Fearfully, the Democrats Creep Towards 2012

Mark Noonan26 Comments

Clarice Feldman over at The American Thinker neatly captures the mood:

I think sentient Democrats are watching their party’s chances in 2012 slip away, and had they not made such a big deal of claiming all opposition to  Obama was racist in motivation and effect, they would now be urging him to quit and seeking a  new contender for his office.  Like Coleridge’s ancient Mariner, however, they can only stand on deck with that albatross around their neck watching both the White House and the Senate slip from their grasp just as did so many state governorships and the House of Representatives.

In the meantime the Ship of State runs  aground on the shoals of  incompetence,  corruption and laughable idiocy…

Ed Morrissey is also on the same wavelength, writing about the prospect of Obama not seeking a second term.  Farfetched?  Certainly…but it has happened before, most notably in 1968 when President Johnson surrendered to his foes (foreign and domestic) and withdrew from contention.  For Democrats it is the summer of discontent – nothing has gone right, and nothing looks like it will go right…and none of them really know what to do about it.

Some liberals out there, I’m sure, are hoping that the downfall of the Gaddafi regime will give Obama a boost.  It will – but not much, and not for long.  Thing about “leading from behind” is that any attempt to take credit for success looks silly…as if you were afraid to stick your neck out, but them leap to the front, claiming credit when things work out.  Also, if handing us bin Laden’s head on a platter only gave Obama a temporary boost, the downfall of Gaddafi doesn’t look to do more than move the needle for a a day or two (yesterday, Rasmussen had Obama approval/disapproval at 44/55…we’ll watch and see).

It must feel a bit like being in a car driven by a maniac…you want to reach out and grab the wheel, but you’re afraid if you do, the car will crash. All sensible Democrats must realize by now that Obama was massively oversold.  Also, that the concept of spending money to cure a recession/depression leaves much to be desired.  Having now a clearly unfit leader and an economy which can only be fixed by ditching 80 years of liberal politico-economic policy, they are rather boxed in.  They have to stay in the car, they have to let Obama hold the wheel…and they have to defend policies which have clearly failed.  Can’t be fun for them.

Unless there is an unforeseen turn around in our economic picture there is a huge hurdle to Obama being re-elected next year (stories that his personal popularity will trump distaste for his actual policies are asinine…no one will re-elect a likeable failure).  How Democrats will play it remains to be seen…but if by May of next year you start seeing Obama fund raising drying up while Senate Democrats are awash in cash, then you know what has happened:  the party is writing off Obama and trying to keep the GOP below 60 Senators, if not out of the majority.

And, of course, Morrissey could be right – Obama might quit.  About 1000-1 again, but it is a real possibility.  So, too, is a real primary challenge.  It could get mighty interesting next year (we’ll leave the prospect of a GOP split – and still having a GOP victory – for another day).

 

 

Economy Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

As I write this (8:36 pm EDT, Sunday), the market futures have been swinging from negative to positive and back to negative.  Rumors abound – some saying the Bernanke will print up bags of free money for the banksters, others holding that the end of the Libyan civil war will lower oil prices…but, meanwhile, gold continues its skyrocket towards $1,900.00 an ounce.  So, mixed bag.  Who in heck knows what will happen tomorrow?

Given this mystery, I can’t think of anything particular compelling to write…its all so messed up and so unpredictable that if I wrote something now, then by 9 am in the east, Monday, everything I said might be nonsense.  So, an open thread…watch what happens this glorious Monday…and feel free, even, to comment about non-economic things, if that is what you’d like here.  We’re really just along for the ride, anyways…

The Libyan Revolution

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Hot Air has the best running thread – but it does look like the end has come, and perhaps not just for the regime.  From Twitter:

Mohammed Gaddafi to Al Jazeera: (gun fire got louder here) “I..I… I am being attacked right now..inside, inside my house, inside”

So, now what?  No one knows – I don’t think anyone has anything but the haziest notion of what is going on among the rising power players in Libya.  The vacuum caused by the downfall of a 40+ year regime is bound to be large and difficult to fill.  All sorts of people with motives from noble to base and everywhere in between will be vying for power.  It could get messy.

Mostly we’re just going to have to be spectators – we can try to help (and certainly must help in humanitarian matters), but until at least some sort of nationally recognized authority emerges, there’s no “side” for us to take, as it were.

I would like to pause a moment here and remember – Gaddafi has been in power for most of my life.  He’s been reviled and lauded…hated and admired.  But in all the commentary I’ve ever seen on him, no one has dared to hit the nail on the head…he was merely a corrupt and cruel man who for his own, personal ambition took control of a nation and ran it as a private estate.  Everyone, as far as I can tell, took the man seriously – that he actually had something of an ideal in his mind that he was striving for, even if a mistaken ideal.  No one ever said, “hey, a man who claims he wants justice and murders his opponents, who claims he’s an Moslem purists but buys his arms from an atheist USSR; who claims to be a man of the people but sets his family up in a lavish lifestyle is nothing more than a lying sack of feces.”

This is what bothers be about the world – the way we go along with whatever someone says.  No one is courageous enough to say the emperor has no clothes.  Utter BS draped in rhetoric and aping rationality is treated as the real thing.  It isn’t just Gaddafi…it is all such regimes we’ve seen..starting with Lenin’s Russia, Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.  Here’s the truth about someone like Lenin – he kept a stash of western cash and a fake passport with him while he was ruling Russia, in case he had to make a quick getaway.  People who do evil know full well they are doing evil…they dress up their wickedness in fine words because it works…it hoodwinks people.

Stop being hoodwinked – the next Gaddafi to happen along, treat him as he is…a thief, a murderer, a liar, a philanderer…a complete creep who managed to gain power, and nothing more.

Crony Capitalism

Mark Noonan4 Comments

From Bloomberg:

…Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress…

Describing it as an effort to stave off depression is being overly generous…though, giving the benefit of the doubt, Bernanke, himself, might have thought that is what he was doing.  The reality is that a bunch of well-connected banks gambled, lost and then were bailed out by the taxpayers.  The whole effort, in reality, was to ensure that those at the top of the financial industry heap didn’t pay the price of their folly…and they managed to get all that money because, as I’ve said, Big Government and Big Corporation are two sides of the same coin…they are run by the same people and have the same basic worldview:  the people are lunch.

We have to ensure that in the future no one ever falls for “too big to fail”.  If a corporation has screwed up, then let it fail.  In this, there is a gigantic issue we Republicans can run on because, right now, Obama and his Democrats are hip deep in this nonsense.  There was no fundamental difference between the bail out of GM and the bail out of Morgan Stanley…both were run by idiots who deserved to lose and both were bailed out because of excellent political connections.

We can tie the whole nauseating mess in to a neat, little package and explain to the American people that the “Bigs” have to go, because both of them are bad.  Thing is – do we have the courage to do it?

Obamunism! Failing America’s Youth

Mark Noonan6 Comments

From the LA Times:

…Call it Generation Vexed — young Americans who are downsizing expectations in the face of an economic future that is anything but certain. Career plans are being altered, marriages put off and dreams shelved.

“You can’t reach for the stars at this point,” Thomas said.

Fewer than half of Americans believe that the current generation will have a better life than the last, according to a Gallup poll this spring. It was the most pessimistic showing for that barometer in nearly three decades.

Another poll, of Americans ages 18 to 29, found that three-quarters of them expect to delay a major life change or purchase because of economic factors…

So, just how is that hopey-changey thing working out for you?

Sorry, liberals, fake money and debt just don’t do it…they allowed us to pretend for a while, but now the piper has to be paid.  We can provide a future for these young people, and those who are children, today…but only if we build and economy based upon hard work, thrift and careful investment.

2012 really can’t get here fast enough.

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Just haven’t got anything to write about for the AM.  Does it seem to you that we’re kind of waiting on the edge of a precipice?  Like the world is holding it’s breath, waiting for some big event which will clarify and give direction?

We do seem to be in a bit of a bad way…economy faltering, leadership incompetent, enemies strengthening, wars and rebellions in abundance, starvation stalks some lands, disease takes its toll…it is said that grave crisis often throws up the person needed to lead out of it.  One thinks of Lincoln and Churchill and how they were superbly matched to their hour…will we get such?

At any rate, regardless of what happens, remember that all will come out right, in the end.  It isn’t, ultimately, in our hands:

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;
I will worship at your holy temple.

I will give thanks to your name,
because of your kindness and your truth:
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.

The LORD is exalted, yet the lowly he sees,
and the proud he knows from afar.
Your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;
forsake not the work of your hands. – Psalm 138:1-2,  2-3, 6, 8

Have a great day!

Germany Not Interested in Bailing Out Europe

Mark Noonan2 Comments

From Bloomberg:

Germany on Saturday rebuffed renewed calls that euro zone countries should issue joint euro-denominated bonds and have a joint finance minister, arguing that would only be possible if fiscal policy were collective already.

“As long as we don’t collectivise financial policy we also cannot have a uniform interest rate level. The different rate levels are the incentive to run a solid economy or the punishment if you are not running it properly,” Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaking at his ministry’s open day…

Really, it is the only way for Germany to act right now – the Eurobonds proposals, as they are, really amount to nothing more than bankrupt nation like Spain and Italy transferring a substantial part of their debt to German taxpayers.  Not only would this be political suicide for Germany’s ruling party, it would also be economically disastrous.  It wouldn’t actually stop the default, it would just delay it…and would ensure that when it came, it took Germany down with it.

Germany has tried very hard since World War Two – with great success – to put to rest the aggressive, wicked Germany of the two world wars.  They have gone way above and beyond the call of duty in being “good Europeans” and making things work.  But it is too much to ask that hard working, sensible Germans should have their economy killed off simply because Eurozone bureaucrats and profligate foreigners don’t want to pay the piper.

The bad news here – because Germany is unwilling to sign off on Eurobonds, there is not much the European Central Bank can do to sustain European banks and markets. Could be a rocky Monday in Europe…

Gaddafi Quits?

Mark Noonan1 Comment

From the Telegraph:

…Following an emergency EU meeting of foreign ministers on the situation in Libya, Mr Hague was asked if Britain, or other Western countries, knew if Col. Gaddafi had left Tripoli.

“About whether Col. Gaddafi, is in Venezuela, I have no information that says he is although I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there,” he said.

British officials stressed that Mr Hague was referring “not to media reports but information from other channels”. “This is credible information,” said a diplomat…

We’ll know in a day or two if this is the case – good riddance to bad rubbish.  But, also, quite a mess to be cleaned up…and one which would have been cleaned up months ago, at much lower cost in blood and treasure, if President Obama had acted with force and decision early on.

What our concern must be now, outside of humanitarian assistance to those injured and displaced by war, is what sort of government emerges.  Reasonably sane, sorta-democratic – good.  Screwball Islamist, not so good.  And I would discount all current information on those leading the rebels – we don’t really know what they are about, and there could be massive changes in that area as the spoils of victory get divvied up.

The Crisis Between Egypt and Israel

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Getting a little hotter while diplomats scurry – from the New York Times:

Diplomats scrambled to avert a crisis in relations between Egypt and Israel on Saturday, and the Israeli government issued a rare statement of regret for the killing of three Egyptian security officers by an Israeli warplane.

Tensions between the two countries, which on Saturday led Egypt to announce that it would recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv, reached the worst point since the Camp David peace accords three decades ago, spurred by a burst of violence along their shared border in the Sinai Peninsula. A series of attacks there killed eight Israelis on Thursday; the Israeli government then retaliated against Gaza-based militants, and the three Egyptians died in the crossfire…

My question: were the security officers in Gaza?  If so, why?  If they were, then it is yet another indication that at least elements of the Egyptian government are fomenting war between Egypt and Israel.  That is really the crucial issue…not who killed whom, but why certain people did certain actions.

Naturally, the diplomats will miss this – their whole desire will be just to paper over the cracks and essentially pretend that nothing happened.  But something has happened…and it is a disturbing development in that Egypt may be in the process of breaking the peace treaty.

The best course of action right now is an assertive stance by Israel – a refusal to allow things to slowly disintegrate.  Put the Egyptians on the spot – do they want peace, or do they want war?  Either all attacks from Gaza cease, or not.  That is the price of real peace between Egypt and Israel at this moment – anything less than that means war, even if conventional battles are put off for months or years.

Dignified Sluts?

Mark Noonan16 Comments

From the Washington Post:

Women draped sexy lingerie over their street clothes as they marched through Cape Town on Saturday, bringing an international campaign against the notion that a woman’s appearance can excuse attacks to a country where rape is seen as a national crisis…

… “SlutWalks” originated in Toronto, Canada, where they were sparked by a police officer’s remark that women could avoid being raped by not dressing like “sluts.” “It’s very important that women should understand that their dignity should not be taken away from them,” said Tayla Orgill, who was among the Cape Town walkers…

One does wonder – does Ms. Orgill own a dictionary?  Does she know what “dignity” means?

To be sure, a woman dressed like a slut does not excuse rape – but being dignified does require a modicum of modesty in dress.  A woman wearing a miniskirt and a low cut blouse does not deserve to be raped, but she is also by no means dignified while so dressed.  In fact, a woman dressed like that has deliberately decided to present herself to men as a mere object – dressing like that is a to say, “hey, look upon me as a sexual plaything!”.

In contrast to the sheer idiocy of a “slut walk” for female dignity, I offer the words of Mary Lane over at Catholic Exchange:

…I don’t know that I can point to a moment when things changed. All I know is that last summer I was in a bikini, and this summer I’m not. Several months ago, I hardly thought twice about what the effect of what I am wearing will be on the men I meet out in public, and now I never leave the mirror in the morning without thinking about it.

I have come to realize that we live in a world in which guys are virtually expected to objectify women’s bodies. Of course, there is a difference between “appreciating” and “objectifying”—one is natural, the other is sinful. But that line is really thin for a guy, and it’s pretty hard to control—especially when he’s walking down the beach on any given Thursday in August.

This doesn’t mean that every guy who sees you in a bikini is objectifying you—it just means that it’s probably really hard for him not to, at least on some level…

I’m building up quite a list of things I’ll keep saying until everyone agrees with me, because I’m right.  Among them is the fact that advertising works.  The reason that literal tens of billions of dollars are spent every year on advertising is because it works – it convinces people to do things they might otherwise not have done.  Not everyone, of course.  Show a car ad to a million people and hardly any of them will head down to the dealership and buy a car…but a few will.  And that is why advertisement is done…not to get everyone to do it, but to get a few who wouldn’t have done it unless presented the offer via advertisement.

In a sense, everything we see is an advertisement.  And one of the things we see all the time in our society is enticements to sexual activity – coupled with, of course, the complete objectification of those who would gratify sexual desire.  You see it everywhere…car ads, beer ads, vacation ads…all of them spice their message with sexual content.  A woman walking down the street dressed like a slut is just another form of this advertisement, and like all advertisement it won’t move most people to act…but it will move some, including some who have been so heavily propagandized by advertising that they’ve lost all sense of decency.  These are the men who won’t take “no” for an answer…men who, indeed, consider it an outrage that any woman would ever dare say “no”.  So, they take what they want.

This is not to say that a reduction in advertising for sex would eliminate rape…but the fewer advertisement, the less it is shoved front and center of public consciousness, the less likely it is that any particular man will be moved to do it.  An additional benefit of this would be an overall improving of the moral tone of the public square…even men who never move towards direct evil are yet corrupted in their hearts by the advertising, becoming less respectful, and also less willing to defend honor when it is attacked.

The most important thing to remember here is that if we want to be people who are respected and treated as dignified human beings, then our duty is to act respectable and dignified.  A well dressed young man or woman of good manners is someone to whom respect and dignity naturally flows…it is asinine to expect a badly dressed man or woman acting like a rutting beast in public should be respected or thought of as dignified.   This “slut walk” is a negation of dignity…and the real pity is that those participating in it have been so hoodwinked by modern lies that they don’t even understand what they are doing.

HAT TIP:  Hot Air