Obama Administration Alzheimer's

So many scandals, so little time.  I think we should blame Bush or global warming for all of this mess.  Take your pick.  The Obama Administration seems to have CRS.  They can't remember stuff.  Holder and Obama didn't know that the Justice Department had taken the AP phone records, but they knew that this was a very serious leak that put Americans at risk.  Obama has never said what he was doing during the Benghazi attack.  He only remembers that he had to fly to Las Vegas for a fund raiser the next day.  Panetta said he had no further contact with Obama after receiving his initial instructions on Benghazi.  Nobody seems to have been talking to Hillary Clinton during the attack.  The IRS targeted at least 500 conservative organizations and individuals for special harassment, but nobody outside the IRS Cincinnati office can remember hearing about it before the 2012 election.  And the only thing the Pravda Press (MSM) seems to care about is that the AP telephone records were taken without warning.  Welcome to the real world of too big to control government. 

IRS Bad Customer Service

We have our choice of buzz words here.  If we want to follow the Founders, we can choose "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."  If we want to talk to liberals in their own language we can use Disparate Impact or Voter Suppression.  Liberals want to call it just bad customer service.  If this had been done by Nixon or Bush to liberal groups, liberals would call it fascist, racist, sexist and a threat to our democracy.  It's interesting how fast the Pravda Press (MSM) jumped to the conclusion that Sarah Palin ads caused the Gabby Giffords shooting, but they have no idea why the IRS would target conservative groups.  To me, it brings back English history.  "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"  When King Henry II of England said that in 1170, some of the king's men murdered Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.  This benefited the king, who was in a political struggle for control of England with Becket.   Luckily, Obama's incitement didn't get that violent.  However, "The One" did benefit by causing the Tea Party to be so much less of a factor in 2012 than in 2010 that liberal pundits were celebrating the change.  

Benghazi: People Died, Obama Lied

People died.  Obama lied.  Liberals want to talk about anything but the basic facts.  However, neither George Bush nor global warming was involved.  Anything liberals bring up about Benghazi is a deliberate red herring.  For example, liberals say there is no scandal.  It’s just partisan politics.  This is a classic case of projection, assuming conservative will carry water for their cause no matter what the truth is.  Liberals usually carry water for their cause without regard to the facts, so they assume conservatives are doing the same.  So if questioning Benghazi is partisan hackery, why won't the president reveal that he went to bed while the attack was in progress.  He needed to be well rested for his fundraiser in Las Vegas on September 12.  Panetta testified that the president and Secretary of State not involved in the decisions he made during the attack.  Journalists were like baying hounds when two US Navy aircraft shot down two Libyan aircraft over the Gulf of Sidra in 1981.  They demanded to know why President Reagan was not awakened to be told of the incident.  He famously replied that if the Libyan planes had shot down our aircraft, his staff would have gotten him up.  They didn't need him if our aircraft shot down theirs.  Point is, no Pravda Press MSM journalist has even bothered to ask what Obama was doing during the attack.    There is a similar lack of interest in the activities of president in waiting Hillary Clinton. 

In her congressional testimony, Hillary Clinton said, "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."  Even in this testimony, Clinton is trying to maintain the spontaneous protest narrative.  So how can we tell what happened while all of this Obama administration obfuscation is flying around?  Why haven't the survivors who were on the ground in Benghazi testified?  Why hasn't Patrick F. Kennedy, the man responsible for the security cuts in Libya, testified about why he approved the cuts?  The Democrats are trying to blame Republican budget cuts for the security cuts in Libya, which sounds to me a lot like furloughing air traffic controllers due to sequestration.  Why hasn't General Carter Ham, Commander of GOC Africa Command (Africom) on 9/11/12, been allowed to testify?  

A comment on one of the Benghazi articles (link below), speculated that maybe there was some reason the Administration wanted Ambassador Stevens dead.  It wouldn't be the first time someone was put at the front of battle and conveniently killed.  This comment really threw me back to Sunday school and Uriah the Hittite.  King David put him in a position to get killed in a battle, then withdrew support.  The motive was probably different for Obama.  David was sleeping with Uriah's wife.  But this post really started me thinking about why Stevens was hung out to dry.  One other thing I noticed, since I live in Chicago.  Both of Obama's rivals for the Senate in 2004 were forced out of the race or defeated by leaks about their divorces.  General Petraeus got treatment similar to Jack Ryan and Blair Hull, at a time convenient to Obama.  I have always thought that Petraeus’ forced resignation fit the pattern of rivals to Obama being eliminated by a scandal in their marriage.

My father, a lawyer, used to say that if you didn't have the law or the facts on your side, then pound the table. Liberals are pounding the table with talk of “near-pathological" Republicans who are trying to "invalidate the Obama presidency." What do you think this means?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347608/benghazi-do-i-say-or-i-do

Difference Between Reagan Success, Obama Failure

Fact is we were in worse shape in 1981 when Reagan took over than we were in 2009 for Obama.  Reagan lowered tax rates and reduced regulation.  Reagan also encouraged the Federal Reserve to tighten the money supply.  Obama increased spending by 800 billion dollars in "stimulus."  Obama increased tax rates on "the rich."  Obama increased regulation by hundreds of thousands of pages.  The Obama era Federal Reserve has been through God knows how many quantitative easings.  In short Obama did the exact opposite of Reagan in every way possible.  Reagan boosted the economy from disaster and took unemployment from 7.6 percent to 5.5 percent.  Obama kept the economy in the doldrums and took unemployment from 7.8 to 7.5 percent, with a detour in the middle to 10 percent.  As far as the banks "ripping off kids," I thought Obama nationalized the student loan program, and that liberal professors failed to teach anything valuable for graduates in the marketplace.  The housing bubble was caused by government requirements to make loans by race instead of by credit ratings.  So instead of disparate impact due to making solid loans, we had disparate impact in defaults and bankruptcies by loaning money to people who couldn't pay it back.   In general, the liberal solution to any problem is more government, especially if the government caused the problem in the first place.  In effect, more cow bell.

WMDs in Iraq: Liberal Ignorance

Liberals are fond of saying there were no WMDs in Iraq.  They think this is the perfect argument for not doing anything militarily based on intelligence. This premise is ludicrous.  It ignores the basic facts of Iraq’s WMD history.  There WERE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Saddam used all of his WMDs killing his own people before we got there.  In a way, we just lost count.  Saddam killed 3,200 to 5,000 Kurdish civilians in one poison gas attack alone, on Halabja, Iraq, on March 16, 1988.  He injured 7,000 to 10,000 more.  Intelligence analysts knew this history, even if liberals today forget or ignore it.  Bush knew it too when he made the decision to invade.  Congress did too when both houses voted to authorize the attack.  The One had no congressional vote on his Libyan attacks. Bush had bipartisan authorization for Iraq.  Liberals' ignorance never fails to impress this redneck.

Illegal Because Legal Immigration Too Hard

As the Gang of Eight's massive immigration bill is in the spotlight, I have a sense of deja vu.  It's just like Obamacare all over again.  Again, we have to pass it to see what's in it? 867 pages? Please stop playing the liberal game of "comprehensive" solutions with hundreds or thousands of pages, developed by small groups and passed in the dead of night. I think a lot of the illegal immigration problem is that legal immigration is an extremely difficult obstacle course. We need 2 simple bills. 

First, provide expanded H1B visas for professionals with jobs who want to work here and pay taxes. Right now, the H1B program sells out in a few days for an entire year's allotment of visas. It's run as a lottery. Raise the price to companies and increase the numbers from 65,000 to 300,000 to 400,000. Make it easier for H1B holders to visit home and to get green cards. Eliminate any national origin limits. In my job I work with a lot of programmers who would like to stay here and work, if they could get a visa for longer than 6 months at a time. We need a lot of younger folks like these guys who will pay for my social security. 

Second, we need a new guest worker program, so low skill workers and their families can come here and stay as long as they are not on welfare, food stamps, medicaid or any other government assistance. We had a guest worker program, the Bracero Program, from 1942 to 1964. During this time illegal immigration was minimal. Workers came for the harvest and went home. In 1964 the AFL-CIO had it killed because guest workers are hard to organize. We could expand the program from the previous program to include agricultural factory work like meat processing and service jobs like janitorial work. For both of these programs there should be provisions to allow illegal residents as well as those outside the US to apply. The House could pass both bills, then let the Democrats explain why they won't vote for either. It would be good, rational legislation that would solve GOP political problems without giving away the store.

Article on Immigration:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347282/what-immigration-polls-show

Bracero Program Information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

Prevent Mega Bank Bailouts

I had a really strong reaction to an article about mega banks that are too big to fail.  The only way to make sure there are no more mega bank bailouts is to make sure that mega banks are sufficiently capitalized that they can absorb massive losses and that their management has mega incentives to be careful.  The 12 mega banks ought to have 8 to 10 percent of assets in equity capital or convertible bonds that can be turned into equity when needed to absorb losses.   If stock and convertible bond holders are on the hook for a really big chunk of losses, they will force management to be much more careful.  Also, mega bank management compensation above that of the president of the United States and all of the outside directors' compensation should be reclaimable back 3-5 years in the event that a bailout is needed for any mega bank that's too big to fail.  Requirements like this will reduce the number of mega banks, or at least make sure their managements and stock and convertible bond holders have a LOT of skin in the game.  Bottom line is make moral hazard a lot more painful for all involved.

Original Article on the Mega Banks:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/04/30/too-many-too-big-to-fail-banks/

Unexamined Academic Assumptions

Thomas Sowell had a great article this week on unexamined academic assumptions.  It really spoke to me.  The reason I have a BS in Math and MS in Statistics is because I wouldn't buy into the liberal mindset in Economics class.  I avoided soft subjects, like History, because I would not use Hegel's Dialectic to analyze historical events.  Also, when I was in college during the Viet Nam War, professors taught war was by definition futile.  I thought the professors were nuts to think that "war never solved anything."  It sure solved Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, not to mention Rome's Carthage problems.  I read history for fun now, but knowing too much makes me uncomfortable listening to people who believe the government is more efficient than private enterprise in running things like health care.  If I object that historically governments are usually very bad at running almost everything, the resulting argument provides a lot more heat than light.  Leftism in higher education is at least partially the result of draft deferments granted to the baby boomers who stayed in college to avoid Viet Nam.  I find the liberals who look down on my education generally have never had any of their assumptions questioned.  They think everybody knows liberals are the good guys, and folks like me are ignorant rednecks.  This attitude does not make for informed dialogue.  So I think Dr. Sowell's article matches my general experience with average "liberally" educated citizens. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347003/academias-unexamined-assumptions

Liberals Want Return to Middle Ages

Liberalism wants to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, the Middle Ages.  Of course, as the wisest people around, liberals get to be the lords of the manor and the rest of us get to be serfs.  We need to serve the liberal leviathan state with ever increasing taxes.  Regulation serves as the forced labor serfs owe their betters, forcing uncompensated expense on serfs to benefit the liberal state.  And the liberal aristocracy has to look out for their poor serfs, who wouldn't know how to take care of themselves without guidance from their lords and masters.  The liberals and their allies in the guilds, aka unions, will decide what prices are fair.  The serfs can use pre-industrial energy technology in order to keep the environment clean for their liberal overlords.   

Taking the analogy further, environmental regulation is a modern version of the medieval forest laws of England. Serfs were not allowed to hunt game or take wood in the forest or clear the land to cultivate it or graze domestic animals in it. The forest was reserved strictly for the king and the nobles he allowed to use it. It was considered part of the Norman Yoke imposed on the people after 1066. Penalties for forest law violations were severe. For example, poachers either had their hands cut off or were blinded. Today, liberals just confiscate your land or imprison you for environmental violations.

Read the book.  It's called the "Road to Serfdom," by F. A. Hayek.

Recent Article on this topic:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360583/medieval-liberals-victor-davis-hanson

Information on Royal Forrest Laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_forest

Liberals Buy Votes, Not Defense

Liberals almost always under fund all aspects of national defense.  They also do everything possible to argue that defense spending is wasted.  The reason for this is that liberals always need more money to fund their "investment" in domestic spending.  They don't want defense spending to crowd out domestic spending.  The efficacy of the domestic spending is not an issue for them.   Liberals need ever larger domestic spending simply because that's how they buy their votes.