Come for the Politics, Stay for the Pathologies



Saturday, May 30, 2009

Pravda Knows Marxism When It Sees It

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Does this sound like Michael Savage – you know, the radio talk show host banned in Great Britain for " hate speech"?

Well yes it does, but in fact it is taken verbatim from this article in Pravda. Yes, you read that correctly. Pravda. While it’s no longer the official organ of the the Soviet Communist party, it is staffed by some of the same journalists that wrote for it in that era. Having lived the nightmare for some 70 years, they can spot Marxism far better than our own citizens who have been numbed into complacency.

The article specifies how America came to this point: using lessons straight out of the Marxist handbook, and reiterated in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. First you propagandize the youth through the education system:

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics.

You might want to refresh your memory with my Agitprop I, and Agitprop II posts if you’ve forgotten how that part works.

Then you undermine religion:

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another.

And then you coalesce your forces and elect a naked Marxist that the people see as a “visionary leader”who will take care of everything for them so they don’t have to:

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

What might it take to open the eyes of those who refuse to see? We are being taken over by the enemies within and half the country is more concerned with the breakup of Jon and Kate, whoever they are, than the breakup of the capitalist free market system on which America depends. The Pravda article tracks Obama’s 4 month record of executive orders through act after numbing act: the firing of GM’s CEO, the announcement of plans to evaluate executive performance, set salary caps and guidelines for other private sector businesses, the presidential appointments of financial oligarchs to overhaul and determine the outcome of the financial sector, the announcement of a grand plan to redraw the entire tax system to include a new Value Added Tax that has worked so well in funding the folly of other socialist governments. Include in the general folly the proposed government dictated “healthcare system.” That nightmare proposal is dwarfed only by the lunacy of the proposed cap and trade system which is theoretically designed to save us from global warming. As the Pravda writer notes: “the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed.” Rahm Emanuel must be ecstatic – he has certainly not let this crisis go to waste.

Read the entire article. Pass it along to everyone you know, whether they agree with your politics or not. We need people to start thinking again, instead of letting our elected but self-serving politicians in D.C. determine our fate. Stop worrying about saving the planet: our carbon footprint is simply not big enough to leave a permanent mark. Planet earth is going to be just fine: it’s your liberty you should be worrying about, and there’s the added benefit that we can actually do something about that. Hammer your duly elected representatives, vote them out of office in the mid-term. Go to a tea party. Write an editorial. Use your head for something more than a racetrack for a comb. Send this missive on.

FOLLOW-UP

Readers have been having trouble linking to the original PRAVDA article on the PRAVDA.Ru website, as I did when researching my post. For anyone experiencing this problem, I have posted the
full text of the original PRAVDA article here.



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In Memoriam: Lucy 1916 - 2009

We'll Meet Again: Vera Lynn (1939)

Let’s be clear: Lucy wasn’t Donna Reed. But to be fair, Donna Reed wasn’t really Donna Reed either. As anyone who’s ever been or had a mother knows, real mothers don’t look like they just walked out of central wardrobe with freshly coifed hair and perfectly applied makeup. Nor do they handle all crises as imagined by a comedic screenwriter.

So I guess Mom wasn’t perfect, which in itself is surprising given that - in her opinion - all 6 of her and Dad’s offspring were. But unlike the Donna Reed world where no crisis was so big that it couldn’t be satisfactorily resolved in a half hour, real life could sometimes be a lot rougher and meaner. It nearly always required a lot more time, effort and grit to gut through. And that’s where Mom excelled.

Raising kids in the 50’s, while easily romanticized, required far more physical effort than we can easily relate to. It’s hard to imagine raising 6 babies without the benefit of Pampers. Or providing 3 square meals a day – including bagged lunches – 7 days a week without the benefit of a microwave, Hamburger Helper or even take-out pizza.

Yet she still had to find time to shop, clean and do laundry between skinned knees and homework consultations. And keep in mind that in those early years doing laundry meant washing with a wringer washer, line-drying (which I assure you had nothing to do with reducing our carbon footprint) and ironing - as permanent press was but a dream. With this schedule it wasn’t surprising then, that “play dates” for kids in that era consisted of Mom saying “Why don’t you kids go outside and play.”

So if Mom didn’t always look and sound like Donna Reed, we’ll forgive her. It didn’t stop her from trying to solve all of our problems, often with what she considered tried and true advice. She condensed a lot of basics into what can only be called clichés. In fact, Mom never met a platitude she didn’t like. And she never saw a problem that couldn’t be resolved with a prayer and the properly selected platitude.

As kids we would roll our eyes at these bromides that seemed so lame in light of what we considered huge problems and issues. And as young adults we would just shrug our shoulders, smile and say, “well, that’s just Mom.” We were not yet old enough, or wise enough, to know that the platitude itself was never intended to be taken at face value. It didn’t provide the answer, just an arrow pointing in the direction that would help us figure things out and work it through.

When our feelings were hurt as a kid by a mean remark, Mom didn’t demand that the school provide anti-bullying classes. She would just tell us “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you.” Beyond the obvious she was trying to convey important subtexts: that - while we have no control over others behavior - we can control how we respond to their behavior. And that a broken spirit is far worse than a broken arm.

When life delivered a big disappointment, she would counsel us not to “ cry over spilt milk”, usually accompanied by it’s corollary “just get up and try again.” She was doing her best to toughen us up for the inevitable chain of disappointments that assail everyone’s life.

Then there’s this, in response to having been slighted in some way large or small: “Life’s not fair.” It’s my personal favorite: a truism applicable and useful in so many situations that we should be born with the reminder tattooed on our forearm. If everyone would internalize this brief phrase, the world would rest a lot easier. And half the therapists on the planet would be out of work.

Mom’s platitudes were meant to make us strong and independent; two qualities she must have learned from her own parents. The platitudes were her short hand for the wisdom extracted from simple observations on existence and the human condition. She relied on them through the tough times of Dad’s struggle with cancer and his death when she was just 49. And she used them to tough it through the subsequent years as she struggled through the loneliness of his loss, and the financial struggles of raising our still young family.

Not raised in either an age or a family that was given to profuse emoting, she demonstrated her care and love by offering us the wisdom she felt her platitudes contained. They had served her well, and she hoped they would help us cope with the world too.

Even though Mom had always thought her kids to be perfect, I noticed that as she grew older her recollections of our childhood elevated us to near-saints. Hence in her mind, we never fought, never disobeyed, and always adhered to our curfews. Somehow in her alternate universe, we turned into the children of Lake Wobegon. As I reflect on it, I can’t see how that’s all bad. Given the choice of being remembered with all the warts and hard edges of reality, or as the perfect creatures we really aspire to be, who wouldn’t choose perfection?

So in exchange Mom, we promise to always remember you as Donna Reed: never a hair out of place, never a spot of dust in the house, and able to resolve all of our problems in a half hour with a platitude and a prayer.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that he’d spent his entire life learning that platitudes were true. Mom spent hers teaching us just that.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Dewey’s Mom is Dying

You can’t imagine how hard it is to type those words.

We’ll be on a hospice hiatus for the next week.

We hate nature.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A Short History of Detroit

GM leaving Detroit? Yes, everything is on the table. GM’s move from its midtown Albert Kahn designed headquarters to the Renaissance Center nearly 13 years ago launched the latest of many hopes for Detroit’s recovery. Despite the fact that they bought the property in 1993 for one fifth of its original cost two decades earlier, optimists maintained that this shot in the arm was just what the city needed to finally make a turnaround. With the pall of GM’s departure now hanging over the town, people once again have taken to wondering if Detroit can even survive.

I recall with something akin to nostalgia the feeling of optimism many felt for the city when I arrived in 1978. The Renaissance Center had recently opened and its shiny towers were considered a talisman for the city’s future. Coleman Young was the city’s first Black mayor and it was hoped that he could set the city right. Yes, there was great hope for a change that would heal the soul of this riot-scarred city. Yet he taunted suburbanites, alleged that the police were a bigger threat to minorities than crime and managed the city into a quagmire.

Thereafter, every decade or so, some new project sprang up in the financial area downtown to once again trigger the “Detroit Rises from the Ashes” talk. Local boosters even launched a “Say nice things about Detroit” campaign. But the illusion was continuously challenged by the reality of racial politics, cronyism and scandals embedded in the city’s governance starting with Young’s and continuing in all subsequent administrations.

Despite huge infusions of State and Federal funds and crushing Detroit city taxes, the results of decades of liberal Democratic politics lead by a black mayor and a nearly all black city council are dismal. The public schools continue to deteriorate in every conceivable way, resulting in a graduation rate of less than 25%. Yet teachers lobby to maintain the status quo, and even staged a walk-out when a philanthropist offered $200 million to start 15 charter high schools. Basic city services continue to degrade and the citizenry continues it’s flight to the suburbs - the city’s population has dipped well below 1 million from a peak of 2 million - along with retail and other businesses. Once beautiful neighborhoods are decrepit and drug riddled, with block after block of abandoned, run-down or burnt out houses. Crime, drugs and government are the only growth industries in the city.

Coleman Young, who kept business, labor and politics in line with a feared, formidable and corrupt power base, grew too old and sick to run the city. Anyone paying attention was aware that the city was likewise growing older and sicker, but it was considered bad form to mention it publically. Since Young’s retirement in 1993, the succeeding mayors have been appallingly ineffective - to be kind - culminating in Kwame Kilpatrick’s arrogantly corrupt administration and the disgusting spectacle of his trial. (For the record, Kwame was a rising star in the Democratic party, being well connected and speaking at the 2004 Dem Convention. His mother, Congressional Black Caucus leader Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, considered her son the “anointed one,” and most of the media ignored or downplayed the mounting scandals in his administration. Now he’s a convicted felon.) If white leadership had done to this city what 25 years of black leadership has done, there would be rebuke and admonishment that would make the reproach of Bush after Katrina look like child’s play.

Nearly fifty years of liberal Democratic leadership (Detroit has not had a Republican mayor since 1961) has left this once great city a hell-hole of abandoned buildings, populated mostly by the “chronically unemployed” living off the public dole. One liberal administration after another has implemented policy after policy that ensure the only thing alive and well in the city is poverty: thus creating a guaranteed voter base that will continue to vote for whatever Democrat promises to keep the handouts coming. The Democratic regime that has governed Detroit for decades squelches all critics through one of two ploys: leveling the irrefutable charge of racism, or if that’s inappropriate, demanding that additional funding is needed e.g., schools: because god knows, $11,600 per student isn’t enough (private schools charge $6,600, and I doubt many would pay that if their drop out rate was 75%). The death-spiral of liberalism has annihilated Detroit.

So what’s the connection between the city’s demise and GM? It’s one of the corporations headquartered in Detroit that have kept the city afloat for decades. Now many of them, auto related and otherwise, are in distress. Many have been bought, sold, bankrupted or moved to more business friendly areas. The city didn’t cause their failure, but strangling taxes, inflexible labor unions and a culture of pay-to-play politics didn’t make doing business in Detroit any easier or particularly desirable. As long as Detroit could continue to collect taxes and get federal funds, it could afford to replace vision, leadership and private investment with empty advertising slogans and civic cheerleading. Now as they say, the gig is up.

The Autos, too, tried propping up weak vision, leadership (and recently, investment) with advertising. GM and Chrysler’s fatal mistake was taking bailout funds. Now they, like Detroit, are beholden to the Federal government.

What’s the take away? Too obvious: Liberalism is not the answer, it’s the problem. It creates a perpetual underclass that can be manipulated by arrogant politicians. If you add corruption to the mix it guarantees the demise of the society. It will just as certainly ruin any businesses that are subjected to its grasp.

Today, the Big Three are neither big, nor likely to be “three” much longer. Their fate is likely to be momentous in Detroit’s history, but epochal to the country.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Your Government at the Wheel

Classic rookie management decision: in a business downturn, cut the advertising budget. Yep, that’s exactly what the car czar squad did:

Chrysler wanted to spend $134 million in advertising over the nine weeks it's expected to be in bankruptcy -- the U.S. Treasury's auto-industry task force gave it half that.


Sounds like they have plans other than solvency for Chrysler doesn’t it? Or could they really be that stupid?

Either way Motown, time to call the PODS people and start packing. Oh I forgot: GM already is.

A Small Sign of Intelligent Life on the Left

If you read nothing else today, or even this year, READ THIS.

Robin is a recovering liberal idiot. She is going on a forgiveness tour only without, as she says, the scary dictators. Here’s a snippet of her apologies:

To my goddaughter whom I told when she was l0 years old that Republicans were bad, Democrats were good (yes I really did say this), and who got confused and tearful because she lives in a suburb where most people are Republicans, kid, what in the world was I thinking?

After my last post, I thought you deserved something a little uplifting. Enjoy.

PS If you haven't watched this, or haven't watched lately you might also enjoy
The Crying Game


Abstract Moral Superiority vs. Rational Self-Preservation: Your Choice

Thomas Sowell’s Talking Points on Torture brings, as always, a rational perspective to our increasingly irrational culture.

One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing. Nothing illustrates this more than the fatuous, and even childish, controversy about “torturing” captured terrorists.

As I previously wrote here, we have so effectively parsed and deconstructed reality that half the country no longer knows what torture is. Sowell hammers home the difference between gratuitous infliction of pain and methods used to elicit information to save lives. In the process he exposes the straw man argument of Winston Churchill not torturing Germans even while London was being bombed.

He levels every weak argument the left has used to condemn our government’s actions to protect ourselves. (Apparently we’ve found one service liberals don’t think government should provide.) He eviscerates the moral equivalence crowd, the philosophers:

The Left has long confused physical parallels with moral parallels. But when a criminal shoots at a policeman and the policeman shoots back, physical equivalence is not moral equivalence. And what American intelligence agents have done to captured terrorists is not even physical equivalence

as well as the media and our president:

Our media too squeamish to call murderous and sadistic terrorists anything worse than "militants" or "insurgents"? Our president going abroad to denigrate the country that elected him, pandering to feckless allies and outright enemies, and literally bowing to a foreign tyrant ruling a country from which most of the 9/11 terrorists came?

It’s a pity Thomas Sowell is too intelligent and principled to have gotten into politics. Had he been our first black president I could still sleep at night.

You might as well read the whole article. You know you’re not going to sleep anyway.

Monday, May 11, 2009

A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do

The Pope walks out on a crazed Islamic cleric. According to the Jerusalem Post:

Chief Islamic Judge of the Palestinian Authority, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, launched a poisonous verbal attack at Israel at a Monday night gathering attended by Pope Benedict XVI.

In a meeting with organizations involved in inter-religious dialogue at the Notre Dame Jerusalem Center, Tamimi called upon Muslims and Christians to unite against what he said were the murderous Israelis.

Taking the podium after the pope without being on the original list of speakers scheduled for the evening, Tamimi, speaking at length in Arabic, accused Israel of murdering women and children in Gaza and making Palestinians refugees, and declared Jerusalem the eternal Palestinian capital.

Following the diatribe and before the meeting was officially over, the pope exited the premises. Army Radio reported that the pope shook Tamimi's hand before walking out.

Why is this so shocking? Because nobody else has the balls to do it. Please take note BHO, and anyone else who pretends to be a world leader. This is how you deal with lunatics, fanatics and those who insult your fundamental values. Assuming you have any. Don't greet them like old college buds, don't accept their tawdry propagandist "gifts", and for the sake of all that's right and holy, don't bow to them.

PS Dewey met with the Pope in April of last year

Sunday, May 10, 2009

A Dust-up from NC

Here’s a great little article  by Elizabeth Sauls at the Beaufort Observer in Beaufort, North Carolina. (hat tip to Warner Todd Huston at RedState). Among other tongue in cheek observations on the week in Obamaland, she offers this:

Have you heard about this one? USCAP is an environmental group. They are helping democrats draw up the design of the cap and trade program. World Resources Institute is one of the founding members of USCAP. Guess who sits on the board of WRI? AL Gore! And, he's also a partner in Kleiner Perkins, at least since last year, anyway. KP will invest over $600 million in technologies that aim to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. Sounds like standard business practice 'til you read further and see that, under cap and trade policy, businesses will have to pay for the amount of carbon dioxide that they release during their manufacturing process. AL Gore's money will come from companies that produce products that companies can use to reduce those emissions. Al Gore is part of the group suggesting ways that the cap and trade policy can be structured. He will benefit financially from that policy. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Which reminds me that I simply must do a series on Cap and Trade: an opportunistic offshoot of the religion of Environmentalism that requires further sacrifice at the altar of Crap and Tax.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Dewey’s Prime Time TV Debut!

Dewey from Detroit’s Flatsimile Studios made it’s debut last night on the Sean Hannity show.





Unfortunately, the clip ran without attribution, but if you want to see the unedited Directors Cut, it’s available for your viewing pleasure below.



Watch Dewey From Detroit's Full Line-Up of Flatsimile Videos at DEWEY’S VIDEO THEATER

Keep the Change

After proposing a $3.4 Trillion budget, BHO has asked for $17 billion in cuts. I don’t know how to say this without sounding flip, but that quite literally gets lost in the rounding. It’s $3.4 trillion with or without the cuts.

Even with Obama telling journalists to stress the "significant" nature of these cuts, they seem uncharacteristically resistant. Apparently they know a drop in the bucket when they see one. Bama seems stunned by their reaction. Possibly because he thought they were on board with his budget, as they didn’t ask one single question about it at his last play date with the press.

Instead, they wanted to know what enchanted him about his first 100 days. Like most of the journalists in attendance, it was clear that he was most enchanted with himself. Holding court for his standard ensemble of useful idiots, he lobbed each soft ball question back with a backhand intended to make a point of one of his standard themes: “My administration inherited a mess. We've started to clean it up. What you don't like is not my fault.”

His instruction to the press corps on Friday sounded like a petulant father lecturing his misbehaving children.

And he told journalists directly that they should stress the fact that the cuts are "significant" – a surprisingly direct appeal to reporters concerning which angle they should take in their coverage.

"It is important, though, for all of you, as you're writing up these stories, to recognize that $17 billion taken out of our discretionary, non-defense budget, as well as portions of our defense budget, are significant," he said. "They mean something.

What “they mean” is the Democrats are going to ram through a $3.4 trillion dollar budget, but you can keep the change. Believe it.

Friday, May 8, 2009

It’s 9:00. Do You Know Where Your Speaker of the House Is?

Apparently she knew from the start. Allahpundit at Hot Air goes so far as to call her a liar.

I don’t know. Look at that face. Is that the face of a liar? Maybe it’s Alzheimer’s.

Beam Me Up Scotty

How cool is this? Steve Daly of Newsweek says Obama is sort of like Spock! Could we possibly get a cooler Commander in Chief?!?

Is there to be no end of the gushing by MSM? Brent Baker at NewsBusters delineates the fawning far better than I want to.

Yeah, they’re both offspring of a “mixed” marriage, they’ve both felt the sting of discrimination, and they’ve both got those ears. Oh, and they’re both paradigms of logic “....Spock's cool, analytical nature feels more fascinating and topical than ever now that we've put a sort of Vulcan in the White House.”

A shame BHO’s logic fails him when he goes off prompter. And as for putting a “sort of Vulcan” in the White House: I doubt that Spock’s number one criterion for a Supreme Court Justice would be “empathy”.

PS: Charles Krauthammer called BHO’s argument to Congress that our miserable economy (which he inherited) requires us to adopt a nationalized health care plan, a cap and trade energy plan and federalized education K-BA - “the greatest non-sequitur of all time.” That’s the kind of cool logic you can believe in.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Polarizing is the New Racist

Not that the left has dropped their love affair with charging anyone they deem “intolerant” with racism. But I’ve noticed of late that the next worst thing to being a racist is being a polarizing figure. I can tell because of all the media and blog chatter about how polarizing Republicans/conservatives are. Also telling is the equal amount of time spent demonstrating that Obama isn’t a polarizing figure. Or if he is, not in a bad way like the Republicans are - “what part of “post-partisan” don’t you right-wing nimrods understand?” Besides, how can you be polarizing when you are as spectacularly popular as BHO ?

Talking Points Memo suggests the results of a Pew Poll that found Obama more polarizing than GWB at the 100 days mark are really the Republicans fault. The twisted rationale: there are fewer Repubs now, so those left are hardcore. A comment to this posting might explain it better. It comes via a guy who uses the moniker “Merlot” (‘nuff said?):

…All the GOP has left is the ignorant (uneducated), fact-denying, red neck base (bigots and inbreds), and fantasy-based fundamentalists (think the earth is flat crowd). Even wealthy white folk understand the Democratic Party is good for America... contrary to the GOP ideology, the sun does rise in the east.

All of the above being said, I am not comforted. The GOP spawned Timothy McVey and it is obvious they are going for a bigger "bang" this time. The calls by GOP mouthpieces for treason is alarming (Michelle Bachman of MN, e.g.). They should be grateful that Obama believes in the constitution. If he didn't, they would have been arrested, and "erased" (as they deserve to be, for the good of the country), several weeks ago in the GWB administration style.

The GOPers are stockpiling guns for the purpose of overthrowing America. This should alarm every American. Dare I suggest that real Americans need to arm themselves against the GOP wackos? It is a possibility to be considered. Post Jan 20th, the reality that GWB was never in control is becoming increasingly obvious. The war before us is with the Dick Cheneys who reject our constitutional system. That he is receiving SS projection is perverted. Cheney and Co. is the biggest threat this country faces. This crowd is cornered like a rabid dogs. They are dangerous. They are a threat to the national security.

I guess that passes as an invitation to break bipartisan bread in some circles.

The real polarization isn’t between the two parties, it’s between political philosophies: Conservative – the constitution as written, minimal government, and taxation only for that limited government vs. Liberal – a “living” constitution, maximized government and all the resulting taxation to support it. It’s not about the person (Unless we’re talking GWB, who libs profess to “hate”. Why is it always personal with those people?). Hating ideas like socialism, open borders, and trillion dollar deficit spending does not a racist make.

I guess I see how it can be polarizing, but in a good way, like Obama.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Liberalism: the Triumph of Feelings over Logic

Michael Ramirez on Ms. Justice’s makeover -

justice

The Soprano’s of Pennsylvania Ave.

Michael Barone’s piece today in the Washington Examiner underscores the concerns many of us have with BHO’s apparent contempt for the law.

It’s not just that he waved aside the rights of Chrysler’s bond holders by offering them, the secured creditors, 33 cents on the dollar while giving the UAW, unsecured creditors, 55 cents on the dollar. No, it was the arrogance with which be brushed them aside with a dismissive, even derisive comment about them being greedy speculators, implying they had no business objecting to the Obama Grand Plan.

Barone points out that the attempt to subordinate the rights of the senior creditors …

… of course is a violation of one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law, which is that secured creditors — those who lended money only on the contractual promise that if the debt was unpaid they’d get specific property back — get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything.

The White House denies using coercion tactics, but frankly it’s hard to dismiss that assertion for a number of reasons - starting with the fact that Tom Lauria is a highly respected attorney from a highly respected firm who has no reason to lie. The White House on the other hand has every reason to lie about using illegal tactics - known as standard operating procedures in the realm of Chicago politics.

Think carefully about what’s happening here. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored. In the process, it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House’s power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.

The administration thugs are just getting warmed up for GM, and anyone else that was stupid enough to take TARP funds.

Barone exposes us to more “transformative” thinking:

Obama’s attitude toward the rule of law is apparent in the words he used to describe what he is looking for in a nominee to replace Justice David Souter. He wants “someone who understands justice is not just about some abstract legal theory,” he said, but someone who has “empathy.” In other words, judges should decide cases so that the right people win, not according to the rule of law.

At the risk of repeating myself from an earlier post, the judicial arm of government is about abstract legal theory. That’s all it’s about. If you don’t like the laws, that- theoretically – can be addressed through the legislative branch; but it decidedly falls outside the realm of the judicial.

Once the highest level of government begins to act in contempt of the law, you approach the Chinese model in which the rule of law is only the rule of law if they say it is. I wonder if the Chinese would have invested all those billions of dollars in US Treasuries if they ever thought the USA would treat their bondholders like, well, like the Chinese might treat theirs?


Update: Hot Air had a similar take.


Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Savage Nation Not Welcome in “Civilized” Nation

Here’s an interesting peek into the soul of the Brits: Michael Savage has been banned from the UK. It’s unclear why, but it seems to have something to do with him not being sensitive enough. According to The Independent, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has released the names of 16 people that will not be allowed into the United Kingdom.

"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country…

"…If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.”

The list includes 2 anti-homosexuals, 1 Hamas leader, 1 Jewish extremist, 1 Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, 1 neo-Nazi, 2 Russian skin-head murderers, 7 Islamo-fascists (my words, not Ms. Smith’s)…and 1 conservative - radio host? It sounds like they put together a politically correct list of politically incorrect people to ban in hopes that Muslims won’t notice that over half of the list are Islamo-fascists (are you allowed to use that word in Britain?).

I realize they needed a token conservative, and unlike other big time talk radio hosts, Dr. Savage is not a golfer (a sport invented in the UK). But just how silly is it to put someone like Michael Savage on this list? Well, let’s see. The worst thing Dr. Savage is guilty of is speaking truth to power – a practice only tolerated by the left if you are speaking their truth, to their power. Compare Dr. Savage’s alleged sins to a few people that the UK has not banned: a Rwandan purveyor of genocide, pirates, and 80 sadistic murderers. In addition to this crowd, Britain has also not banned Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Hugo Chavez, Fidel and Raul, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tony Resko, or Perez Hilton: you’re unlikely to stumble upon a more unsavory lot of racists, terrorists, mobsters, anti-heterosexuals and anti-homosexuals.

So the UK has decided to ban intolerance. That would explain why the EU wants Sharia law applied in British courts – so they’ll be more tolerant of marital rape, honor killings and the stoning of rape victims. This notion follows on the heels of the serious suggestion by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the adoption of Sharia law in Britain is "inevitable". Our once formidable ally appears to be going daft in the head.

A shame they’ve banned Dr. Savage. They have no idea how badly they need him.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Contracts? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Contracts.

Is there not one lawyer in the Messiah’s administration that recognizes the Constitution’s relevance to the law?

Chrysler’s senior debt holders, aka “greedy hedge funds” have filed suit against the Administration in its heavy-handed resolution of the Chrysler reorganization. Their claim seems fairly straight forward: it’s unconstitutional to arbitrarily break a contract with pre- TARP senior creditors in order to give the proceeds to junior creditors – in this case the UAW. Worse, BHO took to the pulpit when the bankruptcy filing was announced to trash the bond holders:

"In particular, a group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout. They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none. Some demanded twice the return that other lenders were getting. I don't stand with them."

These “investment firms and hedge funds” have fiduciary responsibility to their investors: pension plans, retirees, etc. to fight for their rights. They offered to settle for 50% (remember, they are the Senior debt holders – that means they get paid first -  that’s what the bond contract they bought states) but the administration demanded 20%. That would ensure enough of the dead carcass was left to sate the UAW’s appetite .

In his statement last Friday, BHO continued to explain how the corporate assets would be split up, with a 55% controlling interest going to the UAW. Now, I’m not a Constitutional scholar, and I know that’s not the president’s call.  It falls within the purview of the bankruptcy judge. But since the administration threatened another hedge fund (Perella Weinberg, who eventually caved in) with being trashed by the White House press core (welcome to useful idiot status, press guys and dolls), there’s no reason to believe they’d have any qualms about fixing the judge in a bankruptcy case. What? Oh. I guess that only happens in movies. And besides, the White House denied it threatened to trash P-W (shortly after BHO trashed the remaining hedge funds).

So there you have it: BHO, who has demonstrated a disdain for the Judicial system in general, and the Constitution in particular will be selecting the next Supreme Court Justice. And he thinks it important that the next justice be empathetic, that he or she understand how court decisions impact everyday people. Again, I’m no constitutional scholar, but I understand the concept behind the blindfolded lady to mean that the law is the law is the law, despite an individual’s status in life. There’s no empathy in constitutional law.

Obama’s Fairness Doctrine: Be afraid, be very afraid.

If you want to listen to WJR Detroit’s Frank Beckmann interview Tom Lauria, representing the Chrysler bondholders, regarding the legal issues:

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Pork: Your Tax Dollars at Work

I just completed a cross country trip. Utah to Detroit. I've been traveling this route for years. There used to be a few windmills along the Continental Divide in Wyoming where the winds blow constantly.

wind farm

But now there are windfarms springing up all across Nebraska and Iowa. Iowa - a state once known only for corn and pork, but now  infamous for being the first state to anoint the One.

There they are, shooting up out of the corn fields like Obama's budget projections, spinning, spinning, spinning till you're dizzy. It's a perfect lesson in Obamanomics:  take tax subsidized alternative energy sources, use it to grow tax subsidized corn, which is then used to make more tax subsidized alternative fuel. Now that's what I call makin' bacon.

No wonder BHO won the Iowa primary so handily.