turfmann's blog

On Sarah Palin, Seeing the Door Swing Wide Open...

2011-10-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

Since I am up at an ungodly hour of the morning, let me cut to the chase:

Sarah Palin should run for president to either vindicate her supporters who love her, or her detractors that loathe her.

Either one or the other will come to pass, in either case, one group will have bragging rights and the other will have to eat crow.

But the argument can never be settled by having Mrs. Palin sit this out. She must run.

The stakes have rarely been higher for the nation. We are mired in an economic depression (don't let anyone fool you, this is not a recession), have strayed light years from our founding principles and have turned our backs upon the God who blessed this nation with such plenty.

We have abandoned our responsibility as citizens so greatly as to have elected a man as our president who is more representative of our enemies than our friends, and certainly not of the citizens that foolishly elected him.

In response to the crisis at hand, we have a gallery of candidates for the Republican nomination that do not exactly inspire the passion necessary to oust Obama and the rest of the Marxists from office next November. The frontrunner is the guy who lost to the guy who was beaten by Obama like a rented mule; a frontrunner who signed into law the state version of the federal law that will act as the turbocharger atop the engine of our Federal bankruptcy - Obamacare; a frontrunner who can be found taking so many different positions on so many issues that his candidacy should be named after the game Twister. I think Mitt Romney is a good man, but not the man.

Into the fray steps Mrs. Palin.

As we watch the media eat away at other Republican candidates like a strong acid, recongize that Mrs. Palin has already run that gauntlet with aplomb. She has beaten the Lame Stream Media at their own game. There is no punch that they have thrown that she has not absorbed successfully. Indeed, the counterpunches have done considerably more damage to the media than those thrown at her.

In so doing, we now have a potential candidate that is so thoroughly vetted that it is inconcievable to me that there could be any scandal in her closet that would ruin her chances. We know more about this woman that most of us have never met than we know about our own mothers. Ask yourself, have you ever discussed at length issues that are written in your mother's obstetrician's records? We have of Palin.

Opposition to Sarah Palin is universally rooted in lies, innuendo, rumor and mischaracterization - easily debunked at every turn with simple research. No greater example of that can be found than the book that Joe McGuinness wrote. Even stalwart opponents of Palin could not abide by the fabrications that were offered as gospel by this creepy stalker. I dare say that Mrs. Palin, two and three years removed from the release of her own two books, likely outsold McGuiness in the debut of his book.

"But turfmann, she can never be president. She's a quitter. She quit the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission. She quit as governor."

If it is true that politics is but warfare by other means, then we need to explore the analogy of retreat as it relates to Mrs. Palin. Quitting is synonymous with retreat here. Were her retreats political routs? Were they withdrawals? Were they strategic?

Or were they more aptly described by Palin's father: "she's not retreating, she's reloading."

What were the circumstances of her resignation from the Oil & Gas Commission? Do you know? Do you know the outcome of that retreat? Have you explored that story? I will not answer the question for you. If you do not know, you owe yourself an objective answer.

What were the circumstances of her resignation as governor? Do you know? Do you understand the consequences of having decided contrary to how she did? For that matter, are you familiar with the circumstances of the British defeat at Dunkirk during World War II? Do you recognize a strong similarity between the two? Do you understand the ramifications of the successful retreat across the English Channel on world history?

For those of you still convinced of her room temperature IQ, have you read what she has published yourself? Did you actually read either or both of her books? Read her facebook posting? Watched her speeches? Watched interviews, question and answer sessions, C-SPAN coverage of events? Or are you relying upon a media to tell you that she is nothing but a dope.

Remember, the same media that is trying to convince you that Sarah Palin is stupid is the same media that crawled through every dumpster, every bar, every place of business in Wasilla, Alaska looking for dirt on her, while completely ignoring the obvious anti-Americanism with regard to Barack Obama. Are you willing to take them at their word? I am most assuredly not.

All I would ask is that you put aside your preconceived notions vis-a-vis Sarah Palin. Look again. Open your eyes and ears. Listen to what she has to say. Listen to her vision of a revived America.

And my council to Sarah is this:

Run. Run like hell. Run as fast and as hard as you can. Run like there is no tomorrow, because unless we remove the traitor in the White House, there will be no tomorrow for America. We will run right along side you in ever increasing numbers. We've got your back, Sarah. Go for it.

2011-10-02T03:31:00.000-07:00

Carol Felsenthal's interview with former Congressional candidate Joel Pollakis is making the rounds, notable for Pollak's quip that President Sarah Palin would be the first Jewish president.

CF: When we will have the first Jewish president?

JP: I think if Sarah Palin runs, she’ll be the first Jewish president.

CF: What?

JP: Sarah Palin is treated as Jews have been treated for generations: no matter what she does, she’s wrong. She’s either too religious or not religious enough; she’s a housewife who can’t function as governor, or she’s the governor who doesn’t take care of her domestic duties. All the things are thrown at her in the same way that Jews were targeted. She’s identified herself [with Israel] and has shown empathy for the things that the Jewish community cares about in a way that I think has yet to achieve the right recognition. She sent out a picture recently to supporters—not Jewish supporters, but her general supporters—and it’s a picture of her in front of the Statue of Liberty and she’s wearing a Jewish star. Maybe not since the Puritans founded America and gave biblical names to each other has there ever been such a positive identification with Jewish symbolism, so I like to joke that Sarah Palin will be the first Jewish president.

CF: Most people who dabble in politics would say that were Palin to become the nominee, President Obama will win a second term.

JP: I think Obama at the moment is so politically weak that almost any Republican can defeat him, and I think that what [Palin] brings that some of the candidates lack—including some of the candidates who have done very well—is executive experience. That’s going to be her calling card, and although her term was cut short when she resigned because of the personal financial costs of having to defend frivolous ethics complaints brought by political opponents, while she was In office, she did a very good job. I think she’ll point to that if she does run.

I wish I were in the room when Pollak said that so that I could hear the inflection in Felsenthal's voice when she asked "What?"

There's an old cliche that says that the two things you should never talk about at cocktail parties are religion and politics, in that any discussion of the two will doubtless insult at least someone you are conversing with.

And given the raw religious fervor that permeates the geopolitics today, making the allusion that someone is something that they clearly are not is far from a joking matter. It is something that is easily taken out of context and used as a cudgel against the person by her opponents and her enemies.

So, if Palin were to be elected, not only would she be the first woman president, literally, she would be the first Jewish president, figuratively.

Personally, I have grown tired of this exercise of labeling people as the "first this or the first that" - or for that matter, identity politics all together.

Bill Clinton was figuratively the First Black President, as if to say that his empathy (or pandering, if you're cynical like me) directly altered his skin tone.

Or that Barack Obama is the Actual (not to be confused with the Authentic) First Black President, as if his skin tone somehow qualified or disqualified him for office.

Or that if we were to elect Sarah Palin our next president that it should be by virtue of the fact that she possesses an X chromosome or that she proclaims Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.

Having affection for, empathy for, solidarity with the Jewish people and the State of Israel does not make one Jewish - that should be obvious.

But given the current state of politics, we should not be joking around. People are very easily mislead - example number one resides at the White House currently - and deserve to have a sober conversation about religion and its effects upon politics.

Joe Biden in the Role of Marshall Mcluhan. Oscar Worthy?

2010-02-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

Joe Biden seems to be the perfect embodiment of the out of touch, inside the Beltway politician. Seemingly affable, he has a dark side to him that Clarence Thomas illuminates in his autobiography, My Grandfather's Son.

Senator Biden was reassuring, stressing that the hearings weren't meant to be an ordeal. He said that since I'd be nervous at first, he would start the questioning with a few "softballs" that would help me relax and do my best, assuring me that he had no tricks up his sleeve...

Senator Biden was the first questioner. Instead of the softball questions that he'd promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head quoting from a speech I'd given four years earlier...

That caught me off guard and I had no recollection of making such a statement...

The Senator... had wrenched my words out of context. I looked at the text of my speech...

The point I had been making was the opposite of the one that Senator Biden claimed I had made.

Throughout my life I've often found truth embedded in the lyrics of my favorite records. At Yale, for example, I'd listened often to "Smiling Faces Sometimes", a song by The Undisputed Truth that warns of the dangers of trusting the hypocrites who "pretend to be your friend" while secretly planning to do you wrong. Now I knew I'd met one of them: Senator Biden's smooth, insincere promises that he would treat me fairly were nothing but talk. Instead of relaxing, I would have to keep my guard up.

My Grandfather's Son, pp. 231 - 236

Setting aside the innumerable gaffes that pour from his mouth on an almost daily basis, some humorous, some insulting, some so profoundly ignorant that it boggles the mind how he ever became a Senator, he occasionally outdoes himself to the point where ridicule is the only effective response.

Last Sunday, Biden was spouting off on television about Scott Brown, the new Senator from Massachusetts, suggesting that perhaps Brown was ignorant of military law vis-a-vis terrorists being tried by military tribunals. From Politico:

On CBS's “Face the Nation” last weekend, Biden shot back that he doesn’t “know whether the new senator from Massachusetts understands: When you get tried in a military tribunal, you get a lawyer, too.”

“He’s trying to give me a lesson on military law, and I didn’t think it was appropriate,” Brown told POLITICO. “And I thought he was off base when it comes to explaining to the American people that somehow I need a lesson on whether people get attorneys — of course they get attorneys. There’s a difference as to what type of attorney they’re going to get and when they’re going to get that attorney, and how are they treated, and what rights do they, in fact, get.”

Brown said he is particularly incensed by Biden’s remarks because he’s served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard for more than 30 years and is currently the Guard's top defense attorney in New England.

“I know the military rules and regulations and procedures from A to Z,” Brown said.

It doesn't require too much attention to politics to know that Scott Brown is an Army officer, never mind the fact that he is a JAG officer. He made references to his military experience many times during his campaign for Senate. Together with the fact that Joe Biden's son, Beau, is also a JAG officer, it boggles the mind how Biden could have been ignorant of this fact.

Perhaps he was watching Franklin Delano Roosevelt give one of his fireside chats about the depression on television at the time, I don't know...

But thinking about the exchange between Brown and Biden, I remembered this scene from the Woody Allen film, Annie Hall.

Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth at The Nation.

2010-02-15T06:15:00.000-08:00

One has to imagine the consternation that is going on at places like The Nation nowadays. The perfect political storm, radical leftists leading two of the three branches of government, is showing signs that it is a bust. Even with an overwhelming majority in the House, a fillibuster proof majority in the Senate and a Marxist in the White House, they have been unable to make good on their promises of "real change". They seem to be very angry at the Republicans for some reason, the party of NO (or perhaps "Hell NO!"), but simple mathematics shows that they are no more influential in the debate than Eleanor Holmes Norton is as the non-voting representative of the District of Columbia.

So now comes our friends at The Nation, trying so very hard to explain what they do not understand. High comedy ensues. Allow me to parse this one bite at a time.

Just for fun, do as I do when reading pieces from The Nation. I change my inner voice to one of a voice-over announcer for a horror movie trailer like the late Don LaFontaine...

"In a world where Teabaggers threaten a nation..."

Tea Party Hypocrisy

Editorial

This article appeared in the March 1, 2010 edition of The Nation.
February 11, 2010

"Energy. Budget Tax cuts. Lift American spirits." This was the infamous list of talking points scrawled on Sarah Palin's palm when she stood to address the first-ever Tea Party Convention in Nashville. It's fitting, given that the agenda of Palin and the movement for which she has become a tribune is short on details about how to govern the country. "Lift American spirits" is about as substantive a description of their agenda as you're likely to hear."

Katrina, et al, begin with their favorite target, Sarah Palin, as if to say that she is the movement and the movement is her. Together with keying in on the notes she wrote on her hand at the speech she gave in Nashville last week, The Nation tries valiantly to reduce the concerns of those within the Tea Party movement to a few bullet points written by someone they consider as dumb as a box of rocks.

Note well that they give no such consideration for the mantra of "Hope" and "Change" that are cries of the actual President of the United States. We are seeing what the details of Hope and Change really are and as a whole we are not impressed in the least.

"Such vagueness has served the movement well, allowing it to claim to be many things it is not. There has arisen in some quarters a quaint and dangerous notion that the tea party movement is an entirely new phenomenon--a bipartisan, organic channeling of broad (and rational) distrust of and disgust with America's main institutions, particularly Wall Street and Washington, which seem to have formed a perfectly closed loop of rent-seeking and self-dealing."

Interestingly enough, the previous paragraph in which The Nation accuses the Tea Party movement of being vague is itself vague. One does not have to look very hard or very far to understand what is being argued: this is a nation of laws, not of men. The law of the land is the United States Constitution and its plain meaning is being ignored for the benefit of a ruling class of statists to the detriment of the citizens of this country. The aim of the Tea Party is to articulate this message with millions of voices to those politicians that will listen, and to defeat those who will not. It is not an organization of disgruntled Republicans, although you will find Republicans in their ranks, nor is it an organization of Conservatives, although you will certainly find Conservative principles being advanced. No, it is really a statist versus citizen movement.

"According to Tea Party Patriots national board member Mark Meckler, "Although we are conservative in political philosophy, we are nonpartisan in approach. Both parties need to re-dedicate themselves to the principles of our founding fathers and remember that this should be the government of 'We the People' and not of special interest groups or pork-laden politics."
While the energy and outrage may be genuine and organic, we should not fool ourselves into seeing this as anything but a right-wing reactionary movement, one whose themes (jingoism, militarism and a cult of victimhood at the hands of sundry nefarious betrayers) are as old as the John Birch Society. And yet, because the details of the tea party's worldview remain obscure, it's startlingly popular with the broader public. Forty-one percent of respondents in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll have a positive opinion of the tea party movement. According to the same poll, the Democratic Party was viewed favorably by only 35 percent. The Republican Party fared even worse with 28 percent."

To The Nation, any display of affection and allegiance towards your country is defined as jingoism, any respect, admiration and appreciation afforded our men and women in uniform is militarism. I can only explain the "cult of victimhood at the hands of sundry nefarious betrayers" by saying that they are swinging wildly at the Tea Party pinata - yet they have no idea where it is. Throw in a healthy dose of projection - John Birch Society tastes good with this dish - and you have yourself a stinging indictment, don't you?

"It is useful for branding purposes that the right-wing organizers and activists draping themselves in nostalgia for the founding fathers not find themselves tied in the public mind to the Republican Party, loathed by a significant minority of the electorate and distrusted by an overwhelming majority. The reason is not hard to divine: over the last decade, the GOP ran the country into the ground."

Pick a target, isolate it... where have I heard this before? Someone please help me here. Reverence for the Founding Fathers and their works is not by any stretch of the imagination an exercise in nostalgia. The Declaration of Independence sets forth that some things are universal truths, timeless in nature and immutable parts of human nature. From there, they used both the pen and the sword to forge a nation built upon the premise that all men are created equal, that a government exists and functions by consent of the governed. The entire premise of progressivism is a journey away from these principles, a rebuke of the individual and his God given rights as a man in lieu of a collectivist approach to governance akin to communism.

"While the party's rhetorical fidelity is to small government and a big military, it has for decades been operationally committed to no philosophy other than perpetual war, upward redistribution of wealth, the defense of corporate power and white Christian identity politics."

What a ugly statement of projection that is. Tea Party = Republican Party = military industrial complex = rich white racists. Yet, not one word of example or proof of their claim. Repeated often enough, they posit, it becomes truth.

Not so subtle is the inference that any objection to the nation's first black president is fundamentally based upon deep seated racism. It could not possibly be that some citizens did not rely upon the swooning media during the election for their information on Candidate Obama and saw some things that really, really concerned us as to what he believed and where he wanted to lead this country.

And since The Nation is intent upon excoriating Tea Partiers as white, Christian identity politicians, unless I am mistaken, that is a pretty apt description of the President they are trying to defend. White, Christian politicians that they agree with politically are noble public servants. White, Christian politicians that they disagree with are racists.

"But despite the tea party's arm's-length stance toward the GOP, these are precisely the values for which it stands. What's genius about the tea party branding is that it can shift the focus from the governing record of the right wing to a fantasy vision of a Ron Paul- meets-Ayn Rand twenty-first-century insurrection based on principles fuzzy enough to resonate with much of the populace."

More boogiemen. That crazy Dr. Paul and that whacky Ayn Rand espouse arguments that are just pabulum to the ignorant masses (if they are as ignorant as The Nation supposes, who do you suppose made them that way? Couldn't be the uber-progressive teachers unions could it? - good thing that ignorance is a treatable condition). It is not at all hard to find very concrete explanations of the principles embraced by Tea Party types. There are the old arguments, the Federalist Papers and other writings of the founders, and the new, such as Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin and a thousand others. Fuzzy it is not, however much The Nation would wish it so.

"After all, who doesn't hate the bailouts? While that's the grassroots message the GOP is stoking and associating itself with, its poobahs are busy laying the groundwork for a restoration of what James Galbraith aptly calls the Predator State. According to a recent New York Times article, the Wall Street titans of finance, who gave unprecedented monetary support to Barack Obama (and have invested heavily in the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party), have had their feelings hurt by the occasional and exceedingly gentle remonstrations from the Obama administration and are funneling more cash to the GOP."

If The Nation doesn't like the bailouts then why are they arguing against the Tea Party movement? Bailouts are but a symptom of a government that has lost its moorings to the principles of limited and enumerated powers and the creed that this is a nation of the people by the people and for the people. Once again, The Nation tries to equate the Tea Party movement to the Republican Party when it is clearly a demonstration of dissatisfaction with not only that party, but of statists in general. Next we are to believe that some fanciful construct of The Nation's conspiracy factory tying the poobahs to the predators because the New York Times says so (and who would entertain a notion that there could ever be an untruth published in The New York Times, right?) therefore the Tea Party is just a bunch of rubes that are in a state of political/sexual arousal over some stupid woman who lives in the mountains and kills animals for pleasure. Never mind the fact that many within the Tea Party movement and many Republicans are very much concerned that Sarah Palin does not possess the required skills to properly execute the duties of the President of the United States. This point of view is directly attributable to their quite correct conclusion that someone gained admittance to the White House because those who should have been vetting him did not do their job and allowed exactly the type of person they decry lambaste.

"Seeing as how not a single Republican voted for the mild financial reform bill in the House, this seems like a marriage with promising prospects. While the tea partyers bash the bailouts, conservative politicians like John Cornyn skulk around New York hustling to get their hands on some of that bailout-facilitated campaign cash. It's a fresh version of the tried-and-true GOP approach described by Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas?, though this one is more audacious: rather than using social issues to distract from an economic agenda favoring the plutocracy, rage over bank bailouts provides cover for efforts to raise money from banks and stymie bank regulation. Rank hypocrisy has never spelled doom for a political party in America, and it won't hurt the tea party so long as its views remain opaque. The easiest way to highlight the contradictions between the vaguely attractive populism of the tea partyers and the decidedly unpopulist governing vision of the party they serve is to attack the banks with a tea party-like zeal and force the GOP to close ranks around its new financial benefactors."

Is this last paragraph meant to be a damnation of the Tea Partiers or a justification for their motivations? That is what I mean when I say that those on the inside, like the editors at The Nation, really have no idea what they are facing. They could have understood if they had travelled to Massachusetts and spent some time with those who were having the time of their lives campaigning for Scott Brown as William Jacobsen of Legal Insurrection Blog fame did. No, I think what is really bothering them is that for the first time in their lives they have the unfettered chance to foist all of their toxic ideas upon a befuddled nation, tired of war, tired of George Bush, tired of the media.

What a blow it must be to face the fact that they have been so utterly wrong all this time.

2010-02-11T04:27:00.000-08:00

From the always brilliant Dr. Zero:

Our challenge is not merely to win a few elections, or pass a bill here and there. We have to change the direction of a culture that has trended leftward, toward collectivism, through several generations. We have to move the center back to the center. This will require leadership, which we should seek out in the elections to come… but it also demands our involvement as individuals. A recent poll showed 36% of Americans, and 53% of Democrats, had a positive opinion of socialism. Our task is to understand why. This moment demands more than a critique of socialism, which is nothing less than a challenge to freedom, and requires an answer. Only by expressing the philosophy of conservatism, in powerful and memorable terms, can we win the popular support necessary to implement concrete proposals. This is a foundation to be laid in countless conversations, both online and around water coolers.

Some people truly have a gift for collecting all of the disparate thoughts floating around, arranging them and articulating a message in a way that makes it so powerful that even a caveman could understand it.

In that way, he is the prototypical American - emblematic of the notion that the nation's greatness is not housed in marble edifices along the Potomac River, but rather in countless living rooms across the country.

Perhaps this is the most striking aspect of the internet age - the realization that as citizens learn about the goings-on in their government from their lofty perch in front of their PC's and Mac's, dressed in their pajamas with dreadful halitosis and five o'clock shadows (guys, mostly) they are rediscovering the incredible legacy that we have been left by the Founding Fathers.

2010-02-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

If I hadn't mentioned it before, I am a big fan of Sarah Palin. I have been following her adventures in politics since before she was selected by John McCain as his vice-presidential pick. I wind up writing quite a bit about her - only not here. I think that I should probably stick to opining on Palin (and other things political) here since I make up the rules. I like being the boss.

So I was doing my usual perusal of the internet in the wee hours of the morning over numerous cups of coffee and came upon yet another misinformed diatribe from a progressive author. I decided to dissect what he had written and offer my own thoughts.

The Dangers of Sarah Palin

By Matthew Rothschild, February 8, 2010

I’m not writing her off. No matter how many gaffes she makes, no matter what she writes on her palm, she is not going away.

What gaffes are you speaking of, Matthew? "I can see Russia from my house" perhaps?

Quote:

In fact, she may very well be the Republican nominee in 2012, and if the economy hasn’t recovered by then, there’s an outside chance she could win the White House.

Well, we agree on that. Will wonders ever cease?

Quote:

She is already the favorite among Republicans. A Newsmax-Zogby poll of January 28 [1] had her garnering 22.2 percent of Republican voters, compared to Romney’s 19.4 percent, Gingrich’s 12 percent, Huckabee’s 11 percent, and David Petraeus’s 5.4 percent.

I wish David Petraeus would get into politics. There are few smarter people and he might make an excellent Secretary of Defense.

Quote:

She was greeted as royalty at the Tea Party Convention in Tennessee on February 5.

Royalty? See how the progressive tries to define things as something different than what is expressed explicitly by the person they are writing about? Palin went out of her way to say that the tea party movement is not about one person, one leader? And she has also said that she is not that leader, regardless of how much projection is engaged by the progressive.

Quote:

And she articulates and echoes the anger that millions of people across the country are feeling at the giveaways to Wall Street. “Too often when big government and big business get together and cronyism sets in, well, it benefits insiders, not everyday Americans,” she told the Tea Partiers in a line that resonated.

That also is inaccurate. Palin clearly made that distinction in her speech. Certainly, there is disgust amongst the tea party crowd for what has transpired on Wall Street, but it is not at the vitally important function that Wall Street plays in our economy, but rather the corruption and cronyism of some on Wall Street and their Big Government friends as they try to feather their own nest at the expense of the taxpayer and thwart the mechanisms of the free market (bankruptcy in particular).

Quote:

Barack Obama and many Democrats have been way too timid in going after big business. In fact, the coziness of Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers with the Wall Street bankers has left Obama wide open for this kind of criticism.

A few Democratic populists have recognized this, most notably Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders, but Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and Obama himself have been reluctant to embrace progressive populism.

Does it tell you something that the author of this article is upset that the only unappologetic socialist in the United States Senate (curiously ranked to the right of both the president and vice president in a ranking of senators in 2007) is not getting through to those at the White House. Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, Momma. Whoa.

Quote:

Sanders has called for some of the Wall Street wheeler-dealers to go to jail, and Sarah Palin suggested the same thing on Saturday.

Is the author suggesting that if we were to find criminal wrongdoing on the part of some on Wall Street or in Washington that someone should not go to jail?

Quote:

The bank bailout is killing Obama. All Obama could muster in his State of the Union was the comment, “If there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. You hated it.”

But Obama voted for the bailout when he was a Senator, and then expanded it when he was President.

It is a cement block tied around his ankles.

No, I disagree. What is killing Obama is his rank dishonesty. He convinced 52% of the center-right electorate that he was just another middle of the road pragmatic Senator - one that walked on water, healed the infirmed and other assorted miscellaneous miracles with nothing but a teleprompter - when any honest inspection of his upbringing, education and life experience clearly showed him to be a bare knuckled Marxist. Now that he has four years to implement his creed, people are shocked, shocked to find out that what they projected upon his blank screen was a mirage. That is what has happened to Obama. His public approval ratings will continue to tank until all that are left supporting him are the far left, like minded Marxists.

Quote:

And the only way to untie it would have been to push through a foreclosure moratorium or a jobs bill at the beginning of his Administration that was twice as big as the one he agreed to so that Americans could really feel that progressive policies could help them.

Right. The only way for the free market to right itself from governmental intrusion on the free market is the 'hair of the dog' approach. Government cannot stop foreclosures that are inescapable without soiling those mortgages that are sound. When the free market senses that government is in the mood to tinker by fiat with contracts then all within the free market react with increased caution to entering into anycontract.

Quote:

But at 9.7 percent or 10 percent unemployment, they can’t feel it.

Gee, I wonder if they would feel it if the unemployment rate were around 17% (good thing all unemployed people are not counted equally, eh?)

Quote:

One danger of Sarah Palin is that her remedy for the economic mess is nonsensical. She talked about a “a pro-market agenda” several times in her Tea Party speech, when it was just such an agenda that led to the deregulation of Wall Street and the collapse of the economy.

No, it was not. It was exactly the corruption and cronyism nexus of some on Wall Street with some in Washington, together with quasi-government entities Freddy and Fanny with their moral hazard that tipped the balance. Thwank wooo, Bwanee Fwank. Too much government interference in all the wrong places - government should play the roll of referee in the marketplace, not the roll of the star quarterback in the Super Bowl. Participation in the free market by government should be strictly verboten - by Constitutional amendment if necessary.

Quote:

She said, “We’ve got to axe the plans for a second stimulus,” when that is the only thing that can keep unemployment from climbing back into double digits.

No. It is exactly the meddling in the free market that is holding the economy back at this point. Capital is sitting on the sidelines, hoping and praying that this little experiment in socialism will be short. Once it is clear that government intervention in the free market is on the wain, capital will jump back in. Until then, nope.

Quote:

She, like most Republicans, is obsessed with the deficit and the debt, though they don’t mind $700 billion for the Pentagon and trillions of dollars wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well, I won't disagree there. Republicans are obsessed with deficits and debt - just as a homeowner would be if he discovered his house on fire - call the fire department and grab a garden hose to use till they get there.

Quote:

She is disdainful of our legal system, even as she said in Tennessee that “the Constitution provides the best road map towards a more perfect union.” Like Dick Cheney, she faulted Obama for affording Abdul Mutallab the protections of our legal system, mocking the President for letting the Christmas bomber be “lawyered up.”

Only in the mind of a progressive could the notions of being disdainful of our legal system and advocating that the Constitution provides the best road map be equated. Naturally, it is conveniently omitted that she advocates, as many advocate, the the pantybomber be adjudicated by a military tribunal, not set free or deprived of Constitutional rights.

Quote:

She promises a return to the lawlessness of the Bush-Cheney Administration, sneering that “we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law.”

You mean the "lawlessness" that is increasingly adopted by the Obama administration? Probably not. What Sarah is actually arguing is that the terror threat posed by radical Islamic jihadists is an existential threat that needs to be clearly articulated and strongly prosecuted wherever it leads us.

Until such time as OBL and his latest incarnation, permutation of AQ is finally vanquished we will be at war whether we like it or not.

Quote:

Some of Sarah Palin’s base is made up of Cheneyites. And some of it is made up Tea Party people, who don’t see the government helping them and feel desperate to change that.

Anyone who has listened to Palin speak knows full well that she completely embraces the Reaganesque notion that government needs to get out of the way and allow us to get back to our normal endeavors without their interference.

Quote:

People are looking for answers. And Sarah Palin is providing them. They are simplistic answers. They are foolish answers. They are the wrong answers.

The best argument against this charge is made here. Go read it.

It would seem that the concepts that would be near and dear to the heart of this progressive author are exactly the creed of the Obama White House, an administration that is in the midst of a rejection by wide swaths of the American populace, on its way to becoming the least successful administration of all time.

Jimmy Carter must be pleased, Benedict Arnold is looking over his shoulder.

Quote:

But they have an appeal.

And so does she.

To dismiss her would be a terrible blunder.

Depends upon your intentions. I want to vanquish the socialist menace from the American political landscape. That starts with removing as many progressive, liberals in Congress as humanly possible in order to neuter the final two years of the Obama presidency. Then, in 2012, the aim is to elect a strong conservative leader to begin the necessary repairs to the damage inflicted upon our nation.

What is interesting about this author's writings is that he left out the most pointed barb in Palin's speech Saturday night:

Quote:

"And I am a big supporter of this movement. I believe in this movement. Got lots of friends and family in the lower 48 attending these events across the country, and just knowing that this is the movement, and America is ready for another revolution, and you are a part of this."

For someone of her stature to cast what is occurring in terms of a Revolution is a bold pronouncement indeed.

Over the River and Through the Woods...

2009-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Here on Cape Cod we have been dealing with enourmous traffic jams caused by repairs being made to the Sagamore Bridge. Predictably, there is a hue and cry about the timing and necessity of the repairs, the competence of the contractors, lack of preparation on the part of the relevant state officials. All of that is well and good, but entirely misses the point, our transportation infrastructure on Cape Cod is obsolete and dangerous to the motoring public.

Case in point are the two bridges that serve as the only access and egress to Cape Cod by car, the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges. Iconic they may be but consider the fact that they were completed in 1935 and that many of the first automobiles to cross them were Model T’s. Neither bridge was designed with the needs of twenty-first century transportation in mind. Even when all four lanes of either bridge are open, it is taking one’s life in one’s hand to traverse them, literally. Motorists routinely exceed the posted speed limits and, because of the narrow road deck, pass within inches of one another. Or at least we hope they pass one another.

Sometimes they do not, often with tragic results.

Many of those who cross these two bridges during the summer months are visiting tourists, a vital component of our local economy. If you travel with them in your mind’s eye, you have to wonder if they have a screw loose for enduring the trip to Cape Cod. Suppose you were a resident of suburban New York City who has rented a cottage in Provincetown for a week. After traveling up Interstate 95 (a nightmare in of itself that I will leave to others to complain about) and Interstate 195, travelers will turn onto Route 25 for their approach to Cape Cod. Three wide lanes plus a breakdown lane quickly narrow to two lanes, then allow for one lane of merging traffic before traversing the Bourne Bridge. Then, after taking your life into your hands once again in the Bourne Rotary, you are routed onto a single lane highway, Sandwich Road, for your trip over to Route 6. It is a testimony to the limitless patience of our visitors that they are willing to endure our antique road system in order to enjoy our natural beauty.

I am old enough to remember what a nightmare travel was before the last section of Route 25 was completed around 1980. I can recall riding my bicycle to a highway overpass on Route 3 in Duxbury on Sunday night to see a colossal traffic jam that stretched for a far as the eye could see in each direction – three miles in this case. All of that disappeared when Route 25 was complete. Travellers to the nether regions now had a far more logical way to get home. The problem is that we only modernized one component of our infrastucture then and with the exception of the Sagamore flyover project we haven’t done anything to improve our situation. It is the recollection of the past success of road building projects such as Route 25 that give me hope that we can recognize the current situation as intolerable and work towards a vision that will benefit all concerned.

What is that vision? I believe it is time for a new bridge. A bridge that will take the burden off of the two older bridges and make it safer and more pleasurable to make your way to Cape Cod.

Now to the who, what, where, when and why.

When was the last time you saw a satellite photograph of Bourne?

Take a look at this:

On the left side of the photograph is Route 25. Notice how it abruptly swings to the south as it nears the Cape Cod Canal. Now notice on the right side of the photograph is Route 6 as it approaches the Sagamore Bridge. I have added a yellow line that follows high tension electrical transmission lines that go over the canal that link Route 25 and Route 6. That distance is less than three miles. Three miles. I think it astounding that the distance is so short. We could easily build interchanges at each end of my yellow line, a connecting road that used the utility right of way and finally a new bridge over the canal that was suitably large enough to handle the flow of traffic. I would think three lanes in each direction would be sufficient.

This would allow travelers to travel directly from Route 25 to Route 6 without having to go across local roadways clearly not designed to handle such heavy traffic flow. Leaving the existing infrastructure in place allows for local access and for commuters to Boston, etc. a far less congested trip to work.

Such a bridge could be intentionally designed to be a landmark, something that would be instantly associated with Cape Cod. My memory of the area where the electric wires cross the canal is that the area is much higher in elevation, relative to the canal, than either of the two existing bridges. Perhaps that is a problem, perhaps it is an opportunity to create something very dramatic. I really don't know because I am just an amateur traffic engineer. And I don't have a billion dollars in my bank account, either.

But what I do know is that we cannot expect bridges to last in perpetuity. They eventually outlive their usefulness, falling into obsolescence.

If the traffic jams caused by the need to do a little maintenance on the Sagamore Bridge teaches us anything, it teaches us that we have come to rely upon something that is no longer reliable.

Even if we were to start in earnest the planning process today, it is unlikely that cars would cross a new bridge before the two existing bridges were a century old.

Are we willing to wait that long to solve our problems?

Is What We Are Witnessing in Washington Intentional?

2009-02-27T02:55:00.000-08:00

Are there two Washingtons today, one of which is struggling to come to grips with a financial meltdown the likes of which have not been seen since the Great Depression, the other flush with so much disposable wealth that each and every societal ill will finally be eradicated from the face of the Earth - never the twain shall meet?

The face of both Washingtons is Barack Obama, who will tell you of the grave consequence of not intervening in the imminent collapse of the United States economy with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. Then, when your head is spinning trying to absorb the cause and effect of pouring money down the drain only to observe the stock market plunge to levels not seen in two decades, he pronounces that he will be forced to run enormous budget deficits because he inherited a relatively small budget deficit. After that, he will tell you that he a champion of limited government, and you are to believe him because, well, he is Barack.

Is what we are witnessing today intentional on the part of Obama and his friends?

During the campaign, I realized that not only did I not know very much about Obama, there was little information forthcoming. The Main Stream Media was not (and still is not) interested in diving deep into his past. Too bad because it is a fascinating tale of intrigue.

One of the most interesting things that I read during the campaign was an article at American Thinker called Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis written by James Simpson. In it, Simpson explores the six degrees of separation between Barack Obama and two Columbia University professors, Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven. As summarized by David Horowitz, Cloward/Piven is:

"The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The Cloward/Piven Strategy seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse."

At first, I thought as though I should fashion a tin foil hat to wear as I read the article, after all, Hanlon's razor tells us that we should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, right? Except for one thing. I printed out a copy of the AT article and have been periodically rereading it. Either there is some validity to what is theorized in Cloward/Piven or I am picking up some pretty good signals on my tin foil hat.

Neo-Neocon made Cloward/Piven the subject of a post which, in addition to being an excellent read, garnered some very thoughtful comments.

I would heartily recommend reading the Simpson article first, as he not only lays out the argument himself, but also links extensively to other sites for further exploration. Indeed, there was another article just the other day at AT that took up the Cloward/Piven batton and ran with it.

Interesting things to contemplate as the Nation descends into a collective schizophrenia.

Is Obama really Reaganesque?

2009-02-26T02:51:00.000-08:00

I suppose that much of my conservative point of view results from the sum total of my experiences when I was growing up. That should not come as a shock, but Jimmy Carter was president when I was in High School, swept into office in the wake of Watergate. The malaise of that era was palpable in everyday life and lead to the election of Ronald Reagan.

I was in Washington the day that Reagan was inaugurated, not close enough to see or hear him give his speech, but immersed in that moment in history sufficiently to realize its significance. In that speech, Reagan said that "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." And indeed he was correct. That is not to espouse anarchy or to render all functions of government useless, but rather to reiterate the concept of limited government with specific and enumerated powers. A concept that puts the freedom of citizens first and foremost, the power of the citizen's government secondary.

When Barack Obama took to the rostrum two nights ago, wrapping himself preemptively in the cloak of Reagan, he said "I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity." I find it fundamentally dishonest of Obama to compare himself to Reagan in such a way; Reagan's beliefs were the polar opposite of Obama's. In Reagan's mind, the genius of America lay in its people. For Obama, it lies in a distant, disconnected and omnipotent government. In Reagan's mind, the foundation of our nation and the foundation for our prosperity were well cast two centuries ago. For Obama, we are a damaged nation that needs to be redeemed, that needs to cast aside our previous beliefs and seek a new way forward.

When I watch the 1981 inauguration speech by Reagan, I sense a well thought out set of principles that are in congruity with the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. Reagan did not start out as a Conservative icon, he was a Democrat. He learned as he matured, the culmination of his education was his election as president. Reagan's speeches are memorable today not just because of the eloquence of his oratory, they are memorable because he believed what he was saying - his sincerity is very clear.

By contrast, I detect obfuscation in the oratory of Obama. There is incongruity in the message of the man and his minions.

At the time of his inauguration, Obama wanted you to think he was Lincoln.

When the economy went into free fall, Obama wanted you to think he was Roosevelt.

When his attempts at articulating a hopeful message were not working, he wanted you to think he was Reagan.

Why is it that Obama does not want you to think about Obama?

Why the obfuscation of his past? Who is this enigma that now deigns to lead us?

An Interesting Conversation Over Lasagna

2009-02-25T05:44:00.000-08:00

Instead of torturing myself by watching the Non-State of the Union speech by Barack Obama last night, my lovely bride and I went to dinner with friends. Now, I have known these two people for many years. The wife and I grew up together, her husband and I met nearly twenty years ago. He introduced me to the martini, for which I will be forever grateful.

They are liberals. There, I said it. I love both of them dearly but, oh dear Lord in Heaven, do not let the conversation drift towards politics. I will happily endure an hour-long conversation on religion or any other taboo subject but please don't ruin my evening by bringing up politics.

So, off we went. The restaurant of choice last night was the local Italian joint that I have frequented for thirty-five of my forty-seven years. I am six foot four and rapidly approaching three hundred pounds due in no small measure to the delectable cuisine offered up at this establishment. In fact, when I was much younger (and much skinnier) I would go for lunch or dinner with friends there. We would start with orders of garlic bread mozzarella, follow that up with lasagna and have a pizza for dessert, all washed down with copious amounts of milk. I swear that I bought the owners their first Cadillacs.

This restaurant, or should I say all six of their restaurants, are the very embodiment of the American Dream. The owners are two brothers straight off of the boat from Naples. Their English is heavily accented, sometimes incomprehensible, but never dull and never without wild gesticulations. When they opened their first restaurant, on the first floor of a strangely out of place multifamily home, they lived above the restaurant. The menu was the fare that they had learned from watching their mother cook back in Italy: Chicken Parmesan, Homemade Tortellini, Baked Ziti and, of course, Pizza.

The brothers, their wives, and then their children toiled six days a week (closed Mondays) from early morning to late at night. They have become pillars of their community, known far and wide not only for their successful restaurants but also for the strong fabric of their family and their strong entrepreneurial sense.

The meal was excellent as was the conversation. Politics was avoided in lieu of discussing our children and mutual friends.

As we were preparing to pay the check, one of the owners popped his head out of the kitchen with a glass of vino in his hand. Next thing we know, the five of us are howling with laughter as the owner held court, one story after another about his life. Turns out that he was in the Italian Army as a young man and once his tour was finished he had decided to become a state police officer of some sort. He and three friends had made all the necessary arrangements, packed their bags into their car and were to leave the next morning. During the night, his conscience got the best of him; he knew that becoming a police officer was not his destiny. Soon, he was off to Australia, then to California, then to Boston. The jobs were menial, the pay small, the hours long. He saved what little he could along the way and, in his early forties, he joined his brother and opened their little restaurant.

It was at this point in the conversation that the television over the bar began barking away with previews of what we were inclined to hear from our new president. The owner's face grew sour and his mood dark as he listened to what was being said in the background.

So much for avoiding politics.

"Leta me tella you saaahmthing..." - yes, his accent is very thick and very Italian. "This Obama" he said "is no good. You cannot take money from the people who work and give it to the people who do not work". Pretty standard stuff from an entrepreneur, right?

"This is the worst I have seen since I came to American. I don't know what to say, this isn't America anymore. This is what it was like when I was a little boy in Italy."

The look on my friend's faces was one of shock, as if they had just seen a ghost. Indeed, they had seen a ghost - a ghost of someone who long ago came of age in Fascist Italy.