I’ve been corresponding with a group of conservatives who are very strongly divided between Romney and Gingrich.  I’m pleased to say that, while the debate is substantively heated, it also never veers away from common decency and civility.  My latest contribution to the email string, right after mention of a brokered convention, was as follows:

“Allen West!  Allen West!  Allen West!  A proven leader.”

(I can dream, can’t I?)

For all the doom and gloom predictions right now, with various factions in the conservative movement unable to envision themselves voting for the other guy come next November, I continue to believe that, as is usually the case once the fecal matter stops spraying off the fan, that conservatives will coalesce around the Republican candidate.  I’ve said from the beginning, sitting here in California where primaries are really over by the time they get to my state, that my candidate is the guy named ABO (Anybody But Obama).  It’ll be a tough call if the ABO candidate is Ron Paul, who is as awful in foreign policy as Obama, but I still think it’s important to break the Obama political infrastructure before it becomes an inextricable part of the American body politic.

We can expect tomorrow night’s State of the Union address to be an action-packed hour (or so) of vitriol and self-pity.  Obama will cherry-pick a few numbers about the 1% and then whine about how he’s been trying really hard to destroy that same 1%, but that a vast array of insurmountable obstacles — Congress, Republicans, the media, the American people, the Jews — have prevented him from doing so.  In a most-read piece, Joseph Curl explains what Obama will be hiding:

The unemployment rate when Mr. Obama was elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent — at least that’s the official number. In reality, the Financial Times writes, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”

In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.

Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.)

Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, with households now paying a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.

Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.

And that’s not even the half of it.  You can read the rest here.

In this target-rich environment, the tone-deaf Mitt Romney is attacking . . . Newt.  This is why Newt is surging.  While Mitt attacks him, Newt, although he too has taken too many time-outs for vicious internecine warfare, hasn’t forgotten that the American people care about the economy and national security.  Even Newt, though, could step up the attacks on Obama.  It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

And here’s a judo-style suggestion for dealing with all of Obama’s victim talk:

President Obama claims that the media misrepresents him, Republicans are evil, Congress is obstructionist, and the American people are lazy.  These are the reasons, he says, that he has been unable to implement his agenda.  It’s not his fault; it’s everyone else’s fault. 

Well, let’s assume, solely for the sake of argument, that everything the President says about the obstacles facing him is true.  That assumed truth leads to one, and only one possible question:  What the heck type of a leader is President Obama?  By his own admission, he is unable to handle anyone or anything that stands in his way.  This isn’t just an inability to handle the 3 am phone call.  Instead, this is the inability even to pick up the phone. 

The man who occupies the highest leadership position in the land — indeed, in the world — has repeatedly conceded that he isn’t up to the job.  Since he’s not going to quit, it’s up to you, the American people, to fire him.  And when you replace him, I’m the man for the job because….

We all know the philosophical question that asks, “If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

The media is trying a variation on this question by asking, “If we completely ignore a fact, so that no one hears about it, does the fact exist?”  The media’s latest experiment with this grand philosophical question is to pretend that the audience in South Carolina wasn’t completely thrilled by Newt’s response to opening questions regarding his ex-wife’s accusations about his behavior during their marriage.

I honestly don’t know whether Newt’s direct challenges to the media mean that he has the “right stuff” to be president.  I just know that his willingness to stand up and fight the Pravda that the American media has become is a very important and necessary step in the new media age.  More Republicans should stop pandering and start speaking truth to media power. It’s time to break this monopoly by showing it the disrespect it deserves.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You’re not imagining it.  I haven’t had a dang thing to say about Barack Obama’s brazen constitutional violation, which was also an indirect repudiation of the 2010 mid-term elections.  His decision unilaterally to declare the Senate on a “recess” and then to make “recess” appointments has been analyzed to death and I agree with everyone:  it violates the Constitution, it violates the Democrats’ own stance during the Bush administration, it violates the voters’ efforts to rein him in, and it’s a clever move that it makes any Republican objections look like pettifogging proceduralism in the face of a dynamic young president.

It’s that last, of course, that is making Congressional Republicans hesitate.  They know Obama has taken one giant step closer to anti-constitutional government (read:  dictatorship), but they’re trying to figure out which will be less damaging to them, the rock or the hard place.

My feeling is that, since each position is a problem, Republicans should stand on their principles and launch a full-bore attack against Obama’s gross violation of the separation of powers.  They should do ads, give speeches, anything they can to educate the public on the dangers of reposing too much power in one branch of government — and, most certainly, the dangers of allowing an executive, who technically controls the military, to seize that power with impunity.

If you’re going to drown anyway, make a splash when you go.  And maybe, just maybe, if you’re making the splash, someone might notice and take an interesting in saving you.

Sadly, I think we can predict with some certainly that Republicans will take this latest insult to American freedoms as they always do:  lying down, preferably with a “please, sir, may I have some more” sign taped to their collective foreheads.  The whole notion of fighting vigorously for the things that matter seems alien to the “go along to get along” Republicans.

To give the ‘Pubs some credit, when you’ve been beaten about the head by the major media for decades, you can get a little too cautious.  Even if you don’t respect your torturer, it doesn’t mean you don’t fear him.  And it takes a certain amount of courage for each individual Republican to run himself deliberately through the gauntlet:  racist, religious madman, Tea Bagging idiot, racist, stupid person, racist, etc.  It’s one thing to understand that the people hurling the insults are meaningless.  It’s another thing entirely for a politician to be sanguine about the fact that this name-calling will be directed relentlessly at his own constituents.  Doesn’t mean said politician should remain silent, but it does make it very hard to speak.

If it’s any consolation, Nazi Europe isn’t the only possible outcome when someone with political power seeks to violate constitutional limitations.  Back in the 1790s, the British were worried about the same thing:

This attractive print shows Prime Minister Pitt steering a small boat, The Constitution, which also carries Britannia, towards a castle with a flag inscribed “Haven of Public Happiness.” They are pursued by Sheridan, Fox, and Priestley.  And remember that it took another 150 years, which included the extraordinarily successful Victorian Era, before the socialists succeeded in derailing British constitutionalism.  We live in a faster-paced world, but there’s still time to right the ship of state, to steer our way through troubled waters without drowning, and to reach a safe, constitutional haven.

All of us at this blog have shared thoughts and facts similar to those in Bill Whittle’s latest video.  It’s hard, though, to imagine anyone putting them together as well, as cogently, and with such elegant brevity, as Whittle himself:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I get Obama campaign emails because I signed up for them.  It’s always interesting to see what the opposition is doing.  That’s why I got to enjoy this “classy” email from Obama’s 2012 campaign:

Friend –

Everyone’s got that special conservative in their life.

Maybe it’s your dad, who forwards you every chain email about the President’s birth certificate, or your neighbor, who just put up a Mitt Romney sign.

Dealing with these folks can be … frustrating.

This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little bit of fun at their expense. Let a Republican in your life know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign — chip in $3 or more today.

When you give to the campaign, simply enter your Republican friend’s email address and they’ll get a note letting them know that they motivated you to donate — which will surely make their day.

Not only that, but when you donate today, you’ll be entered to win a chance to have dinner with the President and First Lady. Just picture how good it’ll feel to let your honoree know about those dinner plans.

The other side is busy scrambling for the Iowa caucuses and a long string of primaries, trying to find a nominee. Meanwhile, we’ve got our candidate — and we’re already doing the work to get ready for November.

Give your conservative friends the gift of knowing they’ve inspired you to donate. After all, actions speak louder than words.

Please donate $3 or more today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Your-Inspiration

Thanks,

Julianna

Julianna Smoot
Deputy Campaign Manager
Obama for America

P.S. — Really want to fire up your GOP friends? Buy them a gift from the 2012 store. I recommend the birther mugs — they get the message across pretty well.

I happen to think this is a great idea.  Not, of course, the part about donating money to the Obama campaign, but the part about Republicans ending up on the Obama email list.  Why?  Because emails such as this one give us a great insight into the mind of the liberal, and it’s not a pretty picture:  Obama’s campaign is smug, vindictive, sarcastic, immature and condescending.  In other words, it’s Obama himself writ large.

Democrats are the friends of big business, Conservatives are the friends of small business. Democrat government inevitably ratchets its way to corruptocracy.

If you don’t agree with this, can we at least agree that Democrats favor highly regulated economies and societies and conservatives don’t?

Let me explain with two examples.

1) The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story about how the EPA has decided that milk, because it contains 4% butterfat, should be regulated under the same environmental control standards as petroleum. Consequently, dairy farmers will have to file Federally approve emergency plans on how to deal with “oil spills” and such. Large dairies (some dairies in California milk 10,000 or more cows at a time) will probably be able to comply. Small dairies (goat and sheep milk farms, Vermont dairy producers etc. ) are just out of luck. I happen to know something about the dairy industry – it’s a highly politicized, highly subsidized industry that operates on very thin margins. I’m sure that they will come to an accommodation with the EPA and Federal Government…at a very steep price, politically and $-wise!

2) As it becomes increasingly clear the degree to which Obama Care really is a pig-in-a-poke, there is frantic activity to opt out of it. The numbers of entities that have received waivers from ObamaCare (other than Congress) magically rose from about 200 to 700+ immediately after the SOTU speech. Those entities are large companies and unions on the inside track. The way you get a waiver is to have a lobbyist obtain it on your behalf. Money exchanges hands. Large companies can afford this, small companies…out of luck! If ObamaCare is so great, why the rush by Congress, favored businesses and union to obtain waivers?

Increased regulation is inversely proportional to lobbying activity. The less regulation there is, the less the need to influence government. The more regulation, the more the need to petition the royal aristocracy at a heavy price. The need to petition our government for redress under regulations fostered by our government is a corrupting influence. If you lack influence and can’t make payment, you are out of the equation. Here in Chicagoland, we know all about this. Here is what happens:

Society sediments into three classes: a) an aristocratic Democrat nomenklatura that controls the regulatory and judiciary structures of society; b) a wealthy, economic class that can afford to exchange favors for regulatory exemptions and waivers…at a price; c) a lumpen proletariat, outside of the power structures, imprisoned into forced into regulatory straight-jackets (taxable prey…if you will) that they will never be able to escape unless willing to surrender at the price of their souls. It is this last class that pays the bills for the others. This isn’t new…despite its “progressive” tag, it’s a regression to 19th Century economic “shakedown” realities.

My entire career, I have been a champion of entrepreneurs and small companies. They are vital to our society and economy, as innovators, risk-takers and employers. I would hate to see this glorious period end as we slouch toward third-world corruptocracy.

I know that Democrats mouth have historically mouthed platitudes about looking after the “little guy”. I would like to think that only the truly moronic and armchair philosophers walled into their temples of abstract theory can fail to see how Orwellian and corrupting these platitudes are.

Have we as a nation arrived at a point where we can stop this from happening or is it inevitable? A Jewish relative once remarked that no Jew sleeps without two shoes under his bed stuffed with a roll of cash, in case of a quick getaway. I am starting to understand his point.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” – President Barack Hussein Obama

I posted this as a comment to Book’s previous post, but have now posted it independently as a challenge to all of us Bookworm salon aficionados.

Here’s the premise: virtually all the political violence that has happened in America as come from people associated with the Democrat and/or the Left.

Here’s my list thus far (continuous updating):

DEMOCRAT /LEFT – LINKED VIOLENCE

1. Mass. Sen. Charles Sumner beaten by S. Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks over perceived insults made in speech by Brooks (1856).
2. John Wilkes Booth (anti-Republican Democrat) assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
3. Southern night riders and the KKK during Reconstruction and into the mid-1900s. (Democrats) – question: do we count each of the lynchings as separate acts of violence?
4. Chicago Haymarket riot (1886)
5. Pres. McKinley’s 1901 assassination by Leon Frank Czolgosz (Leftwing anarchist)
6. Sedition Act of 1918 by Woodrow Wilson (Progressive Democrat)
7. Assassination attempt on FDR, killing Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, by Guiseppe Zangara in 1933 (left-wing anarchist)
8. FDR’s internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII (Democrat progressive)
9. FALN attack against Pres. Harry Truman (communist)
10. Sheriff Bull Connors, Gov. George Wallace (Democrats)
11. John Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (communist)
12. Pres. Johnson’s “War on Poverty”
13. 1968 Democrat Convention
14. Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan (leftwing Palestinian supporter)
15. Sarah Jane Moore’s attempted assassination of Pres. Gerald Ford
16. Berkeley People’s Park riot in 1969 (campus socialists, communists and anarchists)
17. Students for a Democratic Society aka SDS (communist)
18. Bombing (1970) of Math Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison (anti-war communists)
19. Symbionese Liberation Army (communists)
20. American Indian Movement (AIM) killing of FBI agents at Wounded Knee (socialist American Indian activists)
21. The Weathermen, incl. Dohrn and Ayers (communist)
22. Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN bombings (communist)
23. Black Panthers (Left-wing socialist/communist)
24. James Jones of Jonestown fame (apostolic socialism)
25. Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
26. Attack on Branch Davidians (Janet Reno, Clinton Administration)
27. Ted Kaczynski – Unabomber (leftwing anarchist and environmental fanatic, Gore acolyte)
28. Left-wing violence, destruction and physical assaults at 1999 G-20 meeting in Seattle.
29. Attack on Washington, D.C. Holocaust Memorial by James Wenneker von Brunn (anti-U.S. socialist sympathizer)
30. Left-wing violence, destruction, physical assaults and weapons convictions at 2008 Republican Convention in Minneapolis.
31. Joe Stack, Austin IRS bomber (anti-Republican, anti-capitalist, anti-wealthy people)
32. Physical attacks on conservative speakers at university campuses
33. Multiple physical attacks against Tea Party rallies by SEIU and others (2009).
34. Shooting of pro-life demonstrator James Pouillon in Owosso, MI (2009)
35. Physical assault by S. Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge against student, caught on video.
36. Discovery Center attack and hostage-taking by James Lee in Sept. 2010 (leftwing environmentalist)

REPUBLICAN, CONSERVATIVE – LINKED VIOLENCE

1. John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry (?)
2. Attacks on abortion clinics and murders and attempted murders of abortion providers (conservative Christian group-affiliated (?) individuals)
3. Firearm attack by Jim D. Adkisson against Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, claiming opposition to its policies (2008)
4. 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing by Eric Robert Rudolph (see “attacks on abortion clinics” above).

xxxxxxxxxxx

Please delete, amend or add-to the list as you see fit.

Or, let’s have even more fun: how about a comparable list of CONSERVATIVE acts of political violence?

We shall then be able to offer two lists for posterity.

Comments and contributions? Please make them as specific as possible.

UPDATE***

I have broken these out into two lists and will make additions as they come in.

UPDATE***

OK…I’m convinced. I’ve taken the Tuscon, Ariz. shooting off of the “Left” column.

If the U.S. and our government were a business, we would already have been declared insolvent. Here’s why:

On our 2009 P/L (profit & loss) statement, our annual Federal expenditures amounted to about $3.5 trillion, against revenues (tax receipts) of $2.1 trillion. If history is guide, the $1.4 trillion gap between revenues and outlays will increase rather than decrease in subsequent years. Mind you, this is only at the Federal level…we haven’t included state and municipal financials, which add more black crepe to an already dismal picture.

How much could government revenues be expected to increase in order to plug this gap? The traditional conservative approach has been to grow the economy, using incentives: more growth = more profits = more tax revenues. The traditional Liberal/Left approach has been to increase taxes: more taxes = more government spending = more economic growth (!?).

In my view, we have traveled to a point far, far beyond these arguments: neither approach suffices.

1) National Debt – $14 trillion (Williamson argues that this is vastly understated due to “funny money” accounting by the government)

2) State and Local Debt – $2.5 trillion (which the Feds will ultimately absorb). According to some, we already face massive impending municipal bond failures.

3) Unfunded government worker pension funds (federal, state and local) – $3.0 trillion. In large part, these are “unfunded” because governments expropriated their assets by borrowed against them, my corrupted state of Illinois being a prime culprit. Directly or indirectly, this cost will eventually be absorbed by all taxpayers.

4) Unfunded liabilities for all of our nation’s “we care about you but want someone else to pay for it” programs  (i.e., Medi/Obamacare, “Pharmacare”, Medicaid and Social Security) – $106 trillion (using Present Value). According to Williamson, this is more-than twice the total private net worth of the U.S. Even if we all individually sold-off all of our belongings (assets), we still couldn’t cover these obligations.

I’ve looked long and hard for this number because it is admittedly “fuzzy math”, but the best estimate that I could come up for the total estimated tangible asset (book) value of the United States economy is $188 trillion. These are, for the most part, non-liquid assets…they cannot be simply sold off for cash-in-hand.

Source: http://rutledgecapital.com/2009/05/24/total-assets-of-the-us-economy-188-trillion-134xgdp/

In sum, USA, Inc. long ago exceeded its debt capacity.

As a bond holder of USA, Inc., would your next step be to:

a) invest in USA, Inc.

b) ask for a bankruptcy court to reorganize the corporation and restructure its debt obligations

c) liquidate and auction off its assets to cover its debt obligations to bond holders?

Ergo my conclusion: we are insolvent! There is no way that we will ever find the money to pay off these obligations. It just doesn’t exist, not within the U.S and not in the world economy. I anticipate option (b) — reorganization of debt. Of course, in this scenario, the shareholders (citizens, taxpayers) get left with crumbs (or “haircuts”, in financial parlance).

According to Democrat thinking processes, we should raise taxes. However, even doubling our total Federal, state and local tax receipts wouldn’t cover our income shortfall and debt service obligations, especially in the face of rising interest rates. Moreover, this  would crush the economy, ergo our ability to generate future tax revenues. It would kill the golden goose. In the meantime, the solution appears to be…print huge sums of money and get us into even more debt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

Looking at the Republican approach, growing the economy by lowering tax rates buys time, but I don’t see how we could possibly grow the economy enough to dig us out of this hole…or is my imagination too limited? Brazil’s economy grew about 10% last year, but then their starting base was much lower. Maybe Rep. Paul Ryan sees it differently.

Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion: the large majority of us will end up absorbing significant haircuts to our asset holdings as part of our inevitable national  and economic debt restructuring. My vote for the most likely targets of restructuring are: a) public employee pension funds; b) social security and Obamacare benefits; c) bond holders, via a national default a-la-Argentina…all inclusive. Bernanke’s QE2 movement  signals that massive inflation is already in the works.

Each of these steps spells disaster. In my view, it’s not a question of “if” but “when”.

So, as we begin this New Year, what are your ideas as to how we can climb out of this hole?

Do we invest Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) with dictatorial powers in order to implement his road map? Is that enough? (note: this is tongue-in-cheek, for those of you that don’t know me).

What do you think will happen if public employee pension fund obligations are shaved to 25% or less of current obligations? Do we become another UK, France or Greece and descend into anarchy? How do we prevent this from happening?

Many of us Bookworm Room aficionados, from comments gathered over the years, are either in retirement or seriously planning retirement….how will we / should we and others of our generation react to massive cuts in Social Security and ObamaCare? I note that some 25-30% of adults approaching retirement age have supposedly accrued virtually no retirement savings and individual net worth is likely to continue to decline in tandem with housing values. Plus, leading members of the Democrat regime have already made it known that it would like to strip me and thee of any anticipated inheritance incomes. What is to happen to them (us)?

What happens if the U.S. defaults on its bond obligations?

Or, am I all wet in my analysis? Although I do boast a corporate-finance-related degree, I do not pretend to be anything other than a hobby economist. Please, oh please, convince me that I am totally wrong in my analysis.

For balance, I do not think the prognosis is all doom and gloom, although I believe that we are in for a very rough ride. Our country faced similar difficulties early in our history and we got through them. I think the party is over, but I also think we have the wherewithal to climb out of the mess all of us have created, even if we cannot yet discern the way out. I am trying to understand how best to weather the storm.

Either way, please share your thoughts.

Forewarned is forearmed.

My friend Sally Zelikovsky says it in the clearest words possible:  Unless conservatives in California vote for the Republicans, we will have a Sacramento government made up entirely of San Francisco Democrats.  If that horrible outcome sounds painfully obvious to you, you don’t know California.

There are two dynamics in California that are a problem.  First, conservatives don’t like the Republican candidates.  (They’re right not to.  Fiorina is lovely — and may she get well soon — but the others are “eh” at best.)  This means California conservatives may be tempted to (a) sit this one out or (b) vote for a write-in or minor candidate.  Those are luxuries of ordinary elections, though.  In California, this election is not about a favored conservative candidate winning; it’s about making sure the Democratic candidate loses.  And the only way to do that is with vast numbers of votes for the Republican, even if that requires some nose holding.

The other dynamic is Prop. 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana.  Have you wondered by George Soros is promoting it?  Do you think George Soros gives a flying whatsit about whether Californians have legal marijuana?  I can assure you that he doesn’t.  But he knows one group that does care a great deal, and it’s a group that votes reliably Democrat:  young people.  Yup.  Prop. 19 is a “get out the youthful Democrat vote” effort.  This means that, while most young people around America are sitting out this election, there is a very good chance that California’s young people will be heading to the polls.

So if you’re a Californian, and you have memories, increasingly faint memories, of a true Golden State, VOTE and VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News