Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Intellectual Whiplash


Well, OK. Ascribing the word "intellectual" to any part of Virginia's moonbatosphere is a stretch. Perhaps "intellectualoid" is a better word.

And how else do you explain the fact that many of those savaging Sarah Palin as "unqualified" for the job she seeks were championing Governor Timmy! for the same post?

Even Governor Timmy! himself!

The Moonbats Are Nuts!

Amazing! Democrats control both Houses of Congress. That means --- if Democrats are united --- Republicans cannot pass anything. It means, with the exception of the Senate filibuters, Republicans can stop virtually nothing.

Yet it is Republicans are responsible for the failure of the $700 billion bailout bill?!?!?!

Survey says ... well, the surveys will probably reflect that those idiots who are inclined to believe virtually any Democrat lie believe this, too, reflecting the triumph of government-controlled education, and the absence of teaching mathematical skills. But anybody who can count votes should know better.

That's nearly as crazy as the suggestion that George Bush is responsible for the financial crisis because of his agenda --- TALKING POINTS ALERT! --- of "deregulation on steroids."

Well, the first thing is, the Bush Administration attempted to sound the alarm on the precarious status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac practices years ago. Democrats on the Hill didn't want to hear it. After all, if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac kept on making irresponsible loans to people who couldn't afford to repay them, well, that just guaranteed another loyal Democrat constituency whose votes were effectively bought.

And let's not forget how this "crisis" started. Just like the "health care crisis," this is a "crisis" of Democrats' making. Democrats sponsored and jealously guarded the "community reinvestment" programs, supposedly enacted to address "racism" in the lending industry. Of course, Democrats were happy to fraudulently misrepresent sound and responsible lending practices as "racism" for political gain.

Soooooo, they socialized a portion of the lending industry with "government-sponsored entities": Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And just like Medicare (which socialized virtually half of the health-care "system," now that the chickens are coming home to roost, Democrats are calling, not for recognition of the failure of socialism and a removal of irresponsible government mandates, but for --- you guessed it! --- more socialism.

Now I can't begrudge any Republican who voted for the bailout. I understand their concern. It might even be a necessary evil, in light of the fact that this is a government-made crisis, arising out of government mandates. Kind of like the S&L debacle, where government guaranteed accounts, but failed to exercise appropriate oversight. The case can be made, and GOP leaders tried to make it.

However, unlike Democrats --- who reflexively throw money at any situation --- I would expect Republicans and Conservatives to be able to recognize the root causes, and actually address them by getting government out of an enterprise in which it has no legitimate business, expertise, or constitutional authority. And I expect Republicans to go after Democrat robber-barons like Franklin Raines, who precipitated this crises while profiting handsomely.

But to suggest that the failure of the bailout is to be blamed on the Republicans, well, only a moonbat residing in the cave of a far-Left echo chamber could believe that!

H/T to Riley for the YouTube video.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

What The Moonbatosphere Hath Wrought


Someone sent this to me a few minutes ago.

It's despicable.

It's also the kind of response which is to be expected when otherwise respectable portions of the Democrat blogophere are peddling trash like this, while the moonbats are peddling worse.

I don't know the timing of the creation of this work, but I never saw anything even remotely like it until just a few minutes ago.

On The Abuses Of Credit

ViaDrudge, we learn that the nation's largest auto dealer --- a Chevrolet dealer in Arizona --- is closing its doors. Apparently, soft sales coupled with tighter credit has made it impossible for the business to stay open. Like many dealers, Heard Chevrolet "floor-plans" its stock, paying interest to GM for the privilege of displaying its automobiles.

'Can't say I'm surprised by this. My late grandfather was a Pontiac, Buick, and Cadillac dealer in Central Pennsylvania for more than forty years, from 1946 until 1 January 1987, when he sold his dealership in Sunbury to Blaise Alexander.

I vividly remember those dark days in the late 1970s, when Chrysler was begging for government loans to keep operating, oil prices were spiking, and sales of American gas-guzzlers tanked in the face of Japanese competition.

It was almost a certainty that, in a rather depressed area (economically), the only way that Schreffler Pontiac, Buick, and Cadillac survived was because of the fact that my grandfather didn't "floor-plan" his vehicles. Rather, he bought them from the manufacturer outright, and thereby avoided the costs of interest payments during economic downturns.

Don't be surprised if you see more car dealers going out of business in the next few months. And for the same reasons that we are talking about a nearly-trillion dollar bailout for Wall Street.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Facts To Ponder ... And Who's To Blame

Sent to me by my brother-in-law, a 20-year Army and Army Reserve veteran:

This just in!

Hey boys & girls ... facts are facts!!

This has to make you think a little bit, if not then keep your blinders on!

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine.

A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%;

4) the DOW JONES hit a record high --- 14,000 +;

5) American's were buying new cars, taking cruises, vacations overseas, living large!...

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democrat Congress & yep --- we got 'CHANGE' all right. In the PAST YEAR:

1) Consumer confidence has plummeted;

2) Gasoline is now over $4 a gallon & climbing!;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS & prices still dropping;

5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure;

6) as I write, THE DOW is probing another low --- 11,100 --- $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS

Yep, in 2006 America voted for "Change"! And we sure got it!!! Now, Barach H. Obama, the Democrat candidate for President --- and the polls say he's going to be "the Man" --- claims he's really going to really give us "Change"!! Just how much more "Chanage" do you think you can stand?!?!

Virginia Democrat Endorses Voter Suppression

Remember the days when Democrats complained of mythical Republican efforts at voter suppression?

Of course, it was just a myth, and an effort to play upon racial fears, since such accusations invariably accused Republicans --- without evidence --- of voter suppression in the Black community. Either that, or a concerted scheme to misrepresent humor ("Due to high turnout expected in this year's election, the Voter Registrar has determined that Republicans will vote on the first Tuesday in November, while Democrats will vote the next day").

Not this time. Now, a denizen of the Virginia moonbatosphere has shamelessly endorsed an effort to suppress votes. As one might expect, he endorses an effort to suppress votes in Texas, which is expected to go for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Good Thing Stupidity Is Not A Crime

Promises from the moonbat contingent to prosecute the President for "murder."

I wonder how one types or dictates a pleading while suffering from cranial-rectal inversion?

Why Is Mark Warner Dodging EFCA?

What is it with the Boyish Governor?

My understanding is that Mark Warner, now running to succeed retiring Senator John Warner (R-VA, and no relation), once again dodged a question about the fraudulently-misnomered "Employee Free Choice Act" at yesterday's Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce debate. "EFCA," as it's known, is number one on the union hit parade, and would require, inter alia, employer recognition of labor unions securing signatures on union membership cards in a bargaining unit. This procedure is currently allowed under the National Labor Relations Act, but employers familiar with union intimidation tactics frequently demand secret-ballot elections to put unions to their proofs about claims of majority support for the union.

Even 1972 Democrat presidential candidate former Senator George McGovern has found this proposal too radical for his tastes.

So why won't Mark Warner let Virginians know his position?

Might it be that he fears Virginians' reaction to a Senator who will advance Big Labor's anti-democratic agenda of intimidation?

Remember, this is the same Mark Warner who promised when running for Governor that he wouldn't raise taxes, and turned around and fought for the biggest tax increase ($6 billion) in Virginia history, on fraudulent claims of budget "crisis."

Of course, anyone who's been paying attention knows that Democrats scream "crisis" whenever they want to spend more taxpayer money to buy votes.

Monday, September 15, 2008

A "Meltdown"? Not Hardly

I am no economist. In fact, I took the absolute minimum number of Economics courses necessary to earn my degree at Hampden-Sydney. In retrospect, I regret that decision somewhat, as H-SC has a fine Economics Department. Even today, when I return to campus, a number of the professors --- none of whose courses I actually took --- greet me by name.

Nevertheless, in looking at today's economics news, and the drop in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average (about 2.15% as I write), I am marvelled that the press is describing it as "a meltdown."

Really? I was in law school in 1987, and vividly remember the day when the DJIA lost approximately 25% of its value, or about 500 points on a then-average of about 2000.

That was "a meltdown."

One can only wonder about the premises from which these reporters are proceeding. Utter ignorance of history?

Or are they so completely in the tank for Barry Obama and the Democrat Party that they are willing to misrepresent current events to sustain the lies that a merely "sluggish" economy is "the worst since the Great Depression"?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

I Guess It Was Only A Matter Of Time

Just for grins, check out the rantings of this sanctimonious moonbat.

I guess it was only a matter of time before these boobs started assuming the mantle of Old Testament prophets.

If only they had approaching the same inspiration.

H/T to Moonbats-R-Us ... er, "RK."

What Matt Damon Had To Say

According to the boys and girls at Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough ... er, Raising Kaine ... er, "RK" (you know, the site that promotes another actor/Obama supporter whose most famous roles involve playing a moron), here's what Matt Damon had to say about Governor Sarah Palin:
It's like a really bad Disney movie... The hockey mom, you know 'I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska' and she's facing down Vladimir Putin using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink. It's absurd, it's totally absurd, and I don't understand why more people aren't talking about how absurd it is. It's a really terrifying possibility; the fact that we've gotten this far and we're that close to it being a reality, it's crazy. I need to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago...I wanna know that, I really do, because she's going to have the nuclear code.
You know what's really totally absurd? Taking seriously the political rantings of an (admittedly talented) actor and screenplay writer whose foreign policy experience is limited to playing the caricature of a covert operative.

Or even more absurd? Nominating as a candidate for President a guy whose entire ticket has no executive experience, and whose most significant decisionmaking has involved which radical associations he's going to throw under the bus for current political gain, and never mind the poor judgment reflected in making those radical associations in the first place. A guy who complains about "gotcha" moments ("lipstick on a pig is still a pig") who might be taken ever so much more seriously had he risen to the defense of George Allen two years ago, with his "macaca" moment.

It's like --- oh, I don't know --- a really bad Robert Ludlum movie.

H/T to Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough ... er, Raising Kaine ... er, "RK." Whatever.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

A Poll You Won't Hear About

I don't usually discuss "horse race," or more usually, "horse's a** race," numbers. However, this may be significant.

Not that you're likely to see it reported in the so-called "main stream" media, but pollster John Zogby, himself a Democrat, shows McCain/Palin up by nearly 4% over Barry Obama and Joe "the Plaigarist" Biden.

No wonder the moonbats are going positively crazy.

What Were You Saying About "Global Warming"?

More evidence that those who go on about "global warning" are merely engaged in another effort to find an excuse to control our lives.

"Global warming" is globaloney.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Civil Rights Attorney?

Just for grins, I decided to do a little research on Barry Obama's claim to have been a civil rights attorney.

Particularly since I am actually one.

Interesting results.

Searching on Westlaw, I searched the "allfeds" database (all federal courts) for "at("Barack H. Obama"). A search under at("Barack Obama") yielded no results.

There were seven reported decisions, all between April 1994 and January 1996.

Four were appeals, all in the Seventh Circuit. Nothing unusual for a Chicago attorney. Three were in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Again, not unusual.

Yet in not one of them was Obama listed as lead counsel, at least obviously. He was the second or third (and last) named attorney in each of the Seventh Circuit cases. He argued (and won) only one of them.

Civil rights attorney? Maybe. For about five minutes.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

A New Leni Riefenstahl?

I guess I'm a little slow (those of you who will confirm that in comments need not), but this occurred to me yesterday:

Is David Axelrod --- producer of the Obamaganza rally at the end of the Democrat convention --- the Leni Riefenstahl of our time?

And no, I don't mean Barry Obama is a Nazi. What I mean is that Axelrod --- like Riefenstahl --- is packaging a local rabble-rouser of little accomplishments and dangerous ideas into an acceptable political product, with little more than smoke and mirrors.

The only difference? Riefenstahl was more talented. And did it in black-and-white.

H/T to Zimbio.com. Martyhef said it first.

Dime-Store Psychology To Camouflage Reactionary Liberalism

You've got to love the moonbatosphere. Checking Waldo Jaquith's indispensible Virginia Political Blog Aggregator, I came across this little gem, offering the dime-store psychoanalysis of those who dismiss the idiocy of the far Left through the device of sarcasm as demonstrating "an indirect form of anger."

Of course, the goal is to ascribe to your political opponents an unattractive characteristic. So much easier than addressing the merits of their arguments, don't you know.

Or worse yet, addressing the fact that your candidate is not only objectively unqualified for the office he seeks, but is an agent --- not of change --- but of reactionary Liberalism.

But what is perhaps most entertaining is the irony of the accusation, and the tactic. After all, taking a page from our friend, it is actually those who regularly demonstrate their affliction with Bush Derangement Syndrome who are the most "angry" people in politics.

I suppose that our friend is demonstrating what the psychological types call "projection."

Palin's Pimples Versus Obama's Carbuncles

It's been an amazing week. Perhaps to avoid the fact that it has become utterly clear that the choice facing Americans is between "the Hero" and "the Zero," the so-called "mainstream media" has savaged Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice as Vice President.

I don't know what the actual figures are, but I think it has to be beyond question that the so-called "mainstream media" already has devoted more time to the family difficulties involving Palin's eldest daughter than it has over Senator Barry Obama's ties to admitted terrorist William Ayres, convicted felon and slumlord Tony Rezko, and race-baiting "minister" Jeremiah Wright.

Once again, the media is more interested in a Republican's personal pimples, while ignoring a Democrat's professional carbuncles.

What was that again about "right-wing media bias"?

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

So Much For Those Judgmental, Right-Wing Christians

Just a few hours after I posted my last, I got this from the Hon. Robert G. Marshall:

MARSHALL RIPS DEMOCRAT LIBERALS FOR ATTACKS ON PALIN’S DAUGHTER

Virginia Del. Robert G. Marshall on Tuesday (Sept. 2) blasted liberal Democrats for launching “vicious and outrageously personal political attacks” on the unmarried pregnant daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John S. McCain’s choice as his vice presidential running mate.

“Liberal Democrats affirm a right to privacy for any woman who wants to have a legal abortion, but they are granting no such privilege to Bristol Palin,” said Marshall, of Manassas, who has represented Northern Virginia’s 13th Legislative District in the state House of Delegates for 17 years.

The Democrats excuse themselves from the sin of scandal, but they’re more than willing to use children as pawns on political chessboards. Like the Pharisees when they confronted Christ with a woman taken in adultery, whom they couldn’t have cared less about, Democrat liberals will use any means to try to take the gloss off John McCain’s smart vice presidential pick.

“These vicious and outrageously personal political attacks must stop.”

Marshall, chairman of the Life, Liberty, Property Political Action Committee, compared a May 31 statement by Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, while he was campaigning in Johnstown, Pa., with that of Gov. Palin and her husband, Todd, on Monday when it became public that their 17-year-old daughter was pregnant.

“I’ve got two daughters,” Obama said in Johnstown when describing his position on abortion. “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Gov. Palin and her husband, on the other hand, on Monday issued a statement indicating they “are proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby. She knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

Bristol Palin and Levi Johnson, 18, the father of their pre-born child, are planning to wed.

“The issue of life and abortion is playing out like a gigantic morality play on the American political stage,” Marshall said, noting that Gov. Palin is pro-life and gave birth to son Trig five months ago though prenatal tests indicated he would be born with Down syndrome.

“What happened to tolerance? What happened to understanding and forgiveness?

“The Palin family is showing real strength of character under stress, which is what you have left when things are not under your control, everything seems to be going wrong, and you have to make a decision. They’ve made the right one.”


Must suck when the targets of your caricatures respond according to their principles, rather than your ridiculous smears of their true beliefs.

Of course, the far Left --- who rabidly defend the "right to choose" (so long as it applies to the right to choose to kill an innocent) --- cannot survive their own internal contradictions. For if you believe in a "right to choose," you must of necessity believe that there are circumstances in which the "choice" is appropriate.

So defenders of abortion must believe that there are time when abortion is the "right" choice.

But they never want to tell us when it is "the right choice."

Now, even unsophisticated thinkers can comtemplate such circumstances. For example, perhaps, when one is carrying a severely handicapped child? What qualifies? Tay-Sachs, a horrible genetic disease which condemns a child to a lingering death by the age of five? Cerebral palsy? Down's Syndrome, like little Trig Palin? A teenage pregnancy? Mere inconvenience?

The reason that Sarah Palin has to be destroyed is not because she is unqualified to serve as President, for she is. In fact, she's more qualified to serve than Barry Obama.

Sarah Palin must be destroyed because she's everything that so-called "Feminists" purport to stand for, but really don't. She has made a political career on her own merits, not riding on the coattails of her former-President husband, like Hillary Clinton. She's not a wealthy woman like Nancy Pelosi who demagogues about how the rest of us aren't surrendering enough of our income. She's the mother of five. She has exercised her choice to open her heart to a child facing challenges which most can only imagine. Living with Down's Syndrome cannot be easy, and I can speak from personal experience on the point, as I know a man with Down's.

In short, she's the purported "feminist" ideal, and rejects almost entirely the feminist ideology.

No wonder the far Left fears her so.

Ochildish

What does it say about a candidate when his most vocal, fervent supporters feel free to call the opposing candidate names? What does it say about a candidate whose most vocal, fervent supporters feel free to publicize the private facts about one of the children of his opponents?

What does it say when those most vocal, fervent supporters can praise a media type who questions the foreign policy questions of the bottom of an opposing ticket, while utterly ignoring the complete lack of similar qualifications at the top of theirs?

What does it say about a candidate whose most vocal, fervent supports praise his attestation that "I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper," while ignoring the fact that his biological brother is living in poverty in Africa on about $12 a year?

What does it say about a candidate who allows such individuals to act as smear merchants against his opposition? Remember, after all, these are the people who decry "Willie Horton" and "Swiftboating." Their silence in the face of the sleazy, slanderous moonbatosphere is both considered and deafening.

Now, I know that the boys and girls over at Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough, ... er, Raising Kaine ... er, "RK" bill themselves as "Virginia's Online Progressive Community," but what can we take from these examples?

It's pretty simple, really: "Virginia's Online Progressive Community" is peurile, sophomoric, and just plain mean.

And God forbid one should ever dare to offer a little reality. I was barred from posting comments a few months back for wholly content-based reasons.

Yeah, yeah, I know: it's their website, and I have no free speech rights on someone else's property. But I allow far Lefties to comment here, when rarely do they comment. So much for the Left being guardians of freedom.

Of course, those of us who understand them know better. After all, these are the people who are commenting about suggesting that .... well, let's just let Horse's Ass, or "Mule," or something like that speak for himself:
One can easily imagine how right-wing preachers would decry an out-of-wedlock pregnancy in the family of a Democratic candidate, exclaiming, while pounding on their Bibles, that the pregnancy sets a "poor example" for American teenagers. They would say that this is what can be expected from a family with "liberal" permissiveness. Well, I'm waiting to hear what the Bible thumpers say this time.
Really, "Mule"? Can one? Well, only if one is so thoroughly steeped in the mythos of the far Left that one has to make it up.

Have these people ever opened a Bible? Have they ever darkened the door of a church for any purpose other than the search for political power/votes?

One has to wonder. After all, it seems to me that one needn't have spent a great deal of time with one's body in church or nose in the Bible to have sensed just a little of the theme of "forgiveness" in the New Testament.

I can't say I'm surprised, though. After all, the single defining characteristic of the totalitarian, secular Left is the myth of human perfectability through the instrument of government. Proceed from that arrogant, delusional presumption, and it's easy to fail to recognize the need for God, and for forgiveness for sins. Indeed, "sin" becomes an obsolete notion, replaced by pathologies to be cured by pills, or surgery, or education, or --- most important of all --- more government.

And how does it apply to Sarah Palin's daughter (with due regard for her, I will not name her here)?

Well, you can savage the minor child of a Republican, particularly when you've constructed these elaborate fictions about your ideological enemies.

Witness the continued popularity of Ranting Kids ... er, Raising Dough, ... er, Raising Kaine ... er, "RK" among the moonbat Left.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Sarah Palin And Unions

With the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate (a selection I endorsed elsewhere, incidentally, as speculation was growing over the pick), it was announced that Palin was "a former union member and the wife of a proud union member [Todd Palin]."

Here's what Todd Palin's union's president, Leo W. Gerard, had to say about his wife's selection for the GOP ticket:

"It is important to realize that while the governor’s husband is a member of a union, this does not automatically qualify her for an on-the-job training program to become a heartbeat away from the presidency. And while her husband is one of 850,000 dues-paying members of the steelworkers union, it does nothing to absolve Sen. McCain of his long history of anti-union sentiment and anti-worker actions, including continuously pushing an anti-working family agenda that:

*Opposes giving workers the right to bargain collectively;

*Jeopardizes retirement security by privatizing social security;

*Further threatens job security by signing more job-stealing trade deals without the regard to human rights and environmental abuses; and,

*Erodes the ability of working families to secure quality health care by taxing their employer -provided coverage for both active and retired workers.

McCain’s choice is another example of his poor judgment and his desire to play politics as usual. McCain-Palin is not a team that works for working families. The first-term governor’s record is thin and divisive. And John McCain has a life-long record of being for the rich and powerful. No union card can hide that any more than Ronald Regan's union card did."

Other unions like the Teamsters (its Local 959 is one of the most powerful in Alaska) have been no more pleased by this obvious pander, which seems to have been conceived in ignorance of Rule 34 of Republican National Committeeman Morton Blackwell's Laws of the Public Policy Process: "You cannot make friends of your enemies by making enemies of your friends."

Soooo, one has to wonder: If still a "proud union member," will Todd Palin be exercising his "Beck rights" to prevent his union from using his dues to oppose the election of his wife as Vice President? Was he even aware of the fact that he could not be forced to be a union member, or to support the political and ideological activities of the Steelworkers union? Or is he among those many union "members" who have illegally been told that full membership --- and support for union political and ideological activities --- was required as a condition of continued empolyment?

I'd certainly be interested to the answers to these questions, and Mr. Palin's course of action if they are what I suspect them to be.