J.R. Dunn has a piece at The American Thinker that is a bit humbling for someone like me, who was in the anybody-but-Mitt camp throughout the primary season, to read. He employs the Occam's Razor methodology to the question of why Romney has surged since the beginning of October: He's just really good at politics because he takes the largest possible view of his objective.
Worth pondering, anyway.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
The Sandy post
Longtime LITD readers know I don't devote much space to natural disasters. The basic reason is that they are a given, an inevitable part of the landscape, an element of the parameters on the human condition. Besides, how do you convey the "Our-prayers-go-out-to-all-those-affected-my-weren't-some-records-for-water-surge-broken-consider-sending-a-check-to-the-Red-Cross" message without sounding mind-numbingly trite?
I don't dwell on natural disasters for the same reason I don't dwell on plane crashes or interstate car pile-ups. They tell us nothing about how human will is shaping history, and that is where the rubber really hits the road for our species. Up and down the east coast, good people will work tirelessly to get power back on, get food and medical supplies where they're needed, and get debris cleared away. And the fate of Western civilization will still hinge on next Tuesday.
Like so much else, this big storm is one more momentary claim on our attention as the biggest picture of all looms before us. Misfortune befalls the residents of free and prosperous nations and those oppressed by despotic regimes alike. The key is to do all one can - relentlessly - to grant more human beings a life in the first circumstance and consign ever-fewer to life in the second.
That said, it's really windy in central Indiana this morning.
I don't dwell on natural disasters for the same reason I don't dwell on plane crashes or interstate car pile-ups. They tell us nothing about how human will is shaping history, and that is where the rubber really hits the road for our species. Up and down the east coast, good people will work tirelessly to get power back on, get food and medical supplies where they're needed, and get debris cleared away. And the fate of Western civilization will still hinge on next Tuesday.
Like so much else, this big storm is one more momentary claim on our attention as the biggest picture of all looms before us. Misfortune befalls the residents of free and prosperous nations and those oppressed by despotic regimes alike. The key is to do all one can - relentlessly - to grant more human beings a life in the first circumstance and consign ever-fewer to life in the second.
That said, it's really windy in central Indiana this morning.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Do the Freedom-haters have some kind of contest going for most vulgarity?
A pro-tyranny advertising agency releases a pro-MEC campaign ad featuring a choir of children singing a song that sets a new record for obscenity.
The chilling silence of the regime's propaganda arm
Pat Caddell finds it "personally nauseating." So do I. Our major media outlets are now our enemies. They hate our freedom. They have lost all ability to resist cult devotion to the Most Equal Comrade. Like cult members, they desperately cling to a worldview that is a proven failure.
May their demise be hastened.
FHer-care: detested more than ever
Per Rasmussen, Americans want FHer-care repealed by wider margins than at any time since Pelosi and Reid rammed it through Congress in the dead of night.
The regime's scumbag tactics just keep getting stinkier
The Labor Department may not release October jobs stats before the election. Sandy-related complications, doncha know.
This is foul. Coming as it does on the heels of the possibly treasonous handling of the Benghazi debacle, the nation is finally getting the clear picture of what the Most Equal Comrade, his henchmen and the Freedom-Hatred Party generally are about that so many of us have spent years attempting to convey.
And there are still people who are enthusiastically voting for this chunk of dog vomit. I know some of them. It's going to be difficult to ever speak to them again.
Lord of Hosts, author of space and time and all that fill them, redeemer of souls, please keep hatred for Barack Hussein Obama out of my heart. As difficult as it is to admit, I am no more deserving of Your mercy than he is.
And please end the curse of his presidency on this wayward nation. Restore us to uprightness, that we may once again be humankind's beacon.
This is foul. Coming as it does on the heels of the possibly treasonous handling of the Benghazi debacle, the nation is finally getting the clear picture of what the Most Equal Comrade, his henchmen and the Freedom-Hatred Party generally are about that so many of us have spent years attempting to convey.
And there are still people who are enthusiastically voting for this chunk of dog vomit. I know some of them. It's going to be difficult to ever speak to them again.
Lord of Hosts, author of space and time and all that fill them, redeemer of souls, please keep hatred for Barack Hussein Obama out of my heart. As difficult as it is to admit, I am no more deserving of Your mercy than he is.
And please end the curse of his presidency on this wayward nation. Restore us to uprightness, that we may once again be humankind's beacon.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
It's not just the DesMoines Register
Mitt gets the nod from Iowa's other three major newspapers as well.
Not since Nixon . . .
. . . has the Des Moines Register endorsed a Pub prez candidate, but this year, it's going for Mitt.
Has the MEC's rhetoric ever actually matched reality?
Per the Kaiser Family Foundation, household health insurance premiums have gone up over $3000 since 2008, despite the Freedom-Hater-in-Chief's campaign vow that glorious year to reduce them.
And now, as to the question posed in this post's title: One time, when he said, "In five days we begin the fundamental transformation of America."
And now, as to the question posed in this post's title: One time, when he said, "In five days we begin the fundamental transformation of America."
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Leave it to Steyn to offer up the last word in clarity
Linking to Mark Steyn columns is an easy way to post content at a conservative blog. You can never go wrong. Which is actually why I don't do it too often. The point here is to challenge myself to have original insights and articulate them in a fashion commensurate with my status as a professional writer.
But you gotta read his latest NRO piece. Just how foul and venal and unserious (about anything other than appealing to its fans' utopian fantasies in order to maximize their power) is this regime? Mark has the deeply unsettling answer.
But you gotta read his latest NRO piece. Just how foul and venal and unserious (about anything other than appealing to its fans' utopian fantasies in order to maximize their power) is this regime? Mark has the deeply unsettling answer.
Is there anything to call this but failure?
An internal Labor Department audit shows that stimulus spending on "green" jobs had a 16 percent success rate.
Now, as to the title of this post, that depends on what you were setting out to do. If planned decline was your objective . . .
Now, as to the title of this post, that depends on what you were setting out to do. If planned decline was your objective . . .
Friday, October 26, 2012
We'd been wondering when he was going to chime in
CIA chief Petraeus says his agency isn't culpable in the Benghazi disaster.
The truth is breathing down the Most Equal Comrade's neck.
The truth is breathing down the Most Equal Comrade's neck.
Not the kind of numbers we'd use as a selling point
A friend (as in Facebook, but also musical and longstanding, as in going back to high school) crowed in a FB post about the 2 percent GDP growth announced today.
Does he really want to make something that weak a hill to die on?
Does he really want to make something that weak a hill to die on?
This is real damn sinister
CIA operatives on the ground during the Benghazi attack were basically begging for security help and their requests were denied.
And that chunk of dog vomit the H-word Creature told Woods's dad that the US government would go after the video maker. She knew the video had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack. She is a liar.
Then there's what Biden said to him. This was no insensitive gaffe. These were the words of a phony incapable of compassion.
There are no good people in this regime.
And that chunk of dog vomit the H-word Creature told Woods's dad that the US government would go after the video maker. She knew the video had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack. She is a liar.
Then there's what Biden said to him. This was no insensitive gaffe. These were the words of a phony incapable of compassion.
There are no good people in this regime.
Absolutely the most articulate and insightful piece of music opinion I've read in years
Daniel Foster at NRO on being conservative and being a Springsteen fan.
Full of money paragraphs. Here's arguably the best:
As they say, read the rest.
Full of money paragraphs. Here's arguably the best:
as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to read Springsteen songs more and more as funeral dirges for a very particular political promise that died some time in the Seventies — namely, the promise that America’s long streak of post-war prosperity meant that the great liberal and great conservative priorities were mutually deliverable; that a universal middle class was achievable by some magic mix of entrepreneurialism and redistribution; that high taxes, anticompetitive regulation, and industrial planning were consistent with limitless growth; that the nuclear family and the white picket fence could survive the institutionalization of the Sixties. And so on. On this reading, Springsteen’s music is indeed about the “distance between the American Dream and American reality,” just not in the way he thinks it is.
As they say, read the rest.
LITD likes this
Texas authorities are threatening to arrest international election observers if they come to the Lone Star State.
This dead-fish regime
The father of Tyrone Woods, the Navy SEAL slain slain at Benghazi, recalls meeting the MEC and the H-word Creature at the ceremony for his son.
These people are willing to forego normal human feelings, values and principles to try to shore up the false narrative that they had incapacitated jihadism.
The only sign of hope in this situation is that a fawning mainstream media can no longer deny the scope and the shame of what has been going on since September 11.
“When [Obama] came over to our little area” at Andrew Air Force Base, says Woods, “he kind of just mumbled, you know, ‘I’m sorry.’ His face was looking at me, but his eyes were looking over my shoulder like he could not look me in the eye. And it was not a sincere, ‘I’m really sorry, you know, that your son died,’ but it was totally insincere, more of whining type, ‘I’m sorry.’”Woods says that shaking President Obama’s hands at his son’s memorial service was “like shaking hands with a dead fish.”“It just didn’t feel right,” he says of his encounter with the commander in chief. “And now that it’s coming out that apparently the White House situation room was watching our people die in real time, as this was happening,” Woods says, he wants answers on what happened—and why there was no apparent effort to save his son’s life.“Well, this is what Hillary did,” Woods continues. “She came over and, you know, did the same thing—separately came over and talked with me. I gave her a hug, shook her hand. And she did not appear to be one bit sincere—at all. And you know, she mentioned that the thing about, we’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video. That was the first time I had even heard about anything like that.”
These people are willing to forego normal human feelings, values and principles to try to shore up the false narrative that they had incapacitated jihadism.
The only sign of hope in this situation is that a fawning mainstream media can no longer deny the scope and the shame of what has been going on since September 11.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
This truly is a war for America's soul - and our enemy is as vile and disgusting as any that righteous forces have ever faced
Here's what the MEC campaign is offering as an effort to convince voters in the last few days before the decisive battle.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
It was evident four years ago - - - five years ago
Neo-neocon documents, with links for each of them, evidence of the Most Equal Comrade's disqualifying character flaws, and when each first became apparent.
The H-word Creature doesn't bring any clarity to Benghazi-gate
The remark at this morning's presser about Facebook not being evidence obscures the fact of the official e-mails from the State Department to the White House and various other federal recipients.
Nobody understands anything any better as a result. It looks more like deliberate doo-dah motivated by desperation.
Nobody understands anything any better as a result. It looks more like deliberate doo-dah motivated by desperation.
Meanwhile, as US political events and world-stage developments swirl about us . . .
. . . Hamas continues to fire rockets into southern Israel. 80 in the last day.
Let's be clear about what's really going on here
Did Richard Mourdock clumsily address the pregnancy-resulting-from-rape issue much as Todd Akin did a while back?
Of course.
But the bottom line is that the sector of our society waging a war against Christianity instantly saw a delicious opportunity to advance its cause.
There is no doubt that a soul gains a body the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. Christians believe that that it a sacred occurrence, regardless of the circumstances. That's all Mourdock was trying to get across. But the forces trying to turn our civilization into something unprecedentedly grotesque will pounce on any indication of vulnerability on the part of those trying to defend what we have been for ten thousand years.
That's why this is a war.
Of course.
But the bottom line is that the sector of our society waging a war against Christianity instantly saw a delicious opportunity to advance its cause.
There is no doubt that a soul gains a body the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. Christians believe that that it a sacred occurrence, regardless of the circumstances. That's all Mourdock was trying to get across. But the forces trying to turn our civilization into something unprecedentedly grotesque will pounce on any indication of vulnerability on the part of those trying to defend what we have been for ten thousand years.
That's why this is a war.
And the SOB flew to Vegas anyway
Reuters has obtained State Department e-mails that went out to the White House, the FBI and various intelligence agencies about an hour after the attack saying that it was a coordinated attack and that Ansar al-Sharia had claimed responsibility.
The regime knew from the get-go and still sent Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Jay Carney to spout the video-protest line. The Most Equal Comrade even threw that red herring up when addressing the UN General Assembly.
They ought not to keep their jobs past noon today.
The regime knew from the get-go and still sent Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Jay Carney to spout the video-protest line. The Most Equal Comrade even threw that red herring up when addressing the UN General Assembly.
They ought not to keep their jobs past noon today.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Great state for this to happen in, too
CBS focus group in Ohio goes for Mitt after the debate. Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell have trouble processing this little nugget of reality.
The third debate
Every once in a while, my preconceived notions about what ought to happen to advance the cause of liberty run counter to what needed to happen, and did indeed happen.
Such was the case last night. The MEC offered Mitt so much low-hanging fruit - on Iran and Libya, certainly, but also on domestic issues that worked their way into the proceedings, such as the MEC's standard canard about "asking the wealthy to pay a little more" and "investing in clean energy." Of course, I was thinking, 'Jump all over that crap, Mitt!' As the evening wore on, though, I realized the scope of his perspective. At this late date, it's about convincing the remaining undecideds. It's about speaking broadly to desires for a peaceful world and fundamental reasons why America must lead. Hammering a failing ideologue every time he spouts radical rhetoric is not the most effective use of 90 minutes of live nationwide exposure on October 22.
So we got the restrained Mitt. I just hope that the fact that he exuded a few too many symptoms of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome ("I know how to work in a bipartisan fashion") for my comfort can be explained by his understanding of what he needed to do in that particular situation.
In any event, it bolsters the argument that it is urgent to also send the most principled Tea Party-type Congress to Washington next year along with the statesman from Massachussetts.
Such was the case last night. The MEC offered Mitt so much low-hanging fruit - on Iran and Libya, certainly, but also on domestic issues that worked their way into the proceedings, such as the MEC's standard canard about "asking the wealthy to pay a little more" and "investing in clean energy." Of course, I was thinking, 'Jump all over that crap, Mitt!' As the evening wore on, though, I realized the scope of his perspective. At this late date, it's about convincing the remaining undecideds. It's about speaking broadly to desires for a peaceful world and fundamental reasons why America must lead. Hammering a failing ideologue every time he spouts radical rhetoric is not the most effective use of 90 minutes of live nationwide exposure on October 22.
So we got the restrained Mitt. I just hope that the fact that he exuded a few too many symptoms of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome ("I know how to work in a bipartisan fashion") for my comfort can be explained by his understanding of what he needed to do in that particular situation.
In any event, it bolsters the argument that it is urgent to also send the most principled Tea Party-type Congress to Washington next year along with the statesman from Massachussetts.
It's on purpose - today's edition
The venerable chemical company DuPont is cutting 1,500 jobs.
If anyone you know is, at this late date, still planning to vote for the MEC and the FHers, that person is an accomplice to planned decline.
If anyone you know is, at this late date, still planning to vote for the MEC and the FHers, that person is an accomplice to planned decline.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Stay tuned for either verification or refutation on this one
I'm posting the original source, Fars News Agency, which, shall we say, just may have an agenda, but I've also seen it at Human Events, Weasel Zippers and Free Republic.
If I were the Romney campaign, I'd assign some staffer to spend the day determining if this is for real. If so, it should be the dominant topic at tonight's debate.
If I were the Romney campaign, I'd assign some staffer to spend the day determining if this is for real. If so, it should be the dominant topic at tonight's debate.
Friday, October 19, 2012
36 of 'em
The Heritage Foundation has a complete list of the bankrupt or faltering green-energy "companies" hat the MEC regime has propped up with your tax dollars.
And the regime is still swallowing the Kool-Aid - or at least employing the Kool-Aid as the public face of its agenda of planned decline. Interior Department is forming a climate-change committee to advise policy-shaping.
If the MEC loses the election, look for an accelerated pace of such lame-duck power grabs.
And the regime is still swallowing the Kool-Aid - or at least employing the Kool-Aid as the public face of its agenda of planned decline. Interior Department is forming a climate-change committee to advise policy-shaping.
If the MEC loses the election, look for an accelerated pace of such lame-duck power grabs.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Beautiful and glorious - this hour's edition
A lead in the electoral college race for the first time.
And endorsements from two libbo papers - the Nashville Tennessean and the Orlando Sentinel.
And endorsements from two libbo papers - the Nashville Tennessean and the Orlando Sentinel.
Why you always want to scrutinize the labels on the glasses one more time and pick up the one that says "fruit juice" and not the one that says "hemlock"
The Most Equal Comrade let loose with a doozy on John Stewart's show tonight. Bet some relatives of those killed in Benghazi will be chiming in on this one.
Planned contentment in Smiley-Face-opolis
This will be one of those posts bloggers consider an enticing challenge. I'm entertaining parallel thought processes as I try to get something accomplished today. The objective - or target, to employ a bit of project-management jargon - is to tie them together and thereby make some kind of point. Right now, I intuit the point, so you, dear reader, get to witness the process whereby I flesh it out with connections between my observations.
On the one hand, I'm going over my notes from an interview I conducted the other day with someone at our local Chamber of Commerce about how its efforts to brand the city and attract hotshot young professionals have been codified into what it calls a system.
On the other, I'm monitoring national political and economic developments, as, of course, I do compulsively every day.
I can tie the two tracks together right now, actually. When I asked the Chamber person how the system was going, what kinds of measurable results she was seeing, she confessed that follow-up monitoring had been kind of interrupted due to the ongoing crappiness of the economy.
The local Chamber is enamored of the work of Rebecca Ryan, the author of Live First, Work Second and the head of Next Generation Consulting, as well as Richard Florida, the Creative Class guy. They've both been recent annual-meeting speakers, in fact.
I've seen Ryan in person myself. I had the occasion to represent a jazz-appreciation society, not in my own city, but in a nearby community, at a regional conference on how to get young professionals to attend arts events. Ryan was a big presence there. She's got the keen wit going on, has an arsenal of stats stored in her head, and obviously knows how to make a buck. And is she ever representative of the demographic she's professionally concerned with. Per the link above, her favorite food is pho and she loves Madison, Wisconsin because it plows its bike trails in the winter.
The whole business of looking at swaths of society and generations and behavior and attitudes based on demography has a long pedigree. It certainly goes back to Alvin Toffler, with his Future Shock and Powershift, and up through John Naisbitt, the Megatrends guy, and on up through Faith Popcorn, who was the hot figure in the field in the 1990s. There was the David Brooks tome of a few years back, Bobos in Paradise.
I do have to hand it to my own community. It is aware that municipalities now economically compete with one another, on the statewide level, as well as nationally and even globally. It's furthermore aware that it has some unique selling points, such as an unrivaled concentration of world-class architecture and the world headquarters of the world's premier diesel-engine maker. It is capitalizing on these and other traits as it works this system.
As I say, it knows other cities are doing the branding thing to attract YPs. In fact, a look at Ryan's speaking schedule demonstrates that burgs up and down the pike want to know how to be cool in the eyes of engineers, IT hotshots, finance wizzes and nonprofit poobahs.
Now, it's clearly commendable and sensible for a city to want to develop the most concentrated pool of brain power possible, as well as foster the maximum level of an ethos of civic involvement. I'm just not sure there's anything very organic about any of the way it's currently being done. Ironically, even as one piece of the model for a cool 21st century place to live is a funky, vibrant arts district / downtown, this, too, has become an interchangeable component, like an item on a checklist that the job-seeking YP insists on seeing in his or her Internet research.
The demographic that gets America's chambers of commerce and economic-development commissions so excited is big on the notion of "partnering." (In all kinds, of ways, but for the sake of staying focused, let's set the other main meaning of that aside for now. Well, we may fit it in before the big conclusion. We'll see.) Because they're so used to doing things in coalitions, they see no problem with "public-private partnerships." Does the funding come from a private foundation or a governmental entity? Hey, so the lines are a little blurry, no biggie.
We have an interesting situation going on right here currently. The new Commons downtown, which houses some restaurants and a children's play area on the ground floor, and an acoustically state-of-the-art performance space (which doubles as a conference / banquet space) on the second floor, as well as a parking garage across the street, was such a project, and now there are lease disputes and questions about what legal entities are responsible for various contractual obligations that are clouding the happy atmosphere of the area.
Another issue on our plate is a push by certain elements to increase property taxes to pay for prekindergarten for low-income families. Take a few moments to parse all the levels of implication of that one: redistributionism, increased opportunities for the public-education machine to indoctrinate the most impressionable among us, and the further erosion of unstructured childhood and parental bonding.
So cities kick in revenue and tax breaks and the like for physical infrastructure that favors particular parts of town. Then there are activities that go on in the various institutions in a given city. I wrote a piece for The American Thinker in March 2010 on how a local outfit - coalition, excuse me - called Healthy Communities Initiative got federal stimulus money to put eat-your-broccoli posters in the day care centers around town.
While there are always focus groups, surveys and townhall meetings leading up to any new developments around here, and constant assurances that top-down imposition is not what anybody intends, there's an undeniable sense that that is indeed how this stuff gets done.
It also looks increasingly like an atmosphere characterized by a cultural dare. If you wonder aloud whether "diversity circles" at our biggest local university or LEED certification for new construction projects or cooking classes for low-income families really amount to anything, you risk looking like the skunk at the garden party.
And I guess this is a good place to tie my tracks together. Let's use a concrete example. Last spring, the CEO of the diesel-engine maker headquartered here was part of the small group gathered behind the Most Equal Comrade in the Rose Garden as he signed more stringent emissions regulations for trucks into law. I wanted to hurl when I saw the photo. "Please, Dear Leader, tell us more about how to make our products."
I'm all for truly strong communities and neighbors lending a hand and such. That is an American tradition going back to the days of barn-raisings and church suppers. But no one at those gatherings had to arrange play dates for the kids in attendance, or be on the lookout for harassment. The local musicians would break out their fiddles, and it didn't require a penny of grant funding. Nobody had to wear networking name tags.
We used to actually create our communities organically. It happened by people living their lives and associating with those they felt affinity toward.
And people regarded the town's - and the nation's - crusty contrarians with fondness, rather than hauling them in for sensitivity training.
One more thing: when someone in a family, a town or the national Congress, had a big idea of some sort, folks asked, "Can we afford it?"
On the one hand, I'm going over my notes from an interview I conducted the other day with someone at our local Chamber of Commerce about how its efforts to brand the city and attract hotshot young professionals have been codified into what it calls a system.
On the other, I'm monitoring national political and economic developments, as, of course, I do compulsively every day.
I can tie the two tracks together right now, actually. When I asked the Chamber person how the system was going, what kinds of measurable results she was seeing, she confessed that follow-up monitoring had been kind of interrupted due to the ongoing crappiness of the economy.
The local Chamber is enamored of the work of Rebecca Ryan, the author of Live First, Work Second and the head of Next Generation Consulting, as well as Richard Florida, the Creative Class guy. They've both been recent annual-meeting speakers, in fact.
I've seen Ryan in person myself. I had the occasion to represent a jazz-appreciation society, not in my own city, but in a nearby community, at a regional conference on how to get young professionals to attend arts events. Ryan was a big presence there. She's got the keen wit going on, has an arsenal of stats stored in her head, and obviously knows how to make a buck. And is she ever representative of the demographic she's professionally concerned with. Per the link above, her favorite food is pho and she loves Madison, Wisconsin because it plows its bike trails in the winter.
The whole business of looking at swaths of society and generations and behavior and attitudes based on demography has a long pedigree. It certainly goes back to Alvin Toffler, with his Future Shock and Powershift, and up through John Naisbitt, the Megatrends guy, and on up through Faith Popcorn, who was the hot figure in the field in the 1990s. There was the David Brooks tome of a few years back, Bobos in Paradise.
I do have to hand it to my own community. It is aware that municipalities now economically compete with one another, on the statewide level, as well as nationally and even globally. It's furthermore aware that it has some unique selling points, such as an unrivaled concentration of world-class architecture and the world headquarters of the world's premier diesel-engine maker. It is capitalizing on these and other traits as it works this system.
As I say, it knows other cities are doing the branding thing to attract YPs. In fact, a look at Ryan's speaking schedule demonstrates that burgs up and down the pike want to know how to be cool in the eyes of engineers, IT hotshots, finance wizzes and nonprofit poobahs.
Now, it's clearly commendable and sensible for a city to want to develop the most concentrated pool of brain power possible, as well as foster the maximum level of an ethos of civic involvement. I'm just not sure there's anything very organic about any of the way it's currently being done. Ironically, even as one piece of the model for a cool 21st century place to live is a funky, vibrant arts district / downtown, this, too, has become an interchangeable component, like an item on a checklist that the job-seeking YP insists on seeing in his or her Internet research.
The demographic that gets America's chambers of commerce and economic-development commissions so excited is big on the notion of "partnering." (In all kinds, of ways, but for the sake of staying focused, let's set the other main meaning of that aside for now. Well, we may fit it in before the big conclusion. We'll see.) Because they're so used to doing things in coalitions, they see no problem with "public-private partnerships." Does the funding come from a private foundation or a governmental entity? Hey, so the lines are a little blurry, no biggie.
We have an interesting situation going on right here currently. The new Commons downtown, which houses some restaurants and a children's play area on the ground floor, and an acoustically state-of-the-art performance space (which doubles as a conference / banquet space) on the second floor, as well as a parking garage across the street, was such a project, and now there are lease disputes and questions about what legal entities are responsible for various contractual obligations that are clouding the happy atmosphere of the area.
Another issue on our plate is a push by certain elements to increase property taxes to pay for prekindergarten for low-income families. Take a few moments to parse all the levels of implication of that one: redistributionism, increased opportunities for the public-education machine to indoctrinate the most impressionable among us, and the further erosion of unstructured childhood and parental bonding.
So cities kick in revenue and tax breaks and the like for physical infrastructure that favors particular parts of town. Then there are activities that go on in the various institutions in a given city. I wrote a piece for The American Thinker in March 2010 on how a local outfit - coalition, excuse me - called Healthy Communities Initiative got federal stimulus money to put eat-your-broccoli posters in the day care centers around town.
While there are always focus groups, surveys and townhall meetings leading up to any new developments around here, and constant assurances that top-down imposition is not what anybody intends, there's an undeniable sense that that is indeed how this stuff gets done.
It also looks increasingly like an atmosphere characterized by a cultural dare. If you wonder aloud whether "diversity circles" at our biggest local university or LEED certification for new construction projects or cooking classes for low-income families really amount to anything, you risk looking like the skunk at the garden party.
And I guess this is a good place to tie my tracks together. Let's use a concrete example. Last spring, the CEO of the diesel-engine maker headquartered here was part of the small group gathered behind the Most Equal Comrade in the Rose Garden as he signed more stringent emissions regulations for trucks into law. I wanted to hurl when I saw the photo. "Please, Dear Leader, tell us more about how to make our products."
I'm all for truly strong communities and neighbors lending a hand and such. That is an American tradition going back to the days of barn-raisings and church suppers. But no one at those gatherings had to arrange play dates for the kids in attendance, or be on the lookout for harassment. The local musicians would break out their fiddles, and it didn't require a penny of grant funding. Nobody had to wear networking name tags.
We used to actually create our communities organically. It happened by people living their lives and associating with those they felt affinity toward.
And people regarded the town's - and the nation's - crusty contrarians with fondness, rather than hauling them in for sensitivity training.
One more thing: when someone in a family, a town or the national Congress, had a big idea of some sort, folks asked, "Can we afford it?"
Making the blackmail explicit at the highest level
The MEC will veto any attempt to stave off the year-end fiscal cliff if it doesn't include tax hikes on America's most successful citizens.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
About last night
It certainly was more contentious than the first debate. Having them prowl the stage, almost circling each other like prizefighters in the ring, gave the evening a decidedly different vibe.
While Mitt held his own pretty well against the MEC's predictable disingenuousness, we saw much too much of the inclination toward Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome / centrist / me-too-ism that made me skittish about the guy during the primaries. "All-of-the-above" energy policy and revenue-neutral loophole closing that makes sure the rich still pay the lion's share of taxes, by golly.
How I longed for him to just look the MEC in the eye and say, "Nobody - rich, middle class or poor - needs to be paying one cent more in taxes. What needs to happen is that government spending needs to shrink - abruptly and drastically."
But that's just not Mitt's style.
The MEC's cynicism was on full display in his answer to the question about high gas prices. It was a stupid answer and he knows it, but he's counting on the transformation of the American populace into a herd of cattle to be sufficiently far along that we'll all just bob our heads and swallow it.
And then there's Candy Crowley, who wound up making an ass of herself trying to make Mitt look like he didn't know what he was talking about with regard to when the MEC decided to use thee word "terror" in conjunction with the Benghazi attack.
While Mitt held his own pretty well against the MEC's predictable disingenuousness, we saw much too much of the inclination toward Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome / centrist / me-too-ism that made me skittish about the guy during the primaries. "All-of-the-above" energy policy and revenue-neutral loophole closing that makes sure the rich still pay the lion's share of taxes, by golly.
How I longed for him to just look the MEC in the eye and say, "Nobody - rich, middle class or poor - needs to be paying one cent more in taxes. What needs to happen is that government spending needs to shrink - abruptly and drastically."
But that's just not Mitt's style.
The MEC's cynicism was on full display in his answer to the question about high gas prices. It was a stupid answer and he knows it, but he's counting on the transformation of the American populace into a herd of cattle to be sufficiently far along that we'll all just bob our heads and swallow it.
And then there's Candy Crowley, who wound up making an ass of herself trying to make Mitt look like he didn't know what he was talking about with regard to when the MEC decided to use thee word "terror" in conjunction with the Benghazi attack.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
A bracing belt of Carville candor
I've long maintained there were two basic levels of leftism, with some overlap, certainly. Most leftists are of the Unitarian / sprout-munching / green-diverse-and-socially-just type. They really swallow that hooey about the dream of a fair, fluffy world full of perfectible people and a thriving snail darter population. They're the ones who conduct bullying workshops in high school, eat a sustainable diet, pay way more than they need to for energy by installing solar panels on their roofs, and lead peace sing-alongs in Yiddish, Arabic and English at community interfaith forums. Then there are the hardboiled thugs who get off on the power, the ones who cynically manipulate the sprout-munchers' desire for a fluffy utopia for the purpose of entrenching themselves at the door to the storehouse.
As I say, sometimes you see overlap. I kind of think the MEC still swallows the Kool-Aid even as he digs perks such as executive fiat and lots of golf.
Anyway, veteran FHer political operative James Carville comes clean about the motive behind his own career: Dems are easier to herd into the pen - and that is the exact metaphor he uses.
As I say, sometimes you see overlap. I kind of think the MEC still swallows the Kool-Aid even as he digs perks such as executive fiat and lots of golf.
Anyway, veteran FHer political operative James Carville comes clean about the motive behind his own career: Dems are easier to herd into the pen - and that is the exact metaphor he uses.
You're still working your tail off in the service of a failed fantasy
Michigan lithium-ion battery maker - and recipient of federal stimulus funds and Michigan state largesse - A123 Systems is going belly-up.
Michigan's not getting much help in its comeback efforts from the FHers, is it?
Michigan's not getting much help in its comeback efforts from the FHers, is it?
Well, now, who are we to believe?
The Most Equal Comrade, who says that the government "got back every dime" of bailout money, or the CBO, which says government winds up losing $24 billion?
And there's fresh evidence that the revival of General Motors is greatly exaggerated.
Monday, October 15, 2012
About those Ohio coal miners who were the object of some attention back in August . . .
. . .they've sent a letter to the Most Equal Comrade deploring the lies he's been telling about them, as in supposedly being forced to atend a Romney rally. No one had to force them; they dig the guy, because he champions their industry.
The consequences of regulation
Per a Hudson Institute study, entrepreneurial startups are at a record low in America.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Have you stopped to think about this aspect of it?
Diana West asks, where is R2P proponent and Cass Sunstein wife Samantha Powers as the Benghazi debacle unfolds? She is, after all, really the architect of Ghaddafi's overthrow.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Freedom Haters say the wackiest things - today's edition
Congresswoman Donna Edwards must trade notes with Stephanie Cutter about what to say during television appearances. She goes on CNN and says this about how the regime is doing in the struggle against jihad.
Time to expose the meme that budgetary considerations had anything to do with the lack of security in Benghazi for the nonsense that it is
Katrina Trinko at NRO's The Corner offers a round-up of the most enlightening developments at the House Oversight Committee hearing. Among them is Charlene Lamb's acknowledgement to Dana Roherbacher that the level of budgeted funds for consulate security had nothing to do with the State's non-response to the requests made by the team on the ground.
Seasoned veteran snoops know it wasn't the failure of pros on the ground in Libya
Former CIA head Michael Hayden and former DHS head Michael Chertoff issue a statement saying the culpability for the Benghazi attack is most certainly properly traced back tothe White House, contra Biden's debate assertion.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Growing up involves some twists and turns and sometimes takes unexpected forms
Today's example is the troubled young actress Lindsay Lohan, who seems to be having a David Mamet moment. As Robert Stacy McCain says, "She's our bimbo." And I would say she's had her first glimpse at a worldview beyond bimbohood.
There's actually an established tradition of bad boys and girls in Hollywood having a road-to-Damascus experience. Kelsey Grammer, you may recall, used to wreck cars while ripped on toots, and we all know about Dennis Hopper. Jon Voigt. Sonny Bono. There's room in the conservative tent for a rowdy, postmodern energy that finds a channel for expression which actually amounts to something and therefore gets it off more than any drug it ever imbibed.
There's actually an established tradition of bad boys and girls in Hollywood having a road-to-Damascus experience. Kelsey Grammer, you may recall, used to wreck cars while ripped on toots, and we all know about Dennis Hopper. Jon Voigt. Sonny Bono. There's room in the conservative tent for a rowdy, postmodern energy that finds a channel for expression which actually amounts to something and therefore gets it off more than any drug it ever imbibed.
Cunning, cynical, ambitious sort that the H-word Creature is, she had to see this coming
One of the defining characteristics of the Left is its cavalier willingness to eat its own. Of course, Stalin's show trials of the late 30s, or Saddam Hussein's famous 1981 cigar-smoke-enveloped "It-saddens-me-to-have-to-do-this" name-naming address to the Iraqi parliament, during which several crying and shaking legislators were hauled out and shot, are two of the most glaring examples.
Here in the People's Republic of Obamica, the inner circle has no qualms about the public being witness to Joe Biden and Jay Carney knowingly damaging the H-Word Creature's 2016 shot at a presidential run. There's a much higher priority CYA project to attend to.
It was the State Department's failure to keep the White House up to speed that led to the regime's non-response to the Benghazi attack, don't you see.
But, even that doesn't explain Susan Rice's meme on those Sunday shows. Unless that was the result of an unusual line of authority.
In any case, we can see how highly the inner circle values the wife of the guy who gave the FHer convention some kind of focus beyond contraceptives. And that guy is a bit of a hothead. He doesn't take too kindly to being used politically.
The quintessential late-2012 American household scenario
Andrew Wilson at The American Spectator offers a piece about his entrepreneur sister and her small business and what she hears from her four kids about the pervasiveness of political correctness in modern American colleges and high schools.
One level of her concerns has to do with her wedding-and-portrait-photography small business, which has seen a decline in sales over the last four years. The other has to do with the insidious effect that political correctness, both the social kind and the formalized, classroom kind, have had on her children. They dismiss her concern about the dire economic circumstances this country faces. They're also formulating their views on the current election season based on peripheral issues such as homosexual "marriage" rather than the obvious front-and-center matters like the national debt and Iran's nuclear program.
I know from interactions with my own step-granddaughter as well as my niece-in-law and various friends that this lady's situation is all too typical. There are still an alarming number of Americans, most of them young (but not all), who think this election is no more important than any other and that America's problems are within the range of the historically normal.
Yes, polls are encouraging now, and that's fabulous. But there will be a large swath of the American public that will howl and sulk after the election should the current trend continue, rather than pitch in and restore the nation and the culture. They won't see the new circumstances as the return of a climate of possibility, but will instead focus on the squelching of their myopic set of small and bizarre concerns.
One level of her concerns has to do with her wedding-and-portrait-photography small business, which has seen a decline in sales over the last four years. The other has to do with the insidious effect that political correctness, both the social kind and the formalized, classroom kind, have had on her children. They dismiss her concern about the dire economic circumstances this country faces. They're also formulating their views on the current election season based on peripheral issues such as homosexual "marriage" rather than the obvious front-and-center matters like the national debt and Iran's nuclear program.
I know from interactions with my own step-granddaughter as well as my niece-in-law and various friends that this lady's situation is all too typical. There are still an alarming number of Americans, most of them young (but not all), who think this election is no more important than any other and that America's problems are within the range of the historically normal.
Yes, polls are encouraging now, and that's fabulous. But there will be a large swath of the American public that will howl and sulk after the election should the current trend continue, rather than pitch in and restore the nation and the culture. They won't see the new circumstances as the return of a climate of possibility, but will instead focus on the squelching of their myopic set of small and bizarre concerns.
The Veep debate - the LITD take
Biden: No surprise here. Obnoxious is his default setting.
Ryan: Solid factual support for his positions, of course, and presented about as forcefully as could be expected in the circumstances.
Raddatz: It was about Martha for her. She viewed the whole thing as a career-enhancement vehicle.
Ryan: Solid factual support for his positions, of course, and presented about as forcefully as could be expected in the circumstances.
Raddatz: It was about Martha for her. She viewed the whole thing as a career-enhancement vehicle.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
One unhappy mom
Her son was among those killed in the Benghazi attack, and the regime won't give her a straight answer about how and why it happened.
The spiritual rot at the core of our larger cultural rot
Eliot Abrams has a noteworthy piece today at NRO on the anti-Israel stance of American mainline Protestantism. The United Methodists, United Presbyterians, Evangelical Lutherans, and the NCC are once again trying to influence US policy to be more critical of Israel and blind toward its interactions with Palestinians. No mention by them, for instance, of the number of Palestinians who get treated - often for free - in Israeli hospitals, or the number of Arabs in Israeli politics and public life, or Israel's financial aid to the PA.
I wrote my master's thesis over 25 years ago on the correlation between mainline Protestantism's left-wing foreign-policy stance and the emptying of its pews. This clearly continues apace.
I live about four blocks from the Presbyterian church in which I grew up and got confirmed. (Still use the tattered Bible I was given by Rev. Laws upon entering the Junior Department in 1964.) My visits there in recent decades have been sporadic, to say the least. Sometimes members remind me I'm still on the rolls and suggest I try coming back into the fold.
Nah.
I wrote my master's thesis over 25 years ago on the correlation between mainline Protestantism's left-wing foreign-policy stance and the emptying of its pews. This clearly continues apace.
I live about four blocks from the Presbyterian church in which I grew up and got confirmed. (Still use the tattered Bible I was given by Rev. Laws upon entering the Junior Department in 1964.) My visits there in recent decades have been sporadic, to say the least. Sometimes members remind me I'm still on the rolls and suggest I try coming back into the fold.
Nah.
Was this a spontaneous protest to theYouTube movie?
A guy on a motorcycle rode up beside the Yemeni guy who is chief of security at the US embassy in Sanaa while the security chief was on his way to work and blew him away and rode off.
Yes, we must resist the temptation to get cocky with three long weeks still ahead, but . . .
. . . it's nice to start the day with a smile, particularly one induced by Mitt's very latest poll numbers.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
We're at the stage in this particular election cycle - and what a cycle it is - where . . .
. . . MSM stalwarts like ABC's Jake Tapper and NBC's Matt Lauer are pointing out the emperor's buck nakedness.
Lara makes it clear we were lied to; Trey Gowdy wants to know why
The South Carolina representative opens a can of whup-ass at the House Oversight Committee hearing today.
More proof that docs want him out
Results of a new poll show small private practices prefer Mitt to the MEC overwhelmingly.
Nothin' slow about this news day
Let's do a quick roundup of this morning's noteworthy developments:
Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn lets loose on the Most Equal Comrade, saying that business people across the country are afraid of him.
The MEC went to the 1991 wedding of ABC's Martha Radditz, who will moderate tomorrow night's veep debate. The guy she married was later appointed by the MEC as FCC head.
Security officer Eric Nordsrtom was denied his request for additional security, a request he made on the basis of 200 security breaches in Libya from mid-2011 to mid-2012, 48 of them in Benghazi.
The H-word Creature is to meet with the MEC this afternoon about the unraveling of the regime's Benghazi narrative.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee gets an earful about weak Libyan security at its hearing today.
RCP average has Mitt beating the MEC. Mitt's ahead in all swing states, ahead with independents, and he's closed the gender gap.
Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn lets loose on the Most Equal Comrade, saying that business people across the country are afraid of him.
The MEC went to the 1991 wedding of ABC's Martha Radditz, who will moderate tomorrow night's veep debate. The guy she married was later appointed by the MEC as FCC head.
Security officer Eric Nordsrtom was denied his request for additional security, a request he made on the basis of 200 security breaches in Libya from mid-2011 to mid-2012, 48 of them in Benghazi.
The H-word Creature is to meet with the MEC this afternoon about the unraveling of the regime's Benghazi narrative.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee gets an earful about weak Libyan security at its hearing today.
RCP average has Mitt beating the MEC. Mitt's ahead in all swing states, ahead with independents, and he's closed the gender gap.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Desperation breeds bad ideas
Multiple MSM outlets are scratching their heads at the childish, shark-jumping depths to which the MEC campaign has sunk with the Big Bird ad.
All you need to know about the MEC's character and spiritual depth
Sends a form letter of condolence to the father of a 22-year-old Marine who was killed in Afghanistan - last January.
But to call it failure is not quite accurate; it is, as we well know now, on purpose
Compact Power is furloughing workers.
How many moribund green "companies" is that now?
And Freedom-Haters are so up to their eyeballs in Kool-Aid there's no point in playing them the tape from the MEC's 2010 visit to the Michigan battery-component company. It's always forward with the vision, no matter how many times it's proven to be utterly at odds with the basic laws of the universe.
I just wish I had those tax dollars back.
How many moribund green "companies" is that now?
And Freedom-Haters are so up to their eyeballs in Kool-Aid there's no point in playing them the tape from the MEC's 2010 visit to the Michigan battery-component company. It's always forward with the vision, no matter how many times it's proven to be utterly at odds with the basic laws of the universe.
I just wish I had those tax dollars back.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Hope this gets the exposure it deserves
Obama.com, a campaign fundraising website, is owned by a MEC bundler who lives in Shanghai and is up to his eyeballs in connections to the communist Chinese government.
When the MEC State Department says it has your back . . .
. . . you'd better have a Plan B for your survival. The former head of a Special Forces team overseeing security in Libya says Foggy Bottom turned a deaf ear to multiple requests for more security resources.
Our enemies are still strong and they still hate us
CBS News reporter Lara Logan, whose extensive Middle East experience ranges from interviews with the region's leaders to getting gang-raped in Tahrir Square, tells a public-affairs luncheon crowd in Chicago that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are as much of a threat as ever.
Venezuela: the decision to become a nation of cattle
Chavez beats Capriles by ten points. Interviews with Chavez supporters reveal a recurrent theme: the preference for redistribution over opportunity.
Look for the axis of mischief and West-hatred to be emboldened by this development.
Look for the axis of mischief and West-hatred to be emboldened by this development.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
When the full light of factuality beams upon her disingenuousness, she folds like a cheap card table
Stephanie Cutter is forced to admit, under the withering and relentless questioning of a CNN anchor, that Mitt's tax plan does make sense and is revenue-neutral.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
The guys on the ground knew north Africa was crawling with jihadists
Career intelligence officers are steaming mad over the regime's attempt to distract the world from the mounting terror threat in Libya and Egypt over the course of the last few months.
Friday, October 5, 2012
A nice little talking point for the regime, but certainly no indicator of robust recovery
Yes, the unemployment figure dropped below 8% for the first time in the MEC's rule, but it still doesn't keep up with population growth by a long stretch.
The Chicago way
An NAACP official on the south side says he was threatened during a phone conversation by a MEC campaign staffer for not supporting the MEC.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Now, that's what we've been looking for
Incredible debate performance. Polls by CBS and CNN show that Mitt looked much more like a suitable leader for a superpower. Even Chris Matthews, Bill Maher and Peter Beinart conceded that the Most Equal Comrade got his clock cleaned.
Has me licking my chops for the foreign-policy debate. I think Mitt now understands that he is surrounded by low-hanging fruit.
Has me licking my chops for the foreign-policy debate. I think Mitt now understands that he is surrounded by low-hanging fruit.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Yet another damning video of the Most Equal Comrade in full class warfare mode
Not only is he an America-hating race baiter, he clearly doesn't care that a University of Chicago audience can see plainly that he knows nothing about business or economics, as indicated by his vulgar and cartoonish depiction of "executives in some faraway place" arbitrarily decreeing plant closings.
There has never been such a dangerous and poisonous figure in American history.
There has never been such a dangerous and poisonous figure in American history.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The utterly mad worldview of the Most Equal Comrade
Eliana Johnson at NRO's The Corner distills the five most noteworthy remarks from the Hampton University speech.
Darrell Issa to the H-word Creature: How much of the concern - since at least April - of the US mission in Libya about shaky security did you know about?
There is quite a list of steadily more alarming incidents going back to spring that had our diplomatic and intelligence folks spooked. Why was nothing done to address their concerns? Maybe the H-word Creature will come forth with answers by Issa's requested date. Or maybe she won't.
And just remember, the only reason a solution is not happening is that the Freedom-Haters want to keep their base energized with class envy
Rather chilling AP article on just what the fiscal cliff will mean for middle-class households. It doesn't have to be that way. We could extend the tax rates we've had in place since 2003 and avoid the catastrophe. But then how would the regime demagogue against successful Americans?
(And, of course, to fully climb out of our situation, we'll need yet deeper cuts, along with prying the state's regulatory fingers off of people's freely-engaged-in economic activity. And then it's time to dismantle most cabinet-level departments. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
(And, of course, to fully climb out of our situation, we'll need yet deeper cuts, along with prying the state's regulatory fingers off of people's freely-engaged-in economic activity. And then it's time to dismantle most cabinet-level departments. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
Docs want him out
Per a Jackson & Coker survey, physicians will be voting for Romney over the MEC by a 55 to 36 percent margin.
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