Debt Deal Done, Fake Crisis Averted

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Hot Air has the details – it mostly works out to a defeat for the left as it looks like they didn’t get tax hikes, didn’t get as much new debt ceiling as they wanted and were prevented from gutting defense.  The deal was done because, in the end, Obama saw his approval rating cratering and wanted to stop the bleeding – some times you do have to let a crisis go to waste.  Especially when you made one up out of whole cloth.

The real budget crisis comes in 2015 or so if we don’t significantly cut spending by then.  While Obama is President, we won’t be able to do that – so the whole solution to our real budget crisis is to get Obama out of the White House in 2012.

Syrian Army Crushes Rebels

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From Bloomberg:

Syrian soldiers stormed Hama and other flashpoints of unrest, leaving at least 121 dead, an activist said, as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces sought to reassert control on the eve of Ramadan, when protests are likely to intensify.

Tanks shelled Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city, where at least 100 people were killed today, said Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Damascus-based Arab Organization for Human Rights.

Three people died near the city of Daraa, and fighting in other areas raised the toll to 121, Merhi said…

Why is the Syrian government doing this?  Because they know that the one nation on earth which can enforce decency won’t act…or, even if we did act, then under Obama we would act with sufficient speed and power to affect the outcome.  Get used to this boys and girls – because Obama has abdicated America’s leadership role, the world now belongs to whomever is willing to be the most evil.  This massacre in Hama is just a slight foretaste of what is to come.  Tyrants around the world are watching events and getting ready grab what they can and settle scores…all in the knowledge that Obama is more likely to condemn a US ally than an enemy.

The world is becoming a very dangerous place…and to help you sleep better, the word is that the Democrats want 50% of all spending cuts to come out of defense, alone.

 

Budget Deal in the Works

Mark Noonan61 Comments

From the AP:

Officials say the White House and Republican leaders in Congress are making significant progress toward a last-minute agreement to avoid a default threatened for next week.

These officials say the two sides are discussing a plan to raise the debt limit by about $2.4 trillion and enact spending cuts of a slightly larger amount in two stages.

The deal under discussion would also require Congress to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but not require its approval.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the discussions.

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air surmises that, finally, Obama is actually willing to state what he wants – what he will sign.  In other words, we’re finally getting a White House plan for the debt.  All this time we’ve been pretty much working in a void because Obama never indicated what was actually acceptable to him…and it seems that Reid had actually  signed on to the GOP plan, at Obama’s behest, only to be told at the last minute by Obama that he wouldn’t sign it.

My feeling is that Obama was hoping that the looming crisis (which is entirely fake, by the way) would force the GOP to cave and they’d go ahead and either give him a “clean” debt ceiling increase through 2013 or, at least, go along with some tax hikes.  As it became clear that GOP would give him neither of these things – and as Obama’s approval rating has cratered through this mess – I think that someone finally got Obama to realize that he had to defuse this manufactured crisis…make it go away before the worst of all things happened:  Tuesday arrived and the world didn’t end.

For our side, we’ve done well – we’ve laid down the marker for future budget negotiations and demonstrated conclusively that the GOP – at least in its TEA Party element – will not back down from a fight.

“Never let a crisis go to waste” was Obama’s watchword from day one…even if he had to make up a crisis.  But now Obama has learned that dishonesty can only carry you so far.

The Tea Parties, the Future of Liberty and Liberal Intentional Slander

tiredoflibbs90 Comments

After Barak Obama (the obAMATEUR to realists) became president in January 2009, he signed the infamous “stimulus package”, worth $787 billion, of liberal dream spending with virtually no Republican support (and rightfully so).  As it was rammed through with little reading or debate, we were told that it was “necessary”, “to keep unemployment under 8%”.  Practically overnight as one of its highest priorities, the federal government became the “Home Depot” by weatherizing government buildings and housing projects (excuse me “housing developments”).  Streets and highways with little or no need of repair would be broken up and repaved.  The DOT and other government agencies would spend millions on signs advertising the supposed benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  I saw one of those signs first hand in Washington DC.  It stated that the park on Roosevelt Island would be receiving a generous “grant” to facilitate the involvement of local youth in the removal of “non-indigenous plants”.  To put it simply, local kids would be weeding the island.  This was going to save the economy and the country??

Then there were several “projects” and “studies” also financed by the ARRA.  One project, numbered 1R01AA01658001, titled “Malt Liquor and Marijuana: Factors in their Concurrent or Separate Use”.  This grant of $400,000 to a professor at New York State at Buffalo has the following official abstract: “We appreciate the opportunity to refocus this application to achieve a single important aim related to our understanding of young adults’ use of malt liquor, other alcoholic beverages, and Marijuana, all of which confer high risks for experiencing negative consequences including addiction.”  Wow, $400,000 to study something we already knew???  Other such “grants” followed, to ACORN, to the study of porn, to the study of fish migrations and mating habits of certain animals, etc. etc.

The cost of the stimulus was later revised to $862 billion (an underestimate of 10%).  If a private business made such a blunder in outgoing funds it would most likely go out of business.  But I digress…..  As a result of this boondoggle of liberal spending, the TEA Party was born.  It was by accident really that this organization was founded.  Thanks to Rick Santelli on CNBC and his rant against the stimulus package and a particular proposal to for it to also subsidize what he called the “losers mortgages”.  He proposed a ceremonial dumping of  of derivative securities into Lake Michigan.  A few hours later a website popped up with a call for a “Chicago Tea Party” and Santelli’s video rant. The video became viral across the nation.  Average Americans were furious about the massive new spending and the revelations about previous spending on those “studies” and “grants”.  This alone was not the sustaining factor in keeping the TEA Party movement alive but the fact that: Under President Obama, federal spending has been growing at an unprecedented pace.  We are adding $4.8 billion to the national debt everyday.  The long-term viability of Medicare and Social Security isn’t merely uncertain – as so many analysts would have us believe.  In fact their failure is is a sure thing without structural changes.  By adding massive new entitlements with the health care bill we are simply going to go broke faster.

The TEA party gained so much momentum so fast, it was a threat to the liberal establishment.  Immediately pundits, the obAMATEUR friendly media, the Democrats went into full gear with their baseless and usual smear tactics and attacks.

Susan Roesgen of CNN (once an anchor in New Orleans) was going after TEA Party enthusiasts at a Chicago rally, suggesting they were stupid and irrational (no objective reporting there).

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: “The danger of political violence in this country comes overwheminly from one direction – the right, not the left.  The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day – and, quite regurlarly, at TEA Party rallies – is calibrated not to inform but to incite.”

MSNBC’s Ed Shutlz (I KNOW NOTHING!!!): “I believe that the TEA Partiers are misguided.  I think they are racist, for the most part.  I think that they are clinging to their guns and their religion.  And I think in many respects, they are what’s wrong with America.”

Actress Janeane Garofalo: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.  There are nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging readnecks.”

Comedian Bill Maher: “the teabaggers, they’re not a movement, they’re a cult.”

Democratic strategist Stece McMahon: “The reason people walk into schools and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and because of attitudes like this.  The reason people walk onto military bases and open fire is because of rhetoric like this and attitudes like this.  Really, what they’re doing is not that much different that what Osama bin Laden is doing in recruiting people and encouraging them to hate America.”

Chris Mathews claimed that the TEA Partiers are all “monochromatic” and “all white”.  A quick look and amateur and profession videos at rallies quickly proved this talking point wrong.

However, a Washington Post/ABC poll found that 14% of voters say the TEA Party is “most in synch” with their values; 20% say TEA Partiers are “most in tune with economic problems Americans are now facing”.

A most interesting poll came from TargetPoint Consulting which interviewed 500 attendees at the April 15, 2010 Tax Rally in DC Here are some of the results:

The TEA Partiers are united on the issues of debt, the growth of government, and health care reform

They are socially conservative on the one hand and libertarian on the other, split roughly down the middle.

They are older, more educated, and more conservative that average voters and they are “distinctly not Democrat”.

This brings us to the present day.  The President’s approval ratings are low and getting lower and Congressional Democrats are the lowest and getting worse.  Members of his party are running away from him (as seen in the November elections with declines of his speaking at their rallies).  Now with the debate on the debt limit, Americans are seeing that the Republicans have presented plans while the Democrats and the President have presented NONE.  The only thing liberal Democrats and their drones can do is continue to attack the GOP and the TEA party candidates who won in November who are doing what their constituents want – lower spending and reduce the size of the budget with has grown over 25% in just two years.  There is no way you can convince anyone that there a no room for cuts.  The liberal drones continue with their attacks of racism.  Andrew Brietbart has offered anyone who can prove racism at a TEA party rally with a cash reward.  With all the amateur and professional videos out there NOT A SINGLE ONE has captured anything close to the looney left’s claims (of course, the left now claims criticizing the Presidents failed policies is racism).

The Democrats are out of new ideas.  They continue to tout the same old ones that have failed time and again – more spending and more taxes.  When the President says we must live within our means he is not talking of cutting spending to match revenues, but raising taxes in hopes of raising revenues to match spending.  His mishandling of this debt limit and lack of leadership is showing among his Twitter followers (losing 30,000) and elsewhere, his support continues to dwindle.

When President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2009, he declared that a world order that elevates one country or group of countries over others is bound to fail.  So he’s changing the order.  If his domestic policy priority is the redistribution of wealth, his foreign policy seems to be the redistribution of power.  The TEA Party has members of every race and creed is continuing to gain momentum and returning the conversation to limited government in scope and power.

The Post-Hope and Change World

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson notes the darkening scene:

…But it is in the Pacific where we may well see the most dramatic changes of American withdrawal. Insidiously, the Chinese are translating their formidable financial power into a new muscular military profile. North Korea is as crazy as ever. The proverbially terrorized shop-keeper in the region thus does not know where to turn—to the mostly absent cop on the beat dreaming of his union pension, or the young thugs who demand protection money or else.

The result is that Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines have one eye on China, and one on Washington—and therefore are increasingly terrified. One of three things will happen: our shaky allies will demand a higher U.S. profile in the region, and new assurances of safety under the U.S. nuclear umbrella (all quite unlikely); or they will go nuclear and, unlike North Korea, their missiles will work like Camrys and Kias; or they will make face-saving accommodations with the Chinese that will result in a new version of the old Co-Prosperity Sphere (China 2011 reminds me a lot of Japan 1935).

Right now, I could not imagine that anyone in Taiwan would believe the Obama administration would say or do anything should Chinese ships tomorrow show up a mile off the Taiwanese coast—but could envision the most eloquent speech why Taiwan must inevitably rejoin communist China. Indeed, Obama would call on both sides for restraint, while chewing out the Taiwanese for provoking the Chinese, while working out a “balanced” deal that ceded Taiwanese waters to China—until the next incident.

In short, we will be back soon to about 1937. The old rules are disappearing. All that we await for is some audacious trouble-maker to make perfectly clear that there are no such rules…

There will be a World War Three, you know?  It will probably be launched by China, but it could also be triggered by some darn fool thing done by Russia, Iran or Egypt.  The bottom line is that we are returning to international anarchy as Obama’s weakness and our massive debt convince more and more of the global players that we are off the board.  The global school master is out on break…and now the delinquents have their chance.

There is a cold, hard fact of life that our liberals – like Obama – simply do not grasp:  human nature does not change.  Not ever.  The wars and cruelties of the past and present are not an unintentional result: they are the result of what people desire.  When anyone out there in the world desires something they do not merit people will suffer – in greater or lesser degree, but they will suffer.  Naturally, the more powerful the evil-doer, the more suffering caused.  No matter what situation you create, no matter how hard you try to be just and merciful, the nature of mankind ensures that some people will simply reject the path of righteousness…some people simply from base motives will act badly, and thus there will be horrible things happening.

This rather bleak fact of life should turn all those of good will towards those practical policies which will avoid or ameliorate the effects of evil.  Not get rid of it – we can’t do that – but reduce the frequency of evil, and the damage done by it.  An attitude of careful saving against a rainy day, of insisting upon everyone pulling their own weight, of providing and maintaining a very strong military force…this is what is needed to navigate a world in which some are out to do wrong.  At bottom it is a recognition of duty and an understanding that you simply will not get everything you want…because you have onerous duties to perform, there simply won’t be enough time or resources for every pleasure and whim which seizes your mind, even if some of them are of quite admirable intent.

Because we undercut the last President and then elected a complete fool as his successor, the United States is rapidly weakening – not so much in actual power, but in the perception of American power.  This will touch off a scramble among the ill-disposed to grab as much as they can while the getting is good.  Those who are wicked are preparing – building up armed forces, undermining targeted States and powers, preparing the global stage for their nefarious designs.  This will eventually lead to war on a grand scale – a war which we will fight, and we will win (truly, the power of the United States is functionally limitless and far more than any other power can marshal).  But I don’t think after this next big war that we’ll go back as we did after the two previous World Wars and the Cold War.  No, I think that those who will sustain the United States and carry us through to victory will insist upon some significant changes.

I don’t see a future America pouring out its treasure to rebuild enemy States.  I don’t see America tying itself to corrupt international bodies.  I don’t see, in domestic affairs, a “well, hey, we did all the fighting – but don’t you who stayed home worry about it, we don’t mind all the suffering we went through” attitude.  I see in that portion of America (probably still a majority, but controlling no matter what by simple willingness to put duty first) demanding that we end this charade…this fool’s bargain where we pretend that those who don’t work are worthy of endless support; where those who don’t serve in the military are as patriotic as those who do; where those who whine loudest get the most.  A new bargain will be struck, where those who do the work and shed the blood are given precedence over those who don’t.

False ideas can get a lot of traction and go very far, but because they are false they are doomed to fail.  For a century now we have been living in an Age of Lies…an age of con artists.  That age is coming to a close – a new age dawns.

Are We Approaching Obama’s “Killer Rabbit” Moment?

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Larry Sabato is waiting for it:

In a Tweet no president could love, political analyst and University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato, raises the specter of yesteryear, and not in a good way.

“And Obama? POTUS looks weak, irrelevant, Carter-ized–at least for now. Any day, I expect him to be attacked by a killer rabbit.”

When Larry Sabato sees a killer rabbit looming ahead, the White House should be worried.

For you youngsters out there, the “killer rabbit” was a rabbit which attacked Jimmy Carter in 1979 and became part of the Carter legend…it just crystallized a growing American conviction that Carter wasn’t in any way, shape or form fit to be President of the United States..  As Obama has tended to follow the Carter model, we can only expect such a thing to happen, soon.  Our only worry is that we’ll also land in a “Hostage Crisis” event, as well.

Global Warming Hoax Update

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From James Taylor of Forbes:

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models…

Which is, of course, entirely unsurprising.  But we should also keep one thing in mind – this past ten years has been the first time we’ve ever gathered in a systemic manner data on the global climate.  In other words, only just now are we developing sufficient information to test climate theories.  For all we know, maybe the world really is warming up – but it could also be relatively stable, or even cooling.  Until we have sufficient data, we simply will not know.

But that didn’t stop con artists like Al Gore and the rest of the global warming alarmists.  There was money to be made and power to be seized and, so, with their “settled science” they set about scaring the world and raking in the bucks.  We really should see  if there is any way we can criminally prosecute Gore and the rest over this – or at least work up a class action civil suit to get back from them all the money they’ve made off this scam.

This has been one of the most shameful things ever done – a gigantic mis-allocation of resources which could have been used to genuinely improve the environment.  Think of all the species protection, reforestation, clean up and other environmental actions which could have been done with the money thrown down the global warming rat hole.  Learn the lesson of this – never trust anyone who comes to you with an end of the world theory…anyone who says we’ve got “X” number of years to fix things in the environment or we’ll all die is a con artist, plain and simple.

Obamunism! 1.3% 2nd Quarter “Growth”

Mark Noonan25 Comments

From Reuters:

The U.S. economy came perilously close to flat-lining in the first quarter and grew at a meager 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June period, leading economists to warn of recession if a stand-off over U.S. debt does not end quickly.

The Commerce Department data on Friday also showed the current lull in the economy began earlier than had been thought, with the growth losing steam late last year.

That raised questions on the long held view by both Federal Reserve officials and independent economists that the slowdown in growth this year was mostly due to transitory factors.

The U.S. economy in the first quarter expanded at just a 0.4 percent pace…

And here’s the kicker – if they revised Q1 from 1.9% to 0.4% growth, what do you think will be the likely outcome when they revise Q2’s 1.3% growth?  There is, of course, chance that later revisions will be upwards, but I doubt that anyone would make a bet on that happening.  Revisions of late have tended towards worse news – so I think we all know there the Q2 revisions are heading.

Do any of you liberals out there need any more proof that Obamunism! is a failure?  That you can’t borrow and print your way to wealth?  If any of you liberals are unwilling to admit defeat, what I’d like to hear is just how much more money you think we should print and borrow…what is the magic figure which will certainly grow the economy?

UPDATE:  Except for the Republican governed States, we’d probably already be in recession.

A Fight to the Debt

Mark Noonan38 Comments

I’ve just got to put a “wow” in here – never thought it would come out quite like this.

Here we are at the (fake) 11th hour and the whole thing is turning on just how much conservatism/libertarianism the TEA Party can squeeze in to the Boehner plan before he presents it to the House.  Oh, that is not what the MSM narrative is?  Also not what RINOs are saying?  You mean it isn’t what well paid, insider pundits (right and left) are saying?  Of course its not – because all of these simply don’t understand the nature of a  revolutionary political epoch.   That is what this is, good people…and remember that it is a truism of revolutionary movements that they usually appear a second away from defeat right before their overwhelming triumph.

Some version of the Boehner plan will pass the House – later today or tomorrow.  This is because something has to pass…and if Reid and his Democrats then carry out their threat and vote it down, then it puts the ball squarely in their corner.  If Reid kills it a couple days before the Democrats’ manufactured deadline, then it will be up to them to come up with an alternative which can pass the House.  (UPDATE:  I caught of bit of Reid on the Senate floor…”come on, Republicans, come in to my office and tell what parts of my bill you’ll sign on to, then I’ll bring it to a vote”…he is very much afraid of having a vote on a revised Boehner plan) And the House GOP is right now indicating just how conservative/libertarian the final result had better be, or it won’t be the final result.

Some say they are worried – worried that this horrific, inhuman and un-American standing on constitutional principals will weaken the GOP in 2012 and hand victory to Obama.  As far as absurd political prognostication goes, I’ve never heard anything worse.  For goodness sake, has anyone been paying attention to Obama’s “Strongly Disapprove” number?

43% “strongly disapprove” of how he’s doing his job.  This is not a man who is carefully threading his way through political crisis and making his opponents look bad.  The TEA Party cannot hand Obama the White House in 2012…every time the TEA Party acts up, Obama’s favorability craters.  The only thing which can save Obama now – other than a miraculous turn-around in the economy – is a GOP cave-in on spending.  If that happens, the TEA Party goes home or votes Third Party. As long as the GOP doesn’t cave, the TEA Party remains with it.  If the Boehner plan is not good enough for the TEA Party, it means Boehner had better make it so – it most emphatically does not mean make it least acceptable.

As I said yesterday, I think we should just pass the Boehner bill – it is good enough for me.  Clearly, though, a strong part of the GOP is not pleased with it.  So, make ’em pleased.  Remember what they are ultimately after – cuts significant enough to stave off national bankruptcy.  It isn’t TEA Party firmness which is threatening us with default, but Democrat profligacy and RINO wobbliness…it isn’t less spending which will push us over the edge, but more spending.  The TEA Party is 100% right, even if a little unrealistic about what can be accomplished while Obama is in the White House and Reid runs the Senate.

So, let’s have this fight – keep going; shout it out, TEA Partiers.  Don’t let the SOBs grind you down.  Get more conservatism/libertarianism in that bill…whatever amount it takes to get Boehner to 217 votes.  And then just watch our liberals fall apart as they are starkly forced to either pass the TEA Party-supported bill, or fail to avert the “default” they say is coming next Tuesday.

UPDATE:  Iowahawk has some Twittable thoughts on what will happen if we don’t raise the debt ceiling:

Beltway policy experts begin living by own wits; after 45 minutes there are no survivors…

…Breadlines teeming with jobless Outreach Coordinators, Diversity Liaisons, and Sustainability Facilitators…

…Without college loan program, America loses an entire generation of Marxist Dance Theorists…