No Oil for Pacifists

The article is -- I think -- an attempt at humor slandering the Tea Party with Occupy Mob actions.  It's actually the Occupy Mob that is racist, violent and disgusting.  It's a roundup of links to Occupy mob violence, racism.  crminal behaviour, pervasive, blatant anti-semetism.  Change the word 'teabagger' to 'Occupy Mob' in that article and you perfectly describe the mob,  (The lead facts in the article include that the Occupy Mob is endorsed by the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party.) Kos links to a small fraction of the disorderly violent behaviour.  (My favorites: ‘We Shoot White Bitches Like You Around Here’ threatening an ABC report's life, and watch this video for complaints about graffiti, vandalism, fighting, drugs, public urination, sex in public, sanitation and rats):

The ... violence has gotten out of control.  We've called them "political terrorists" for some time now, but I think it's time to just refer to them as "terrorists".  After all, some of their leaders are being investigated for terrorism.  They claim an area for themselves ..., refuse to pay for a permit, threaten to kill reporters, block traffic, attack the police, and conspire to kill police.  Does the first amendment nullify all other laws? WTF?  Rightfully, the NYPD plans to sue [them] as a whole for their injuries from now on.
Violence, violence, violence, violence, violence and I could go on but you get the point. There are over 100 such unique (unrelated, I'm sure) incidents involving upwards of 1000 arrests.  We are being terrorized by [them].

When you click the links, you find out that all the links are not about the Tea Party, but about the Occupy Mob. So what's going on?  Is this some sick joke?

My take on it is as follows: Kos knows the Occupy Your Street Mob is a violent, racist mob, and no matter how egregious, how outrageous, how criminal their behaviour is, the media will give them a pass, because their 'stated goal is social justice.'  It's Obama 2008 all over gain. Lame stream media wants big government, they want wealth redistribution, socialism and they don't care how it happens.  Hand the truth to the media on a silver platter, they won't do anything about it, if it doesn't fit their agenda.

Want more proof?  "Nothing undermines [The Occupy Mob's] positions and philosophies so thoroughly as what they actually do and say." What a protestor has to say:  

“It’s weird protesting on Bay Street. You get there at 9 a.m. and the rich bankers who you want to hurl insults at and change their worldview have been at work for two hours already. And then when it’s time to go, they’re still there. I guess that’s why they call them the one per cent. I mean, who wants to work those kinds of hours? That’s the power of greed.” – Jeremy, 38

The lame stream media has incredible power -- just look at the impact of headlines and snippets from 'The Onion'.   There are websites dedicated to how fake Onion stories are taken seriously.   The latest is this story from The Onion that:

wrote a tongue-in-cheek story that all styles of parenting cause children to grow up into 'profoundly unhappy adults,' based on a study credited to the California Parenting Institute of Santa Rosa." We even had parent educators who work here say, "When did we do a study?" said Wendy Hilberman, director of marketing and development for CPI.

Most people don't read past the headline, they glance at the snippet and register it as fact.  The same happened to me at first, when I first read the Daily Kos 'humor' piece which used Occupy Mob links to falsely blame the Tea Party.  Then I clicked a link.  How many do that?  Not many, I guess, from looking at the outlinks from this blog.

Kos knows the media will never hold liberals accountable, he proudly proclaims the Occupy Mob a disaster and thumbs his nose at the entire world.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

MORE: From Gringo in the comments:

Have you read the comments to the Kos article? They are almost uniformly negative. "Not funny" was a common response. The people who comment in Kos are pretty much ... supporters of the OWS crowd.

The comments are negative because the article accurately points out that what the lefties falsely accused the Tea Party of doing, the OWS crowd is doing in spades. The comments are negative because the Kos lefties do not like being laughed at, which is what is most likely the intent of the article."

You should be aware that Carl has on the order of 4,000-4,500 posts here on NOfP  I have something in the high double digit range, less than 100.  That's about two orders of magnitude less than Carl.  Nor do I have the organizational skills that Carl possesses, and mine are pretty good.  He's truly amazing to have created all this material.   (Ok, yes I know, before you comment on it, even well if I exclude QOTD its still in the thousands.) 

These last two weeks of blogging have taught me something, if nothing else, that I lack humility.  In the process of researching posts, I re-read some of Carl's blog and I'm amazed.  I can't do justice to Carl.  My style is different.  I'm not a lawyer, my background is in astrodynamics and finance.  I'm opinionated, and my greatest claim to fame is that I claim to know nearly everything about absolutely nothing.  Still that hasn't stopped me from trying.  It's a lot of work blogging even the one-post-a-day that I can manage to eek out.  Thanks for  the comments they are appreciated. 

Now for a mea-culpa.  In April of 2009, I issued a *sell* pronouncement on  the stock market.  In hindsight, that was horrible timing, the market rallied about 50% in the next few years and it was actually one of the buying opportunities of the decade.  Well, I followed my own advice then, and furthermore, subsequently bought into the market at a recent peak.  Doh!  

I have not made a good movement in the market since I stopped to use the men's room at EFHutton back in 2000.

Carl will be returning shortly, in the meantime, I will continue to do my fallible best.

On the Mortgage Metldown, there are two schools of thought:  One, that Wall Street took huge risks and should shoulder the blame, and the other the Federal Government took the risks and stuck Wall Street to fix the problems.  Unfortunately, we have a partial and biased federal government, a partial and biased main-stream media, so who can you turn to for truth?  How about Edward Pinto, former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae:

Edward Pinto, Former Chief Credit Officer of Fannie Mae

He says the government owned 71% of the sub-prime mortgages outstanding in 2008.

But based on the number of toxic loans in the system in 2008, the government was responsible for not just a simple majority, but more than two-thirds. It's quantifiable — 71% to be exact (see chart). And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its "fair-lending" edicts.

Most of the sub-prime mortgages were owned by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD and the VA. That's pretty definitive. So, why is this data so hard to come by, and why are the Occupy Your Street hippies still clueless?  Blame the Government and the Main Stream Media.  IBD continues to light our path  on this topic (emphasis mine):

To be fair, the blame-Wall Street narrative has cemented in the public consciousness, and is hard to crack. That's because in the wake of the crisis, the Obama White House and Pelosi-Reid Congress engineered a cover-up of Washington's role in the mess through the Democrat-led Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The national media now defer to it as the final authority on what caused the crisis and ensuing recession.

While not blameless, Wall Street is an easy scapegoat. And investment houses that made billions slicing and dicing mortgages into CDOs, derivatives, credit default swaps and other exotic paper are easy to demonize. But the problem wasn't these financial instruments. Or even the obscene profits they generated.

Mortgage-backed securities were nothing new, and we've always had speculation in the market.The problem was the underlying assets: low-quality mortgages. We've never had so many junk home-loans poisoning the financial well before. And who poisoned the well? Washington and its affordable-housing policies.

It was Washington that declared prudent home-lending standards racist and gutted traditional underwriting rules in the name of diversity. It was government that created the risk on Main Street. Yes, Wall Street spread it, with the help of Treasury-backed Fannie and Freddie. But who's at greater fault for harming the village — the person who poisons the well or the one who distributes the water?

The bottom line: Wall Street is happy to take profit when they can, where they can, how they can.  Expect it, know it, own it, greed is human nature.  The shocker to OYS hippies is the U.S. Government is truly to blame for the mess, Wall Street only carried water for the well-meaning but ultimately fatally flawed policies of wealth re-distribution.  Some of us have known this since 1946. 

Now you know that, too. 

Somewhere a liberal's head is exploding over Matt Ridley, he is a frequent source for material on NOfP, perhaps it's just because he makes so much sense.  It's hard to refute the case he makes that Gas Power is superior to Wind Power.  An incredible story.

Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The energy they can produce over ten years is similar.

A drive through Palm Springs confirms the sad truth that wind turbines are an eyesore.  They look alright in pictures... but you wouldn't want them in your neighborhood.  Take a look for yourself.

Difficult choice? Let’s make it easier. The gas well can be hidden in a hollow, behind a hedge. The eight wind turbines must be on top of hills, because that is where the wind blows, visible for up to 40 miles. And they require the construction of new pylons marching to the towns; the gas well is connected by an underground pipe.

Unpersuaded? Wind turbines slice thousands of birds of prey in half every year, including white-tailed eagles in Norway, golden eagles in California, wedge-tailed eagles in Tasmania. There’s a video on Youtube of one winging a griffon vulture in Crete. According to a study in Pennsylvania, a wind farm with eight turbines would kill about a 200 bats a year. The pressure wave from the passing blade just implodes the little creatures’ lungs. You and I can go to jail for harming bats or eagles; wind companies are immune.

Still can’t make up your mind? The wind farm requires eight tonnes of an element called neodymium, which is produced only in Inner Mongolia, by boiling ores in acid leaving lakes of radioactive tailings so toxic no creature goes near them.

Not convinced? The gas well requires no subsidy – in fact it pays a hefty tax to the government – whereas the wind turbines each cost you a substantial add-on to your electricity bill, part of which goes to the rich landowner whose land they stand on. Wind power costs three times as much as gas-fired power. Make that nine times if the wind farm is offshore. And that’s assuming the cost of decommissioning the wind farm is left to your children – few will last 25 years.

Decided yet? I forgot to mention something. If you choose the gas well, that’s it, you can have it. If you choose the wind farm, you are going to need the gas well too. That’s because when the wind does not blow you will need a back-up power station running on something more reliable. But the bloke who builds gas turbines is not happy to build one that only operates when the wind drops, so he’s now demanding a subsidy, too.

What’s that you say? Gas is running out? Have you not heard the news? It’s not. Till five years ago gas was the fuel everybody thought would run out first, before oil and coal. America was getting so worried even Alan Greenspan told it to start building gas import terminals, which it did. They are now being mothballed, or turned into export terminals.

A chap called George Mitchell turned the gas industry on its head. Using just the right combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) – both well established technologies -- he worked out how to get gas out of shale where most of it is, rather than just out of (conventional) porous rocks, where it sometimes pools. The Barnett shale in Texas, where Mitchell worked, turned into one of the biggest gas reserves in America. Then the Haynesville shale in Louisiana dwarfed it. The Marcellus shale mainly in Pennsylvania then trumped that with a barely believable 500 trillion cubic feet of gas, as big as any oil field ever found, on the doorstep of the biggest market in the world.

The impact of shale gas in America is already huge. Gas prices have decoupled from oil prices and are half what they are in Europe. Chemical companies, which use gas as a feedstock, are rushing back from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico. Cities are converting their bus fleets to gas. Coal projects are being shelved; nuclear ones abandoned.

 The Bottom Line:

Not only are renewables far more expensive, intermittent and resource-depleting (their demand for steel and concrete is gigantic) than gas; they are also hugely more damaging to the environment, because they are so land-hungry. Wind kills birds and spoils landscapes; solar paves deserts; tidal wipes out the ecosystems of migratory birds; biofuel starves the poor and devastates the rain forest; hydro interrupts fish migration. Next time you hear somebody call these “clean” energy, don’t let him get away with it. 

Wind cannot even help cut carbon emissions, because it needs carbon back-up, which is wastefully inefficient when powering up or down (nuclear cannot be turned on and off so fast). Even Germany and Denmark have failed to cut their carbon emissions by installing vast quantities of wind. 

Yet switching to gas would hasten decarbonisation. In a combined cycle turbine gas converts to electricity with higher efficiency than other fossil fuels. And when you burn gas, you oxidise four hydrogen atoms for every carbon atom. That’s a better ratio than oil, much better than coal and much, much better than wood. Ausubel calculates that, thanks to gas, we will accelerate a relentless shift from carbon to hydrogen as the source of our energy without touching renewables.

To persist with a policy of pursuing subsidized renewable energy in the midst of a terrible recession, at a time when vast reserves of cheap low-carbon gas have suddenly become available is so perverse it borders on the insane. Nothing but bureaucratic inertia and vested interest can explain it.

So are the greenies spinning their heads about this?  You bet  the propaganda machine is switched on Maximum BS, for example, Mr. RFK Jr is 'confused on the facts' today:

Citing the NYT Drilling Down series as the first and final word on hydraulic fracturing is nearsighted enough, but he further attempts to insult our intelligence by citing an Cornell study whose results have been refuted by two subsequentstudies, implying a link to increased incidents of breast cancer when no link has been made. He compares apples to oranges when stating an 80% reduction in Marcellus shale has reserves, treats allegations by the anti-gas community as fact and makes claims that he appears to have created out of thin air.

Dear Readers, please help me understand how MSNBC continues to exist?  It is only through corporate sponsorship, nes pas?

Recall the grotesque tilt to the playing field in the main stream media.  MSNBC refuses to report on Flea Party violence but air false charges of racism about Tea Party.  Chris Matthews recently gave a huge chunk of airtime to a provably false story about Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.).  The author of the story is a well-known Cuban communist sympathizer (see the last four stories in the list) but of course Chris Matthews wouldn't tell you that, and yes it's relevant because Senator Rubio's family is from Cuba.

Apparently, Matthews does fact finding neither on the story, nor on the author.

The story was destroyed by the Miami Herald prior to Matthew's airing of it  which just throws oil on the fire of Chris Matthews fraud.  The Miami Herald piece was done a full day before Chris Matthews aired his interview.  At the end of the interview, he says 'You ought to get some kind of Pulitzer' for that.  That is code for 'way to call a play out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.

Alinksy says:

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target...One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.

In the Right Corner, meet Joe Wurzelbacher for Congress, 9th Ohio.  (The Fightin' Ninth!)

"Maybe we need some regular guys in there"

Here is what he said in a television appearance:

"I like the idea of it -- just regular Americans running. If a regular guy runs, right away the media's going to attack him," Wurzelbacher said. "What kind of education does he have? What does he know about this? My answer to that is, regular Americans aren't experts, but dammit, look where the experts have gotten us. Maybe we need some regular guys in there. That's what I've been doing the past two and a half years, just encouraging regular Americans to run. Tell the liberal media to go to hell and I don't care what you guys say about me, I'm going to try to fix this country."

Those sound like modest claims.  Nothing fancy there.  By the way, in 2008 I dressed up as Joe the Plumber for Halloween. It was such an authentic costume I got into the bars by skipping the line and telling the doorman I was responding to an emergency stoppage. I think Joe has a point about plunging the crap out of Washington. Great platform: elect a regular guy, look where the so-called experts have gotten us. Well, I'd like to know more, but I like what I see so far.

Now, in the Left Corner, Joanne Dowdell for the New Hampshire First District.  She voted for President Downgrade Obama at the DNC because "He’s the only one with the proven judgement and leadership skills to get the job done" and because she didn't "like paying $4 a gallon for gas."  Her campaign platform is pretty much President Obama's platform as well.

Joanne Dowdell on the Left* at the 2008 DNC

On her Facebook page we find about her likes, and on her campaign page, you can find out her claim that she "has decades of experience creating jobs and growing the economy."

Well, I guess that sounds pretty good too.  Except, it appears to be a complete fabrication, from her resume on her Linkedin page.   Joanne had a couple leftist jobs in corporate responsibility, and an employment gap of almost ten years.  It doesn't speak to a businesswoman who ever created a single job.

Bottom line on Joanne Dowdell?  She praises President Obama's platform, is running as a progressive democrat, and falsely claims to have decades of job creation experience.  She has no chance at getting elected at this time.  Even Kos thinks it's pointless.  No one running on President Obama's legacy of failure can win, not even President Obama!  He's going to run on a moderate platform, an 'experienced' man and maybe having started another war in Iran.  If Joanne Dowdell is elected to Congress I will wear a Joanne Dowdell costume for Halloween.  (If she loses, she can wear a Bob in LA costume.)  The next election will be a landslide for conservatives.

So, if she has no chance, why would she run?

Well, it's apparently a pretty good living being a candidate.  That's what is on her resume now, "Candidate for Congress" and she raised at least $105,000 in just the last few months.  I have no idea how much she is making on these bumper stickers, or what kind of salary her campaign is paying her, but it looks like just running for Congress pays pretty well.

Well there you have it... a leftist running on Obama's shredded and failed agenda, and the man on the right with the plunger wanting to flush all that down the drain.  Which one sounds more appealing?

You make the call.

Steve Jobs, maybe the Last Great American, told President Downgrade Obama that he would not be re-elected way back in the Summer of 2010.

Steve Jobs told President Obama he probably would not be re-elected, Walter Isaacson wrote in Jobs' soon-to-be-released biography.  That's because regulations and unions in the United States were crippling its ability to remain competitive with emerging powerhouses like China.  

"You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs said to Obama.

Jobs also said teachers' unions "crippled" the education system in the United States. Among his requests to Obama were an 11-month school schedule, school days that last until 6 p.m. and a merit-based system for employing and firing teachers.

Well, I didn't know Steve Jobs agreed with me, but I wrote about all those same themes in this post in February of this year.   I didn't go as far as Jobs with the 6 p.m. school days, but it is an interesting thought.

So, is there anything Steve Jobs couldn't do?

He couldn't beat pancreatic cancer.  (But that's a pretty tough one.)

Here are a few quick snippets for your next outing with friends and family:

First, are you smarter than a Wall Street Occupier?  
New York magazine surveys Occupy Wall Street:

But how much do the protesters actually know about the economic system that they're fighting to change? To find out, we asked 50 occupiers a series of questions about Wall Street, taxes, and government. The results were mixed. See if you can do better.

They came up with this stunner:  94% of the protesters believe the government spends more on military than health, education and pensions.   Head over and take the whole test see Are You Smarter Than a Wall Street Occupier?

Second, this table sums up President Downgrade Obama's legacy:

President Obama's Legacy

Wall Street/Banks Performance

I used to demonstrate a lot myself. In the 1950s and 1960s we marched and picketed for civil rights for black Americans and we accomplished a lot. In the late '60s and '70s we demonstrated to end the war in Vietnam ... My wife and I also danced and screamed and sang for the Black Panther Party. ... But we always had specific goals: voting rights. Equal housing and accommodations. Bringing the troops home.

What are your specific goals? It means zero to be against greed. Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing. 

"... by far the most efficient, responsible way of organizing industrial production there has ever been. It is a billion times more democratic that the Marxist forms of organization some of your speakers are advocating. Marxism is so much uglier than capitalism it's not even in the same universe. Marxism is just systemized envy, violence, and repression."  

If capitalism is motivated by greed, then so what? If protesters really wanted to do something about greed and orgiastic spending, they would take power away from the government, not try to grow government. Doh!

1. Their anger is misplaced, their real beef is with the Federal Government.  
2. They expect those that pay taxes, well to pay more!  A lot more!  And to pay for their education! 
3. Further, they are going to be massively disappointed in the coming election cycle and will become even mobbier, if that is possible.  

Stay tuned for additional wisdom in the comments section.

President Obama says government will have to build the nation out of the economic trough.
"We're the country that built the intercontinental railroad," Obama says. "So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads?"  Ironic that he mentions the Chinese. Progressives used to complain that to build the railroad, bosses abused Chinese workers -- called them "coolies" and treated them badly. Now this is big success?

I guess Obama doesn't know that the Transcontinental Railroad was a Solyndra-like Big Government scandal. The railroad didn't make economic sense at the time, so the government subsidized construction and gave the companies huge quantities of the best land on the continent.  As we should expect, without market discipline -- profit and loss -- contractors ripped off the taxpayers. After all, if you get paid by the amount of track you lay, you'll lay more track than necessary.

Credit Mobilier, the first rail construction company, made enormous profits by overcharging for its work. To keep the subsidies flowing, it made big contributions to congressmen.
Where have we heard that recently?  The transcontinental railroad lost tons of money. The government never covered its costs, and most rail lines that used the tracks went bankrupt or continued to be subsidized by taxpayers. The Union Pacific and Northern Pacific -- all those rail lines we learned about in history class -- milked the taxpayer and then went broke.

One line worked. The Great Northern never went bankrupt. It was the railroad that got no subsidies.

We need infrastructure, but the beauty of leaving most of these things to the private sector -- without subsidies, bailouts and other privileges -- is that they would have to be justified by the profit-and-loss test.  In a truly free market, when private companies make bad choices, investors lose their own money. This tends to make them careful.  By contrast, when government loses money, it just spends more and raises your taxes, or borrows more, or inflates. Building giant government projects is no way to create jobs.  When government spends on infrastructure, it takes money away from projects that consumers might think are more important.

Yes, the profit motive, capitalism works.  Is that the only way the government kills jobs?

When government isn't killing jobs by sucking money out of the private sector, it kills jobs by smothering the private sector with regulation. I talked to Peter Schiff about all this.
Schiff is a good authority because he was one of the few people to warn of the housing bust. Now he's had a run-in with the federal government over job creation.
Schiff, ... operates a brokerage firm with 150 employees... [continues]

People don't appreciate the number of regulations entrepreneurs face. Schiff pays 10 people just to try to figure out if his company is obeying the rules.  "You can't just act very quickly, because everything has to be done through this maze of compliance. Even my brokers ... find out that maybe 20 percent, 30 percent of their day is involved in compliance-related activity, activity that is inhibiting their productivity. ... All around the country, people are complying with regulations instead of producing, instead of investing and growing the economy. They're trying to survive the regulations."  This is no way to create jobs or wealth. Keynesian pundits and politicians can't understand why businesses sit on cash rather than invest and hire unemployed workers. It's really no mystery. Government is in the way.

So ten people full time on compliance, plus 20-30% of a broker's day is on compliance?  How is this helping the economy?

 It isn't.

Victor Davis Hanson at the National Review Online has ten lessons from President Downgrade Obama.  Here are selections (emphasis mine):

The election of Barack Obama brought all sorts of contradictions. A man with about the least prior executive experience in presidential history was suddenly acclaimed a “god” and the smartest man ever to assume the office.

Most important, a number of critical changes were heralded that would help address the supposed disasters of the Bush administration: a new “reset” foreign policy, a Keynesian economic miracle, a commitment to “millions of green jobs,” and a promise to end politics as usual, specifically the hardball divisive rancor of the past. Obamism, in short, was not a mere change in administration, but a religion.

In less than three years, however, the Obama administration has established a far different legacy from the one it promised, and the lessons of 2009–2011 will be with us for a long time:

2.  For the time being, the media have lost any credibility as nonpartisan and disinterested investigators of presidential candidates. That many journalists now admit they were “saps” or accept that Obama was unqualified only confirms prior culpability. After 2008, can anyone possibly take the media seriously [that ignored] a candidate ... once bragged that he attended every service (“each week”) of a racist pastor, or that he once liked “blow”? 

4.  ... The age of Obama has turned “green” into a refuge for scoundrels. The next era will be marked by unprecedented national wealth from vast new gas and oil exploration, not from thousands of acres of subsidized solar panels and windmills. How ironic that Barack Obama will eventually do more for the gas and oil industry than any other president in recent memory.

5.  We are reminded that populism and the high life don’t mix. ... Obama cemented the notion that liberal Democrats are the party of really big money and of very little money — and of few in between. The next populist will have to cut back on golf, stay at Camp David, and avoid the playgrounds of the rich and famous.

6  Keynesian economics are about over for a generation. The antidote to the Bush $4 trillion debt was not another $4 trillion in less than half the time. With near-zero interest rates, record numbers of Americans on food stamps and unemployment, an annual federal budget $2 trillion higher than just ten years ago, and nearly $16 trillion in aggregate debt — and all this along with a moribund economy — few will any longer believe that printing more money and growing government work. More of what has not worked won’t magically start to work. [Note:  We can only hope about this one... ]

7.  ... Apparently Guantanamo is no longer a gulag, rendition no longer a crime, preventive detention no longer a shredding of the Constitution.

Recommend you head over and read the whole thing.  Is is our duty to the nation that we don't let our nation forget these lessons.

Ed Schultz has a newsbusters.com rap sheet over 90 pages long.  That should be enough, but he is over the top.

Liberals will do anything to destroy conservative candidates, including invent unprovable assertions that they cannot be held accountable to.    Liberals want to run Obama against Romney for two reasons:

1. Romney is so liberal that the choice between Obama and Romney will be meaningless for many voters and apathy and cause a low conservative turnout.
2. If Romney wins, then liberals have the RINO Romney.  Prediction: if Romney gets the republican nomination they will immediately start painting him with 'liberal' and 'moderate' labels.  They will hold off until the nomination.  

In the meantime, they will destroy any conservative like Perry or Cain, as best they can.   How will they do that?  The easiest way to destroy any sensible argument is with unprovable ad hominem attacks. As related in the book 365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy,

...if you are debating immigration, [liberals] will accuse you of being a 'racist'; if you're worried about radical Islam, you're 'Islamophobic'; if you want your kids to be taught properly at school, you're an 'elitist'; if you think marriage requires one man and one woman, you're 'homophobic'; if you think there are rather obvious differences between men and women, you're a 'sexist'; and so on. This technique says: 'My opponent is so satanically evil that what little truth he has to utter is irredeemably tainted by his depravity.' 

Ed Shultz is skilled at this, his latest rant accuses Mr. Cain, Republican presidential candidate, of pandering to "white Republicans out there who don't like black folks."  The 'pandering' in question?  "I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way," Cain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Are there some elements of racism? Yes. It gets back to if we don't grow this economy, that is a ripple effect for every economic level, and because blacks are more disproportionately unemployed, they get hit the worst when economic policies don't work. That's where it starts.

Well there is plenty of support for Mr Cain's statement, starting with the office of President of the United States.  But lets set all that aside, we could be here for hours with examples of black success.

The real issue is the unprovable attack on Mr Cain  It is typical liberal double talk.  For white people they are afraid of, they label them racist. With Mr. Cain, they say he is appealing to racists. Ed Schultz also has two pansies on his show to pantomime his attack.   Ed Schultz doesn't have a guest to support Mr. Cain.  One says that Mr. Cain is appealing to "post-intentional racism" - racism that people don't intend to have or to act upon.  The other says "It's almost as if this guy is trying to warm up to [the racists] and tell them what they want to hear." All totally unprovable.   

Of course, if Mr. Cain is right, as I think he is, then there is no need for the liberal machine to grind out laws favoring minorities anymore, is there?  There wouldn't be a need for all the entitlements, special housing or safety nets.  In a world of equal opportunity, there's no need for liberals at all.  That is why they hate Mr. Cain for speaking truth.  The emperor has no clothes.

It used to be, liberals passed laws against thought crimes in their quest for power.  Now they are accusing their opponents of un-thought crimes... you don't have to even think it to be guilty now.

There is hardly a fact in Ed Shultz show, but he has a million viewers, if you believe the ratings.  He runs for election every day with his sponsors.  It's about time to boycott them and end the charade.

President Obama keeps doing the same thing expecting a different result.

The previous stimulus efforts failed to start the economy, but he says lets try again with the another stimulus bill

According to President Obama, the 'jobs bill' will spend $447 Billion to create 2 million jobs, or about $230,000 per job.  Carl already has the analysis on the sanity of that investment.  Like crime, it doesn't pay.  However, Bloomberg's analysis suggest that Mr. Obama has his decimal in the wrong place, it will probably create only 250k jobs, not 2 million.

Never mind that the investment isn't appropriate use of our money.  It isn't really what the President is trying to do.

"Obama said 35 million Hispanics would benefit from the combination of tax breaks and direct government spending in his plan."

Whoops!  Its another income transfer program.  How about A Rational Jobs Plan from Senate Republicans instead.

Here "are some of the highlights of the Real Jobs Plan and some estimates of the jobs impact:"

1. Lower the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, resulting in an additional 581,000 jobs per year, on average
2. Reduce the tax on foreign earnings brought back to the U.S., resulting in 2.9 million jobs
3. Repeal Dodd-Frank, estimated to cost the U.S. 4.6 million jobs by 2015
4. Repeal ACA, estimated to cost the U.S. economy at least 800,000 jobs
5. Lift the offshore drilling moratoria, resulting in 1.2 million U.S. jobs
6. Prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, estimated to cost the economy 1.4 million jobs by 2014
7. Ratify, immediately, the free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, resulting in 250,000 new jobs

Of course, No. 7 has finally occurred after five years of unnecessary delay. Let us hope that the first six do not meet a comparable fate.

Makes sense to me.

The main difference between Carl and I is that Carl is a neo-conservative, and I am a libertarian.

Carl might even agree with me on this one though...

From the law of unintended consequences: the strict illegal immigration laws recently passed in Alabama mean fruit rotting on the vine, a whole harvest is in jeopardy. (Yes I'm quoting the democratic underground.com there.) Well, how can this be true?  Don't we have 9% unemployment in the country?  In Alabama, its closer to 10%.  That is 170,000 people out of work.    By the way, all Alabama is doing is enforcing existing immigration laws.  And, Enforcement Works as The Corner is quick to tell you.

But those 170,000 Alabama unemployed don't want the work:

“It didn’t take me six hours to realize I’d made a heck of a mistake,” ... Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard. On the Harold farm, pickers walk the rows alongside a huge harvest vehicle called a mule train, plucking ears of corn and handing them up to workers on the mule who box them and lift the crates, each weighing 45 to 50 pounds.

So, what to do?  First of all, I agree with the Libertarian position -- the Government should not be a barrier, if anyone wants to pick produce for $1 a box, then we should let them.  Its hard work, and not anyone can do it.  Yet, they are willing to work without benefits, without Social Security, without health care.  They just want to work.  Who are we to say no?  Our system doesn't offer a solution:

Yet our system offers no legal channel for anywhere near a sufficient number of peaceful, hardworking immigrants to legally enter the United States even temporarily to fill this growing gap. The predictable result is illegal immigration.

Another alternative, let prisoners gather the produce.

How about the Alabama National Guard?  Aren't they for state emergencies? Should we alert the 167th Bean Pickers? If we can't put them to picking, then at least they could round up homeless, or unemployed and offer them work.  Get the point?

Here's another idea:  Anyone without a job, on public assistance that refuses to gather produce, how about eliminate their benefit?  That ought to motivate them.  Welfare reform works.  Or conversely, perhaps our 170,000 unemployed Alabamans are just to comfortable getting a government check to pick produce.  Folks, if Mexico had half the 'social justice' the United States has, lettuce would be $12 a head.  The immigrant exodus from Alabama is the perfect excuse to put all the Alabama lay-a-bouts to useful purpose.   Got that, democraticUnderground.com?

Get a job!

via Ace of Spades

We are familiar with the media bias against the Tea Party.  From the beginning, the focus is on discrediting the Tea Party by any means, including false charges of Racism.  From the early founding of the Tea Party, MSNBC falsely labeled a black, gun toting Tea Party rally attendee as a white supremaciist.  He was black!  (Perhaps he was a black white supremacist?)

Fast forward today, the media is quick to greenlight any false allegation of racism, no matter how transparent.  It serves their needs, and NewsBusters has over five hundred stories documenting the bias.  The truth is never their goal.

Now an actual report from a UCLA Grad Student documenting the Tea Party message.  (Remember, this is the work the media is supposed to do.)  "Emily Ekins, a graduate student at UCLA, conducted the survey at the 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington last month by scouring the crowd, row by row and hour by hour, and taking a picture of every sign she passed."  The results:

Ekins photographed about 250 signs, and more than half of those she saw reflected a "limited government ethos," she found - touching on such topics as the role of government, liberty, taxes, spending, deficit and concern about socialism. Examples ranged from the simple message "$top the $pending" scrawled in black-marker block letters to more elaborate drawings of bar charts, stop signs and one poster with the slogan "Socialism is Legal Theft" and a stick-figure socialist pointing a gun at the head of a taxpayer.
There were uglier messages, too - including "Obama Bin Lyin' - Impeach Now" and "Somewhere in Kenya a Village is Missing its Idiot." But Ekins's analysis showed that only about a quarter of all signs reflected direct anger with Obama. Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president's race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship.

So the Tea Party Message is smaller government... wow, what a surprise.

Via reader Bobn.

Yes, there really is an Occupy Wall Street spin off called Occupy Santa Barbara.  They have a 'live feed' where you can watch them run through parliamentary procedure here, along with following the occasional protest. This appears to me to be a disorganized group of 30 or 40 mostly students and unemployed, with the occasional police informant thrown in for good measure.  Its no less absurd than what is going on in other places in the country, like the anti-war protesters at the Air & Space.  Alexadra Petri sums up the movement:

Like the Tea Party, the Occupants feel disserved by the status quo, but they seem to feel that the government should do more, not less. These are people who did what they were supposed to do — followed their dreams, pursued advanced degrees — and now feel that the system misled them. They have a voice. They even have a Tumblr. Now all they need is a plan.

What about Occupy Santa Barbara?  They are protesting invading our politics!.

"I'm here to ...support protesting Wall Street and... uh... invading our politics."

A sample of the rabble appears in this YouTube video.  A few sound bytes from the erudite wihin:  "I'm here to show support for people protesting Wall Street and... uh... capital greed and invading our politics." Thanks Mr. Max Dornfest at 0:13. Then listen to George Jefferson (I cannot make these names up) at 3:42: "The financial aid offices of the UC's and the CalStates don't acknowledge that um... marginalized wealth isn't the same as Main street white wealth." Translation? George wants white people to pay for his school. Or something like that.

"... um... marginalized wealth isn't the same as Main Street white wealth."

But my favorite is Ms. Sophie Arnem who relates that: "The way that we see Wall Street manifested in our daily lives is through the privatization of our education." Huh? Then she goes on about how tuition is going up-up-up and it means that "you are f---ing paying $12,000 for something that in the 1960's was promised as a free system." Sophia Arnem with the potty mouth at 4:28. Later I found out first hand about the vulgarities that can be hurled by the protesters.

Last post for a while; surgery today. And recovery will take a while--during which, I'll be flat on my back.

I appreciate the support in the various comments and posts. I'll update when able.

In the meantime, look for posts by Bob.

Not deterred by NOfP reader Morgan's mocking, David Letterman did another Top Ten List on Chris Christie, this time about why he chose not to seek the Presidency:

10. As always, he’s following his gut. . .

4. Constitution requires every candidate be able to see their feet.

On the new list, only 7 of 10 were fat jokes.

Once again, reader Morgan came up with an example of what a Top Ten list would look like if Late Night wasn't mired in liberal bias:

The Top Ten Reasons President Obama is Tanking in the Polls.

10. Half-life of Kool Aid is two years

9. 50 of the 57 states slowly wising up

8. How many times can you kill bin Laden?

7. Jews & Janitors PAC opens K Street office

6. His teleprompter ran out of ideas 18 months ago

5. Even Portuguese water dogs think he’s a putz

4. Congressional Black Caucus starting to blame his white half

3. Takes too much time off traveling to Europe on that inter-continental railway

2. Swung so far to the left, he's on Pluto

1. Makes Jimmy Carter look good

The first paragraph from an article about Pakistan in last week's Economist:

Clutching a glass of distinctly un-Islamic whisky, a retired senior Pakistani official explains at a drinks party in Islamabad, the capital, that his country has no choice but to support the jihadist opposition in Afghanistan. The Indians are throwing money at their own favourites in Afghanistan, he says, and the Russians and Iranians are doing the same. So Pakistan must play the game too. "Except we have no money. All we have are the crazies. So the crazies it is."

Some conservatives, frustrated by the lack of a Presidential candidate with a commitment to smaller government and individual liberties, are scanning for substitutes. Last week, Rush Limbaugh touted freshman Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). The Miami-born 40 year old Rubio served eight years in the state legislator, rising to Speaker of the Florida House.

The right loves Rubio; the left's long been frightened of facing him (though an NPR/New Republic reporter once called him "reasonable," a possible kiss-of-death).

I'm here to praise Rubio, not to bury him. But he's not seeking the Presidency, and won't this time. On the other hand, I predict Rubio will be the Republican VP candidate no matter who's at the top of the ticket. Think about it:

1) Movement/economic conservatives love him--second choice for disappointed Christie fans

2) Social conservatives love him

3) Catholic--plus acceptable to evangelicals (some remain uncomfortable with Romney)

4) Hispanic, and the son of immigrants--which could help in purple states such as Colorado and New Mexico

5) From a state we must win

6) Not WASPy-looking, as are Romney and Perry

7) Even with Perry, the two can't dismiss as "two Southerners"--Rubio doesn't look or talk Southern

8) In the unlikely event of Bachmann being nominated, Rubio still provides balance for the ticket, while being junior enough possibly to accept a suicide mission

9) Would annihilate Biden in the debate

10) Oh, hugely qualified.

What's not to like?

Yes, some worry he's too young:

I want the best possible Rubio if and when he does become president someday down the line. And, for that, I think a few more years won’t hurt. . . [L]et’s not encourage Rubio to waste his talents on a throwaway election (or in a throwaway position like the vice presidency). Let’s wait for him to run when he’s ready.

And Rubio himself disclaims interest in VP slot. But I'm certain he'll be asked--and bet he'll accept.

(via reader Warren)

It's not solely Solyndra, and what it did with our tax-backed funding, that's scandalous. It goes well beyond fast-track approvals the Obama Administration gave to the now-bankrupt solar firm Stirling Energy. It's worse than the borderline-criminal cronyism of former fundraisers now Administration insiders raining money on campaign contributor heavyweights. And it tops the similar, circular, pro-solar propaganda promulgated in public schools by the largest teachers union (a huge contributor to Democrats).

The bedrock problem is that solar power simply isn't economic, as reader OBloody Hell showed here years ago. Though green zealots hoped that would change, solar power remains a myth today, says Walter Russell Mead at American Interest:

[T]here’s another factor behind the failure of so many Obama administration initiatives in this field. Because alternative energy generation is expensive and inefficient, it requires some combination of subsidies, high energy prices and forced purchases to make these investments pay off.

The Solyndra guarantee and related programs were all developed back in the heady early days of the Obama administrations when delusional greens thought their global agenda was on the verge of being realized. Cap and trade and other aggressive energy policies would artificially jack up energy prices in the US to the point where demand for solar and other alternative energy would grow. The global carbon treaty would provide a permanent source of demand for green energy.

The political assumptions underlying the green investment boomlet turned out to be false. There will be no global carbon regime for the foreseeable future; there will be no cap and trade and no aggressive federal programs to raise energy prices during the deepest recession since World War Two.

Perhaps even worse from the green point of view, a cascade of discoveries and technological advances has dramatically increased the supplies of oil and gas in the western hemisphere -- including huge new domestic energy supplies in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and upstate New York. These discoveries are devastating to the politics of the environmental movement. . .

The collapse of the green political structure (cap and trade plus global carbon treaty) and the transformation of the American fossil fuel supply have dramatically weakened the case for alternative energy. Investors take heed.

I'm guessing the market recognizes that solar and such won't realize sufficient rates of return; this has been common knowledge for years.

Which must be why Obama just doubled-down, deciding last Friday to drop another $4.7 billion on solar power loan guarantees. Sure, the Administration claims this creates jobs and reduces carbon emissions. And lefties argue that government should subsidize where the private sector can't or won't

But this isn't the moon landing. Alternate energy can't help if it's uneconomic--even if NASA made solar panels. Similarly, the claimed benefits won't come if no one buys the product (the jobs mostly are short-term construction). As Mead shows, absent gun-to-the-head cap and trade laws, no one will. The free market largely avoided Solyndra for a reason. And when did Democrats become disciples of corporate welfare?

Coyote Blog's Warren Meyer observes:

[T]he difference with the private sector is not that the private sector makes no mistakes, but there is real accountability for those mistakes which lead to changes in behavior.

Exactly. Government is incapable of picking product winners and losers--and this Administration doesn't learn from its errors.

In the next batch of bankruptcies, add about $5 billion to the 2013 Federal budget deficit--due to decisions by the supposed smart guy.

(via readers Doug, Warren)

Mark Steyn in Investor's Business Daily:

"The way I think about it," Barack Obama told a TV station in Orlando, "is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft."

He has a point. This is a great, great country that got so soft that 53% of electors voted for a ludicrously unqualified chief executive who would be regarded as a joke candidate in any serious nation.

One should not begrudge a man who seizes his opportunity. But one should certainly hold in contempt those who allow him to seize it on the basis of such flaccid generalities as "hope" and "change": That's more than "a little" soft.

"He's probably the smartest guy ever to become president," declared presidential historian Michael Beschloss the day after the 2008 election. But you don't have to be that smart to put one over on all the smart guys.

"I'm a sap, a specific kind of sap. I'm an Obama Sap," admits David Brooks, the softest touch at the New York Times. Tina Brown, editor of Newsweek, now says of the president: "He wasn't ready, it turns out, really."

If you're a tenured columnist at the Times, you can just about afford the consequences of your sappiness. But among the hundreds of thousands of your readers who didn't know you were a sap until you told them three years later, soft choices have hard consequences.

If you're one of Obama's core constituencies, those who looked so photogenic at all the hopeychangey rallies, things are really hard: "Young Becoming 'Lost Generation' Amid Recession" (CBS News). Tough luck, rubes. You got a bumper sticker; he got to make things worse.

But don't worry, it's not much better at the other end of the spectrum: "Obama's Wall Street Donors Look Elsewhere" (UPI).

Gee, aren't you the fellows who, when you buy a company, do something called "due diligence"? But you sunk everything into stock in Obamania Inc. on the basis of his "perfectly creased pant leg" or whatever David Brooks was drooling about that day? You handed a multitrillion-dollar economy to a community organizer and you're surprised that it led to more taxes, more bureaucracy, more regulation, more barnacles on an already rusting hulk?

See also Jonah Goldberg on The Corner; Alexandra Petri at WaPo.

(via reader Doug)

Last month I detailed the effectiveness of President Obama's initial stimulus package: each job "created or saved" cost $271,379, or over five times the median annual family income. So I thought I'd do the same for Son-of-Stimulus:

1) President Obama has proposed spending $447 billion on what he calls the American Jobs Act.

2) A Bloomberg News survey of 34 economists predicts the measure would "add or keep 275,000 workers on payrolls."

3) Dividing #1 by #2 yields about $1.625 million per job. That's six times more costly than Stimulus 1, and over 32 times the median annual family income.

4) Vice President Biden says:

Even though fifty-some percent of the American people think that the economy tanked because of the last administration, that’s not relevant. What’s relevant is we’re in charge. And right now we are the ones in charge.

Conclusion: Biden's right; I blame this Administration. Any further questions?

Weeks later, and President Obama's jobs bill (the one he wants Congress to "pass now!") still has no co-sponsors in the House or Senate. As Ed Morrissey observes:

Anyone in either chamber can add their name to the bill as a co-sponsor. It’s not as if there are only a couple of Democrats in Congress. The House has 193 Democrats, 192 of which apparently don’t want to be associated with Obama’s job-creation track record. Democrats control the Senate with 51 members and two independents, although on this legislation it looks more like one Democrat and 52 independents.

We have a federal system, not a parliamentary system, so our legislature doesn’t take votes of no-confidence to force an executive out of power. But given the high-profile rollout of the AJA by Obama, including his demand for a joint session to escalate pressure for action, the lack of any co-sponsors on these bills is about as close as we’ll get to a vote of no confidence in this executive short of an outright floor-vote failure in the Senate on the bill.

(via Instapundit)

David Letterman recently did a Top Ten List of the "Ways The Country Would Be Different If Chris Christie Were President". All fat guy jokes:

8. Cabinet will now have a Secretary of Cake . . .

4. Taxpayers would have to pay for the President’s second seat on Air Force One

This typically lame and liberal list inspired reader Morgan to email a Top Ten about Letterman that focused on more than his physical appearance:

"The Top Ten Ways The Country Would Be Different If David Letterman's Show Got Canceled":

10. CBS interns no longer required to sign Creepy Old Boss Waver

9. People who want to hear unfunny political rants forced to watch MSNBC

8. After he stops the fake laughter, Paul Shaffer's hair starts growing in

7. In an honest moment, Letterman changes production company's name from Worldwide Pants to I Can't Keep It In My Pants, Worldwide

6. Missing the limelight, Letterman starts friending former stalkers on Facebook

5. Letterman reprises failed Oscar performance at his Montana ranch: "Moose ... goose. Goose ... moose."

4. Rupert Jee's Hello Deli replaces Letterman Sandwich with 10-pound hunk of baloney

3. When her residual checks stop coming in, Dave's mom admits she never really liked the guy

2. "Potato ... tomato. Tomato ... potato."

1. Blackmailer drops threat to expose Letterman as unfunny

Three surgeons have recommended (surprise, surprise!) surgery. But I'm taking their advice, because I can't function as is. Writing last week's shorter and less link-filled posts took hours and was--literally--incredibly painful.

I'll write one brief post per day this week; surgery early the week after.

Thanks for the thoughts.

From the current New Yorker: