Just The Links, Please

Wherein I write a sentence or three about each.

• I think the Tories missed an opportunity to win control of Parliament outright and Republicans risk doing the same. What must they do? Follow Barone's advice and propose a bold plan that cuts Fed spending to ~20% of GDP.

• Think moderation of radical Islam is inevitable? Think again.

• That Rush Limbaugh, he's pretty clever.

• Education reform--real reform, not the kind proposed by teachers' unions--remains one of my highest order priorities.

• What's up with Anglo-American relations? Nothing good.

• I'll just use the article title since it's sooo good: No, You Can't Keep Your Health Plan.

• When you make terrorists into run-of-the-mill criminals it does damage to both our ability to prevent terror acts and to American civil liberties.

• Islam and Trotsky.

• There are real limits to Obama/Reid/Pelosi's ability to tax-and-spend--whether they realize it or not.

• Hypocritical Democrats aren't the only ones selling American education down the river--some Republicans do it too. It will come as no surprise to most of you that these Republicans reside in Illinois.

• That awesome European model for what America could do and be? Not so awesome. Hey Krugman, are you paying attention?

• A little push-back on financial reform.

• The fundamental problem of government bureaucracy.

• What happens when you prioritize "fairness" over freedom.

• What's going on in North Korea? Obama doesn't really know.

• Another great school-choice column. Love this stuff.

• North vs. South--not the Civil War but Europe.

• Another of my favorite hobby-horses--shale-based energy--and how it's going to bring on an energy revolution. But not the kind my friend Sameer keeps rapping (literally) about.

Enjoy!

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The Democrat Party

When Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006, they pledged to lower gas prices/fix the economy (somehow) and bring the troops home.

Uh, failure on both counts.

The reason for the latter failure is that cooler heads in the party prevailed and they realized the folly of allying themselves with America's enemies. Thank you, Joe Lieberman. Of course, General Petraeus' resounding success in executing President Bush's The Surge kind of took the wind out of the sails of extreme left of The Democrat Party.

On the former, Democrats, allied by a few compliant Ag-state Republicans, created a ridiculous federal program designed to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The net result, however, has been to burn food (corn) in our gas tanks which has, along with a few other contributing factors, driven up food prices. This is fine for rich, San Francisco Democrats, but kind of sucks for those living in lesser developed countries.

Let's not forget another hoped-for benefit of Congress' command and control tendencies--specifically, that burning ethanol would be better for the environment than gas. True to the law of unintended consequences, the carbon cost of putting additional ethanol in America's gas tanks exceeds the original carbon cost of burning pure, clean gasoline.

For all the climate change fetishists, this colossal disaster (maybe not for the SF dems, but certainly for the growing ranks of the world's starving) should serve as a cautionary tale: "solve" climate change at your own risk.

But that's the problem, isn't it? Those who bring this craptastic legislation into being and those who advocate for it never have to bear the burden of its failure.


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Barack, Raul, Mahmoud, Hugo, & Kim: Can't We All Just Get Along?

Image link

Last weekend we spoke with another Obama supporter--also a good friend--about his support for Obama. His biggest reason, as we understood it, was because Obama would speak diplomatically with some of America's biggest enemies: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raul/Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Kim Jong-il.

Our first response was disbelief at the naivete of the idea. What could be gained? How is there any advantage to that over the status quo? How would it change anything? Even Democratic party Big Sister thought his idea was ridiculous.

Intuitively, it makes no sense to lend the credibility and prestige of the office of US President (note: we're not conflating the office with its current occupant--and you shouldn't either) to tyrants and despots. Especially when those tyrants and despots actively oppose the interests of the US; when they develop WMD; when they promote terrorism; when their proxies kill American troops.

We're still solidifying our ideas about this topic and will write something later this week. In the meantime, we'd like to know your thoughts about Barack's proposed meeting with the world's worst. Write your comments and vote in the poll.


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Independent Joe Lieberman: Still Awesome

It's been awhile since we wrote about Joe Lieberman--too long, in fact.

Last night as we were scanning the news channels, we happened across Sean Hannity's interview with OL&L favorite, Senator Joe Lieberman (I), Connecticut.

***

Hannity: The big question is, how are Democrats reacting to you supporting Senator McCain?

Lieberman: Well, not unexpectedly, generally they're not happy. one of the most noticeable, ridiculous things that has happened in response to my endorsement of John McCain is that the headquarters of the connecticut Democratic party in Hartford, they've taken my picture off the wall. That sounds a little bit like the Soviet Union, when a member of the Politburo didn't do well. Generally speaking, I think the people in Connecticut, who re-elected me, God bless 'em, know that I'm doing what I think is right for the country and that's more important than party loyalty. I feel good about it.

Hannity: It sounds a little like Alan Colmes. He took my picture down off his wall as well. You're in good company. Let me ask you: you were also a super-delegate and I understand that status has been stripped from you as well. Don't the Democrats realize that if they lose your support, that they potentially lose power?

Lieberman: Well, that's their call. You know, I wouldn't go to the Democratic National Convention this year as a super-delegate which I was entitled to do because obviously I'm not going to support the nominee of the Democratic convention. My appeal to Democrats has been to essentially come home, come back to the proud tradition of the Democratic party--Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson--you can be progressive on domestic policy, but you better be strong and tough and principled on foreign policy. Until we do that, as Democrats, I don't know that the American people are going to trust a Democrat to run this country, to be the president.

Hannity: We've got this big primary, "Super Tuesday 2," taking place: those that think that Hillary is out of this, do you think that she has any chance to catch up here?

Lieberman: The momentum is clearly with Senator Obama and against Senator Clinton. At this moment he's touched by magic dust. I'd never count Hillary Clinton out. She's able. She's a tough fighter. But I'd say the momentum is going against here right now.

Hannity: I don't know if you've had this experience, I've never had anybody faint at a Sean Hannity speech. We have these instances we've been showing our audience on a fairly regular basis. What do you make of Barack Obama? What do you make of Obama-mania--the fact that people are reacting to him this way? It seems that people know very little about him. When I ask people if they know anything specific about him, they don't. What do you make of his popular support?

Lieberman: There's no question that he evokes a feeling of hopefulness and change. All of us feel good about the fact that in this country an African-American, for the first time, is a credible candidate for President. But after you go beyond the broad expressions of hopefulness and change, the programs and policies he's recommending are not programs of change. And if he's talking about change, it's in the wrong direction: to pull our troops out of Iraq, just when they're succeeding against the al-Qaeda enemy; to try to be a protectionist again. In fact, I think John McCain is going to emerge in this campaign as the real reformer. This is a guy who says what he believes, is restless for change. Look, some people don't like John McCain because he says what he believes. There's not a single group within the Democratic party that Barack Obama has taken on. I think as time goes on, the American public are going to ask themselves, "is this very gifted young man really ready to be the President we need at this time in our history?"

Hannity: I'm very concerned about his association with from the weather underground, William Ayers, a guy that admitted to bombing the Pentagon, police headquarters in New York,. His spokesman said that they have a friendly relationship, that he's gotten friendly contributions from. In light of this being your overriding issue and mine for this campaign, do you think that's going to be trouble for him as we move forward?

Lieberman: It may be. He's got to deal with those kinds of associations. Anybody in public life knows that anything about your life--public and maybe private--can become public in an instant. It's true that none of these radicals are running for President, Barack Obama is. But he's got to make clear to the voters why he has these associations and make clear that he doesn't share their point of view, because that's not the point of view that the overwhelming majority of Americans have.

Hannity: Senator, just to make it fair, the next time you give a speech, I'm going to make sure that there are people in the crowd who will faint.

Lieberman: God bless you.


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Michigan & Florida - Count 'em!

This is what happens when "trial lawyers" are your most important donor group.
(what also happens is you play politics with basic national security and don't renew FISA, Ms. Pelosi)

With Hillary falling in the polls, a delegate comeback looking increasingly unlikely, and Putin bashing your candidacy (restoring America's reputation, one tyrant at a time!), it appears as though the Clinton machine might have to resort to the nuclear option.

You might remember this option for its use during the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election. Remember those? In 2000 Gore and his team of lawyers demanded a recount in violation of Florida election rules (incidentally, the recount showed Bush won) while arguing against a recount in any of the close states Gore won.

In 2004, Democrats hoped to replay 2000 (with a different outcome, obviously) in Ohio. Kerry ended up losing by over 100,000 votes.

Now, with the New England Patriots of candidates, the inevitable, unbeatable, wife-of-Bill, on the ropes, it looks like she just might sick the dogs on her own party.

And we can't help but enjoy a bit of schadenfreude. Ah, schadenfreude. (and dramatic irony)

Michigan and Florida violated Democratic party rules by moving their primaries up. The DNC de-certified their elections and the candidates agreed not to campaign in either place--Edwards and Obama didn't even have their names on the ballot. Well, now we're hearing the same rhetoric we did in 2000 and 2004--"everyone's vote should count!"

Eventually, the Clinton's are going to want this one to be played out in court and Obama will be put in the uncomfortable position of having to argue in favor of election rules and against allowing "everyone's vote [to] count(!)."

And if you don't think that will tear up the Democratic party, well, you haven't paid any attention to the Clinton's scorched earth tactics. Hillary, whatever else anyone says about her, is a win-at-all-costs type of candidate--even against someone in her own party. You wont see any of the grace we've seen from Republican candidates. Nope, and it's going to be fantastic.

In case anyone wondered what might happen if Clinton did become president, you need look no further than the state of her campaign team. People are quitting. They're attacking each other. They're playing the blame game. Her campaign is in complete disarray. Where is Hillary, the voice of calm and reason?

No doubt our friends in the hope/change camp (aka Obama backers) are happy the way things have turned out. But what will you do if Hillary tries to steal the election in the courts? Meanwhile, our Democratic establishment friends (aka Clinton/'90's nostalgists) can't be pleased.

In any event, both groups better hope this thing gets settled quickly. And with less mess than appears will be the case. Else a Democrat in the White House will be a lot less inevitable than everyone thought.


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Echo, Echo: Democrat Lovefest

It's no wonder the Democrats trumpet the superficial diversity of their primary candidates--a woman, black, latino, etc.--there is no diversity of opinion.

We watched today's debate hoping to find out what was different about each candidate. Asked about taxes and the economy, each one blamed Bush and called for increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Health care? Each one wanted a universal, euro-style socialized system. At one point we closed our eyes and tried to guess which one was speaking--only Hillary's shrill voice set her apart from the rest, her politics certainly didn't.

Granted that Presidential primaries cause each candidate to appeal to the extreme base, but still, the Democrats might as well all have the same policies and platforms. Republicans may all be white and male (thought not all Alan Keyes!!!!!), but there are differences of opinion on abortion, the environment, taxes, campaign finance, immigration, trade, stem-cell research (though with recent findings, those differences are diminishing), Iraq (Ron Paul), etc. Among the Republican candidates, there exists a strong diversity of opinion.

For as long as we can remember, we've heard that the liberals were the open-minded party. Anyone listening to today's debate would know that's not true.


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George Bush Hates SoCal Democrats

Pictured above is a map showing the election results, by county, of the 2004 Presidential election. If you compare it to news of the fire in Southern California fires found on CNN, you'll note that most of the aid and fire support is going to "Red" counties--counties that voted for President Bush. Nevermind that most of the fires are burning in "Red" Counties, this is probably just because Karl Rove screwed up when he had the fires started.

Obviously George Bush hates Democrats in Southern California.

And to those who think the fires were caused by Global Warming--you've got it backwards. Bush and Rove started these fires because they wanted to make Global Warming worse. Why, you might be asking yourself, would they want to do such a thing? Because Rove has figured out a way to gain electoral advantage from Global Warming, of course.


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Rosie O'Donnell & the Amoral Market

We read it in the aforementioned comments over at the Seattle PI about the fairness doctrine and we read it in a post our buddy made on cougarboard.com. We refer, of course, to the hokey notion that because media outlets are controlled by supposedly "conservative" business interests, that makes the media outlets they control ipso facto conservative.

Nevermind the fact that in the last several election cycles, most businesses donated almost equally to both the Republican and Democratic parties. Where they don't give equally, it is based on who they think has the best chance of winning, not ideology. They want to support whoever will eventually be sitting on the Ways and Means Committee--regardless of political party. Ignore also the fact that few businesses are controlled by some small cabal of middle aged white males who, along with trying to gain monopolistic control of their industry, work tirelessly towards their ultimate goal of playing puppetmaster with the US government. Come on. Aren't we too old for these crazy conspiracy theories?

Capitalism, markets, business--these things are neither Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. The market is neither moral nor immoral. It seeks only profit. This guiding principle applies equally to the media. If a corporate interest believes ratings will rise and with it their profits, they will keep Rosie O'Donnell on the air until the public tires of her. If Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Keith Olbermann makes them money, they will continue to fund production of their shows. The same thing applies (obviously) to conservative media. These businesses didn't pull their advertising from Air America because of politics, they stopped buying airtime because Air America didn't have enough listeners.

Wake up. If there are dollars to be made, and one company will ignore the opportunity because of some ideological difference, you can bet your bottom dollar that their competitor will step in and take advantage of the opening. They don't care if Democrats, Republicans, Communists or Atheists buy their widgets, they just want to make a profit. That's business. That's capitalism. That's the amoral market.


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