental impacts of this practice in New Jersey as well as evaluate the findings of still outstanding and ongoing federal studies.”

No, Governor, the complaints about “fracking” are mythical in nature…no event has happened which indicates even the slightest risk from the process, so all complaints about it are based upon guesses…and if they are guesses which in any way, shape or form stem from environmentalist groups, they can likely be considered nonsense.  Unless and until someone demonstrates  a risk, no governmental action should be taken.

The environmentalists want to shut down”fracking” because they are deathly afraid that the United States will use it and become more energy independent.  That is not an environmentalist goal – they want us paying an ever higher price for energy so they can shut down industry and force Americans on to public transportation.  To the full-blown environmentalist, the death of American prosperity is a victory for the Earth, and Earth is more important, to them, than the people of the United States.

Christie has been an excellent governor and would still get my enthusiastic support for President…but this is just caving in to environmental insanity.

Obama’s Job Plan! We are saved! Oh wait……

tiredoflibbs13 Comments

We’ve all been waiting with anticipation for the obAMATEUR to return from his vacation and explain to us his grand jobs plan … right?

Oh yeah!  We’re saved!

The smartest man ever to become president, has a plan!  Or does he?  Finally, almost three years in office, Our “sort of a god”, the “rock star”, the “one”, the savior of the world, president who had to “step down” into the office of the presidency is going to step forward and present his plan so Americans can go back to work.

But no.  Once obAMATEUR left for “his so well deserved” vacation, his dog washers are making excuses and down-grading (just like our credit rating) the expectations of his jobs plan.  It was down-graded to a jobs outline.  So from a specific plan with details on job creation, we are now to expect an outline!

Okay…okay…that could work.  But wait…. an outline is asking too much from this pResident.  Now, according to deputy spokesman Josh Earnest,  we can anticipate “some reasonable ideas that can have a tangible impact,”

Who is he kidding?  The American people feel more negatively about our economy than they’ve felt in decades … and that’s because the American people know that we have a man in the White House that has no clue in the world what he is doing.  He’s a freaking community organizer and leftist activist, – not a brilliant economic mind.  This man doesn’t have the knowledge or experience to run a lemonade stand, yet there he sits on his godly throne telling us that he is going to save our economy with some “reasonable ideas”.

We have heard it all – We were going to get a plan AFTER his vacation (after saying “I will not rest until….”), then an outline and now a list of “reasonable ideas”.  Who gets to define “reasonable”?

We are going to be blessed with Stimulus II, or III or whatever, more “green jobs”, weatherization,  you know, more from the oh so successful Stimulus I that was going to keep unemployment under 8%.

The drones, of course, will be waiting with baited breath for their tweets to regurgitate the dumbed down talking points.  This will be nothing but a bad plan, so obAMATEUR can have a campaign issue – “see, the Republicans don’t want a recovery.  They are fighting me at every turn.”   or some such nonsense.