Phrase of the Day?

Mark Noonan

My favorite quote about doing well for others:

HAMLET

‘Tis well: I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon.

Good my lord, will you see the players well

bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for

they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the

time: after your death you were better have a bad

epitaph than their ill report while you live.

LORD POLONIUS

My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET

God’s bodykins, man, much better: use every man

after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?

Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less

they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.

Take them in. Hamlet, Act II

And who among us, indeed, is not worthy of a whipping? Think about it. And then be patient when someone errs around you.

Democrats Shoot the Messenger

Mark Noonan

This is enormously funny:

Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama’s popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency.

The pointed attacks reflect a hardening conventional wisdom among prominent liberal bloggers and many Democrats that Rasmussen Reports polls are, at best, the result of a flawed polling model and, at worst, designed to undermine Democratic politicians and the party’s national agenda.

On progressive-oriented websites, anti-Rasmussen sentiment is an article of faith. “Rasmussen Caught With Their Thumb on the Scale,” blared the Daily Kos this summer. “Rasmussen Reports, You Decide,” the blog Swing State Project recently headlined in a play on the Fox News motto.

“I don’t think there are Republican polling firms that get as good a result as Rasmussen does,” said Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow with Media Matters, a progressive research center. “His data looks like it all comes out of the RNC…

And except for the fact of Rasmussen’s amazing accuracy, there’s really nothing good about his polls, ya know? Democrats: if you are afraid to hear the worst, then let the worst unheralded fall upon your heads.

The thing about Rasmussen – the thing which gives the poll great importance – is the amount of polling done. Its a very large number of poll respondents done continually. Even if Rasmussen’s models were wrong, they’d still pick up trends, and that is the best thing any pollster can do. We don’t need to know, really, what particular percentage of votes will be GOP or Democrat come this November, but it is good to know how the populace is viewing issues in a general sense. And, so, Ramussen’s polling of Obama’s strong approve/strong disapprove number is useful – it doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfectly right (though I think its accurate), the fact that the trend has been all downwards for months is both important and incontrovertible…as has, now, been picked up by all other polling agencies.

But the enormously funny thing is that these lefty attacks on Rasmussen just make Rasmussen’s polls more known to the public and thus more likely to be used by not just center/right outfits, but even by the regular MSM. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson after their pointless and self-defeating attacks on Rush, O’Reilly and Fox news…nothing quite a dumb as a liberal, I guess.

HAT TIP: Black and Right

Americans Abandoning the Democrat Party

Mark Noonan

Very interesting in an election year:

In December, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell to the lowest level recorded in more than seven years of monthly tracking by Rasmussen Reports.

Currently, 35.5% of American adults view themselves as Democrats. That’s down from 36.0 a month ago and from 37.8% in October. Prior to December, the lowest total ever recorded for Democrats was 35.9%, a figure that was reached twice in 2005.

The people dis-affiliating with the Democrats are not going to the GOP, but seem to be showing up in the Independent number. What this means is that they are up for grabs, with the GOP having the advantage because it hasn’t so recently disillusioned these people. If the GOP can craft a good message for the campaign season and stick to its guns then there is a chance for a major, long-term shift in American politics.

To take advantage of this will require the GOP to go a bit revolutionary for 2010. The people are, by and large, tired of business-as-usual politics. The reason Obama won back in 2008 was because he presented himself as the antidote for our sick politics. The facts about him where then with held from the American people by a combination of MSM devotion to Obama crossed with McCain’s unwillingness to really engage on that level. This, though, has worked out in the long run very badly for Obama and the Democrats – by deceiving their way to victory in 2008, they’ve now shown the American people that they’ve been had. And the people don’t like that. A bit of honesty in 2008 and Obama still might have won, although by a much narrower margin…but now the fat is in the fire for Obama and his Democrats.

Can we do this? Can we Republicans and conservatives take advantage of what is being offered to us? Only time will tell.

Obama Housing Policies Have Made Things Worse

Mark Noonan

And this if from the New York Times! When they take exception to an Obama policy, you gotta know it stinks:

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.

Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.

All of which, in one form or another, has been said by the critics of the program since day one. Long term readers know that my plan has been (and remains) to “cram down” mortgage balances in line with current market values. Our particular situation was a new departure. We’d had housing bubbles before, but none quite so widespread, so overheated and with such a rapid and deep decline in home prices. Once it happened, there was no way out of it save by just allowing the system to completely collapse or to essentially put the American housing and home mortgage markets through a bankruptcy reorganization. Rather than take either of these courses, the Obama Administration opted for a program which, in effect, had us standing about, hoping that something would turn up to relieve us of the need to pay a price for our profligacy. Continue reading →

Health Care to Play a Role in Massachusetts Senate Contest?

Mark Noonan

Interesting:

…The special election will take place on January 19. It’s accepted political wisdom now that, despite the rush to vote before Christmas in the Senate, the conference and reconciliation between the House and Senate versions of the national plan cannot occur in time to allow a vote on the reconciled bill prior to February. That means that a referendum in Massachusetts on the subject could have an interesting effect on wavering votes in both the House and the Senate. There is no margin for error in the Senate, where the health care bill got exactly the sixty votes needed to pass, and a slim one in the House.

If a Republican running against ObamaCare managed to pick up the seat of Ted Kennedy, or even come close to doing so, it would be a political earthquake of Richter 8+. What would that say about the popularity of the bill if it wasn’t even a winning issue in the state that had the most first-hand experience with it, not to mention in the election to replace the senator who had been a leading proponent of it?…

A GOP victory would be an absolute game-changer in American politics – but if the GOP even comes close, its going to be a major warning shot across the bow, as it were. Massachusetts is very blue and Democrats pretty much run the whole show. If public anger over ObamaCare can propel a GOPer to victory – or even close to it – in a State like Massachusetts, then only a complete reversal of course by the Democrats will spare them a drubbing in November.

Here is Scott Brown’s website. Donate if you can. If you live in the area, volunteer. Lets see if we can bury ObamaCare in Ted Kennedy’s back yard.

Weekly Recap (2010-01-02)

Matt Margolis

Some Things to Worry About in 2010

Mark Noonan

Not to be a total downer here at the start of the year, but there are some issues we need to pay attention to. Mish gives a quick list:

Global Imbalances Mount

* Global imbalances are cropping up like weeds in places like Greece, Iceland, Vietnam, Latvia, and Lithuania.

* There are massive property bubbles in China, Canada, the UK, and Australia.

* Japan is in a foolish fight against deflation and sinking further in debt

* Commercial real estate in the US is on the verge of bringing down hundreds of regional banks.

* Cities in the US are under massive pressure because of unsustainable pension plan promises.

* Global terrorism is on the rise

How long this mess hangs together without a huge crisis in a major currency is the question everyone should be asking. Sadly, most are oblivious to the widening structural cracks.

I’ve heard it said that some are predicting that fourth quarter 2009 GDP growth will be about 4%. If we see such a number, it is because the government is flat out lying to us about what is going on in the economy.

This economy is so bad that Nevada has lost 1% of its population – which is unheard of for us. Once upon a time, 6,000 people a month were moving in to the Las Vegas area. I’d guess that thousands are moving out, now. The school district had a shortage of teachers two years ago – now we’re sitting with empty class rooms. My commute time has gotten faster.

There’s just nothing here – to no fanfare at all, our final monument to profligacy (City Center) opened up in December and I’m wondering if anyone is making book on when it will file for bankruptcy (my guess: by June). A family in my neighborhood has been trying to short sale their house for 8 months – they’ve sold it three times, but each time the appraisal has come in lower…and the bank appears to prefer non-paying residents to selling the house at an ever increasing loss. My guess is that my one-time $400,000.00 house is worth $110,000.00, at best. I’m betting its just as bad in California, Florida and Arizona and heading that way just about everywhere else.

The structural problems all stem from fiat money and usury-based finance. The whole world has bought this poop sandwich and now everyone’s going to have to take a bite. The longer our government and governments around the world put off the day of reckoning, the worse it will be when it finally arrives. And it will arrive, sooner or later.

Phrase of the Day

Mark Noonan

Yes, indeed:

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society. – John Paul II

Poll: 58% Say "Waterboard" Airline Terrorist

Mark Noonan

Interesting:

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure.

Men and younger voters are more strongly supportive of the aggressive interrogation techniques than women and those who are older. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party favor their use more than Democrats.

Ok, liberals, you claimed that we needed to elect Obama in order to remove the stain of the evil Chimpy McSmirk BusHitler – including his heinous “waterboarding”, which you on the left actually consider to be torture. What say you to a strong majority of your fellow Americans figuring that we should go right ahead and do it? Are we all evil, too?

Or is there any chance you out there will realize that the whole waterboarding issue was manufactured? You know – liberal leaders needed something to get your juices up about – get you donating, get you willing to back Democrats, that sort of thing – and so worked up a physically harmless but rather effective interrogation technique as if it were something right out of the Nazi/Communist play book. That is what this was, dear liberals – just a technique to get very hardened terrorists to come clean on information we needed. It was used very sparingly and only against the worst of the worst of our enemies.

Do you feel like a bunch of suckers, now?