Hillary to the Muslim World: "We Have Extremists, Too!"

Obama may have wrapped up his Apology Tour, but Hillary continues reassuring the world's dysfunctional cesspools that the US is no better than they are.

It really pisses me off when Americans go overseas and commiserate with the locals, voluntarily dragging down this country in a vain attempt to ingratiate themselves with people from a dysfunctional society.  It's bad enough when Ditzy Chix do it, but when a government official engages in such behavior it is particularly detestable.

Democrats in general, and Clintons in particular are especially adept.  Here’s a quote from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while visiting the Arabian peninsula, that world-renowned seat of religious tolerance and cultural understanding …

"We have extremists in my country. A wonderful, incredibly brave young woman Congress member, Congresswoman Giffords, was just shot by an extremist in our country," she added.

"We have the same kinds of problems. So rather than standing off from each other, we should work to try to prevent the extremists anywhere from being able to commit violence." (Reuters)  

Bull Excrement! 

We do not punish women accused of adultery by burying them from the torso down and throwing rocks at their heads until they die.  We do not kill daughters for looking at a boy.  We do not collapse walls on homosexuals.  We do not blow up each others’ houses of worship and slaughter people leaving them. 

Clinton's statement is a prime example of the mushy moral equivalency and intellectual flabbiness that now grips this nation.   

Western civilization has advanced mankind to the 21^st century and enjoys a level of equality for all that is unprecedented in the history of the world.  Much of the muslim world remains mired in 7^th century religious bigotry, misogyny and obscurantism, witnessed by the paucity of scholarly output and the copious amount of violence spilling out of that cauldron of hatred and ignorance. 

More stupidity from our Secretary of State...

"The extremists and their voices, the crazy voices that sometimes get on the TV, that's not who we are, that's not who you are, and what we have to do is get through that and make it clear that that doesn't represent either American or Arab ideas or opinions,"

Again, BS!  There is no equivalency.

It is a gross insult to equate tea parties with the inflamed, sweaty middle eastern hordes with blood in their eyes, burning, bombing and slashing.  We don’t kill cartoonists here.  Christians do not murder blasphemers who sculpt our religious figures in elephant dung and dunk them in jars of urine.  Political assassinations are thankfully rare.  We don’t throw acid in womens’ faces, and we raise our daughters to believe they are in every way equal to boys and that there are no barriers to their success. 

I was starting to develop a grudging respect for Hillary, but I now see she is just another liberal with a visceral disdain for our culture and for the ordinary people that make this nation great.  

Dangerous Rhetoric

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
-- Barack Obama

"Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is dead to me now."
-- Daily Kos Kook "BoyBlue"

“Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”
-- Barack Obama

‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’
-- Barack Obama

The left is so predictable... 
An unstable man whom former friends describe as a leftist, goes on a shooting rampage, and the liberal commentariat calls him a tea partier.  The news media-Democratic establishment-nutroots Axis of Weasels crank up the predictable blather about guns, rightwing hate, talk radio and the "dangers" of free speech.

Can lefty logic really be this flawed?
Some town hall meetings got heated last year, fueled by irate tea partiers...  The shooting happened at a town hall meeting... Ergo tanto cum sum ipso factoid, reducto ad Palin.

Following this same logic, we can completely repudiate environmentalism and global climate change by merely citing Ted Kaczinski's enviro-rantings and bloody attacks.

Millions motivated to vote--None to commit violence
The tea parties moved the middle this last election.  Independents who elected Obama two years ago recoiled in horror at the Democrat agenda and brought a resounding victory to Republicans at the state, local and national level.   If the tea parties really are the font of rightwing violence, why haven't we seen many such attacks?  If they moved so many to go vote Republican, why have they been such a failure at inciting racial and politically-motivated violence? 

You don't attract America's broad middle by preaching hatred and violence.  You open a dialog and you talk about ideas and fundamental principles, which is what the tea partiers did.  People are fed up with all the spending and mandating, and non-ideological people turned out and voted to trust the GOP one more time.

Let's Talk Consequences...
We have children condemned to third-world life in inner city slums and failed schools because of the Democratic party's war on poverty and pandering to teachers unions.  We have multi-generational poverty because the democratic party treats the poor like children, giving them housing, food stamps, rewards for unmarried pregnancies.  They give the poor everything but the wherewithal to take care of themselves.  Why?  Because liberals do not trust these people to take care of their own lives; they'd just screw it up, so the democrats destroy their lives for them.

This was not a Palin-directed tea party hit.  
It was a crime.  Murder.  Speaking of which, why is it that liberal gun ban bastions like California, Chicago and New York experience so much more violent gun crime than open carry states and cities?  President Obama rightly called the Tucson incident an unspeakable tragedy.  Now, can we also focus our attention on the unspeakable tragedies that happen every day in our crime-riddled inner cities, where good people are prisoners in their own homes? 

No.  It's more fun to engage in free-wheeling speculation and unfounded charges.  The rhetoric of the left has come untethered from fact and reason and now floats aloft on an updraft of of hot air and imperious high dudgeon.  They have no problem with that kind of free speech.

Worse, such back and forth obscures the real issue:  We have violent and crazy people walking among us.  This murderer had several run-ins with the law and those who interacted with him thought he was crazy.  Why was he not locked up or at least evaluated?  

I pray for the souls that perished in that attack and I pray for the swift and full recovery of Rep Giffords and the other victims.

This is Progress?

A law not based upon natural law is no law at all...

"To give or make laws, Madame, is a task which God has left to no one. Ah! What is man, to think himself capable of dictating laws to beings whom he knows not?"
-- Mercier de la Rivière

 

Progressives are not evil

It springs from a noble urge, this liberal love of big government, copious laws and an army of bureaucrats to direct and enforce it all. Progressivism seeks to straighten the curves, flatten the hills and fill in the valleys. It’s a naive pursuit of equality and fairness.

Power differentials and inequality have always existed and they always will

Acting otherwise is plowing the sea. The rich and well-connected will always have more power than the poor and alienated. That’s just the way the world works.

But nature is the great leveler. Sloth and complacency often stalk riches and power. Other deadly sins like pride and greed can cause a precipitous slide in fortune or a downright crash to earth. Meanwhile, being poor and powerless brings hunger, and hunger spurs industriousness. Industry leads to riches, or at least to a material improvement to one’s life.

Even now, with social mobility apparently slowing, over 80% of those born into the lowest economic quintile in America will move out of it by adulthood.

Shaw Kenaw, a very smart and quite articulate liberal, recently accused me of being nostalgic for yesteryear and longing to turn back the clock to a simpler time. Nonsense. This has nothing to do with yesterday and everything to do with tomorrow. How shall we govern ourselves going forward? More laws, more bureaucracy? It hasn’t reduced child poverty or improved our education.

More and bigger government saw short-term crashes and panics turn into depressions and double-dip recessions, stagflation, demise of domestic manufacturing, tech bubbles, dot com bubbles, housing market misery. This is progress?

Further Reading:

Murray Rothbard-  With or Without God:  Natural Law and Property Rights

Murray Rothbard - Liberty and Property:  The Levellers

America's Hunters

Teach you children to hunt and kill God's tasty creatures

Another e-mail gem courtesy of Papa Silverfiddle, who taught me to hunt, kill and dress God's tasty creatures. I have passed his wisdom on to my kids.  There's nothing like watching a kindergartner squealing with glee as she caps off .22 pistol rounds...

The point at the end is a good one, but this also reminded me of the old chestnut, "Guns don't kill people, criminals who have no business walking free kill people."




Here's the text of the e-mail...

This blogger adds up all the hunters in just a handful of states, and comes to a striking conclusion:  The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed.

That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters. Allow me to restate that number.

Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world, more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week.  Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned home.  Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

His point?

America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.

Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer.  It's a matter of national security.

That's why all enemies foreign and domestic want to see us disarmed.   Most of all, Our Government

Democrats Lied About Obamacare

Congressman Paul Ryan Throws the BS Flag On Obamacare!

It didn't take an accounting degree to know that the Pelosi-rammed, Demo-scam known as Obamacare was a money wasting fraud.  Common sense Americans never bought the fairy tales about how everybody's going to get more and better care while saving money.

While they were at it, why didn't Harry and the Pelosicrats also promise they'd rid the world of unicorn poop and capture that leprechaun and take his pot o' gold hidden at the end of the rainbow? 

Only the willfully ignorant hopium smokers on the left believed this colossal Obamacare lie.  "But it was scored by the CBO!" Cry the Obama-langa-ding-dongs.  The CBO is a non-partisan organization that scores what is presented to them,  regardless of how pie-in-the-sky its assumptions are and regardless of the transparency of the tricks.  CBO scores it as presented.

Ryan resubmitted this travesty of lawmaking to the CBO, minus the tricks and hidden costs, and we now see it will cost almost a trillion dollars.  Here are the highlights...

Claims of deficit reduction exclude the $115 billion needed to implement the law. 

The score double-counts $521 billion from Social Security payroll taxes, CLASS Act premiums, and Medicare cuts.

It strips a costly doc-fix provision that was included in initial score. ($208 billion)

It measures 10 years of revenues to offset 6 years of new spending. 

There is no question that the creation of a trillion dollar open-ended entitlement is a fiscal train wreck.

Not only should this stinking pile of statist lies be repealed in its entirety, the perpetrators should be brought up on charges of fraud.

Go Congressman Ryan!  Keep up the excellent work!

http://budget.house.gov/healthcare/

Palin - Bachmann! GOP 2012 Field

They're already talking GOP presidential field for 2012.  Here's my take...

Since any giddy follower can sing the praises of even the most failed politician (Look at how many still defend Obama), I thought I'd focus more on the negatives.  I'll start with unfinished business from the 2008 debacle...

FAILED CLASS OF 2008 - Don't go away mad, just go away

This failed class of 2008 has less than 5 minutes foreign policy experience between them, and their records are either thin or spotty.  What I wrote about this trio back in November 2008 still stands.

Palin entering the primaries will rend the party, because her loyalists cannot bear any criticism of her whatsoever.  And Huckabee and Romney are like matches and gunpowder.  The constant sniping, bitching and smearing their two camps engaged in produced John McCain and poisoned the waters.
  
Sarah Palin - She did great things in a sparsely populated state, but she needs to be a senator or cabinet member first.  The comparisons to Reagan are ill-informed.  Reagan was Screen Actor's Guild president for over 10 years, served two full terms as governor of America's largest state (and the world's 10th largest economy).  He had been studying, writing and speaking about serious issues from a conservative perspective for a full 20 years before he became president.

Mitt Romney - Romneycare.  If that's not enough, he's a political shape shifter (even more than most)

Mike Huckabee - Like Romney, a big government type.  He released a rapist-murderer who used this misplaced mercy to go rape and murder some more.  Huck needs to read Adam Smith, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."


The Short List - My Favorites
Here is a list of my favorites, each followed by a negative or knock against him.

Tim Pawlenty - Conservative governor from a blue state.  I like his style, but many hardcore types will call him a RINO because he made compromises

Mitch Daniels - He's short and balding.  He's also put Indiana on sound fiscal footing, has cabinet-level experience, and is a common sense conservative who lives his values.  Can substance overcome style?

Mike Pence - Mike Who?  A serious man for a serious time.  I think he's ready, but most of America doesn't know who he is.

Jim DeMint - He's a senator.  A conservative superstar, he has a lot of chips he could cash in on the way to winning the nomination.

Herman Cain - Herman who?  We've never had a president named Herman, but this man needs to be the first.  Former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and tea party hero, this is a no-nonsense, call it like it is conservative.

NOT YET
Marco Rubio - Our first Hispanic president*, but not in 2012.  If he runs now, he's just an Obama on the right.  He needs to get some foreign policy cred and show us what he's made of on the national scene.

Bobby Jindal - Our first Indian-American president*, but not in 2012.  He's brilliant, extremely accomplished, but he's too young and he need some foreign policy cred. 

Paul Ryan - Like Jindal, he's young, brilliant and knows how to break it down for us common folk

Chris Christie - He's only been governor two years, and the situation on the ground in New Jersey is still fluid.  He's a wonderful guy, doing great things, but we need to see if his efforts bear fruit.

David Petraeus - He's said he's not running and he'd have to leave the battlefield to do it.  I don't see it happening.

Jeb Bush - His name is Bush

* - Please excuse my very un-conservative descent into liberal identity politics!

NO WAY
Judd Gregg - Judd Who?  This is the Republican that almost joined Obama's cabinet.  Someone needs to tell Senator Gregg that East Coast country club republicanism is dead.  The Bushes drove the final nails in the coffin.

Gary Johnson - He smokes pot

Ron Paul - Too old.

Newt Gingrich - Poor old Newtie shows a little leg every four years, but nobody's buyin'.  He's yesterday's  news.  He flirted with the Clintons, he flirts with big government ideas, he adulterously flirted while his ex-wife was on her deathbed.  The left has permanently demonized him.  What has he done besides being Speaker of the House and doing a whole lotta talking?  I could go on, but you get the picture.   

John Bolton - He's intelligent, he's experienced, but he's too blunt and polarizing.  The left has demonized him.  Being a heroic UN-attacking rottweiler requires a different skill set than being president.

Bob McDonnell - Name recognition.  He's a conservative hero who contributed to rescuing Virginia from the blue column, but he just hasn't had the national exposure and I don't know what his foreign policy credentials are.

John Thune - He's a Senator.  What else has he done?

Rick Santorum - Great guy and conservative hero, but he couldn't even get reelected in his own state. 

Haley Barbour - He's a loquacious southerner.  They'll dig up some racist stuff on him and it'll be all over

Rick Perry - He's said he's not running, and he's also said he's hell-bent on riding with the governors in the states rights gunfight.

Jonah Goldberg is much better at this than I.  Go read his analysis, Sorting out the 2012 GOP Pack

Also check out Howard Kurtz's The GOP's 2012 Fantasies

Will the GOP Cover Freddie's Fannie?

Today the GOP Takes control of the House of Representatives, and Harry returns a shriveled man with a shrunken majority.  

Some conservatives have already begun attacking the GOP before they even get started.  Blogger buddy Andrew 33 over at Allied Liberty News, is preparing a boiling cauldron of tar and collecting burlap bags of feathers. 

I'm keeping my powder dry and I encourage others to give them some room.  Still, there are some disturbing rumblings...

Republicans are already backing off of earlier threats to dismantle Fannie and Freddie. These pie-in-the-sky programs that encourage irresponsible financial dealings have cost us $134 billion in the last two years alone.

Republicans cheered on Jeb Hensarling, Representative from Texas, as he crafted legislation last year to kill the ghastly twins:

"Of all the dumb regulation that caused our economic crisis, none was dumber than that which created the (Fannie and Freddie) monopolies," Mr. Hensarling said in March. (WSJ - GOP Shifts on Fannie, Freddie)

Alas, government largesse dies hard, and for some GOP statists, parting is such sweet sorrow…

A hasty end to the government's support of Fannie and Freddie would mean fewer Americans could get home loans, causing home sales and prices to drop even further and pushing taxpayers' cost for rescuing the mortgage giants even higher, said Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R., Texas), a former banker and housing developer who serves on the House Financial Services Committee.

"You'd cause Freddie and Fannie to have even larger losses than they'd already have," Mr. Neugebauer said.  (WSJ - GOP Shifts on Fannie, Freddie)

A Banker and a housing developer, eh? 
Don’t suppose that would have anything to do with how Rep. Neugebauer comes down on this, do you? He concedes that home prices are still too high, but he supports keeping them artificially propped up.  Spoken like a true crony crapitalist that is afraid of the free market.

He also reveals the truth that “fewer Americans would get home loans” as a result of ending this homebuyer-corporate welfare program. How is that bad? Too many people getting home loans is what got us into this mess. Stop Digging! Representative Neugebauer, Republican from Texas, is now officially part of the problem.

Next come the homebuilders, realtors, and mortgage lenders, hat in hand, begging a bankrupt government for special treatment...

"We don't believe that the private market — right now — is willing or able to provide the liquidity that's necessary to get us out of this," said Joe Stanton, chief lobbyist for the National Association of Home Builders. "To erode that support right now would be a disaster," said Vince Malta, a real estate agent in San Francisco and a vice president of the National Association of Realtors. (WSJ - GOP Shifts on Fannie, Freddie)

... So let’s keep the bubble inflated.

They are all wrong. 
If houses were being traded at market prices right now, and if only those who could establish financial credibility could buy them, the market would be on solid footing. It would be smaller and less active, but it would be financially sound. And that’s the problem for these crony crapitalists. The bankers, builders and realtors want turnover. Who cares if people can afford it or not? These industries that suckle at mama government’s ample teats won’t get stuck when irresponsible people get forclosed. Uncle Sam will pick up the tab! And they continue making their millions in transaction fees. This crap needs to stop now.

Like anything, Fannie and Freddie can be sold in the marketplace, maybe for a loss. At this point I don’t care. We stepped in dog doo and it’s time to scrape it off our shoe. Nothing will inject sanity back into the housing market like removing taxpayer-funded subsidies.