Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Losing Faith in God Particles


The "God Particle" is (almost) dead:
A few years ago, celebrated British physicist Stephen Hawking was widely reported in the press to have placed a provocative public bet that the LHC (along with all particle accelerators that preceded it) would never find the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle” believed responsible for having imbued massive particles with their mass when the universe was very young...

...informal polls of physicists over the last decade have shown that an overwhelming majority believed that the existence of the Higgs was a foregone conclusion and that all that was needed was simply to run the LHC long enough...

But the Higgs boson never appeared...

And yesterday, August 22, ... CERN scientists declared that over the entire range of energy the Collider had explored—from 145 to 466 billion electron volts—the Higgs boson is excluded as a possibility with a 95% probability.

...there is still a 5% chance that the Higgs is hiding somewhere ... But the Higgs is quickly running out of places to hide.
Fortunately, particle physics isn't nearly as politicized as climate science, so Higgs boson skeptics probably needn't worry about being likened to racists. But the possibility of erosion of faith in science causes some to fret:
Another, less profound, but far more obnoxious, outcome is that people who choose to dismiss science altogether simply because it doesn’t have the all the answers (in this case, the answer to, “How did we come to exist in the first place?”) will have new ammunition for their arguments. So, don’t be surprised when CERN’s troublesome admission that Higgs boson is likely a myth is cited as a reason that global warming doesn’t exist.
I don't know anyone who's "dismissing science altogether," but the fact of the matter is that the hard work of science can be a miserably difficult and disappointing endeavor.

And science isn't democratic in the sense that it can be settled by comfortable consensus. Fueled by skepticism, science is never "settled."

Monday, August 29, 2011

White Devils: Racism, Real and Imagined

Ken Layne: Reads books, hates white people

The race-obsessed left never misses an opportunity to fabricate evidence of conservative racism:
Ever a magnet for controversy, Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann is once again the subject of a vicious rumor. A doctored video surfaced this week that appears to show Bachmann asking an audience, “Who likes white people?”

Accusations of racism followed, as blogs and websites including Wonkette used the video as evidence of Bachmann’s extreme views.

Alice Stewart, a spokesperson for Bachmann’s presidential campaign, explained to The Daily Caller: “She said, ‘Who likes wet people?’ It was pouring down rain that night.”

A Yahoo! News report also laid the rumor to rest by pointing out that when Bachmann seized the microphone on stage, her audience was soaking wet and as a way to lighten the mood, she jokingly asked, “Who likes wet people?”
Over at Wonkette, where the video rumor was launched given prominence, self-loathing "subhuman" Ken Layne provides relevant commentary:
Who likes white people? Uhh, everybody except for black people and brown people and yellow people, we guess? Also, many actual white people don’t much like white people, having read a history book or two.
Being a white person, Ken Layne is inherently inferior, but at least he is educated well enough to recognize that he was born with a heart marred by sinful white nature. He's "one of the good ones."

Discussion: Memeorandum


UPDATE:

Robert Stacy McCain produced the orignal, unaltered version of the doctored smear job video:
...on Saturday Aug. 27, a left-wing anti-Christian blog, “On Knees for Jesus,” posted a pirated version of my video, edited and with a caption falsely asserting that Bachmann asked the crowd, “Who likes white people?” — with the contextual clue about “the winds and the rains” removed. That dishonest smear was then given prominence by the left-wing gossip site Gawker.

Chris Moody of Yahoo News exposed this vicious falsehood and, after I learned that my video had been stolen and misused for such a defamatory purpose, I put up a blog post denouncing the smear, and sent an e-mail to the anonymous proprietor of the “On Knees” Web site. He then deleted his first lie and substituted another vicious smear as a “correction.” But his pirated and re-edited version of my video — a clear violation of my copyright, and of YouTube’s terms of service agreement — is still online. I have spoken to an attorney and fully intend that the perpetrator of this crime will be brought to justice.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Yahoo Catches Flak for Pro-Obama Propaganda


The headline: "Obama takes charge at hurricane command center"

Are you kidding me? In what sense is Obama qualified to take part in such an effort, let alonetake charge?

The bulk of the comments at the aforementioned Yahoo News story are decidedly negative. Here's a sample:
  • One wonders if Yahoo, AP , the DNC flackers like Politico really believe this tripe. Obama takes charge. Obama captures 2nd Al Q leader in Pak. All by his lonesome. Puleeze. This naif is the worst CEO-CIC in my 72 yrs. Takes charge for what? Frankly, I hope the storm floods his command center...
  • The bias here is appalling. This man has zero credibility as a leader.
  • Please Obama stop the hurricane now.
  • I'm sure this genius knows as much about hurricanes as he does about being president...
  • What are all these buttons tell me which one to push so I look good and almost intellegent...
  • Thank Alla that we have a truly fearless leader who is not afraid to stand in the face of Hurricanepalooza, give a speech, and make the godless storm move away from his voting base. I wish that I could bear his child.
Discussion: Memeorandum


Saturday, August 27, 2011

Why America Doesn't Embrace The Left

Lefties at Salon.com are wondering why their quest to fundamentally transform America has been so difficult.

I suspect that the global failures of communism and socialism of the past 100 years have made an indelible impression on most Americans, but Van Deven and Kazin are looking for less obvious answers (i.e., ones not necessarily based on reality). Their discussion is an interesting example of willful blindness:
...most Americans accept the basic ground rules of capitalist society. The ideas are that if you work hard you can get ahead and that it's better to be self-employed than employed by the people. They believe that the basics of a capitalist society are just or can be made just with small alterations. Americans want capitalism to work well for everybody, which is somewhat of a contradiction in terms since capitalism is about people competing with each other to get ahead, and everyone's not going to be able to do well at the same time. That's simply not possible.
That is possible, actually, and we owe our 21st century standard of living to the fact that it's possible. Fortunately, a great number of Americans have an intuitive understanding of the trader principle, harmony of interests, comparative advantage, etc. In short, we know why capitalism works because we're immersed in it.

We know that life doesn't have to be a zero-sum game and we know from experience that in the effort to create wealth, preserve wealth and spread wealth around, free-market capitalism can't be beaten.

Surprisingly, Kazin seems to come perilously close to admitting that the left has failed to sell its economic agenda because their ideas don't work:
When the economic crisis hit in the 2008, Americans were already primed to believe the government couldn't do anything right because it hasn't been doing anything right for years. Ironically, the conservatives were proved right when the stimulus didn't do what the Obama administration hoped it would do, and clearly the Tea Party has been able to grow on that policy mistake.
On the other hand, Kazin thinks that one of the great successes of the left is in their approach individual freedom, er, social equality:
The left has promoted a lot of the important changes that have occurred in American society, especially in expanding the meaning of "individual freedoms" to include African-Americans, women and homosexuals. The United States says it is committed to individual freedoms, but in practice those freedoms have been either betrayed or not fully realized. The left in this country has always been the vanguard of calling for complete equal rights and social equality.
Folks like Kazin seem to be incapable of accepting the fact that most Americans apparently have no trouble distinguishing "individual freedom" from the left's dreadful substitute for individual freedom, i.e., "social equality."

Why is collectivist egalitarianism unpopular in America? Kazin has an explanation for that:
The myth of the self-made man that emerged in the 19th century wasn't entirely a myth. There were people who came to America and did very well for themselves.
So Kazin is prepared to admit that an exceptionalism of rugged individualism is a cherished part of the fabric of our culture, but he goes on to declare that our exceptionalism is actually one of exceptional oppression, exceptional destruction and exceptional bloodthirst.

Isn't it amazing that the left even has to ask why the rest of America doesn't approach them with warm and fuzzy hugs?


Related: "A progressive laments how they have taken over our culture, yet Americans have still failed to embrace their destructive economic policies. If only we were more like Europe, we’d have found utopia!" Read the rest at the Lonely Conservative.

Discussion: Memeorandum

New York Times: Obama Is Failing Miserably, So Let's Talk About Jesus

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/362-obama-halo.jpg

Anything to distract from Obama's miserable failures...

The economy is in the latrine, likewise for Obama's approval numbers, so Obama's "Journolist" fanboys at the New York Times have no choice but to change the subject and try to portray the GOP as a radical bunch of Dixiecrat crucaders whose judgement is clouded by tribal superstitions.

Hugh Hewitt explains:
Former editor of the New York Times Bill Keller is out with a piece that encourages his colleagues in the Manhattan-Beltway media elite to do their best to stoke the fires of religious intolerance by turning this presidential campaign into the occasion for an inquisition into all of the Republican's religious beliefs...

Having just returned from Jerusalem where one thinks a lot about the consequences of religious intolerance, Keller's naked appeal to prejudice is startling to me. Can he not know --really not know-- how his lines of inquiry play out and how they have always preceded the worst sort of religious intolerance?
So the New York Times thinks folks running for high office should answer obnoxious questions about their religious background?

Fair enough!

Let's ask Barack Hussein a few questions. He's an important guy in politics, right? Other conservative bloggers have already come up with a bunch of good questions ― here are mine:
  • How does your "Christian faith" distinguish your thinking from that of atheists and agnostics?
  • How does your "Christian faith" distinguish your thinking from that of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews?
  • Do your religiopolitical views on "social justice" make you vulnerable to faith-based political decisions?
  • You said, "It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work." Do your relationships with your brother and other family members reflect your Christian faith?
  • How do your deeply held religiopolitical beliefs interfere with your ability examine scientific issues with appropriate skepticism (e.g. AGW)?
  • How many times did you attend services at Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church?
  • Do you support or believe in Black Liberation Theology? Why or why not?
  • Your spiritual adviser, Jim Wallis, runs a blog called "God's Politics." Do you believe that Jim's politics should be described as "God's politics?" Do you believe that your politics can be described as "God's politics?"
  • Describe your relationship with Jim Wallis. How has he influenced your administration? Do you disagree with Jim Wallis on any issues?
  • When you refer to people who "cling to religion" what does that phrase mean? Do you harbor antipathy toward people who, in your view, fit that description? Are you someone who refrains from clinging to religion?
  • Would you have any hesitation about appointing a religiously conservative church-going Southern Baptist to the federal bench?
  • Many religious leaders who are close to you and your administration believe that their religious views should shape public policy. Do you believe that your ability to maintain the wall of separation between Church and State has been compromised by your relationships with religious leaders?
  • What, if anything, do you do to keep your religion out of your decisions in the Oval Office?
John has a score of great questions over at Verum Serum. Here are the ones I like best:
1. Do you believe the God of the Christian Bible is the same as the God of the Koran? Does this view influence your foreign policy?
4. Do you believe, as some liberals churchmen do (including some you’ve consulted with), that socialism is the system most compatible with the Gospels? Does this influence your public policy and if so how?
10. How do you integrate your faith with a scientific worldview including belief in evolution?
15. Do you believe Christ will return to earth in the future?
Bryan Preston adds this one: "What did you find so appealing and comforting about the preachings of the Reverent Jeremiah Wright?"

The fact that Obama is already in the White House should not exempt him from difficult questions about his religious and spiritual views. In fact, I would argue precisely to the contrary.


Related... Obama’s Enablers:
It’s counterintuitive, but Obama has been hurt by the media’s leniency. Both his presidency and reelection prospects have suffered. He’s grown lazy and complacent. The media have encouraged him to believe his speeches are irresistible political catnip, though they aren’t. His overreliance on words hasn’t helped.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Karl Rove's Sparkling Brilliance

William A. Jacobson, our friend over at Legal Insurrection, offers a generous defense of Karl Rove:
Bashing Rove is in fashion these days, but watch this video carefully. In addition to be a prolific fundraiser for American Crossroads, which played a critical role in the 2010 elections, Rove is one of the more articulate spokesmen for taking on the Obama message machine.
Rove's searing intellect always impresses, but Rove's weakness is that he routinely puts acquisition of power ahead of adherence to principle. And he’s an enemy of the Tea Party primarily because of the Tea Party’s anti-establishment bent.

His strategic brilliance notwithstanding, Rove’s grand era of big government “conservatism” backfired and helped to create perfect conditions for the rise of the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. Rove is too cynical, too short-sighted, and he puts cronyism before country.

Ceteris paribus, I’d always choose someone from outside of the Rove network for any position of government influence.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Gaddafi Regime Over? Finally, I Can Sleep At Night!

You have one less thing to worry about today: Muammar Gaddafi.

I know... you can finally sleep like a log tonight, right?

Apparently, this is a big victory for supporters of the Obama regime. Here are a few choice quotes from Twitter...

  • When THIS President is on vacation, he is not clearing brush, he's clearing dictators!
  • BREAKING: Obama topples a dictator while eating ice cream in Martha's Vineyard.
  • Sarah Palin ... So, what were you guys up to today? My president helped topple Gadhafi during his vacation.
  • Tea Party folks seem pretty quiet over Libya.
  • Uninstalling dictators in progress .. 99.99% complete..

When Obama and his minions finish spiking footballs on the sidelines, I hope they'll remind us why we stumbled into this mess, spending billions of dollars to kill thousands of people in Africa. Did Gaddafi have Saddam Hussein's old WMDs?


Discussion: Memeorandum

Moammar Gaddafi Dead? (Graphic Photo Warning)

UPDATE (10-20-11):

The REAL photos of Gaddafi...



Old post below:


Rumors swirl... apparently the Gaddafi (Gadhafi? Qaddafi?) regime is all but over.

Obama loyalists are rejoicing, for reasons that are not quite clear to me. Did they vote for Obama in 2008 desperately hoping Obama would stumble into a war with Libya that might finally put an end to all of their worst fears about Moammar Gadhafi's insidious threat to America and the rest of the world?

By the way, the photo above is a bad fake. Compare it with the photo below, from the Bin Laden Compound:


Friday, August 19, 2011

Greta & Palin Rally Behind Tea Party Poser Orrin Hatch

Michelle Malkin (rightly) rips Greta van Susteren to shreds for Greta's incredibly bizarre and sloppy blog post in support of Orrin Hatch. Go read this now. Come back here with your reaction.

Exit question: Is Greta from Utah? If not, she has no business complaining about "external influence."

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Obamageddon: The Left Reacts

Obama's approval ratings are circling the drain. Time for some schadenfreude. Very few on the left have the courage to confront the latest numbers, but here's a sampling of reactions from those who do...

Kos:
Just 23 percent of independents approve of Obama's handling of the economy, which is funny, because I thought that his incessant talk about "deficits" was supposed to help him with independents...

Once again, for the billionth time—no one gives a sh[*] about deficits. No one. Not even the teabaggers who claim they care about the deficit. No one cares.
(Actually, Obama spends most of his time complaining about tsunamis, the Tea Party and the Bush years. He's free to start talking about solutions anytime he's good and ready.)

President Obama’s poll numbers appear to be in free fall.

The latest Gallup poll shows Obama hitting a new low of 26% approval on his handling of the economy, down 11 points since it was last measured in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.

Obama earns similarly low approval for his handling of the Federal budget deficit at 24% and on creating jobs Obama scores 29%.

The president and his family are spending their summer vacation in a $50,000 a week farm on Martha’s Vineyard paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.
Political Carnival:
Holee shinola. That is all.
AMERICAblog News:
They ignored all of us who said focus on jobs. Oh no, they had to talk about the debt because that's what Republicans wanted to debate. Well, look where it got him. Guess that genius strategy of being the adult in the room didn't quite pay off this time.
(I thought ObamaCare was supposed to create millions of jobs. What happened with that?)

Remember when Obama's approval ratings were in excess of 70%? I'm so glad those days are behind us.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Spending Down, Taxes Cut, Credit Rating Up

Florida shows the way:
While the United States credit rating with Standard & Poor's may have been downgraded recently, Florida's jumped from AA+ to AAA.

S&P upgraded Florida in July, which means now the state can refinance its old debt, thereby saving millions of dollars. Since July Florida has refinanced $1.5 billion in bonds, totaling $135 million in savings for the state...

Tax reductions and state budget cuts were the keys to Governor Rick Scott convincing S&P to upgrate Florida's credit rating.
The GOP still has a long way to go to redeem itself in the eyes of fiscal conservatives, but at least a few GOP governors have shown that they've mastered basic math.


President Lip Sync Blames It on The Rain


"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck." Obama listed three events overseas -- the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises -- which set the economy back.

"All those things have been headwinds for our economy," Obama said. "Now, those are things that we can't completely control. The question is, how do we manage these challenging times and do the right things when it comes to those things that we can control?"
This reminds me of an old song by an infamous lip syncing duo:

Gotta blame it on something
Gotta blame it on something

Blame it on the rain (rain)
Blame it on the stars (stars)
Whatever you do don't put the blame on you
Blame it on the rain yeah yeah
You can blame it on the rain

At this point, is Obama anything more than a lame duck lip sync president who's simply going though the motions till his time runs out?

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Obama in the 30s



My only question is, "Why did this take so long?!"

Okay, two questions, actually. Do you think he'll drop down to the freezing point?

Obama is eminently beatable, so please get involved in the primaries. It will be a great tragedy if we replace a socialist with a RINO.

Doug Powers: According to George Will, Obama is the 2012 Winner
Discussion: Memeorandum

Friday, August 12, 2011

Wholly Novel and Potentially Unbounded


Another blow to Obama's pièce de résistance:
...Barack Obama's signature healthcare law suffered a setback on Friday when an appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, ruled 2 to 1 that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage...
ObamaCare isn't the centerpiece of Obama's presidency simply because Obama devoted almost all of his time and bully pulpit mojo to its passage. ObamaCare also reflects the central themes of Obama's presidential philosophies.

Obama promised a wholly novel approach ― one that would "fundamentally transform the United States of America."

This was his idea of "change."

Perhaps more importantly, Obama promised a government unbounded, unconstrained, and unconcerned about the perils of excessive power. Obama framed this idea in his inaugural address:

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works..."

HotAir pulls out an important phrase from the 11th Circuit's majority opinion. Bill Clinton appointee Frank Hull and George H.W. Bush appointee Joel Dubina declared the mandate to be “a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority.”

I would submit that the phrase "wholly novel and potentially unbound" is a perfect description of Obama's dangerously ambivalent vision for the Federal Government of the United States.


Discussion: Memeorandum
x-posted

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Al Sharpton, Professional Broadcast Journalist



BONUS IDIOCY:


GOP holds the majority in Wisconsin!


Other immediate reactions:

  • WOW!!! GOP WAS OUTSPENT 6-1 in the 6 [districts] that Obama won in 2008! Tens of mills flushed in the toilet!
  • To reiterate: When Union bosses spend MILLIONS of middle class workers' $ & don't win whole hog, it's a failure no spin can hide.
  • Breaking: Obama on WI recall election: "It's not my fault"

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Barack Obama Inherited Nothing


As I recall, Barack Obama volunteered for his job. And he promised that he'd end a war, heal a planet, and provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless. Now the tune has changed a bit:
Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, Mr Obama also defended his economic record and noted that problems in Europe were affecting the United States.

"We do have a serious problem in terms of debt and deficit, and much of it I inherited," he said.
Actually, he quadrupled the deficit. But don't worry, "the argument for re-election is going to be 'Don't blame Obama, he was no match for the Tea Party.'"

Monday, August 8, 2011

Defending the Tea Party

Earlier today, I exposed the bogus NY Times poll that supposedly shows a massive surge in Tea Party disapproval.

After frustrated Democrats spent the weekend kicking the Tea Party around like a mangy dog, I happy to see that many other Tea Party sympathizers are kicking back...

Rick Santelli: If it wasn’t for the Tea Party we’d be rated BBB. (hat tip: Nice Deb)

So the argument for re-election is going to be "Don't blame Obama, he was no match for the Tea Party"?
...the spin creates mixed messages. To quote Jim Treacher: “Yesterday, the downgrade was fake. Today, the Tea Party caused it. ‘This isn’t happening… and it’s all your fault!’” In particular, it muddles the Obama administration’s official position, which is that S&P is mistaken.
Congressman Allen West "Defending the Tea Party Against Sen. John Kerry"


(hat tip: Thomas E.)

Reports of Tea Party's Demise Greatly Exaggerated

The New York Times would have you believe that the Tea Party is a veritable terrorist organization. No one should be surprised that they've managed to generate poll numbers that seem to suggest that the Tea Party is in a state of decline:
So a New York Times/CBS News poll finds 40 percent disapprove of the Tea Party. Given how so-called "news" outlets like the Times and CBS have been mercilessly pounding on Tea Party members for over two years, is that surprising?

Frankly, it's more shocking given the negative media coverage of this group that more Americans don't disapprove of it.

No one can question the New York Times' commitment to excellence in Tea Party defamation. But can we trust their polling?

Let's take a discerning look at the numbers:

Question 31:

"Is your opinion of the Tea Party movement favorable, not favorable, undecided, or haven't you heard enough about the Tea Party movement yet to have an opinion?"

Favorable

Apr 2010 21%
Feb 2011 18%
Aug 2011 20%

That looks like a stable favorable opinion to me.

What about the size of the Tea Party? Any big changes there?

Question 33:

"Do you consider yourself to be a supporter of the Tea Party movement, or not?"

Yes

Apr 2010 21%
Feb 2011 18%
Aug 2011 20%

Again, essentially unchanged.

What about that 40% disapproval rate? Doesn't that prove that millions of Americans hate the Tea Party? Take the Times data with an oversized grain of skepticism.

Would you believe the latest poll results if you knew the poll included a small number of conservatives?

Take a look at these numbers:

How would you describe your views on most political matters? Generally, do you think of yourself as liberal, moderate, or conservative?

Apr 2010 Lib 21% Mod 34% Con 38%
Aug 2011 Lib 22% Mod 43% Con 32%

Note the substantial drop in the percentage of conservatives since April of 2010. Did that really happen? Gallup says no:
Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.

If this pattern continues, 2011 will be the third straight year that conservatives significantly outnumber moderates -- the next largest ideological bloc.
The New York Times says conservatives are at 32% and dropping, Gallup puts conservatives at 41% strong.

If the NYT/CBS poll is overlooking conservatives, could it also be overlooking a few Tea Party supporters?

Liberal media outlets and liberal politicians (including some Republicans) are diligently working to crush the Tea Party, but I'm not sure that it's working.

Over at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard provides a helpful reminder:
...the only poll that really matters happens on Election Day, and the last one was quite good for the Tea Party.


Sunday, August 7, 2011

On Cue: Team Obama Blames Boogeyman For Obama's Failure

We knew it was coming.

The Tea Party only gets credit if it didn't happen, if they didn't do it, if they didn't want it ― or if it is a cataclysmic disaster.

So when the mainstream press and soft conservatives eagerly dished out credit to the Tea Party for the Obama/Reid/Beohner credit limit deal, I, for one, was leery.

As it turns out, suspicion was justified. Doug Powers explains:
The “Tea Party downgrade” memo has been successfully circulated.

First up today is John Kerry. It’s some kind of hilarious to watch a big spending, pro bloated government liberal try to come across like a life-long hawk on cutting deficits, shrinking government and tackling the debt problem...

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, the Massachusetts Democrat called Standard & Poor’s lowering of the nation’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ as “without question, tea party downgrade.”

...Also today, David Axelrod referred to it as a “Tea Party downgrade,” as did Howard Dean.
The Tea Party emphatically rejected the backroom Obama/Reid/Beohner debt limit deal.

S&P followed. The rest of America agrees.

Now the cowards of Team Obama are shifting blame for their own failures to a popular but leaderless grassroots movement that has done everything in its power to avert the ruinous disasters that will ultimately send Team Obama crawling back to Chicago.


Discussion: Memeorandum

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Navy Seal 6 Crash: Men From Bin Laden Raid Not Killed

Headline:
"22 Navy SEALs among 30 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan as NATO helicopter is shot down"

The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

The operators from SEAL Team Six were flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. That’s according to one current and one former U.S. official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified of the loss of their loved ones.

One source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.

The sources thought this was the largest single loss of life ever for SEAL Team Six, known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

CNN Reports It Was The Same Team But Different Men From Bin Laden Raid

Before Black Presidents: China Was Always Happy to Loan Us More Money

This must be racism:
China bluntly criticized the United States on Saturday one day after the superpower's credit rating was downgraded, saying the "good old days" of borrowing were over.

Standard & Poor's cut the U.S. long-term credit rating from top-tier AAA by a notch to AA-plus on Friday over concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden.

China -- the United States' biggest creditor -- said Washington only had itself to blame for its plight and called for a new stable global reserve currency.

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.
William Jacobson explains the "Before Black Presidents" meme.


Here are a few of my faves from Twitter:

stephenkruiser #BeforeBlackPresidents raising the debt ceiling was seen as a ‘failure of leadership.’ http://bit.ly/oiLDMx

jamestaranto: #BeforeBlackPresidents a failed president had to worry about a primary challenge. http://t.co/M58yzqT

radanneskjold: @jtLOL #BeforeBlackPresidents Mexican drug gangs had to buy their own guns. I think. Maybe not.

jeromeehudson: #beforeblackpresidents America had a AAA rating.

cadgweep: #beforeblackpresidents they were commonly referred to as “American” presidents

#BeforeBlackPresidents you could depict the President as a chimp without being called a racist. @jtLOL http://t.co/XqrFtij

Debt Ceiling Up, Credit Rating Down, Tea Party Blamed

Help me understand this sequence of events:
  1. Obama raised the debt ceiling.
  2. The Tea Party opposed Obama's debt ceiling deal (68%/22%).
  3. Tea Party opponents loved it (57%/35%).
  4. S&P downgraded U.S. credit rating because Obama's debt ceiling deal "falls short."
  5. Tea Party opponents blame Tea Party for credit rating downgrade.
Discussion: Memeorandum
Linked at 4simpsons (Eternity Matters). Thanks!

UPDATE:

From Reaganite Republican... "I call on the president to seek the immediate resignation of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner."

UPDATE II:

Obama won’t escape blame for credit downgrade

UPDATE III:

It's official: Obama Administration blames Tea Party for downgrade.


Friday, August 5, 2011

Obamanomics Takes America Down a Notch ... UPDATE: Full Report from S&P


Read this and weep for your beloved republic:


This is what happens when you put an ignorant, silver-tonged Marxist in charge of the world's largest economy.

This reminds me of one of my earliest posts, which included the picture above (October 29, 2008):
The Obama Equation

Solve this problem:

Democratic President + Democratic Senate + Democratic House of Representatives + Democratic Media = ?
Now we know the answer.

Another flashback:

"It's not that I want to punish your success...I think that when we spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

How's that spreadin' working out for you and your family?


REACTION from the Conservosphere:

Real world Consequences: I was just telling Mr. LC we should re-finance our mortgage to a 15 year mortgage at the lower rates. Now it’s probably too late. Thanks, Obama. ~ The Lonely Conservative


UPDATE:

Full Report: United States of America Long-Term Rating Lowered To 'AA+' On Political Risks And Rising Debt Burden; Outlook Negative

Overview

• We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United
States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term
rating.

• We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from
CreditWatch negative.

• The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan
that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of
what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's
medium-term debt dynamics.

• More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness,
stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political
institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic
challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a
negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

• Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the
gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us
pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be
able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal
consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any
time soon.

• The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the
long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less
reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new
fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government
debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case

Thursday, August 4, 2011

The Only Sane Conservative in America...


David Frum, the only sane Conservative in America (i.e., just another statist poser), has a question:
My conservative friends argue that the policies of Barack Obama are responsible for the horrifying length and depth of the economic crisis.

Question: Which policies?
Answers:
I'm sure we could come up with numerous additional examples.

Here's another blinding news flash for Mr. Frum: It's not just insane conservatives who blame Obama for the state of the economy. Only 39% of Americans approve of how Obama is handling the economy.

57% disapprove.

Only 41% approve of the way Obama is handling job creation.

52% disapprove.

The leader of the free world dithers daily while his activist allies in the mainstream press make lame excuses and markets plummet on fears of global economic turmoil.

Yes he can?

Discussion: Memeorandum

Kids Say the Darndest Things: Blue State Edition (Recovered Video)


The original video was taken down "after some negative reactions" at nymag.com.


“There’s this orange, crying, drinking, smoking dude called John Boehner…”

“The big, boisterous, little baby, can’t-listen-to-anybody, um, Tea Party people…”

*The New England Revolution jersey would be consistent with the theory that these kids are from the People's Republic of Massachusetts.


More at TheBlaze

Hat Tip: BBCW

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Sometimes Everyone Loses

I win, you lose. Right?

Wrong.

The mainstream press (and many in the conservative alternative media) have declared victory for the Tea Party in the unpopular debt limit deal.

Try telling that to the Tea Party:
While pundits across the political spectrum tout the debt deal as a win for the Tea Party and as progressives betray their frustration at Tea Party principles with appalling, anything-but-civil rhetoric, Tea Partiers themselves confess themselves displeased with the debt accord that took such an agonizingly long period of non-productivity to reach:

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken hours after the Senate passed and President Obama signed the deal, a 46% plurality disapprove of the agreement; 39% approve. Only one in five see it as a “step forward” in addressing the federal debt. …

The poll finds some paradoxes.

Though Tea Party conservatives succeeded in setting the parameters of the debate, supporters of the Tea Party are among those most unhappy with the outcome. Only 22% of Tea Party supporters approve of the deal, compared with 26% of Republicans generally and 58% of Democrats.
Rasmussen's numbers are even worse:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% of Likely Voters nationwide approve of the agreement while 53% disapprove. Twenty-six percent (26%) are not sure...

Republicans and unaffiliated voters disapproved by a 4-to-1 margin. Democrats are fairly evenly divided with 34% favoring the deal and 40% opposed.
I can see why the partisan "Journolist" activists of the mainstream media want to assign victory to the tea party. It's a rotten deal, and American voters recognize it as a bad deal. So blame it on the Tea Party ― a big win for the diabolical racist jihad!

Unfortunately, a number of moderate conservatives echo the mainstream media in declaring Tea Party victory:
Understandably, most Tea Party activists see this as business as usual and not the kind of transformative, instant change they envisioned. But just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, it will take much more than one vote or one budget to build the kind of limited, fiscally responsible America that these activists desire. The expansion of the federal government has gone on for decades, and it will take many battles and victories, small and large, to reverse it. This is a long journey, and the Tea Party helped push the nation into taking a step in the right direction.
Incremental improvement is great ― when you have plenty of time to correct the problem. But do we have that luxury? I'm not convinced that we do. Moreover, I'm not sure that the debt limit deal represents incremental progress from the Tea Party perspective.

Here's how "Senator Tea Party," Jim DeMint (R-SC) sees it:
“This debt deal puts America at risk and does nothing to solve our spending crisis,” said Senator DeMint, “We haven’t changed direction in Washington. We’re just tapping the brakes as we speed toward a fiscal cliff.

“The President will now be responsible for nearly $6 trillion in new debt in just four years in office, more than any other president before him. The President’s reckless spending policies have made things worse, leaving our economy in shambles and Americans with less hope for the future. To grow the economy, we must stop growing government.

“This bill doesn’t cut the debt; it will add about $7 trillion in new debt over the next ten years on the backs of our children and grandchildren. This bill doesn’t stop deficit spending; it locks in trillion dollar spending deficits for years to come. This bill doesn’t stop tax hikes; Republicans and Democrats are already promising to consider job destroying tax hikes in this new Super Committee. This bill doesn’t protect our nation; it puts national security at risk with unbalanced cuts to funding our troops in the field count on. This bill doesn’t guarantee our AAA rating; it puts it at further risk as the world sees Washington as incapable of cutting wasteful spending.”
The bottom line: This was a bad deal for everyone. Conservatives don't like it, liberals don't like it, the Tea Party doesn't like it and America doesn't like it.

This was a poorly negotiated deal with unsurprisingly unpopular results.

Everyone lost.


UPDATES:
  • Poll: Thumbs down on the debt-ceiling deal ... Americans (by more than 2-1) predict it will make the nation's fragile economy worse rather than better.
  • Reaganite Republican: GOP Presidential candidates catching up with the rest of us.

Discussion: Memeorandum

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Tea Party KKK Jihad

Neo-Confederate Tea Party Extremist, Tim Scott

I don't think I've seen pandemic Progressive psychosis of this sort since the Reagan years.

Patterned after the contents of their most irrational fears, the left has engineered a chimeric misrepresentation of the average Tea Partier, a creature who is part neo-confederate Klansman, part jihadist suicide bomber.

Michael Lind covers the Klansman angle at Salon:
Today's Tea Party movement is merely the latest of a series of attacks on American democracy by the white Southern minority, which for more than two centuries has not hesitated to paralyze, sabotage or, in the case of the Civil War, destroy American democracy in order to get their way...

The fact that Tea Party conservatism speaks with a pronounced Southern drawl may have escaped the attention of the mainstream media, but it is obvious to members of Congress who have to try to work with these disproportionately-Southern fanatics. One is Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California. As a guest on a radio show, she mocked the Southern accent of the typical congressional Tea Party caucus member...
Relying on indirect and arbitrary measures of the Tea Party's demographic composition, Michael Lind and his ignorant ilk conjur up a fictional Tea Party, just one redneck short of a massive, unstoppable lynch mob:
...while there may be Tea Party sympathizers throughout the country, in the House of Representatives the Tea Party faction that has used the debt ceiling issue to plunge the nation into crisis is overwhelmingly Southern in its origins...

The four states with the most Tea Party representatives in Congress are all former members of the Confederate States of America...
The rest of the Tea Party cohort, Lind argues, is comprised largely of transplanted Southern crackers:
If states with significant white Southern diasporas were included, the Southern proportion of the House Tea Party caucus would be even bigger. Many of the other states with Tea Party representatives are border states with significant Southern populations and Southern ties.
With his conveniently flexible definitions of "Southern" and "Tea Party," Lind is coming dangerously close to building an unfalsifiable hypothesis.

Analyzing the hysterical rhetoric of Michael Lind (and a sex-obsessed word salad offered up by Amanda Marcotte), Robert Stacy McCain identifies the elements of psychosis:
So it’s neo-Confederates and/or “sex panic” that cause people to, uh . . . . Wait, what are we talking about? The federal debt.

The only way to exempt yourself from these bizarre accusations is to support infinite deficit spending. Otherwise, you’re like a giant inkblot in a Rorshach test, onto which Michael Lind and Amanda Marcotte will project their paranoid fears.
I won't beat the dead horse with an in-depth discussion of the Left's growing fear of Tea Party Jihad. Suffice it to say that the fact that these delusional obsessions are openly discussed in the New York Times illustrates how hard mainstream lefties have been hit by their pandemic of psychopathology.

Discussion: Memeorandum

Squirrel Nation


The Spending is Nuts!

Grand prize winner of the Power Line Prize.

By Justin Folk:

When I first heard of the contest, I found it hard to believe that anyone would put up such a great prize to offer creatives a chance to dramatize the debt crisis. Most people don’t want to think about debt or the dangers it holds. Wars and environmentalism have attracted most of the attention of creative people in our culture–and not usually for a good result. But when you consider what debt can do and has done to nations throughout history, we’d be fools to not recognize our country’s solvency as the single greatest issue we face today. In my piece, I wanted to not just show how bad the problem is- which is in itself a noble effort since 15 trillion is hard for most to comprehend–but I sought to convey how we got to this point, and our choices moving forward.

I feel the squirrel allegory allows people to absorb the story unguarded, not pointing fingers at any one political party. I wanted to reach independents, conservatives, and liberals. Our debt, after all, belongs to all of us.

I’m grateful that Power Line and the Freedom Club saw the need to summon creative minds on this issue, and honored to have been picked as the winning entry.

$100,000 to the winner!


The people at Power Line deserve a great deal of praise for offering such a generous prize for this noble effort.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Tea Party Hobbits Win?


Pundits seem to think that the Tea Party is a big winner in the debt-ceiling deal.

Tea party: There were major questions coming into the 112th Congress about who would blink first — the largely establishment-aligned leaders of the new Republican House majority or the tea-party-aligned freshman members. We got our answer to that question late Thursday as House Speaker John Boehner was forced not only to postpone his compromise bill but ultimately to add conservative sweeteners to get the 217 votes he needed. (He got 218.) The tea party — inside and outside Congress — will almost certainly be emboldened by the result of this fight.
How the Tea Party ‘hobbits’ won the debt fight...
The reported debt-limit deal appears to be a victory for the Tea Party. It includes around $1 trillion in spending cuts and creates a special committee of Congress to recommend cuts of $1.2 trillion more. If Congress does not approve those additional cuts by year’s end, automatic spending cuts go into effect. The package sets an important new precedent that debt-limit increases must be “paid for” with commensurate cuts in spending. According to Sen. Rob Portman, a former White House budget director, if we cut a dollar of spending for every dollar we raise the debt limit, we will balance the budget in 10 years — something that even the Paul Ryan budget would not achieve. And all this is accomplished with no tax increases.
The tea partiers pride themselves on adhering to the Constitution, which was intended to make political change difficult. Yet in this deal they've forced both parties to make the biggest spending cuts in 15 years, with more cuts likely next year. The U.S. is engaged in an epic debate over the size and scope of government that will play out over several years, and the most important battle comes in the election of 2012.

Tea partiers will do more for their cause by applauding this victory and working toward the next, rather than diminishing what they've accomplished because it didn't solve every fiscal problem in one impossible swoop.
The debt-limit deal relies on gimmicks (see: baseline budgeting, the doc fix), the credit rating is still at risk, and our massive federal debt will continue to grow like a malignant tumor. And there's a real risk of tax increases.

How is this a victory for the Tea Party? I'd say it's a very modest victory, at best.


UPDATE:

Linked by the Reaganite Republican (to LCR). Thanks!

UPDATE II:

If you think this was a good deal for Conservatives, the Tea Party or Libertarians, read this and this.

UPDATE III:

This is the largest debt hike in the history of the United States of America! Winning!

Discussion: Memeorandum