Like, Totally Political, Dude!: policy

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GW Bush, mass panic gave us Patriot Act, let's curtail it now

In context of the time when it was passed, the Patriot Act was a forgivable overreaction, perhaps. But today, it's just more big government that we cannot afford.

Sometimes, scary things happen in politics. Here's an example: far right web sites agree with the wildly leftist (and silly) MoveOn.org on something. They agree that we need to END THE PATRIOT ACT.

Thank goodness some polar political opposites can agree on something, huh? The left and right can't even manage to agree on which death-lusting terrorists are worth ridding off: The fringe left wants to provide jobs, food and education to some terrorists, while the fringe right believes everyone who is Muslim is a terrorist. But, we can agree that nosing in on Americans, not merely inconveniencing them at airports (TSA), but listening on without lawful purpose (Patriot Act, potentially), is bad.

Of course, I dislike the Patriot Act because there's clear principles being shoved out of the way, and they were given a clear voice in the U.S. Constitution. That matters. Some who I would generally disagree with on political matters seem concerned that black extremists (but they think of them as merely put-upon poor people), Occupy Wall Street dweebs, pederasts (simply gay people), or potheads (pot is no worse than alcohol, so it should be at every kitchen bench) might be among those snared by officials who are supposedly looking for terrorists. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the whole of the Bill of Rights, are just a convenient table to stand on while they're fighting the Progressive-Statist power-grab fight. (Yeah, I'm not a fan of Obama Democrats, if you didn't guess.)

I think it's simple: the USA Patriot Act needs to go. As least, it needs generous curtailing. Tell your US Representative and your US Senator, and tell anyone to do the same. Here's a link to save you some time in reaching your reps.

But don't bother with Senate boss Mitch McConnell (R - KY), who is all for it, it seems. Not much of a Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is proving to be in the era of Obama statism. He plays right along. (As does House Speaker John Boerner of Ohio.) Radio and nonfiction book great, Mark Levin, has bashed McConnell as never before, in recent weeks (one time and another; and then some).

If the Patriot Act is extended as it looks like it will be -- a mistake -- it's still going to require a vote another day. Make it stop. The Patriot Act is GW Bush's contribution, along with DHS, TSA, and a massive military debt, to the nanny state, to his legacy as BIG GOVERNMENT REPUBLICAN. He was not a complete modern American conservative, he was a religious and social conservative only. He isn't a bad man, but he was, fiscally, a very expensive president. He is not solely to blame, of course, but his presidency will keep that reputation into the future telling of it in history books, I believe. You cannot blame him alone, as plenty of citizens were all for the Patriot Act back in the day. They were afraid.

Frightened people are not good at making rational decision, or making up sensible rules. You've watched a horror movie or two, right? Scared people are bad at making decisions --- VERY BAD! The Patriot Act proves it, I think. In context of the time when it was passed, the Patriot Act was a forgivable overreaction, perhaps. But today, it's just more big government that we cannot afford (I mean "afford" in every sense of the word that comes to mind). It's not a Prohibition Act for security, because that would look like a totalitarian police state; but perhaps it was as bipartisan and as reactionary as Prohibition.

We must fix the damage added in GW Bush's time along with Obama's. I am very comfortable pointing out that Obama has done nothing but add to the problem of a massive and ever-growing federal debt and bureaucracy. But I refuse to be partisan in my disgust with big government.

This comes with burdens that have been added for decades by an ever-growing federal government that has weakened the states, and the citizens, and hurt liberty for every person.

WAKE UP. Stop big government.

We went from the GREATEST generation during World War Two, to the MOST SELFISH GENERATION. Well, to be nice, let's call it the most distracted generation -- that of the 1950s-1980s. Now we're ringing in the STATIST GENERATION, as a result.

It's not too late, but it's time to change tack. Because, as so many FINALLY recognized in the economic upset of 2007-2009, things have gotten out of hand. Either government stays in control, or we get some control of it.

WAKE UP. Obama and other far left so-called liberal Democrats (they're statists, not liberals, dammit) have taken a bad thing -- the Great Recession -- and extended it. It is high time to stop it.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Put a name to the FAIL: Obama Arab Spring, Obama IRS, Obama Recovery, ObamaMedia

I've got something figured out here, and I'm really excited about it. It is time for some name changes.

It seems to me, where Prezzy Barry O is involved, if a problem doesn't have his name on it, he will not take any blame for it. None. It's Bush's fault. It was the video (Benghazi). It was the weather system. It was the House's fault (shutdown, budget not being passed, etc., etc).

But if his name is on it... it seems even the ever-conceited Obama can't pretty talk his way out of it. OBAMACARE is creating a climate where insurance companies are tossing folks overboard like buckets of water on a sinking ship. Democrats who are up for election aren't thrilled, nor are former Democratic officials. And Obama had to apologize for it. Like, literally said "I am sorry."

SORRY? What a guy. He insisted, 24 times, and there's even content on WhiteHouse.gov that IF YOU LIKE YOUR COVERAGE YOU GET TO KEEP YOUR COVERAGE. PERIOD. But he's sorry. Oopsie!

I'm sorry I ever spanked my kitten for clawing the underside of my foot at night. That's something to be sorry over. People have lost their insurance, a Mr. Obvious outcome of the way Obamacare so infringes on segments of the insurance market. And he's sorry.

The problem of millions losing their insurance is just the latest lameness, of course. It's in addition to lots of other problems with the law and it's policies. It's expected to almost universally raise rates for insurance, not lower them. Plus, there's the unimpressive performance that is known even by those not paying much attention: the failed Healthcare.gov site booting millions off it; in one state, Tennessee, merely 600 people had signed up as of this week; any number of felons could be taking personal financial data over the phone as Obamacare "navigators," because there is no criminal history screening for the position.

The problems with the Affordable Care Act, mind you, were widely expected problems, and widely predicted problems. People chose to ignore it, including the majority of news outlets.

Luckily, I've figured it out. This is what has to happen: We name the IRS, Benghazi, the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood, jobless claims, the jobless recovery, the debt, the budget deficit, the ensuing doctor shortage, the lack of a federal budget, NSA data mining, and media spying tactics, after Obama.

Maybe we should name the mainstream media after Obama, too. Heck, much of the media has managed to be the Obama media for the last six years, haven't they?

Maybe if we name all of these things after Obama, then he'll be cornered into owning up to what's going on with them, too.

That's no bullObama.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Obama's decision on Syria: just a pragmatic coward's choice?

It shows that Obama wanted the job of president really bad, but he didn't want the WHOLE job. Perhaps he should have hired a stand-in Commander in Chief?

I don't know who talked Obama into facing the Syrian chemical attacks like a leader, but they must be silver-tongued advisers who aren't the peacenik hippy-bred types like Obama and most of those surrounding him.

I cannot imagine he'd have even brought up this idea of a missile attack himself, seeing how painfully long it took him to make his "decision" to act. Such magnificent drama must be going on in that self-adoring head of his: cowardly, academic, hippy-raised, political animal that he is!

It's a rare sight to see him forced to put on "big boy pants" and make some tactical decisions as a leader of a country of great military importance and substance. That's why he should never have been made CiC, but we don't elect presidents to be leaders of our military anymore, do we? We've enjoyed a relative freedom from ominous threats in the U.S. since WW II -- no matter what you think of Sept, 11, 2001. And it seems, even despite any concerns over terrorists, the impact has been so indirect that we are electing overzealous camp counselors (or professional campaigners, if you prefer), rather than experienced leaders of substance. Or, so the election of Obama twice would suggest.

This Syrian decision, slow-roasted as it was, suggests something at a broader level. It shows what a comparatively spoiled, entitled, isolated, coddled, misinformed, blissfully ignorant population can do to muddle up, through elections, a very free country, despite having options otherwise. It appears that, in the U.S., the slight majority of active voters are mainly interested in yet even greater domestic comforts (read: petty, selfish interests) compared to the citizens of much of the world. Consider such delusions in the US as a "fairness" doctrine or the silly notion that safety can be guaranteed by "gun-free zones." People who uphold such ideas are not interested in choosing leaders who wish to deal with the planet as it is, which is a "law of the wild" place. This world can be cruelly hierarchical (far worse in other countries than in the US), ruled by a specific pack of elites, with many peoples without basic liberty, many governments of tyrants, nations packed with populations who have deeply broken and haggard lives. People who dream of even being among the poor in America are all over the world.

This Syrian chemical weapons attack response decision-making drama shows that we elected a president who is only a political animal, and who is a mere government bureaucrat at heart, and a coward (where leadership is concerned, not where campaigning is concerned). This Syrian response shows that Obama wanted the job of president really bad, but he didn't want the WHOLE job. Perhaps he should have hired a stand-in Commander in Chief?

We elected Obama twice to be Commander in Chief. But, not really, because the duty of CiC doesn't really matter to his voters, it seems. The Coddler in Chief is more their style, maybe. Whoever is the star of the news and gets on magazine covers matters. To hell with substance, right? Well, no, actually, but it is what's important to the uninformed problem children of society. It seems they are topping the voter rolls.

It is stunning to me how the majority of voters would prefer to choose the lying rhetoric that feeds their delusions about domestic bliss rather than taking ownership of themselves and letting this robust nation be the caretaker that fights the tyrants of the planet. What's worse, the domestic bliss Obama has been peddling isn't working out either, is it? Unemployment, race relations and other issues are not improving under him.

Don't let anyone give you killing bin Laden as an example of Obama's brass. He just signed the paper and then shamelessly used the epic military covert action for himself, politically, like any coward would use others' heroism to prop themselves up. Some were even impressed by Obama's swagger after bin Laden's death. Fellow cowards.

Obama will likely use the missile action against Syria the same way he used SEAL Team Six. He will use it the way someone unaccustomed to being a leader would use such an action: for political advantage.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Guns vs. severe mental problems: Ideologies don't make people right, and guns don't make them killers

From "Gun Ban Won't Stop Another Sandy Hook Massacre: Let's Have the Hard Conversation":

Does anybody really think the guns Nancy Lanza kept in their Newtown, Conn., house all on their own attracted her son to launch a murderous rampage that claimed the lives of 20 small children and seven adults? Such simplistic nonsense.
What if the answers aren't that simple?
Consider that last year in Norway, a nation with a tight gun-control and licensing program, Anders Breivik methodically gunned down 69 people, mostly teenagers, on the island of Utoya. Again, this didn't happen in the United States of America, where 311 million people own an estimated 200 million guns. It happened in orderly, gun-sparse Norway, where living by the rules is the modern-day path to Valhalla.
What if gun control is the wrong conversation for us to be having?
What if we dealt instead with the harder-to-comprehend realities that affected Adam Lanza's life -- the fact that he lived virtually locked up in a basement room playing violent video games over and over, hypnotized by war. Or that he kept to himself, couldn't look others in the eye, reacted without emotion. Or that he had cut his father out of his life, refused to see him after his parents divorced, when his father began dating another woman. Or that he was consumed with anger because his mother was going to have him committed for treatment.
Instead of more gun control, shouldn't we be talking about where to set the bar when it comes to forcing an individual into treatment –- and whether those caring for people with mental-health issues have enough resources available to head off potential crises? The state of Connecticut didn't do much to help Nancy Lanza. It's a state that makes involuntary treatment difficult because it leans strongly toward supporting the civil liberties of individuals. Let's talk a little more about that.
In his address in Newtown [the Sunday after,] President Obama promised a grieving community "meaningful action ... regardless of the politics."But if enacting more restrictive gun laws is the action he has in mind, it leaves a mountain to climb in light of the Second Amendment and its principle. And more important than that, more gun laws aren't going to prevent another Sandy Hook massacre.

That is from "Gun Ban Won't Stop Another Sandy Hook Massacre: Let's Have the Hard Conversation," by Nancy Smith. See more at: http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/gun-ban-wont-stop-another-sandy-hook-m...? Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859. via sunshinestatenews.com

The problem is not guns, while there are some things to be addressed where guns are concerned. There are too many guns too easily available to the dangerous, it could be argued. But worse are such things as loopholes in the ability to sell and buy guns between private individuals with pretty much no oversight or checking. That is unseemly, but also quite easy to fix (does not require a gun control act, for goodness sake).
No, the problem is not one that requires further gun legislation. We can see from such despicable efforts like the government's own Fast and Furious disaster that regulations are only so good as the people we have enforcing them. And fools who are encouraging such a route as Fast and Furious gunrunning program included the President of the United States. Shameful.
It's proof that he may be the victor in a popular vote, but is far from being a man above a most unattractive, elitist deception that guns are a threat, not sick or criminal people. The last thing elitists who desire power want are an armed population. No matter how comfortable and apathetic citizens are, we should not let anyone forget that tyranny is potentially never more than a generation away.
I don't want to be a part of the generation who lays the carpet out for tyranny here in America by moving farther toward a no-guns population. Stiff gun controls work in comparably powerless and rather homogenous and passive Sweden, Finland and elsewhere. It won't work for us.
The problem is, as Nancy Smith argues, and I've felt and argued for some time: some people are very, very broken, as Adam Lanza was, as best as can be seen, and cannot be allowed around guns. The problem, too, those who are too preoccupied to face those things that afflict broken people, including the current "false prophet" of the downtrodden, the President of the United States with his anti-gun rhetoric that completely avoids the issue of severe mental illness. In my view that is crass, cynical political gamesmanship and nothing about the rights or benefits of men. Until those with the second problem can be adult enough to address the first problem, this will be a discussion that will give me deep, deep dismay at the ignorance and shallowness of the many.

- jR
(revised for clarity, Oct 6, 2013)

Posted via email from Like, Totally Political Dude! - posterous

DNC blind mice ask what confusion? What division? Villaigairosa: 'I didn't see confusion'

via content.usatoday.com

Republicans and others are roasting Democrats over the platform, first for leaving out God and Jerusalem, then for restoring them during what appeared to be a chaotic scene on the convention floor. Many delegates in the half-empty hall booed the changes.

Said Villaraigosa: "I didn't see confusion."

And these are folks insisting that GOP practices repetitious lying to convince people of their unreality? Unreal!

Posted via email from Like, Totally Political Dude! - posterous

TIME's Halperin: Obama 'clueless' about what to do now

White House lost in a crowd of trees. Image by HarshLight via Flickr

Everyone seems to be on the bash Obama wagon these days -- the bash the administration wagon, perhaps is more accurate. Is that why so many close and high-up advisers are leaving? Maybe yes, maybe no. The outcome of November 2, 2010, will tell us more.

From one of TIME's political guys, Mark Halperin:
Why Obama Is Losing the Political War
Monday, Oct. 11, 2010

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

- jR - aka airfarceone, on Twitter

We can hold onto relative peace with nuclear arms, perhaps only with them

The basics of the Teller-Ulam design for a hyd...

Image via Wikipedia

A year ago, a TIME editor opined that nuclear warheads have helped prevented much conflict death. To me, it's hard to imagine how this assertion could be wrong. They likely prevent, to this day, a third world war. Editor-at-Large David von Drehle wrote in Time, last October (2009): "Major powers find ways to get along because the cost of armed conflict between them has become unthinkably high."

From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, many world leaders have wanted nukes to go away. It's a shame leaders still seem to think it's a scary power source, as Obama seems to (he is encouraging all sorts of alternatives to fossil fuels, and nuclear isn't one).

It would be nice to rid of these armaments, but impossible to see happen. There's one 20th century event that will prevent the complete eradication of nuclear arms: the fall of the Soviet Union. That's the tidiest questionable variable in the nuclear device problem. It's possible, as presented in the book by Tom Clancy (and the movie, though its story varied significantly from the book, the essence of the nuclear bombing did not vary), The Sum of All Fears, that a missing warhead could find its way to the wrong hands.

If we eliminate the known nuclear devices, some group could have an "unknown" device, or several devices -- devices reported missing or stolen, falsely claimed as dismantled, or somehow wrongly acquired -- and they could commit the ultimate guerrilla attack without fear of equal retaliation against their people. Even the most morose extremist and terrorist leader, I want to believe, does not want to see his homeland decimated by nuclear missiles, nor would they likely avoid arrest in any sponsoring nation, with the threat of nuclear attack hanging over. There's only so far that the honor of martyrdom will go, even with the distorted beliefs of extremist communities, terrorist groups and their sponsor states.

Barring the horrific possibility of a Sum of All Fears-type attack, nuclear bombs came from a Pandora's Box, and it cannot be closed. Until the tracking and detection of what's in nuclear devices grows to the degree that we could locate one anywhere at any time, only the naive would try to see the end of the known nuclear devices. But the Nobel committee gave Barack Obama the Peace Prize in part for his stated interest in seeing an end to nuclear arms. How, exactly, will this be accomplished?

Why Nukes Are Necessary: To Stop Industrial-Scale War - TIME

As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel Committee truly cares about peace, its members will think a little harder about trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description. ...

Industrial killing was practiced by many nations in the old world without nuclear weapons. Soldiers were gassed and machine-gunned by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches of World War I, when Hitler was just another corporal in the Kaiser's army. By World War II, countries on both sides of the war used airplanes and artillery to rain death on battlefields as well as cities, until the number killed around the world was so huge that the best estimates of the total number lost diverge by some 16 million souls. The dead numbered 62 million or 78 million — somewhere in there.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929553,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz11WnEdLcw

For more on the nuclear weapons problem, search the Internet. Here's some additional work regarding Pres. Ronald Reagan's approach to nukes and the USSR:

Reagan's Nuclear Weapons legacy (Heritage.org)
George Schultz on Ronald Reagan (PBS)

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Jihad Council tells U.S.: Agree with us or you will have less friends!

TheHill.com - Jihad Council warns U.S. to change Muslim policies

“The only version of democracy and international relations the U.S. accepts is the one that serves its own vested interests,” UJC spokesman Syed Sadaqat Hussain said in a Thursday statement. “Flouting all international norms, the U.S. is declaring India as the leader in this region, and is trying to weaken China on the one hand and Pakistan on the other by granting India regional supremacy.

"Examined carefully, the terrorism on which worldwide hysteria has been whipped up is not terrorism at all but a fight to protect one's rights, of which the U.S. double standards are the basic cause,” the UJC spokesman said.

“Resistance is bound to grow if the U.S. does not alter its current policy against Muslims, and it will have more enemies in the world than friends, which would not be in its interests,” he said.

They need to find better writers. Or get out of the cave more. Seriously. If we don't change our policy and do what, exactly? We are anti-muslim? Clearly, we are anti-terrorism, anti-extremist, anti-abuse (by Muslim extremists who cruelly use their youths, mostly, as human bombs). How are we creating a realm where India becomes the "leader in this region"? By not going out of our way to make things difficult for India?

Did the Patriots make threats to every other nation when they were trying to gain independence from Great Britain? Just wondering. How about Pakistan, back when it was cut up from part of the Indian subcontinent, essentially dividing the Muslims and the Hindu, governmentally (not exactly, and not cleanly by population).

Fairly sure the Patriots weren't pissing on France's shoes, or anyone else's, like this, back when this swath of North America was comprised of lowly colonial activists intent on being free from King George.

Warring based on a radical distortion of religion is the most dangerous of all. It was the ruin of Christianity in the Crusades, for instance, and it managed to survive through the abuses of power-lusting popes and ethically vacant kings. Take the mafia, add religious teachings, and you get jihadists. They seem awfully wonderful for people on the one count, but one the other hand... yeah?

Jihadists base their entire effort -- name word means "holy war", after all -- on the superiority of their faith over others. Why should anyone regard them? Because they excel at empty words and vicious abuse of their own troubled and angry youths, as human bombs? How many times does it need to be said: Show SOME genuine interest in living and letting live, and then get back to us.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Florida's Crist puts essential need over politics and conservatism

Florida Governor Charlie Crist | 2009 State of the State Address

There is no doubt, that for our economy to recover, we must get people back to work. In the past several weeks I have visited with Floridians at seven unemployment offices across our state. I have looked into their eyes and I saw worry. I saw good, honest people who desperately want the opportunity to help themselves. Some argue the politics of the federal stimulus plan. My friends, while our people worry, we cannot put politics over their needs – the needs of our students and teachers, the sick and the infirm, or those out of work. We should not ask what it means to be Republican nor should we ask what it means to be Democrat; but rather what a good human being is supposed to do. In each and every one of us is the hope of the millions who sent us here. We must honor that sacred trust, to put them first.

Above is a part of Crist's State of the State address from March 3, 2009 (as written, perhaps not as it was delivered). Crist, a Republican, is not one of the governors who tried to refuse stimulus money. He has thus become a target by conservatives. That is understandable, but only so far as as is his acceptance of the money, as he outlines above. Call me anti-capitalist, but I agree with Gov. Crist, in the comment above, at least. As fate would have it, so do all our governors, as of very recently (SC's guv caved this week). Stimulus stinks, indeed, and so does how steeply off track had gone our regulations, laws and practices. Shame.

If this stimulus results in future increased taxation burdens for states, to pay for unemployment -- and welfare of a more permanent nature -- into the future, I will be thoroughly miffed. If that's the deal, then that law needs to be trounced and "un-billed" (so to speak; that is, passing a bill to remove a prior bill). Right now, today, Florida is a state that needs this money for a real crisis. Millions would have lost their unemployment -- professionals who are not being hired by the occasional retail or other company that has an opening -- without this. Is this is good thing? Define "good thing". Do I love getting unemployment, ever? No. Would most anyone getting unemployment be happy they are getting it? I seriously doubt it! I would be much happier being EMPLOYED, and I am pretty sure most people who just got on welfare rolls feels the same way.

Do I like using tax dollars for unemployment, education and to help the needy? Yes, far more than I think tax money should be used to bail out companies such as GM, AIG and to cover bad mortgages -- all inspired by cowardly attitudes, stupid laws and bad regulation. I don't want government to be any bigger, any more taxing (literally) than it is, and I vehemently want it to be less so. Screwing people out of unemployment is not the answer, however. Getting rid of the disgustingly pandering attitudes of people such as Nancy Pelosi, where Americans feel pain for basics while she calls illegals patriotic Americans, and whines about getting her own jet for trips, THAT is where the real battle lines are, not where we help -- and minimally so -- underemployed or unemployed American families.

Do I like any of this stimulus money, knowing just what it and this absurd federal budget seem to be promising? No. But reality, to me, dictates caring about the jobless and the needy Americans, not throwing the baby out with the bath water. As for the budget, well, one can only pray that plenty of people get their common sense -- and butts -- in gear and working boots on, and move Barack Obama into a nice speaking tour in November 2012. However, that seems a very far-fetched concept to me right now, seeing the adorable little mess that 2007-08 brought in and how well it was played by the Democrats (even though it was their upside-down finance markets ideals that helped everything along, too).

Meanwhile, 2010 is not very far away, and there's some Congress and gubernatorial work to do, to get rid of wacky liberals and get in some moderates and conservatives.

- jR aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Rabid leftie activism by MoveOn.org, others, betraying U.S.

Slightly idiotic, some pro-Obama nonprofit groups are trying to help encourage the Obama budget into passing, with mean advertising. Sometimes, it is like learning a relative unknowingly named their child after a disease, when groups like MoveOn.org try to "help". Big government, PACs, activist groups with no class, leaders like Pelosi and Clyburn: does Obama really need your kind of "help"?

Campaign for Obama's budget is widening - Los Angeles Times

Sen. Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, said that the TV advertising would not influence his vote. And he questioned whether the ads were consistent with the president's promise of collaboration. Obama has told lawmakers that they should not be "potted plants" -- passing his budget intact without raising questions -- Bayh said.

The president echoed that point at his prime-time news conference Tuesday, telling a national audience: "We never expected when we printed out our budget that they would simply Xerox it and vote on it."

If that's the case, Bayh asked, why are Obama allies running ads that effectively direct members to vote for the president's budget?

"The president has said this is a cooperative process," Bayh said in an interview. "Some of these groups running ads are not in sync with the president."

Members of Congress are sensitive about ads in their districts, and some say the MoveOn commercials strike a counterproductive partisan note.

One MoveOn ad, for example, is running in Democratic Rep. Christopher Carney's northeast Pennsylvania district. The district voted for Republican John McCain over Obama, and for President Bush over Democrat John F. Kerry four years earlier.

The MoveOn ad is critical of "Bush tax cuts." It urges support for "the Obama budget." In a conservative district like Carney's, an ad with an overt anti-Bush message could alienate voters, the congressman's office contends.

A Carney aide said: "This type of ultra-partisan rhetoric is not productive. There is a way to frame the budget that would pressure us, but this frame does not pressure us at all."

Carney, a member of the House's fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, has not announced a position on Obama's budget.

Way to go, yet again, MoveOn.org. My, how pro-American, all-inclusive and progressive you are. Yet... again, showing your "caring" for the common good with your "forward-looking" (I think that's what I've seen them calling it before) ads.

It looks like smash and grab rather than giving a hand -- feel the love, America? Who's betrayed whom?

- jR aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Did Israel strike at Sudan to hit Gaza gun-runners?

BBC NEWS | Africa | Mystery over Sudan 'air strike'

Mystery over Sudan 'air strike'

map of Egypt, Sudan and Sinai

A Sudanese government minister has confirmed reports of an air raid in eastern Sudan earlier this year.

The minister, Mabrook Mubarak Saleem, told an Arabic news channel that many people had been killed in the strike, said to have taken place last month.

Earlier reports suggested that those attacked were on their way to deliver weapons to Hamas fighters in Gaza.

Israeli officials have not commented publicly on reports that their planes may have been involved.

The CBS television network said it had been told by American officials that a strike by Israeli planes in January had succeeded in preventing weapons from Sudan reaching Gaza.

Mr Mabrook Mubarak Saleem said the air raid happened in February and that those killed or injured had been civilians from a number of African countries.

Another Middle East-linked mystery. Sudan, which has deep ties to China that might or might not be the pin that keeps everything from collapsing, is not exactly a place to be counted out of being a spot for gun runners who are working with not only Gazan terrorist or other aggressive groups, but Al-Qaeda and anyone else with cash.

This is after all the nation that has been killing, maiming, raping and keeping in misery countless thousands in the Darfur region. All primarily due to religious, ethnic and cultural intolerance. Their government there is trouble, or the ICC would not have issued an arrest warrant for the state's president, Hassan al-Bashir, in early March 2009.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Treasury Sec fills in reporters on toxic loans plan... aide tries to embargo all that

What stunt is that, then? An embargo was attempted on a chat, which was with reporters in closed quarters, by the Treasury Sec AFTER the chat was finished. Plausible deniability of some sort? Or was it just some dumb bureaucrat trying too hard to shove people around -- not the Sec, but the press aide? Political theater, or just stupidity?

Balance of Power - Geithner Fills In Blanks of Latest Bailout . . . Off Camera - CQ Politics

[Treasury Secretary] Geithner stayed on message and appeared Obamaesque in his cool, confident demeanor. His staff was a bit more antsy, though. As the hour-long briefing concluded, a press aide tried to retroactively put an embargo on the remarks, meaning journos would have to observe a delay before reporting Geithner's comments. Many in the crowd -- a bustantial number of whom had been live-blogging or Twittering -- simply laughed.

"Too late," said one attendee. "It is?" the flustered aide replied.

I guess that's because this current Administration is so attuned to current technology. Unlike Mr. McCain, who if you haven't heard, was not enamored with using keyboards or email (damaged bones from POW torture make it hard to use a PC, perhaps). Or, maybe they are not so aware of current technology. (After all, the Obama Twitter account has not been touched since Jan. 21, 2009, for instance. I guess that cool for a campaigner to attract the young, pliable ones, but not for a Campaigner-in-Chief.)

This, below, is essence of what Treas Sec said, as far as I'm concerned.

Geithner sat at an unadorned conference table in an upstairs conference room with a bottle of mineral water and explained to about 100 reporters how the administration hopes to reinvigorate the financial system without actually taking over any financial institutions. The key is offering private investors low-cost loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve. A fact sheet distributed by Treasury aides showed how a private investor could acquire $100 worth of bad assets by ponying up as little as $6. The government would match that initial investment, and the the FDIC would cover the remaining value.

Geithner predicted a wide array of investors -- including pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and even individual investors -- will flock to the program. He ruled out more dramatic steps, such as turning the government into an owner of the troubled institutions. "We are the United States of America. We are not Sweden," Geithner declared, referring to that country's response to its early 1990s banking crisis.

Well, all my respect to the good people and country of Sweden, but thank God for that piece of real hope from the Obama Administration. I think there is a lot of noise going on, people accusing Obama, across the board, of socialist tendancies. The fact remains that we have, by definition but not governmental model, socialized companies. Gov'ts owning companies equals socialism. That's kinda one huge part of it. That does not mean we are joining Sean Penn's friends in Cuba and Venezuela (but don't tell Penn that, he is liable to punch someone).

They tried to embargo the chat after the fact, so what the heck might that preempt? A bit paranoid, perhaps, to think the "ObamAdmin" might try to eject any words spoken, since they attempted to "post-embargo" the chat, but this is the group that keeps reminding us -- and less offensive from them but Congress tries to claim it, too -- that they inherited this mess.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Pe-floozie drops airhead bomb, this time on illegals, which got me thinking about drugs

America's fearless House leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in comments that can fairly be called playing to the crowd in a most profane sense, spoke at a church to a group of apparent illegals recently, telling them that deporting illegals was essentially (see site, Immigration's Human Cost) "un-American." But that was only after she informed the illegals that they are "patriotic." Yes, that's right: illegals are patriots, and our system is broken... if they leave.

She argued that forcing parents to leave the U.S. equates breaking up families, which is cruel. Nah! Is that cruel? This visit to a church was mistaken for a guest speaker engagement, I guess, but it was really a get-out-the-vote visit, the beautiful, adoring, kindly, fearless leader densely into campaign mode for 2010. Already, and we haven't even saved the planet yet, or the economy, or illegals' families. Which is most the utmost vital to our universal liberty, freedom and happiness again? Sorry -- channeling Pelosi there for a moment!

I am not being very serious, am I? The concern is, though, is Pelosi? Why would she say these things and not mean them? What kind of system would endeavor to break up families, she asked. What system would endeavor to hurt puppies? Indeed.

Who wants to willingly break up a family? I would suggest nobody but a mean, jealous mistress (or the male equivalent). Of course, what Pelosi means is that Republicans want to break up families, and that the mission of our current immigration laws are to break up families. Not to get control of who can enter this country whenever they please, like all those old-fashioned countries like (to name a few) China, France, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mexico, and Cuba do. Oh wait, they barely offer immigration, let alone do they let illegals stick around! So, how is it that we are able to take all of them on, will-nilly? What's Ms. Pelosi's plan, then? No plan given? Just rhetoric? To the illegals? In her home district, in budget-throttled California?

Talk about playing to the crowd!

YouTube - Pelosi Calls Illegals "Patriotic", ICE Raids "Un-American"

I think Speaker Pelosi really means well in her mind, but it's extremely misguided. What's more scary: Biden as VP or her as House Leader, or third in line to the presidency? I think our govt is holding us hostage with these people in charge!

Next they'll legislate nap times for every workplace to keep stress levels down, counseling and required "me time" for murderers, rapists, gang members, and terrorists rather than jail time. Perhaps they'll eliminate the two-party system "just to save time" during elections, too. They seem to be trying that pretty hard, what with seniority rule (NEA-style leadership rules) legislation that self-preserving Pelosi wants to pass through Congress.

Being "cheeky" (that's Brit-speak for wise-arsed), I considered the elder Bush selecting dopey Dan Quayle as VP to be deviously brilliant -- made Secret Service especially eager to keep Bush alive! Who wanted to see Quayle as president?!! This, this though, is a whole new bag of salty chips.

Someone commented, I think facetiously, under the video, why couldn't the illegals bring their American-born kids to Mexico with them when they were removed? Fair question, I suppose, but it is also a laugh riot. People die trying to come here, but they scamper the other way -- Americans and others -- into Mexico, to avoid being jailed (or killed by an enemy) in the U.S. This is, of course, unless they are drug professionals or wealthy folks who have acres of land in Mexico and good security.

The sad state of Mexico today is a long time coming, and part of the reason that it is so bad is that, like is often the case, is the leadership put off reacting to a growing problem far too long, across recent presidencies, before they were devoted to going after the drug cartels in Mexico. Barely democratic, reasons for leaving there and coming to the U.S. are mostly economic.

If it weren't for current Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, nothing would be being done about rampant drug cartels/gangs there. It is as if they tried to dam a river after long discussions about it, and they failed, causing flooding. Regrettably, GW Bush's pal Vicente Fox may easily be called a lame aristocrat type who left the drug cartel problem alone (lame, much like Clinton was here, serving as a squatter-in-chief) only to let Mexico's criminal powers (perhaps with it driven by criminal enterprises here and elsewhere) go farther. That overlooks the fact that he was also the first non-PRI party (across history of that party and its predecessors), thus the first opposition party president since ... 1910. Off the hook? I don't know. Seems to me they could have asked us (the U.S.) for help, but I suppose one cannot blame Fox for playing it safe. As for Clinton... never mind.

In the here and now, in 2007-09 (and beyond) we face several years of death and terror, the police frightened of the thugs (assuming they are not the same, which they are not always the same) in trying to end crimes' rule, has resulted, since Calderon brazenly declared war on drug cartels. Thus making it, by backhanded insult, seem all the more foul that we should send anyone back to some border areas of Mexico.

- jR

Wondering how well things are going? Just look nearby

I live in Central Florida, and stumbled across this via an Orlando networking site fro entrepreneurs. Of course, we all know that entrepreneurs know NOTHING about how money works. That's why they're small business people -- not greedy enough to be big business. A-ha. Ha. Ha.

UCF Economist: Obama's Stimulus Makes Me LOL - UCF Newsroom

So far, says [UCF economist] Sean Snaith, too much money is being spent in the wrong places, and Americans are tired of footing the bill.

“There is a growing public sentiment that you might call ‘bailout fatigue,’” Snaith says in his U.S. quarterly forecast released this morning.

“Millions of people who did the right things and yet still have watched their assets plummet are getting more angry that their tax dollars and their children’s tax dollars will be used to bail out those most responsible for our current problems.”

Snaith, director of UCF’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness, says some types of stimulus and financial rescue packages are needed -- such as investing in more infrastructure projects and a expanded, fast-acting version of the TARP program. But he fears that the new plans to hand out money are “woefully lacking in detail.”

“The devil, as they say, is truly in the details,” Snaith says. “Nobody knows exactly the total bill the U.S. government -- really, American taxpayers -- will run up before this whole shameful debacle comes to an end.”

Oh those damnable anti-Keynesians!

- jR

Sen. "No Tax Cuts" Kerry sent letter by Hamas, to give to Obama

From the Daily Beast news portal: Dear Barack, From Hamas - The Daily Beast

Hamas has a message for President Obama. And who better to deliver it than Sen. John Kerry, visiting Gaza this week? A senior UN official told BBC News that the letter has been received by the UN, but would not specify if Kerry had been the one to accept it. The Massachusetts Democrat did not meet with Hamas, instead focusing on humanitarian concerns.

"[The visit] does not indicate any shift whatsoever with respect to Hamas...what it indicates is our effort to listen and to learn," Kerry said.

So, what did the letter have in it? Was it like this?

Dear Pres. Obama:

Please destroy Israel so we may rule the planet from Jerusalem as Muslim brothers with the fundamentalist imams of the Muslim world. Oh, and death to all infidels. Imshalla!

Silly terrorists, Obama is an American, a Christian, and no matter how liberal he is, he is not a tool and not going to make nice with you till you start changing... everything about your group's goals and how you wish to achieve them.

The BBC piece goes into it with more detail, but not giving up whether the letter will be read by Obama:

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Hamas 'sends Barack Obama letter'

The Palestinian group Hamas has sent a letter addressed to the US president via a US politician visiting Gaza, a senior UN official has said.

UN relief agency chief Karen Abu Zayd told the BBC the letter had been received by the UN and passed on.

She did not say if Senator John Kerry had accepted it, and there were no details about the letter's contents.

The US views Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, as a terrorist organisation and will not deal with it.

A spokeswoman for the US consulate said it was thought to be the first visit by US congressmen for at least four years.

Mr Kerry also visited the Israeli town of Sderot, a target of Palestinian rocket attacks, before entering Gaza.

Standing in front of a pile of used rockets, Mr Kerry said that both he and President Obama believed that nobody should have to spend their lives in fear of attack.

[Kerry stated:] "We are sympathetic with the crisis that people face on a daily basis here in Israel, from those who choose no other path other than to use instruments of terror."

Earlier he said: "[The visit] does not indicate any shift whatsoever with respect to Hamas... what it indicates is our effort to listen and to learn."

Hamas won elections in 2006 and consolidated control by force in 2007.

I am glad Kerry respects the hardships of Israelis being threatened for years with the small but deadly -- terrorizing -- missiles (unless you are a glib, spoiled, child-like game console junkie, you recognize that any size missile is threatening, thus coming as an act of aggression). It gives me hope that his dolt elitist views of many things at home are not all-encompassing.

I am fascinated by what this letter from Hamas might have in it. Might it be a rambling rants such as some public letters from Iran's Ahmedinejahd or al-Qaeda leaders? Or will it have something worth reading to someone who believes in human freedom? That is, will it be readable for people who have worked to practice human freedoms despite the foul smell of history and the setbacks of modern despots? That is, would it be worth reading by someone who prefers not using terrorism to claim land and power at the cost of one's own people's -- and others') freedoms and lives?

If we do hear, will it be made public by Hamas itself, or will the White House accept it and present it themselves, first? I am hoping that it must be made public by Hamas. Why? For the White House to accept a letter from the group that clearly proclaimed that the time for peace ended -- irreversibly ended -- hardly gives promise to any proper evolution of any peace plan. Hamas insists that Fatah must go, thus, it is Hamas that ought to go. They are aggressors amongst their own people, and against Israel. As a matter of practice, Hamas uses the deaths of innocents among their own people, during the retaliatory stirkes by Israel, as public relations tools. It gets no more foul that that.

If the letter from Hamas is accepted by the White House, at least right now as they act so cruelly as to use their own people's lives as chum to the world media's biases, it will show that Obama is no diplomat, just a soppy, liberal politician. And, a fool for fascists to toy with. There can be ways to dress this up as a meaningless thing, a mere willingness to accept the mail. Accepting the letter, it can be argued, would change nothing. However, that logic may only go so far: On the world stage of diplomacy, it might be a thundering misstep. It would suggest that the new US President is not only far different politically and in his perspective from GW Bush, but that he is willing to show a blind openness that attracts the fundamentalists, who wish us gone, like ants to a dying dog.

Just my two cents.

- jR

Bad policy, bad ethics, broken ideals, and the downfall of America's markets

Yet more clear reasons why Obama and the Democrats (if we can still call them that, and not Obamacrats) won an election based on the broadest of false claims, that the economics of laissez faire, of hands-off and low taxes, got us into this. It was not capitalism and free markets that hurt us, it was failure by gov't, be it Clinton, GW Bush, or many years of Congressional leaders, that got us into this mess. And yes, CRA and poverty mortgages got us into this!

This problem of the failing economy was PARTLY the fault of Republicans in Congress, since they make the LAWS, but not sure when GW Bush instisted banking regulations be all but forgotten. In fact, it seems the GOP leaders were basically assuaged -- or illicitly looked the other way -- and played along with crazy, fast-times-will-never-slow policies, in the case of the sour mortgages that turned into sour credit default swaps, which turned into a ruined U.S. economy.

In my thoughts, in reading about this economic crisis and how we got here, I am reacting against big government types, and socialists, and liberals, all who to some extent or another seem to be convincing people that the GOP did this to us. Ironic, then, that it was liberal mortgage ideas that got us here, right alongside a lack of regulations (which, indeed, is a small gov't thus GOP attitude) but not by way of GW Bush, but through Clinton-era Congressional diddling through the ever-expanding nonsense of CRA and ill-thought mortgage regulations.

Here's some hard work to that end, linked below, but diced into some small pieces, following:

Feds Re-Impose Loan Standards They Helped Undermine | RealClearMarkets

There is a great irony that Washington will now lead the way in imposing new, stricter standards, including a tougher income-to-payment ratio, because it was Washington, prodded by affordable housing advocates, which pushed mortgage lenders to dilute their traditional underwriting values in the first place. Federal regulators attacked those established standards as being “unintentionally biased” against low and moderate income borrowers and used a variety of laws and regulatory bodies to push often resistant lenders into programs based on these lower standards. The government and those who backed its actions assured lenders these lower standards were safer than they thought, even though there was little research to support that contention. Now that a huge chunk of the market based on these debased standards has melted down, the government is going full circle.

And those who were most easily "prodded by affordable housing advocates" are now running things, so this is quite quite ironic.

...a Freddie Mac program called Affordable Gold, which purchased loans from banks under looser underwriting standards, including loans which allowed a borrower to make a down payment with funds contributed from a third party like a government assistance program or a nonprofit, showed sharply higher default rates, up to four times higher than traditional underwriting standards.

...politicians in both parties made expanding the number of home owners in America a high priority, and the only way to keep doing that was to lend to people with increasingly riskier credit.

Got bad credit? No problem! Not only will you get a loan, but it will be with a low interest rate, too! We'll bend over backwards for our risky customers since Big Brother asked us to. After all, everyone deserves to lose a home at least once in their lifetime!

In a recent Forbes article Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute and Edward Pinto, former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae, point out that by 2001, 18 percent of Fannie Mae’s portfolio consisted of loans to people with credit scores below 680—the traditional definition of a loan to someone with riskier credit, who is also someone more likely to default.

Of course, with two huge federal agencies willing to purchase such loans, mortgage makers couldn’t churn them out fast enough, and private investors also began snapping up the loans in competition with Fannie and Freddie.

As if that is not insulting enough, and ironic that this all came to a head during GW Bush's time in office, when he was too busy waging war on Teararists to notice the economy was failing in a big way, there's this little nugget to chew on:

[Relevant experts] say federal programs were not the problem because many of the worst loans portfolios were created by non-bank lenders which are not even subject to the Community Reinvestment Act. But that’s an argument that ignores the much broader role that government played in watering down standards, including using pressure to force players across the industry to participate.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Clinton, for instance, threatened to introduce legislation to make non-bank lenders, that is, mortgage finance companies, subject to CRA if these firms didn’t sign on to affordable lending goals.

So where were these blowhard, blame Bush, extended-stay Congress members during all of this, for two double-term presidents?!! Those sillies over in Congress -- can't do anything without the White House, it seems!

Who were some of the big fans of this fun mortgage idea? Countrywide hopped right into the cesspool first!

One of the first ... to take up the pledge was Countrywide, which pledged to introduce low-down payment loans with high income-to-payment ratios for low-income borrowers. Countrywide and its co-founder, Angelo Mozilo, ultimately became infamous as one of the first major mortgage lenders to melt down under the weight of its bad lending, but before it was notorious Countrywide was celebrated for its low-income efforts.

Today, the Obama administration acknowledges through its bailout program that those standards were unsafe. It’s a backhanded acknowledgement. ... I suppose that’s about as far as we can expect government to go in admitting the mess it helped to make.

I guess I don't get a bailout, since I was not getting any loans out. Oh well. I hope I can get a JOB at some point that isn't in CONSTRUCTION. Which I have zero experience in.

- jR

CFIF.org: Spending is illegitimate way to motivate economy

Why Massive Government Spending Is Ineffective “Stimulus” – A Primer

Barack Obama, economically uninformed and obviously confusing his temporary personal approval rating with some sort of permanent mandate to do whatever he pleases, crudely justified his unprecedented spending proposal by grunting, “I won.” Shortly thereafter, Obama rationalized his agenda to House Democrats attending their retreat last week with the following irrational and simplistic attempt at humor:

“So then you get the argument, ‘well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill.’ What do you think a stimulus is?! (Laughter and applause.) That’s the whole point! (More laughter and applause.) No, seriously! That’s the point! (More laughter and applause.)”

Clearly unable to defend the indefensible, Obama instead retreats to sarcasm and juvenile humor as if his premise is self-evident.

Tossing aside that Obama's comments goofily ignore 1/3 of the bill, that minority which is tax cuts, this strikes me as a core argument against Democrats who argue that spending is the only way to go. That Obama, even in front of his own party, ducks the issue, suggests he does not get it. Democrats, mostly, seem to think that more government control is the solution to an economy problem created by government not doing its existing tasks of responsibly regulating fields where greed runs rampant.

The comments in the quote are from CFIF.org, a group I am personally not very informed about, but which is interested in individual freedoms, thus smaller government, above all else. Apparently, these days, that automatically makes you a conservative, probably an extreme conservative, to liberals.

I think the above quote defines the faltered argument behind rushing to spend with the stimulus. In this age of wireless, computers and a widely educated American populace, I think the stimulus ought to FOCUS on four things:

lower taxes for consumers and businesses,
relief for the unemployed and otherwise impoverished,
freeing of the frozen banking and finance industry, and
adapting to the crunch to open up free enterprise, such as making credit available.

Instead, billions are being spent on -- not wrong but wrongly involved in the stimulus -- infrastructure programs that ought to be a part of a real budget or other bill. Some of those programs, such as bridges, have indeed been put off too long since government is not the answer, but part of the problem.

Bridges and roads are failing because government has avoided offering bills to get spending for them, too focused on pet agendas to do the business of the nation responsibly. Just as the gov't ignored subprime mortgages since they felt good about letting the poor and real estate prospectors (oops!) get mortgages on the upside down financial concepts behind those bad ideas. Just as gov't ignored rampant abuses of the financial markets, derivatives and hedge funds and Madoff-style ripoffs. Just as they ignored runaway deficit spending.

Have you noticed that subprimes promoted the use of those nasty derivatives, so people could keep the madness going, handing off the bad mortgages, like financial musical chairs. It alone proves that governmental liberal, short-sighted ideas to give people things they cannot afford are BAD! They will fail us, and today, they have led us into a bigger failure than they alone could give!

Gov't ignored regulation in areas of money and investing, and offered illogical programs for mortgages, the best places for greed to swell for the ethically abstract among us, and it ignored infrastructure. Two kinda obvious things gov't ought to always be dealing with, and overtly. And yet, gov't says now that they ought to be able to be in complete control, according to Democrats. How rich!

Caution against big government of all cautions, when we're all sweating to begin with, the government slips in the programs that they are too chicken to pass in good times. How does that get me a job, exactly, unless I am in those fields or can do -- physically can manage to do -- those jobs? I am sure lots of unemployed folks over 40 will be thrilled to know they can help build bridges out in the summer sun for ten-hour days when they've been living in a cubicle for 15 years or more.

Isn't it ironic, and eery, that a belief the small, regulatory role of government in trade is viewed as old-fashioned and part of a "failed" economic model by the Democratic leadership? What's the option, in their view? Isn't our government TOO BIG now?!! They blame GW Bush for making it larger, through the creation of Homeland Security, leaving out that the motivation was the greatest attack on our shores in 60 years. But they want to make government control of things greater, not just in what they have failed to do and should have regulated in finance and banking, but overall.

Where will they stop? Hugo Chavez' and Castro's model? China's model? Sweden or France's model? How long has it been since either of those last two states "wore the pants" anywhere in the world? The American liberals seem to forget that, on top of being in an economic down trend, we are also the only thing keeping Russia, China and other big, not very nice nations from running the whole show. I guess they'd want to stop just short of that. And, Sen. Kerry and fellow wealthy liberals who think government is the answer, where exactly would you stop? Do you have a specific thing in mind, or would you simply guess where we ought to stop?

- jR

Pakistan agrees to Sharia law rule in Swat Valley area, in Taliban deal

Pakistan agrees Sharia law deal | BBC NEWS | South Asia

Pakistan has signed a peace deal with a Taleban group that will lead to the enforcement of the Islamic Sharia law in the restive Swat valley.

Regional officials urged the Taleban, who agreed a 10-day truce on Sunday, to lay down their arms permanently.

The Taliban/Taleban wants rules that bring extremist Islamic ideas into the running of everything. They are doing htere what they did in Afghanistan.

Their campaign against female education has led to tens of thousands of children being denied an education, our correspondent says.

US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, who is in India, said he needed more information on the deal but that the situation in Swat had "deeply affected the people of Pakistan, not just in Peshawar but in Lahore and in Islamabad".

Mr Holbrooke said Swat "demonstrates a key point and that is that India, the United States and Pakistan have all a common threat now... [we] all face an enemy which possesses a direct threat to our leadership".

In a pursuit for peace in the area, Pakistan did this. I will always regret our efforts to keep the USSR from controlling Afghanistan brought this bunch of Islamists into being. I will not thus fallaciously lay all the blame for everything at our door, but I indeed regret that sad turnout of our efforts to keep communism out of Afghanistan then.

I am a bigger believer in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" than I am, or ever would be, in the "you had a part in this, therefore it is wholly your fault" stupidity one hears from the politically correct, illogically peace-loving liberal factions.

- jR

Pelosi's 'bipartisanship': Excludes the minority party and new Congress members

Somebody needs to get House Leader Nancy Pelosi a dictionary, so she can look up a few words, like "bipartisanship," "merit," "liberty," and "democracy." I am amazed at how especially liberal politicians think they have the right to legislate out the gamut of influence, and legislate in the autocratic ideals of seniority over credibility, claiming that the closed-minded policies they are trying to set are to prevent their own superiorly "diverse" politics from being closed out by the other guys -- the evil, mean-spirited conservatives. Gag.

Here's what's so absurd about the things Pelosi is working toward (see article and all the links below): It's one thing, and hardly anyone is against, aid functions for those in need and the privilege challenged. This kind of "liberal" politics is an entirely different animal, and it is creepy. It is not liberal, not progessive, it is legislating one-party rule, and the Democrats actually think they have the right, since they are so much more "diverse" in their thinking. Please.

Pelosi is simply a simple-minded leader. Have a look at this offense.

John Fund Blasts Speaker Pelosi on 'Reforms' - Newsmax.com

The rule changes Speaker Nancy Pelosi is steamrolling through the House of Representatives contradict President-elect Barack Obama’s bipartisan promises, and also fly in the face of Pelosi’s own pledge to “insure the rights” of the minority party.

That’s the view of Wall Street Journal columnist and author John Fund, who documented Friday how Pelosi’s tune has changed in a bid to drown out the voices of Republican minority opposition in Congress.

Fund points out that Pelosi’s new rules sharply contradict positions she took before Democrats came to power. In 2004, Fund says, Pelosi rolled out a "Bill of Rights" to protect the interests of the party not in power.
"When we [Democrats] are shut out, they are shutting out the great diversity of America," Pelosi warned at the time. “We want a higher standard."

One of the ironies of Pelosi’s power grab, Fund points out, is that conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats are among the losers under the new rules because they often lack seniority.

Here's a link and some quotes from the John Fund opinion piece:

John Fund: Pelosi Turns Back the Clock on House Reform - WSJ.com

Every two years the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives introduces a new set of rules to govern the body. Normally, this event passes with barely a yawn from the public. But the changes pushed through on Tuesday by Democrats will have real-world consequences for fiscal conservatives of both parties.

Gone are term limits for committee chairmen, a big comeback for seniority over merit. Cost containment measures on Medicare, one of the fastest growing programs, are simply suspended for this Congress.

Mrs. Pelosi used to see things differently. Back in 2004, she unveiled a proposed "Bill of Rights" to protect House minority interests. It called on Republicans to allow more meaningful substitutes to bills, give members enough time to read bills before final votes, and stop holding roll-call votes past the normal 15 minutes. She had a point. In late 2003, Republican leaders held open a roll-call vote on the Medicare drug entitlement for three hours until they bullied enough wavering members into voting aye.

Mrs. Pelosi warned in 2004 that "When we [Democrats] are shut out, they are shutting out the great diversity of America." We want a higher standard." In 2006, just before becoming speaker, Mrs. Pelosi reiterated her plans to promote "bipartisanship" and "to ensure the rights of the minority."

That was then.

Smell that? It's called hypocrisy. Yeah, politicians wear it for pins, but damn, the House Speaker is a true champion of small-minded, narrow and self-assuring ideas.

I can only figure that Pelosi -- flakey Sen. Harry Reid in the other end of Congress, too, for that matter -- became the leader through exactly that kind of thinking on her part and the part of her longtime, long-complacent colleagues, I can only presume. What do I mean? She has no leadership skills beyond talking until her thick lipstick starts to dry, crack and fall off.

She'll have two grand accomplishments thus far as leader if she succeeds with the above: First, she let the deep financial crisis of 2008-09 hit without seeming to grasp any of the long, government-driven, regulation-poor (that's the duty of the legislature, not the White House, folks), developments that led up to it. These issues were as obvious as her mascara, but her eyes were famously those of a deer in headlights at those first press conferences during the insane and latent TARP bill negotiations action. Second, this, the cutting the GOP out of future failures in the House. It's good for the GOP, I guess, so keep it up, Nancy!

Dear California: Would someone in the great state please find some leadership-worthy person who doesn't remind us of the stereotypically arrogant, curt and unfathomably self-assured working mom in the neighborhood who terrorizes the other parents' children with her queer ideas about fairness (her kids get it, no one else)? Please?!!

- jR

Organizer: check. Money-spender: check. Who's entering office?

The two things that are clear now that the election is over are (one) that Obama spent a lot lot lot more money toward the cause of winning and still barely took the win and (two) the Obama campaign was a damned well-run organization. My hope is that the community organizer turned campaign organizer turned country organizer -- I mean he became the country's president, Skippy -- is what predominates in the White House, and not the vigorous money-spender. After all, only taxes can fund his spending now. And many millions cannot even get a job at this point, let alone pay more taxes.

I hope the organizer is who shows up for the economic recovery work and for keeping the world's militant terrorists and other cretins at bay. We don't have money, not any longer, and if Obama expects to raise taxes as expertly as he raised campaign cash, we're all in deep doo-doo. Exclamation point.

America: wake up and start thinking like a businessman, not a welfare or "bailout" proponent. Capitalism is about selfishness, you say? So socialism is the opposite of selfishness? Please! In a perfect world, perhaps no one would work and all our problems would be solved. If you live in that world, let me in! Otherwise, let's talk about making the real world function.

Here's the problem: a socialist country with lots of power is dangerous, far more dangerous than we could be -- really -- and all the examples of extremely socialistic powers ought to be proof of it. The USSR, for instance, in WW II and afterward, under Premier Stalin. Supposely a nation rules by the common man. As if. Enough said.

Socialism is akin to communism (the real world thing, not the idealistic thing that Marx supposed could work but has been proven a failed idea, because people cannot stick to it, seeing as they are diverse humans and not simple-minded widgets) and they are akin to totalitarianism and fascism. They are not safe models of a national structure for countries with power. Look at what the USSR did for the world: not much. Killed millions upon millions for the will of one leader. That's a wrong idea. Capitalism and republicanism and democracy are far safer, since in our case at least, they are also propped up by ideas and a rule of law (not a rule of man).

We have far too much power, still, in this darker time, than most nations can dream of. We are not Sweden. So, snap the heck out of it, folks. We need to stay at least modestly individualist-minded. That way, losers can learn to win, or they remain losers. The bitter can learn to solve problems, or continue to have them. I have loads of problems. My life will always suck unless I solve them. Simple. That is not a bad system. One where Joe Stalin can rise to the top is a bad system, not one where Obama, or GW Bush, can rise. They are not inhuman, madly paranoid, or otherwise unseemly, no matter how badly you want to believe it. They are not Blagojovichs, for instance. Or even silly, unethical Ted Stevenses.

There is a very clear line to be drawn, and that is going to determine if this economic problem turns out to continue far too long (allegedly) as did the American Great Depression and the Japanese deep recession of the 1990s. Mind you, there are fair arguments that it was not Roosevelt's socialistic ideas that pulled us out of depression, but extended it. It was the efforts to get people back to work, quite simply, that got us out of depression. Social programs don't solve money woes, they exacerbate them. Work and commerce solve money woes. We can only print money so long until it weakens the dollar so much that it is worthless, too, so don't count on that solving the woes, either.

See this post ("In the end, did money win the White House?") for more about money, winning, and what spending tons of cash versus the election outcome means in a fairly rational sense, as opposed to what Obama's fanatics want it to mean. In short, call this a landslide, and what will come eventually is a blow back -- a very painful one for Obama, Democrats, and the government leaders who seem to never learn how to govern.

- jR

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