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Thursday, 21 June 2012
Surely the Bravest
Topic: Freedom's Guardian

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: My daughter Lexi will be leaving the Army soon. Now that the military is downsizing, soldiers are being offered early outs and Lexi has decided to accept one. By the time she's officially released from active duty, PFC Gregg will have served for four years as an MP, including a one-year overseas tour in Korea and a one-year deployment to Afghanistan.

Lexi, as a fellow soldier I salute you for your outstanding service to the Army and our country. And as a father, I just want to say that you've made me proud.


Posted by tmg110 at 10:50 PM EDT
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Monday, 18 June 2012
Whatever Happened to the Public Option?
Topic: Decline of the West

 

This Washington Post blog post by Jonathan Bernstein caught my eye. In it, he wonders why Democratic candidates for office, from Obama on down, are not supporting the so-called public option (government-provided health insurance for the masses) as a fix for Obamacare. He notes that progressives support it strongly and that it “polls well.”

 

Well, Jonathan, let me see if I can clear up that question for you. With the federal budget in a death spiral, thanks mainly to out-of-control entitlement spending, the creation of a vastly expensive new entitlement is both fiscally and politically impossible. I marvel that you don’t get that.


Posted by tmg110 at 3:53 PM EDT
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Friday, 15 June 2012
Who's He Think He's Kidding?
Topic: Decline of the West

The above is my quick take on President Obama's "major speech on the economy," which merely recycled the same tired old catch phrases and buzz words he's been flinging around for three and a half years—and at intolerable length! It took him nearly an hour to say what turned out to be nothing much in particular. Clearly, this is a man who utterly adores the sound of his own voice…


Posted by tmg110 at 11:50 AM EDT
Updated: Friday, 15 June 2012 11:57 AM EDT
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Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Target Hit!
Topic: Decline of the West

The true, certain and undoubted Quote of the Day: "Intellectual diversity on the left is increasingly indistinguishable from Tupperware night with the Stepford Wives." (Mark Steyn)


Posted by tmg110 at 8:13 AM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 13 June 2012 8:15 AM EDT
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Tuesday, 12 June 2012
He's the One
Topic: Liberal Fascism

 

The most annoying public figure in America? Well, there’s plenty of competition for the title, but I’d like to nominate New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg—the Scourge of Trans-Fat, the Slayer of the Big Gulp. There are few things more hilarious and at the same time more irritating than a dim-bulb politician on a mission to correct the unhealthy personal habits of the proles. Does this chump really think that his various food fatwas are going to restrain the ever-expanding waistline of New Yorkers? Unlikely as it may seem, yes, he does. Doofus.


Posted by tmg110 at 5:20 PM EDT
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Monday, 11 June 2012
Occupy 2.0!
Topic: Liberal Fascism

 

Did you think that the Occupy movement was moribund—dead, even? Hah! Like Count Dracula in the Hammer films, it just keeps coming back to life. And if you don’t believe me, then certainly you can take Adbusters’ word for it. That dauntless Canadian foe of capitalism and …whatever…originally summoned the Occupy movement into being, after all! So read, you greedy One Percenters, and tremble:

 

In its own sweet way, our movement is now moving beyond the Zuccotti model and developing a tactical imperative of its own: Small groups of fired up second generation occupiers acting independently, swiftly and tenaciously pulling off myriad visceral local actions, disrupting capitalist business-as-usual across the globe.

 

The next big bang to capture the world’s imagination could come not from a thousand encampments but from a hundred thousand ephemeral jams… a global cascade of flash encampments may well be what this hot Summer will look like.

 

Meanwhile, tents are up once again in Tahrir Square and youth from Quebec to Auckland to Moscow to Oakland are rising up against a future that does not compute.

 

Stay loose, play jazz, keep the faith … Capitalism is crashing and our movement has just begun.

 

for the wild,

Culture Jammers HQ

 

Just incidentally, who the hell writes a phrase like “myriad visceral local actions,” not to mention “a hundred thousand ephemeral jams”? Look out, Smuckers—you’re next!


Posted by tmg110 at 1:59 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, 11 June 2012 2:03 PM EDT
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Angst at the Barricades
Topic: Liberal Fascism

 

John Fund reports for NRO on NetRoots Nation, the annual convention of leftie bloggers and online activists. Let’s just say that he didn’t find a lot of happy campers:

 

[E]nthusiasm for Obama was decidedly absent from this year’s gathering. Administration officials weren’t invited to attend (Valerie Jarrett and others have appeared in the past), and President Obama limited his role to an unpublicized surprise video shown to delegates late on Saturday, when many people had already left. “Change is hard, but we’ve seen that it’s possible, as long as you’re willing to keep up that fight, I’ll be right there with you,” Obama offered. Not exactly a stirring call to arms, and the tepid applause his video garnered can’t have pleased Team Obama.

 

The Web-based Left is more than a little vexed with the President and his party. In their view, Obama and the Dems have abandoned the progressive cause. Though the focus of discontent was the disastrous (for them) outcome of the Wisconsin recall, the NetRooters voiced many additional gripes.

 

Does this mean that progressives will abandon Barry in November? Hardly. Where else are they going to turn? To the Green Party? Still, the online Left’s marked lack of enthusiasm for Obama/Biden 2012 can only help Mitt Romney. In 2008, all the energy was on the side of Hope & Change. But the times, they are a’ changing…


Posted by tmg110 at 7:45 AM EDT
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OMG, What Next?!
Topic: Decline of the West

 

It seems to be a principle of American politics: When things start to go wrong for a president and his administration, anything can happen:

 

Commerce Secretary John Bryson accused in hit-and-run crashes

 

According to the Los Angeles Times:

 

Authorities are investigating a series of traffic collisions in the San Gabriel Valley involving U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson, authorities said Saturday.

 

Bryson was found unconscious in his vehicle and has been hospitalized, officials said.

Bryson was driving a Lexus in the 400 block of South San Gabriel Boulevard shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, when he allegedly rear-ended a Buick as it was waiting for a train to pass, according to a statement released by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the San Gabriel Police Department.

 

After briefly stopping to talk to the three men inside the Buick, Bryson left the location in the Lexus and then struck the Buick a second time, authorities said. The men followed Bryson's car and called 911 to ask for police assistance.

 

Bryson continued to drive his Lexus into Rosemead, which is patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. There, he allegedly crashed into a second vehicle near the intersection of San Gabriel Boulevard and Hellman Avenue.

 

There authorities found him alone and unconscious behind the wheel of his car.

Bryson was treated at the scene by Los Angeles County firefighters. Authorities said drugs or alcohol do not appear to have played a role in the crash. They said Bryson was cooperative. He was cited for felony hit and run but was not booked into jail because he had been admitted to the hospital. His condition was not known.

 

Actually I think I can make an accurate guess as to the Secretary’s condition: He misses private life and will be resigning soon to spend more time with his family (and his lawyer). Personally, I can’t wait for the Obama Administration’s reaction to this story. Perhaps we’ll be told that the Secretary’s problems stem from being bullied in prep school by Mitt Romney. As Rahm Emanuel once quipped, never let a good crisis go to waste!


Posted by tmg110 at 7:20 AM EDT
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Saturday, 9 June 2012
Bob Berates the Peasants
Topic: Liberal Fascism

 

So how come the Left failed in its crusade to boot the fascist Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, out of office? Just ask Bob Scheer! Writing for Nation of Change, he has an answer that’s sure to warm the hearts of the citizens of the Badger State:

 

The electorate in Wisconsin…tat voted Tuesday against public employee unions were not expressing a rational response to the crisis, but rather a tantrum stoked by the lavishly financed demagogues of the right. The voters bought their story because the opportunism of the Democratic Party leadership has left progressives without a believable alternative to the tea party’s narrative. Indeed, job creation became a bigger issue than collective bargaining in the Wisconsin race, and the dismal national unemployment figures that came out just days before the election didn’t hurt the Republicans’ cause.

 

Once again, the dumbasses in Flyover Country have crushed the hopes and dreams of coastal progressives—and in the home state of such leftie luminaries as “Fighting Bob” Lafollette, William Proxmire and Russ Feingold!

 

Feingold, incidentally, was better at reading the tea leaves than wise guys like Scheer: He declined to run against Scott Walker in the recall election. Not that the latter is completely wrong in his commentary. It’s quite true that the Democratic Party had no believable alternative to Walker’s policies. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s candidacy was hobbled from the beginning by his inability to explain how he’d balance the state’s budget and boost its economy. It’s clear what Scheer wanted: a left-wing candidate standing on a radical platform, denouncing “Teabaggers,” “the extreme Right,” “greedy bankers,” “corporations,” etc. The likely result of such a campaign is not difficult to envision: an even more crushing Walker victory. But his diagnosis of the Democrats’ problem is spot on: no “believable alternative.”

 

Scheer is also correct when he points out that President Obama let the side down. And he’s understandably bitter about it:

 

[T]he president made two fundraising stops within 50 miles of the Wisconsin border last Friday, but studiously avoided entering the state he easily carried in the 2008 election. Instead of visiting, Obama tweeted: “It’s Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I’m standing by Tom Barrett. He’d make an outstanding governor. -bo.” Not a word of support for the unions that so slavishly support the president and spent millions propping up Barrett.

 

Angry contempt for the peasants and proles who failed to vote as required, dismay over a progressive president’s chicken-hearted punt—it isn’t easy being Bob!


Posted by tmg110 at 10:56 AM EDT
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Not So Hot?
Topic: Decline of the West

 

I’m always bemused by op-ed and news analysis pieces that tout the brilliance of a political campaign organization. Because when you think about it, doing right thing to do in the course of a campaign is just doing the obvious. Is the economy circling the drain? Then the challenger should hit the incumbent on the economy. Did the incumbent succeed in killing a high-profile enemy of the country? Then the incumbent should take credit for the kill. It’s really not that complicated.

 

So I’ve been somewhat surprised by the stumbling, fumbling, bumbling course of the Obama campaign so far. True, he’s embarking on a rocky, winding road to reelection—but is that any excuse for the series of unforced errors we’ve witnessed over the last couple of weeks? After the brilliant campaign that Team Obama ran in 2008, I and most observers certainly never expected such a string of unforced errors.

 

But maybe Team Obama was never all that brilliant. Maybe 2008 was a fluke. Maybe the combination of an economic downturn, a financial crisis, war weariness and an erratic Republican candidate paved Barack Obama’s Yellow Brick Road to the White House. Maybe today, in a much different political environment, we’re seeing what the candidate and his campaign are really made of: smoke, mirrors, shiny objects, wind and hot air.


Posted by tmg110 at 10:29 AM EDT
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