Quote of the Day
Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
Richard Nixon
Terror in Norway
My thoughts and prayers are with the at least 87 victims and their surviving families with respect to two suspected related major terrorist attacks in downtown Oslo and Utoya Island, at a liberal party young adult summer camp. There were 2 or more blasts in Oslo with at least 7 dead and 15 wounded, but the highest casualty count was on Utoya Island, roughly 19 miles northwest of Oslo, where a terrorist posing as a policeman doing a routine security check and opened fire with an automatic weapon, murdering 80 people, some as young as 16.
Police have taken into custody a right-wing extremist, 32-year-old Anders Breivik, on Utoya. Breivik is suspected to oppose the liberal state government. Breivik was allegedly seen in Oslo before the bombings, and he has purchased certain fertilizer for his farm-related business which could have been used as an ingredient in bomb making. It should be noted that there is an ongoing investigation, and we do not know what, if any, evidence is behind the speculation.
I have no doubt we will see some in the American liberal mass media will attempt to suggest a link between this (loner?) domestic terrorist and the Tea Party or other conservative movement or we'll revisit the 2009 HHS memo warning of domestic right-wing extremists.
The Debt Crisis Circus Continues
How politically inept can the Republicans be? Obama is all about posturing, symbolism and political spin. When you deal with a demagogue like Obama, you've got to be prepared to act like a demagogue. You don't do something POLITICALLY STUPID like Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor leaving talks. You finally had the PR upper hand a few days ago when a petulant Obama walked out on Cantor.
I consider myself as part of the real Tea Party, and there is not a single legitimate pro-market conservative willing to play games with Treasury defaults. That results in interest rate increases, aggravates the deficit (because we'll have to pay more interest overall), and likely slip the economy into recession. I swear to God if I hear one more Hannity absurdity about Republican Congressmen lacking the intestinal fortitude for using the debt limit for extort concessions from a President or Senate Democrats whom seriously believe they are in a no-lose situation, even to the point of going into default.
Anyone with a functioning brain knows that Obama has racked up $4T in national debt in just 2.5 years. Everyone knows that the Congressional Democrats over the last couple of years haven't even bothered to set up a budget, and the "budget" set up Obama didn't win a single Senate vote (including majority Democrat). His two "reduction" efforts amounted to a statistically nominal $17.1B in over $10T of spending. Obama's cuts are little more than gimmicks, things like deferred cuts in Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements to providers, cuts in budget increases, modest increases in eligibility criteria, phased in over time, etc.
Obama has had no scruples; he never asked for spending cuts or tax increases when initially pushing for a debt limit increase. With $1.3T or above in annual deficits, he insists that we can't cut at the expense of the overburdened middle class whom got most of the benefit of the Bush tax cuts (but almost half of which don't currently pay a penny towards federal government operations), but we do need that $70B from the upper income brackets in addition to their already footing the bill for most of federal income revenues. And he's willing to play "no deal" unless he gets his hands on that $70B. He's willing to take a default over class warfare tax hikes after arguing default was financial Armageddon. He's willing to take a default over, say, a 5 or 6-month debt limit deal, after arguing default was financial Armageddon. Why? Because he argues it would politicize the debt over the coming year. Even if we accept that transparent excuse for "I don't want to fight this again while running for reelection", any objective analysis draws one to the conclusion that the ceiling isn't intrinsically important--if's Obama's reelection.
I saw a news conference late Friday afternoon where Obama lapsed into complete demagoguery; nobody in my lifetime deserves an ass kicking more than this pathetic excuse of a "President". His lecturing Speaker Boehner as being irrational for not seeing things "the Obama Way" is utterly contemptible and disingenuous. I'm embarrassed for my country that people all over the world are seeing an elitist, condescending snake oil salesman without an ounce of integrity or leadership in his whole body masquerade as President of the United States.
How STUPID are the American people not to understand a political party that INCREASES the budget while revenues are falling off a cliff--and we are not talking about food stamps, welfare or some unemployment compensation which are expected in a recession: we are talking about throwing money at high speed trains, $100K-salary federal bureaucrats, bailouts of people whom bought a house they knew they couldn't afford, etc.--, which has, unlike every state and local government, refused to make any material cuts in spending, operations, etc., which passes 2000-page convoluted laws that nobody understands--even the people enacting them, which does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address badly underfunded entitlements to seniors JUST AS the largest generation, the baby boomers, are starting to retire--how could the American people trust Democrats anywhere near the US Treasury? I mean, would you leave your baby near an unprotected wall socket?
Obama dishonors the office he holds. I would use stronger language, but not in a blog. It used to be that however incompetent and wrong his political views, I and others were proud that we elected a minority President after a shameful history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Instead, what we have is someone whom is little more than manipulative public-image obsessed populist whose only talent seems to be the ability to deliver a speech someone else writes for him. He has lived down to his paper-thin resume, and this country deserves better than the millions of voters whom gambled away the future of the country did so by putting their emotions over their sound judgment in electing the worst President in the history of the United States.
Political Humor
"A new study found that only 20 percent of high school seniors are proficient in geography. Students weren't really bothered by that number because only 3 percent of them are proficient in math." - Jimmy Fallon
[That's because the first question on the geography exam was to get to the test room using a map.]
"House Speaker John Boehner invited new congressmen over for pizza last night. Unfortunately, the delivery guy left when they spent 10 hours fighting over a plan to pay for it." - Jimmy Fallon
[Things are going so well between President Obama and Speaker Boehner that when President Obama orders pizza for his staff, he tells the delivery boy, "It's on the House."]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ELO, "All Over the World"
