It’s hard to put down in writing. Smollett.

My predictions:  Someone will either talk, or investigations will provide the info.  The Jussie Smollett whitewash will (if there is any justice) show how deep the corruption goes.  Really, it’s hard to comprehend how dumb the supporters of this hoax are, as everything points to him being guilty as fuck.  What makes me angry is that if he had confessed to doing this, community service and a fine would have been ok.  However, since he came out saying “I have been completely honest” after the charges were dropped (with no one knowing), I felt that he should pay for the damage that he either did or could have done.

I don’t know how far this reaches.  However, every time I think that it’s out of common sense land, it goes further.  I, a non-lawyer, looks at this and thinks “WTF” does anyone actually believe this, and sure as shit, there are posts that say “Yup”.

I don’t have anything in common with someone who thinks like this.  This person is clearly off the reservation, and the differences are too great to span.  I want someone who can say their piece, their “rock”, and let me think about it, and look at it away from the heated discourse of today.  But it seems that everything is either “Black” or “White”.

Trump is either a harbinger of this, or an emphasizer of the America we have become.  Although I shake every time he comes out with a new name for people or positions he doesn’t like, he seems to hit the nail on the head.  Fake news?  Yep.  Fake news?  Yep.  Russia bullsh*t?  Yep.  North Korea? Yep.  Climate Accord?  Yep.  Border?  Yep.  Lower taxes?  Yep?  Military?  Yep.  Feeling good about being an American?  Yep.  Everything points to a much deeper conspiracy about the Steele dossier; will it come out?  If it doesn’t, is there is larger, deeper issue here?

We seem to be in a “reality show bubble”.  It’s hard to keep track of how weird this is.  Is Jussie Smollett guilty?  Of course he is.  Did Trump do anything that every American president has done?  Yup.  How we deal with it will establish where we go for the next decade or so.  I think, personally, that we are toast and in 50 years will devolve into a “have” and a “have not” society.  No one likes to lose.

 

What a Week! And it’s only Wednesday

Where to start?  Last Saturday President Trump, after 2 years of investigation, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 230 orders for communication records, and interviews with approximately 500 witnesses, was cleared of both obstruction and collusion.  By an army of experienced investigators. Who were not his friends, by any stretch of the imagination.  As a matter of fact, they were highly motivated to find something.  With $30,000,000 or so to spend on digging up any dirt they can find.  Think about that for a minute.

Now, think about your life, and the things you might have done in the last ten years, and apply that same scenario.  Do you think those investigators might find something?  I read that the average person commits 7 felonies a year (I can’t remember where I saw it).  The gist of the article was about the overabundance of laws, and that anyone could be arrested for something, even if committing them unintentionally.  Cardinal Richelieu said “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

What is disturbing is the reaction of the 48% of voters that didn’t vote for Donald Trump.  The media, both print and electronic, didn’t handle it well.  Fox News was the exception.  Some (not many) in the media took the news professionally.  Others, not so much.  Many of the “Talking Heads” who just days before were confidently predicting treason, or that they had seen the evidence that would put the President in jail.  They had seen it with their own eyes!  But  nothing has been forthcoming.  Think about that for a moment.

We had people, fellow Americans, that were actually disappointed that our country was not being led by a Russian spy!  How truly disturbing that is.  That we, as a country, are living in the most prosperous and secure times of our nation, and someone wants to believe that a billionaire, with everything to lose, would endanger himself or his family.  He didn’t need to run for President for the money or the fame.  He has a beautiful, elegant wife.  She speaks six languages.  She is also an immigrant. His children seem fairly normal, which in today’s world is quite a trick.  For comparison, look at other wealthy, famous parents and their children.

Does this make sense to anyone?  And, even though we have some of the premier law enforcement agencies in the world,  no one has stumbled on even a hint of collusion or obstruction.  Either they are very bad at their jobs, or Donald Trump is an above average genius, in which case we probably would want him as President, or there wasn’t any collusion or obstruction.  Hmmm.  Tough one.

Follow another line of thought.  The investigators had pretty much an open checkbook. They were funded through September 2019. If you’re a spy with the goods on the President, you might start thinking about your retirement plan.  I’m sure that $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 wouldn’t be out of the question, possibly much more.  Look at all the Democrat billionaires – that’s pocket change, and a severe enough case of Trump Derangement Syndrome would probably have them bidding against each other.  They’d be heroes to their friends on the left for life!  Adulation galore!

Or what if you don’t have the goods?  Then make shit up!  Truly affected TDS sufferers are pathetically anxious to believe any awful tidbit about President Trump.  Reason and logic waved bye bye as they roared past.  Many of these people are intelligent normally, they’ve just bought into something that they so desperately want to be true.  Think about Michael Avenetti, the attorney that on Monday was charged with bank fraud and extortion.  A number of pundits thought he could be a front runner in the 2020 race! If he’s found guilty, he’ll be running out of the showers till around 2048.  Who’s next, Kim Jong-un?

Next item on the list – Jussie Smollett, the actor believed to be behind the hoax in Chicago.  The State’s Attorney office in Cook County, without a hint of warning, suddenly drops the 16 felony counts, in exchange for – wait for it – the $10,000 bond that Smollett put up.  There are so many things wrong here, it’s hard to add them all up.

But I want you to think about something first.  If Smollett had actually been mugged by two guys wearing MAGA hats at 2:00 AM, in mind-numbing cold,  carrying a noose and bleach (I know, it sounds so stupid when you put it in writing), would it been out of the question that some racial rioting might have occurred?  Remember Rodney King?  And that was because 3 cops were found innocent.  A black friend of mine did not talk to me for a year because, when he asked me what I thought of the verdict, I replied “I don’t know.  I wasn’t in the courtroom”.  Los Angeles suffered horrific damages in the rioting.  To me, this isn’t an innocent crime, people could have been killed.

From all appearances, cops appeared to have had a drop-dead case, and were outraged that it was dropped. Reportedly, they showed minimal information to the Grand Jury, and that jury handed down 16 felony charges.  That’s pretty stark.  Chicago is listed as the most corrupt city in the U.S.  Type “corrupt Chicago politicians” into a search engine, and what pops up looks like one of those “bait ball” groupings of fish.

Now, pause for a moment to consider this thought – how bad does the dropping of charges stink when you have the corrupt mayor (https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/50-washingtons-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2010/)  of the most corrupt city, call the decision by one of his subordinates, “a whitewash of justice”?

Let’s do some fun math.  Jussie Smollett lied to police, and had he not been caught, could have started some very violent rioting.  His penalty?  The Chicago States Attorney gets to keep the $10,000 bond, because it was “non-violent”.  So, that comes out to $625 per felony.  Also, he was facing a potential 48 years in prison.  That’s 3 years per felony!  And to add to the stiffness of the penalty, he would have to work for 10 whole minutes to make that up!

I can tell you that more than a few people are breathing easier tonight, because the cost of crime has come waaay down!  Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin, and 48 others in the college admissions scandal committed 1 felony, “conspiracy to commit mail fraud”.  That comes out to $625 for each of them, and possibly 3 years in the big house.  I’m going to guess that they have that much in their petty cash jar.

However, they  may want the 3 years with the psycho cell mate.  Just to stay away from their daughters.  Can you imagine the anger of an 18 or 19 year old girl that has her sponsorships evaporate, and her blogging career ruined?  Dates might be hard to get for a while, getting invited to the best parties might be rare as well.  In older times, if she had any scholastic aptitude, her parents could send her overseas for a few years at a foreign school.  The internet has made invisibility impossible.  They will be mocking in Italy as much as LA.

So, it would seem that someone called in a BIG marker on Smollett.  The States Attorney Foxx had to know that this would smell, and even possibly put her job in jeopardy.  She is reported to have higher political ambitions, knows the Obamas, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, as well as other Democrat big shots.  One of George Soros’s PAC’s has allegedly donated $408,000 to her campaign.  She looks like an obvious person to owe some favors.  Her deputy, Joe Magats, was the one that said he made the decision to drop the charges.  Did he believe that Smollett was guilty?  “Yes”.

The judge sealed the case.  Why?  Police hurriedly released as much as they could before the order came down.  I don’t know if doing this is standard for a judge to do, but obviously the Chicago Police felt that they were being thrown under the bus and wanted to release as much as they could before everything was hushed up.  Every attorney I have listened to said that not getting Smollett to acknowledge what he  did was unheard of. Also, because the charges were dropped, “Empire” can’t fire Smollett.  Last but not least, I haven’t heard a peep about police going out to find the “real” perpetrators of the assault.  If they did arrest the two Nigerian brothers, would Smollett let them go to prison rather than admit the hoax?  It’s really not a lower action than he has already done.

The FBI still is investigating and can still charge Smollett.  I’m going to guess that they might be investigating the State’s Attorney, as well as others in this strange twist of events.  One can only hope that the rest of the story comes out.  I have to say that I will keep $625 handy if I ever carry a kilo of cocaine or commit tax fraud. They’re non violent, and somehow don’t seem as scary today as yesterday.

I started this to be a somewhat humorous musing on a few things going on in the world. Unfortunately, I feel soiled and somewhat depressed.  It shouldn’t be this way.  I have two small children in my life, and I remember being young and innocent.  Good people were rewarded, bad people were punished.  You told the truth most of the time, even if it made you look bad.  Actions like these lower us as a species, at a time when we should be evolving.

UPDATE:  Apparently, it’s being reported by Smollett’s attorney, when asked if they were going to sue, she replied that they’re looking at all their options.  Secondly, it’s reported the Nigerian brothers that confessed to the fake attack at Smollet’s direction, are now no longer talking with police.  Their attorney has dropped them.  And I just saw that Chicago spent $150,000 on investigating the case. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jussie-smollett-state-prosecutor-who-dropped-charges-still-believes-hes-guilty/ )  Just when you think it can’t get any stranger…

For those of you who haven’t seen the TV series “The Good Wife” you are missing something along the lines of Life following Art.  It’s a great 8 season series, set in Chicago about law firms, government attorney’s, and corruption.  Highly recommended!!

 

 

 

 

Fake News, or Not? Do we care?

Things have gotten so far out of hand that when I read a headline, I can’t tell if it’s real or something from the Babylon Bee or the Onion.  An example:

Georgia Bill to Regulate Ejaculate http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20192020/HB/604

This is by no means out of the ordinary.  When President Trump talks about “fake news” he is actually understating what’s out in the news media.  Some others:

Houston Public Library Has Sex Offender Read to Kids

Chelsea Clinton Blamed for Christchurch

Candidates Propose Changes To Fix Flaw In Constitution That Allows Republicans To Be Elected

Library Under Fire For Hosting Controversial ‘Straight Male Story Hour’

Catholic priest arrested for groping woman while giving her last rites

Prince Charles has been wearing the same swim trunks for 12 years

Rich New Yorkers are paying this lady $450 for garbage hats

Gillibrand: Give Social Security To Illegal Aliens, It’s A Right

Students Fight for Right to Free Fabric Softener

Democrat Presidential Candidate Hickenlooper Took His Mother To See Deep Throat

Report: US GOV’T TOOK DEAD CATS FROM ASIAN MARKETS AND FED THEM TO CATS HERE

Pelosi: I’ve always been in favor of 16 year olds to vote

Doctor suggests killing patients who want to donate organs

Escaped Cow Stops By Chick-fil-A While Chased by Police

Ok, two are fake, and from the “Babylon Bee”.  But which ones? I may have proven my point.  When you hear, for example, that New York has passed an abortion law that allows for abortion even after the baby is born alive, that’s really sick.  Although I believe in the right of a woman to control her body, that’s murder. 

I expect to read a headline any day that says “murder is now a human right” or “slavery is found to be constitutional”.  We have slipped into the Twilight Zone of reality.  I guess I am so old that I remember that there was a commonality within the public at large.  We sort of believed the same things; whether we lived up to our beliefs was a different issue.

It may be that through the internet, we are merely becoming aware of things that have always occurred. I believe that, through the internet, we have opened a gateway to impulses that people suppressed in the past.  When you see and hear things constantly, in some way it becomes “normal”. 

Think about pornography.  When I was young, stealing my brother’s Playboy magazine was highly titillating.  In college, x-rated movies were shown in fraternities, and it was a big deal. Now, any five year old with an Ipad or phone can look up whatever they want.  It’s numbed us.  Does anything really shock us anymore?

In politics, there seems to be, as always, a gotcha factor.  As a matter of fact, does anyone really care about what a politician’s past is?  Think about the past 30 years.  Gary Hart challenged the press to follow him, and they did.  And found him with his mistress.  Ooops.  Bill Clinton waved his finger at the camera and said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and “I smoked (pot) but did not inhale”.  I remember at the time thinking “Uh huh”.

Fake news probably has always been with us.  We have been, and are, constantly manipulated (or exposed to attempts of manipulation)  by others.  The difference is that we have become more aware of the fact.  A good book to read is by Sharyl Attkisson called “The Smear”.  It’s frightening, so if you’re paranoid, don’t read it.  It tells about how we get bitch-slapped by others who want to manipulate you.  Politics, religion, it doesn’t matter.

I think that people care about whether they have enough food, shelter, security for their children, health, and safety.  This might be the disconnect for the Democrat party – they are trying to make people unhappy with good times: low unemployment, lower crime, lower taxes, lower gas prices, cleaner air, and less war.  That’s a tough sell.

BTW, the two fake stories above are the “Constitutional ban on Republicans” and “Straight Male Story Hour”.  Surprised?

 

 

“Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them, the rest of us could not succeed.” Mark Twain

A quick follow-up to my previous post about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Some observations:

1. Self-delusional people are a part of life.  Generally, the easiest way to “set them off” is to challenge their delusion.  Apparently AOC had just such a moment when she found that her popularity had tumbled.  She rationalized this by being a victim.  This allowed her to be blameless.  Does anyone in the Democrat party know how numbing this is?  Not everything is racism and/or sexism.  It has become a standard joke that when someone (usually a Democrat) says or does something idiotic.  People roll their eyes and say “it must be racism or sexism (or it’s Trump’s fault)” in a sarcastic voice.  This is a disservice to real problems.
2. Her air of self-importance is very off-putting.  We have all known people that, instead of speaking, “pronounce” their thoughts.  They think of it as wisdom they’re dispensing to the uninformed.  We generally think of it as “shut up” or “go away” or “dear God in heaven, I hope she/he is good in bed”.
3. I would bet money, real money, that she was a pretty good bartender.  Any drink she didn’t know, she could make up, or look up in a book (they keep one at every bar).  I mean, who would challenge those eyes? That’s one of the ways Nature puts out a warning sign.   And drunks will put up with a lot of intellectual puffery, because, hey, bars are where intellectual puffery comes to congregate.  I have puffered myself, and even sometimes not even intellectually.  I would drink to decipher her comments, but my liver would never hold out.
4. It has been pointed out that I didn’t mention many of her gaffes.  Who can type that much, and has that much time?
5. Also, I don’t mean to focus on her.  There are many others, on both sides of the aisle.  But she keeps elbowing and shoving her way to the front.  I mean, when someone tries that hard, like a grade schooler who waves his arm in class and goes “oooh!, oooh!, oooh!” how can you not call on her?
6. Finally, there is a movement to overturn 200+ years of the electoral college.  I don’t think that any serious American should consider this.  A Democrat partizan would, because two or three of the largest states are locks for Democrats, and could overrule any of the smaller states.  And would this have been suggested if both New York and California were Republican strongholds?  Not a chance.  And would this have been considered if all the remaining states banded together as Republican?  No.  It appears to be more a case of “if we lose, change the rules”.  Hopefully, this will die the ignominious death it deserves.

AOC – “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid, than open it and remove all doubt.” Mark Twain

My friend and I were marveling at the sheer number of gaffes that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez piles up,  the arrogance she displays, without the slightest hint of self-awareness at how dumb she looks and sounds (she’s wearing glasses, so she must be smart!).  Then I realized that I had dated her doppelganger, and smiled at the experience.  I would guess that others have stumbled down this road, and if lucky, veered off to find better paths as I did.

Years ago, after college, I moved to a ski resort to spend some of my youth before buckling down for the real world.  I got a job at a local inn waiting tables.  Life was pretty good, I was young, fit, muscular, a college degree, and a world of possibilities at my feet.

The bartender at the inn was Wanda (not her real name), she was from Texas, and was tall, thin, pretty, dark eyes, dark long hair, and a flashing white smile.  She was older than me by 5 years, and was just coming out of a long relationship.  All I knew about him was that he rode a Harley.

This being a famous ski area, the  locals grew to be a fairly tight-knit group.  It being the late 70’s, staying up all night doing whatever felt pretty good was the norm.  Wanda and I would close up the bar and go hang out with co-workers.

We would talk for hours, enraptured, high, and I was fascinated by her worldly views and sophistication.  By the time we slept together, I was helplessly hooked, even while becoming dimly aware that many of the things she said just didn’t make sense.  It wasn’t that her points of view were off, they were off-the-charts incomprehensible.  But, to a young man in love, you really stretch to overlook things that friends later told me were obvious.

Some wisdom I learned during that time was “Sex with a crazy woman is the greatest sex there is.”  Period.  You really don’t know who is mentally home from moment to moment, what they are going to say or do, and that makes it exciting.  Sort of “am I going to wake up tomorrow” exciting.  It’s the time you’re not having sex that is tortuous.

I have participated in all sorts of risky behaviors; things that should have killed me,  crippled me, or crushed my soul.  Things I had no business doing.  But those were only temporary risks.  Wanda fed my adrenaline junkie darker self on a daily basis that made zero sense to others, and took a year for me to unwind.

Sound familiar?  If you’re lucky, it does not.  But this is the current state of the Democrat party.  Since the November election, Speaker Pelosi has probably been thinking she should have retired rather than have to deal with arrogant, witless Representatives that spout any thought that pops in their heads, and keeps her in permanent damage control.  Think of it as “Political Tourette’s Disease”.  There is no agenda other than “Impeach Trump”  and this keeps the public too distracted for Democrats to make any headway.  For Republicans,  Democrats are just the gift that keeps on giving.

I have been discussing Donald Trump with a close friend about whether he is a fool or a genius.  My friend comes down somewhat on the side of “fool”.  I am not so sure.  Yes, I cringe when he says something outrageous, and wish he didn’t say whatever it was.  But there’s a difference between thoughts and actions, and in his actions, he does the right thing, at least in my book.  He has kept more promises than any politician in my lifetime.  I think that he genuinely cares for America, and is overseeing the greatest resurgence this country has had since Reagan.

Also, if he’s a fool, what does that say about Democrats because he sure has them chasing their tails.

However, what if  it came out that Donald Trump persuaded and paid for AOC to run against a strong Democrat and win?  Hands down, he would then be the greatest genius since Machiavelli. (Trump-ragers, don’t start another investigation, it was just a joke!)

Democrats whining about how bad things are, and how terrible the President is, and how he needs to be impeached, don’t realize how foolish, childish, and petty they look. When citizens look at the antics, hypocrisy, and ethics of AOC, Maxine Waters, Adam Shiff, Elizabeth Warren and others, does someone, other than the totally rabid, reflexive Trump hater, really think that these are leaders?

Put another way: would I really want a Representative who doesn’t know how to decorate an apartment, and is asking for decorating advice?  Really?  Or is this a blatant attempt to “hang with the homies” and show how totally, like, down to Earth and connected you are?  Oddly enough, I would guess that a furniture store would know this info, because they have done it like maybe, oh, I don’t know, Like One Hundred Thousand Times!

Now, I know it’s been a bad month for Democrats.  A really spectacularly bad month.  Nancy Pelosi can’t control this mob of sugar-enraged children.  Perhaps that’s why she wants to lower the voting age to 16.  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense!   I mean, if 16 year olds are going to run the country,  let’s put them in the military, let them drink, smoke pot, and become bartenders.  Or Representatives.  But don’t let them vape!  And I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi is being totally altruistic on this, because everyone knows you can’t influence a child, and their decision-making ability is rock-solid.  Can you imagine a bunch of hormonal, emotional, and immature children in the House of Representatives?  But I repeat myself.

I want to see the look on Speaker Pelosi’s face when she goes on one of her famous junkets (sorry, fact finding tour) and sees the 16 year old pilot behind the stick of the C130.  I bet she starts hoping that the pilot didn’t have her boyfriend break up with her the night before!

Democrats have anti-Semites on display daily.  They helped a minor Hollywood actor (allegedly) create what could have brought on the worst race problems this country had ever seen.  Spartacus sounds like an idiot.  Kamala Harris can’t think on her feet, and has perfected the blank look. Beto O’Rourke actually made me laugh out loud with his coming out Dance-A-Thon party.  AOC is supposed to have graduated cum laude from Boston University?  Please.  If she was my daughter,  I would demand my money back.  Thank God Guam didn’t tip over.  The list is endless.

Watching Ocasio-Cortez question the chairman of Wells Fargo was the topper (so far).  I know she’s only been in office for two months, but I don’t think a recall would be out of the question.  If I lived in her district, I would start wearing a trench coat and have a cap pulled down low as I slipped down the street.  I wouldn’t want to have the responsibility of saying “she represents me!”  I’d start faking that I was out of town last November, or in a coma.  And don’t get me started on why we don’t know where she lived, and why she didn’t pay her taxes.  She’s 29, for God’s sake!

However, if a recall for AOC does come about, President Trump and the Republican Party should fight it tooth and nail.

 

Really?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courtesy Moonbattery.com

Some Observations on the 2012 Electiions

Let’s face it…I am a Frickin Genius.  I look at my post from last Spring, and I look positively psychic.  I hear the calls for Obama to step down, bring Hillary back, we made a mistake, blah blah blah.  Never has it been so apparent that we need to rely on our friends and family, because Dear Leader certainly isn’t making things any better while he’s on the golf course.  And I appreciated that he called the rest of us lazy.  Ms Antoinette would approve.

So, what exactly grounds for impeachment, anyways?  Funneling money to your top contributors doesn’t do it, gunrunning down to Mexico and getting Americans killed doesn’t do it.  Spending $10,000,000 this year on vacations seems dicey.  How about taking over private car companies?  I see the loss to the taxpayer is estimated to be $23,000,000,000.   Executive Orders bypassing the Congress and Senate?  That will be rich once a Republican president starts going roughshod over the Democrats.  Oh, there will be much gnashing of teeth and rending of hair.  Whatever.

I like Herman Cain.  He got dealt the Chicago Shuffle.  I don’t believe the accusations for a minute.  What I figure happened here is Cain, being black, was Obama’s worst nightmare.  It would cut a lot of the acid from the evening news.  Plus, he has a track record (imagine that).  So Democrats think “Damn, there goes the unified black vote, and independents aren’t going to choke on that hope and change from the last time out.  We gotta smear him.  Sure, it was in the nineties, and no, there’s no proof , but we gotta do something”.  Send out the usual people – you know, the ones that no matter what President Unicorn does, and how bad it looks (57 states, walking into a glass door) they come up with some twisted logic to explain it all away.  I thought sniffing glue was illegal.

And what’s up with Obama STILL trying to blame Bush for everything.  It’s like a six year old in the Oval Office.  Dude, you knew what the job was when you took it.  Grow a set or step down.  Jesus, that would make Joe hop off the trike, and God help me, it couldn’t be any worse.

So, 2012 will bring the worst Presidential pandering ever seen.  Forget an overall plan – it will definitely be just to get votes.  Or, he may step down and a credible candidate step up.  I just don’t see his arrogance allowing that as an option.

The Republicans?

My earlier blog seems eerily prescient.  And how I wish I was wrong.  No to Bachmann – too much of a lightening rod.  Perry seems to have shot himself in the foot, looked at it, and then reloaded.  Cain needs to put the talks of harrassment behind him if he is going to stay.  Gingrich has always been smart, and probably would destroy anyone in a debate.  He’s very smart.  But he has negatives.  I like Ron Paul, but with him there is no middle ground, and that probably makes it difficult to get more mainstream voters.  Santorum?  Who?  Not this election unless he, well he’d have to change an awful lot.  Finally, Mitt.  He’s the one that the liberal media love.  They want him to be the nominee so badly that they will say anything they can to make it seem inevitable that he will be the nominee.  And once there, the knives will come out.  Mitt Romney looks like a chisel-jawed political model.  And that’s the problem.  I don’t trust him.  He speaks well in debates, but I don’t like the packaging.  And if he is the nominee, it will be portrayed at “rich white guy vs black incumbent president” and the issues will never be brought up in the conversation.  If you don’t vote for Barack, why, You’re a Racist.

Where the Dem’s miscalculation might be is not understanding how tricked the independent voter feels.  Not once have I heard an Independent or even a Democrat say anything positive about Obama first three years.  One person said that he would rather have someone flipping coins in the White House; at least he’d be half right.  That is a sad commentary on a man way in over his head.

So, the next year will be interesting and probably everyone will double their meds.

Last Thoughts:  I loved Chris Christie’s quote about Obama this week:  “What the hell are we paying him for?”

Collision of Hope vs. Reality?

At some point in the near future, the liberal/left wing of the American populace is going to have to contemplate an awful couple of thoughts:

1.  Is the President not all that smart?

2. Should Democrats support/run/nominate someone against Obama in the primaries so they have any kind of chance to retain the White House?

Scary thoughts.  Let’s take a brief moment to examine each question.

Question:  Is the President not as smart as he has been portrayed?

Answer:  No one knows for sure.  He is the only President that hasn’t released his grades, his thesis, nor anything that demonstrates (or supports) any intellectual capabilities.  It’s hard to overstate how frightening this is – America may have someone who is completely dumbfounded by his position, with only his narcissism to keep him from collapsing under self-realization of his shortcomings.

Looking at his track record, it’s hard to imagine a more destructive force in American life.  Unemployment is up, costs have doubled, international respect is gone, the Constitution is a grocery store coupon to be used when convenient, and only in one area is America number one – dumb ideas and food stamp recipients.  Obama is routinely compared (unfavorably, I might add) to Jimmy Carter.  How do you come in second to Number Last?  Also competing in Obama comparisons are Nixon (enemies list) and Chauncy Gardiner (idiot gardener from “Being There”).  Yikes.  His list of mistakes and errors grow each day, and the general malaise of the public grows accordingly.  Only by ingesting the most potent of  drugs can the Obama supporter say with a straight face “I support him” because the alternative is worse (I was a moron).  It takes the “Yes Sir, may I have another” mentality that separates the rational liberal from the terminal (Brains, must have brains!) of the politically unsound.  For support, I offer http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/president_quixotes_legacy_confused_ill-educated_and_not_too_bright.html, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/06/20/the_first_president_who039s_declined_to_lead_257751.html

Question:  Should someone run against Obama for the 2012 Democrat candidacy?

Answer:  Conventional wisdom says “No”.  A sitting President is the strongest card in the hand the Democrat party is holding.  An 8 of Diamonds, perhaps.  Yes, it might beat a lower hand, (uninformed voters/gamblers will double-down) but what will the smart players do?  Perhaps the unthinkable:  Dump the probable losing hand and go for a re-deal.

Could this happen?  The odds are long.  Obama hasn’t hesitated (nor others in the Party) to claim Racism, which would surely be raised as a desperation tactic.  Never mind that anyone who crushed both the economy and respect of the country would be handled twice as roughly.

Secondly, Obama is that most peculiar of people; he can spout nonsense authoritatively, and tell lies with total conviction.  That makes for good sound bites, and the uneducated will take them for gospel.  The list of examples is too long (GM made money for the taxpayer? “Kinetic Action”? “enemies list?” “Cash for Clunkers?”) that anyone who doubts this statement is too far along in being an Obama Zombie  for any kind of rescue.  But three years into the destruction of the economy, the Constitution, the business climate, and total class warfare has made it crystal-clear to those who aren’t about to get the plug pulled that Obama is a disaster for America.

There are two things that are required for this scenario to succeed: a reasonable Democrat candidate, and a bone-headed move by the Republicans.  Who is reasonable for the Democrat party?  Probably Hillary Clinton.  She has the base, and compared to Obama, she seems like a level-headed pragmatist (with college transcripts, no less).  She has distanced herself from the Obama fiasco, and seems like a singular voice of reason (how messed up is the country for this to happen?) within an dysfunctional Administration.  She could pull it off, and probably has no love for the President for both personal and political reasons.

The Republicans are another matter.  Like the Minnesota Vikings, they find a way to lose every season, regardless of their inherent strength.  At the time of this writing, Mitt Romney is leading the pack of contenders.  The man that provided the prototype of Obamacare, believes in Global Warming, and supports ethanol is the number one contender.  It’s like every cynical independent voter’s worst nightmare.  Double Down!  Lack of conviction and spine!  Rather than come out and say “I messed up” and “ethanol is worse than gasoline for pollution” , he panders to the uneducated to vote for “Anybody but Obama”.  I don’t think a lantern jaw is enough this time for voters; they might actually look with a critical eye and say “I don’t think so” if provided with a more reasonable alternative.

So, will it happen?  Doubtful.  Could it?  Sure.  Hillary’s chance may not come again.  Obama star is falling more (and faster) each day.  Every round of golf played (75 so far) is a slap on the face of every voter.  The Oval Office is looking more like a travel agency for the First Lady with each passing trip.  And today, on the eve of our country’s founding, even the dullest among us can see the hypocrisy of Obama chastising the House about  not being around for work while even as he gets in the helicopter to go to Martha’s Vineyard for yet another vacation (and probably more golf).  If there is a God, perhaps he/she will provide us with a new President that we can respect, or at least respectfully disagree with.  Or is that asking too much?

Crystal Ball for 2012

May 20th, 2011

I was off a bit on my predictions for the 2008 election.  Oh, I described how unqualified Obama was for the Presidency, I just had no idea that he would be so overwhelmingly bad.  If Bush (either one) had done the things that Obama has, there would be rioting in the streets, possibly guaranteeing Democrats victory for the foreseeable future.  Even the hard-core liberals are shocked and appalled.  Ted Rall, as ardent as they come, (http://weaselzippers.us/2011/05/19/vile-lefty-ted-rall-cartoonist-pisses-and-moans-about-being-blacklisted-by-obamabots/)  complains:

“I didn’t realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey.

Obama lost me before Inauguration Day, when he announced cabinet appointments that didn’t include a single liberal.

It got worse after that: Obama extended and expanded Bush’s TARP giveaway to the banks; continued Bush’s spying on our phone calls; ignored the foreclosure crisis; refused to investigate, much less prosecute, Bush’s torturers; his healthcare plan was a sellout to Big Pharma; he kept Gitmo open; expanded the war against Afghanistan; dispatched more drone bombers; used weasel words to redefine the troops in Iraq as “non-combat”; extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich; claiming the right to assassinate U.S. citizens; most recently, there was the forced nudity torture of PFC Bradley Manning and expanding oil drilling offshore and on national lands.”

This doesn’t include Libya (which the President is required to get Congressional approval by today…but he’ll pass on that.  He’s above the legal process), or Boeing, or the multiple times he has signed laws and then stated that he has no intention of honoring them, or why he is off to some party when a crisis has erupted.  This is why people go crazy discussing politics with Liberals.  It’s not that Ted Rall sees the light, but that so many others refuse to (see http://www.akdart.com/lib72.html) for some examples. 

Yet for all this, the Republicans seem to want to careen into the same old pattern.  Let’s drag out the old politicians, and let them run (again).  They don’t seem to realize that people want someone who will lead them.  They can’t figure out why voters respond to a strong vision, someone who says what they believe.  So, what will happen in 2012?
Well, if the Republicans run Sarah Palin, Obama is in.  I was appalled at how Democrats demonized her in 2008, showing complete hypocrisy regarding women.  By any standard, she was more qualified than Obama to be President, and she wasn’t running for that position.  Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, however, makes her look like a genius, and that’s very sad.  But, if Palin has any sense of her surroundings, she will continue to be a lightening rod and not run, which will take away the Democrat’s emotional ties.

The same goes for Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachman.  They are both more likely to bring out the borderline independent voters for Democrats.  Far too risky by any standard, as the independents swung the race to Obama in 2008.  Mitt Romney’s albatross is the Mass. Health Care program.  You can’t be for and against something.  Remember what I said about being a leader?  If Romney had come out and said “I made a huge mistake”, that would have been a leader.  Politicians seem to think that they can never make a mistake, or change their mind about something.  That’s how we get such mealy-mouthed excuses like “I mispoke” or some such.

Who then, could swing it for the Republicans?  New Jersey’s Chris Christie is one.  Barring some horrific mistakes, or something awful hiding in his past, the man has presence and seems deeply in tune with the American public.  Unions, I’m sure, are digging frantically to find anything to stop him.  But he has shown courage, as in the decision to stop the underground tunnel from New Jersey to New York.  Democrats screamed about the lost jobs.  He understood that continuing the tunnel would put New Jersey residents on the hook for $3 billion.  Anyone who has looked at any government building projects knows how those costs balloon, and he made the courageous call. (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbmwrTc4bJg for his response the Sen. Schumer’s criticizing him for stopping the wasteful program)

Ron Paul is possibly the most ethical Representative in Congress.  Ever.  But the media demonizes him.  All a voter really has to do is look at his writings and speeches to see past the media bias (http://www.ronpaul.com/).  They are, to say the least, impressive. Herman Cain seems impressive, but it’s far too early.  However, 2012 could be the year that Libertarians could do well, taking from both parties.  Unfortunately, they draw more from Republicans than Democrats, and that could well mean an Obama win.

Who else?  No one yet.  Obama is bankrolling one billion dollars to keep his job ruining running the country.  The media seems to spin stories about the Tea Party and how terrible  they are, so much so that it’s now “common knowledge” that they are racist, uneducated rednecks.  However, how many people have actually looked at what the guiding principles of the Tea Party are?  For a peek, go to http://www.teapartypatriots.org/mission.aspx.  Find something that you disagree with there, as opposed to being spoon-fed by the media.

We, as a country, have a momentous election coming up next year.  I believe that it will determine how much further America will decline, or whether we have the courage to stop the “Change”.

Paul Krugman – New York Times Columnist; Inadvertent Humorist

When I was young, and my father was still alive, he would tell me things with a dead serious face that were ridiculous.  Down was up, water was made of sand, or the sky was green.  He looked so deadpan that I doubted what I either knew, or what my eyes were telling me.  He loved to tell tall tales as a way of making me think for myself, and I loved him for it,  and have done the same to my children.

Fast forward:  Two years ago (2008) I wrote ab0ut Paul Krugman, the Nobel winning economist that writes a column in the New York Times.  I said that I thought he was funny in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, as the statements and positions that he took seemed absurd.  He couldn’t possibly be that far removed from reality.  And in the interests of fairness,  neither economics or math were my strong suit.  It may be that he is too lofty and esoteric for my Middle American background.   He seemed divorced from what we in the Midwest call “common sense”.  You know, as in “water is wet” and “ice is cold” or “don’t play in a busy street”.  How many kids have rolled their eyes when hearing that from their mothers?  “Really, Ma?  Don’t play where all the big cars are going fast?  Huh, who’d of thunk it?”

Since then I have read his columns, first with disbelief, then with irritation.  How could a person be so seemingly out of touch, and yet win the Nobel for economics?  I didn’t have to wait long for the answer:  President Obama, who has never held a “real” job, won the Nobel Prize for Peace, despite having done exactly nothing.  An internet photo of a restaurant billboard making rounds at the time summed it up perfectly – “A Nobel Peace Prize with every order!”.  What used to be an honor was now political toilet tissue.  He won the Prize, not for what he had done, but for what he “was going to do”.  Wow.  I need to get to Stockholm to let them know that sometime in the future, I will invent a “Peace Ray”.  But the prize money now will come in handy.  Even Obama supporters were struggling to justify the award at the time.  Those that did, despite the evidence, were not critical thinkers, but what has become known as “Obamabots”, the equivalent of a political zombie.

They say that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.  Mr. Krugman follows this formula perfectly.  Not only does he seem to come up with the same old thought processes and expect different results, but he also wants to double-down on the losing ideas.  Now, after two years of reading his columns, it has become apparent that he 1) doesn’t learn from his mistakes; 2) is incapable of thinking outside of a very narrow ideology; and 3) would be a good weatherman based on his track record.  Except that weathermen (or meteorologists) are right 46% of the time, and I haven’t seen Paul Krugman right yet. My former boss said “even a blind pig finds a truffle once in a while” and “a broken clock is right twice a day”.  My personal favorite is “Economists have predicted 47 of the last 3 recessions.”   So you almost have to go out of your way to someone who is so slavish to an ideology that he ignores all evidence to the contrary and plows ahead into what appears to be some type of nonsensical thought process and then tries to convince others that those ideas make sense.

Don’t believe me?  Here are some of the recent gems he has spouted.

1.  “Discussions over – we need a second stimulus”  Remember what I said about expecting a different result?

2.  The Angry Rich – he argues against tax cuts with incomplete ideas, hoping (it didn’t work) that no one will notice that at the end of the day, his plan would trade $700 billion for $3 trillion in additional debt.

Even the media is becoming uncomfortable with him and his stances.  Aug 6, 2010 … It really is time for the New York Times Ombudsperson to step in and stop Paul Krugman from perpetrating further intellectual fraud and…

According to the New York Times itself:

“Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults…. some of Krugman’s enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn’t mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn’t hold his columnists to higher standards.”

Thus wrote New York Times “public editor” Daniel Okrent in his column, his final one before resigning his post. There it is, right in the newspaper of record.

To be sure, Okrent could have gone much, much further in blowing the whistle on America’s most dangerous liberal pundit. He could have cited the dozens upon dozens of partisan distortions, uncorrected errors, deliberate misquotations, and flat-out lies that we’ve caught Krugman making over the years. For that matter he could have echoed what N. Gregory Mankiw, the universally respected former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, told Fortune in a recent interview — that Krugman “just make[s] stuff up.”  Or is just dead wrong.

How about this gem?

In a July 14, 2008 op-ed in the New York Times, Krugman explained why Fannie and Freddie were blameless. “Partly that’s because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off,” he wrote. “Also, they didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn’t meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income. So whatever bad incentives the implicit federal guarantee creates have been offset by the fact that Fannie and Freddie were and are tightly regulated with regard to the risks they can take. You could say that the Fannie-Freddie experience shows that regulation works.”

Oops.

“Critics were quick to point out that Krugman had his facts wrong. As Charles Calomiris, a professor at Columbia University, and Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute (and member of the financial crisis inquiry commission) explained, “Here Krugman demonstrates confusion about the law (which did not prohibit subprime lending by the GSEs), misunderstands the regulatory regime under which they operated (which did not have the capacity to control their risk-taking), and mismeasures their actual subprime exposures (which he wrongly states were zero).” (Foreign Policy)

“THE “PUBLIC EDITOR” GOES PUBLIC ON KRUGMAN CORRECTION…    New York Times “public editor” Byron Calame is in print with the fact that the paper’s columnist corrections policy is not being observed with respect to Paul Krugman’s admitted errors…”

Or this, from last weeks column:  “Realistically, though, Republicans aren’t going to have the power to enact their true agenda any time soon — if ever. Remember, the Bush administration’s attack on Social Security was a fiasco, despite its large majority in Congress — and it actually increased Medicare spending. ”  This “attack” was allowing people to take a portion of their Social Security deduction and control and invest it however they saw fit.  The problem with this is that the government does not want people to have any control of how their money is spent  (or not spent, as the case may be).  The government resists any notion of the people controlling their own money and future.

I wrote this back in September of 2010.  I didn’t publish it at the time, as procrastination can sometimes save you from doing something foolish.  Not this time, though.  The articles from Mr. Krugman continue into fantasy, sweeping away any thoughts that I had about his being open-minded.  He follows his ideology – I’ll give him that.  But when everyone knows what’s going on (the economy tanking, unemployment rising, monstrous over-reaching government) it might be better to acknowledge those things than to tell everyone that the sky is green.  At least Dad knew he was kidding.