Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere…The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble
[1]We’re in November already. The kids around here spent evening before last one drink from door to door demanding candy or what have you. After spending piles of their parents cash on a costume to wear for the occasion, the vast majority of them ended up wearing their brand new water coats over said costumes, because of the cold and wind. It’ll struggle to get out of the 40’s around here all week. Grey, bleary, and yecccchhhhh. Welcome to western New York. I still wonder why I stay here, between the weather and the government here, and the locals, too.
The world of the political is no less ironic or frightening, as I look around. Let’s get to some of the better stuff.
- STEYN QUIPS: A couple quips from the always impressive Mark Steyn [2]:
Valerie Jarrett announced the other day that “we’re going to speak truth to power.”
Who’s Valerie Jarrett? She’s “Senior Adviser” to the president of the United States – i.e., the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth. You would think the most powerful man in the most powerful nation would find a hard job finding anyone on the planet to “speak truth to power” to.
Would anyone care to explain to me how this is any different than our current administration?
…
[3]Mark Steyn
The Senior Adviser seems to have forgotten that she is the power. Admittedly, this is a recurring lapse on the part of the administration. There was Barack Obama only the other day, blaming everything on the president – no, no, silly, not him, the other fellow, the Designated Fall Guy who stepped down as head of state in January to accept the new constitutional position of Blame Czar.
(Snicker) You know, though, this is exactly the kind of snark we’d be seeing from the left, at ANY Republican president, particularly one as big a demonstrable disaster as Obama has been thus far. As it is, we see stuff coming from them such as in the next point.
- THE LEFT COMES UNGLUED: The subject of course is the race over in NY23…. which is by some reports [4]firmly in the hands of Conservative “upstart” Doug Hoffman. When we see leftists invoking Stalin [5], you know they’re losing it. Ed Driscoll, noting the amount of foam that is forming around Frank Rich’s mouth, suggests a bit of irony, here. [6]
[7]Ed Driscoll
But a paradox emerges: does Rich consider “Stalinist” a good or a bad thing? From Duranty copping a Pulitzer [8] by shilling for Uncle Joe himself, to Pinch Sulzberger backing the NVA because “It’s the other guy’s country” [9] to, just last month, Thomas Friedman pining for Communist China [10], it’s certainly hard to tell.(And of course, while Scozzafava’s views were certainly to the left [11] of mainstream Republicanism, it seems a bit unfair for Rich to call her a Stalinist…)
(As an aside, this is a point that Ed expands on today [12]. ) Frank Rich apparently failed to note the endorsements from ACORN and the SEIU and the Daily Kos for Scozzafava. Yep. Real conservative, this Scozzafava woman. Yet, the left is sparing nothing, it seems in their attempt to paint her as a conservative. As to the reaction of the usual suspects, Michelle Malkin laughs quietly and says: [13]
[14]Michelle Malkin
Political groups other than MoveOn spending money to sway the electorate? Why, it’s Stalinism.
And see, there’s the point; I have my doubts Frank Rich or anyone else inside that crumbling leftist institution called the New York Times would have any problems at all with MOVEON, or ACORN, or or any other leftist org spending money on a political race. Their own writings over the last 100 years tend to bear this out to the point of achievement of axiomatic status.
In the end, what we have is a bunch of leftist blowing steam because the attempt to take over the Republican party and direct it’s agenda, the way it did with John McCain, has been exposed, and lost, and they rightly see this as a harbinger of things to come.
Now consider, people… this is just one race, and they’re already in spastics, calling anyone to their right “extreme” [15] and “Stalinist” [5]and a “Whacky, paranoid cult”… essentially trying to paint most of America as the next incarnation of Hitler, and McViegh. It’s called desperation, folks, and the left is reeking of it today. Can you imagine the steam coming out of their ears in another year, much less three years from now?
- LEADESHIP? And what of the GOP “leadership”? The center of the Republican party has been tossing shots acorss the bow of the GOP “leadership for a generation. And yes, this supposedly there’s of the party of been leading the republicans and two were relevance for some time now, specifically by ignoring the values of the base. That they are now claiming they were blindsided by this revolt of the rank and file reinforces my confidence in their ability to lead the Republican party not at all. the republican party leadership at best start understanding that the party needs to start sounding like Republicans, and not like Democrat Lite.. . Else the party will continue to slide into irrelevance. I’ve said it before, I will say it again; I have been watching political events for 40 years and longer, and I am here to tell you that the success of a Republican candidate is directly tide to how conservative they are perceived as. You would think John McCain would’ve been a wakeup call. Apparently, these bozos need a few more attitude adjustments with the large it wouldn’t plank device, such as what NY 23 is providing.
- SCOZZAFAVA’S LACK OF INTEGRITY: Oh, and as for Scozzafava herself? Note please, that she’s been working behind the scenes for the Democrat [16] long before officially throwing her support behind him yesterday [17]. So much for being a ‘lifelong Republican”, as if that means somehting when your positions are so disconnected from the maintrseam of the party you claim membership in. So much for Gingrich and his call for “Party Unity” We see now that “party Unity only flows one way… to the left. There’s a lesson Gingrich has yet to really learn, despite his having retracted support from Scozzafava and going with Doug Hoffman. Bipartisanship isn’t the answer when it beocmes a code-word for ‘leftist’. As for her future, let me just say this; Short of changing parties, Scozzafava’s political career is over. More here. [18]
- OOPS: I knew a girl once, who got pregnant. The doctors told her it was going to be a 6lb 9oz girl. It came out a 9lb 6oz boy, and she just a little bit of a thing. So trust me when I tell you I was amused to learn that the predictions for a record hurricane season, all because of ‘Global Warming”, turned out to be the quietest hurricane season in the last 30 years. [19]Let’s just say my trust in the ability to predict things like this, of those who supposedly know so much more than we, is not strong.
- NOW, SUDDENLY, LEAKS AREA A SERIOUS SECURITY PROBLEM: John Hinderaker at Powerline: [20]
[21]John Hinderaker
Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday invoked the state secrets privilege in connection with a case titled Shubert, et al. v. Barack Obama, et al.. The Shubert case is pending in federal district court in San Francisco. Assuming the court agrees with the Obama administration’s position, the case will be dismissed on the ground that it cannot proceed without a danger that vitally important national security secrets will be revealed.Many commentators have noted that this is one more instance where the Obama administration, now that it is in possession of the facts and charged with responsibility for the nation’s security, has acted in full concert with much-reviled policies of the Bush administration.
No kidding? Looks like another case of “See, I told you so. ” [22]
- NO V-SHAPED RECOVERY: Billy Beck over the weekend: [23]
[24]Billy Beck
Someone dig up data and run the numbers:
Didn’t catch his name, but I just heard an economist on TEEVEE point out that in order to get back to 6% unemployment, this economy needs to grow at a rate of 5% for the next four years.
If that’s the case, it’s just another indicator of how bad things can get, because I just don’t see that under a more socialist government than ever before in American history.
Well, fine. Here you are: [25]
The bulls say we’ll have a sharp recovery this time because the rate of jobs recovery matches the rate of decline: Panicked employers [26] cut too many jobs and now they’ll have to hire them back. Anything is possible, but this bullish argument does not explain how the job market will rapidly absorb the huge amount of slack that is not reflected in the unemployment rate. It also does not explain how companies will rapidly increase their payrolls when they’re selling to consumers that are hunkering down and trying to rebuild savings.
Specifically:
- A record-low work [26]-week suggests that employers have a lot of room to ramp production without hiring new employees [26] (or old ones back). David Rosenberg estimates that just increasing the work-week back to normal levels will be the same as creating 3 million jobs.
- Consumers still have debt coming out of their ears (consumers are customers of most of the companies that need to start hiring)
- Consumers’ wealth has been clobbered, so they need to start saving instead of spending again (ditto)
- Approximately 4 million jobs in finance, construction, and real-estate are gone for good (or at least a while)
- Getting the unemployment rate back to 5% in 5 years would require average monthly job creation of 250,000. The average for the major boom of the 1990s was 150,000. The average for the past 30 years has been about 50,000.
- The number of job openings to unemployed job-seekers has now hit a record high of 1-to-6. So it will be a long time before we get back to normal on this ratio, let alone create a job-seekers’ market.
One easily gets the impression that are the time any kind of sizable recovery happens the Obama presidency will be a distant bad memory, even assuming the implausible happening of the rate of recovery doubling under the government-driven ‘solutions’ of the Democrats.
- BROKEN EGGS: I noted a pertinent question from Bruce McQuain [27]yesterday. It doesn’t edit down well, so I’ll ask you to go and read it. [27] Now, within that context, and while looking up something else, (by way of Ed) [12] I ran across this quote from the writer known as Theodore Dalrymple:
My little collection has led me to the conclusion that the Soviet Union was valued by contemporary intellectuals not for the omelette, but for the broken eggs. They thought that if nothing great could be built without sacrifice, then so great a sacrifice must be building something great. The Soviets had the courage of their abstractions, which are often so much more important to intellectuals than living, breathing human beings.
So now, the question becomes, how what we’re seeing out of Washington these days is any different than what Dalrymple describes. I don’t see as you can fit water between them, myself. Thing is I suppose there’s a lot more Americans thinking along the same lines than is good for the Democrats and their election chances in the next few cycles. A rebellion is already taking shape.
- BITSBLOG BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY: Seen on a lifted4*4: My other car is underneath this one.