Latham, NY– I’m outside Albany, getting a load for Watertown, NY.
[1]Your intrepid author and his faithful steed
This week has been a series of hops that saw me running to within about 10 miles of the DC monument district. A little over an hour after I left the area, I was parked at the PA-MD border along I-83 touching up my logs and grabbing a bite, when I noticed my trailer was shaking. My first reaction was that the wind was up, but then I noticed that the trees weren’t moving. So it was that I had witnessed my very first earthquake after some 53 years of avoiding such. My initial reaction to that news was that Obama had actually told the truth about something… such would certainly be an earthshaking event. But no, things in DC had not changed quite so drastically as all that.
It turns out, that there’s a new geological feature, called the “W fault line.” Work on that one.
I had planned to post a lot of this yesterday, but for a few hours after the shaker, cell phone service and internet service too, as I gather it, were spotty at best. I couldn’t get a connection and neither coould anyone else, for that matter. Verizon seemes to have faired better than AT&T, Spint and a few others, though I suppose that was a matter of luck more than anything else.
Now, the quake yesterday was the third this week, here in the states. First was in New Mexico. Second in Colorado. Then, Virginia. Paul Krugman will likely argue in tomorrows column that the earthquakes as a whole, were not big enough. Did you see where he’s saying natural disasters are an economic aid? Of course his reasoning is that they force more spending of tax money. I’ll bet he wonders why so few take him seriously, anymore. There’s a guy needs to put down the crack pipe, and step away.
- Gotta Love Klavan:
Question: What’s the difference between a Federal Jobs Creation Program and Kim Kardashian’s wedding?Answer: Kim Kardashian’s wedding creates jobs.
And you know, Andrew makes a point I was trying to make in another conversation last night:
It was at this point someone at the party said scornfully, “That wedding cost ten million dollars! That’s obscene in these hard times with so many people suffering!”
Is it obscene? Really? Unless Kim Kardashian is famous for robbing banks, I don’t see why. Assuming she made her money honestly, then every dollar she has was given to her freely by a public who thought she was worth it. She, in turn, freely decided it would be worth it to her to spend that freely given money on her wedding. And because there was no force in operation other than free human desire — the public’s desire to see Kim Kardashian do whatever it is she does for a living and Kim Kardashian’s desire to get married in high style — every single dime spent on that wedding helped create a job — if by a job, we mean a task someone does because someone else wants or needs it done.Consider it. No money was taken at gunpoint during the making of this wedding. No power was exerted over others. No jumped-up prince of a middle man decided what should or shouldn’t be eaten or drunk or spent or by whom. No useless government department was formed, taking capital out of the economy. No time was wasted by officious bureaucrats who don’t have any reason to do their job efficiently or well. Not at all. Kim, God bless her, wanted — I don’t know what — flowers, let’s say, by the thousands, and so Flora the Florist set to work providing them in return for her daily bread.
Exactly so. And that is exactly the part the left will never understand. Well, that’s not quite true…. there are some of them who do, such as Obama, but those also recognize that without the emotional tug of “oh, the poor people”, there is no reason for anyone to place them in positions of power. This is class warfare, plain and simple. This is exactly the kind of thing I was speaking to yesterday, talking about Mead’s article. What is the “green jobs” thing but an emotional tug at the heartstrings of the left? That it’s not based on fact, as Mead points out, is beside the point; The emotional tug is strong enough among the base of the left to get Obama elected as POTUS. Thing is, as with “green jobs”, and ofr that mater everything else to do with liberals, reality eventually catches up.
You can rebel all you like at the amount of money being spent on this wedding, and invoke the cause of the poor in your argument. But the bottom line, here is that Kardashian’s wedding, and other supposed excesses of the rich are the things jobs are made of. When we make enemies of the so-called rich, is it really so shocking that we end up with the Obamanomics … which is to say, the failing economy… of today? It happened under Carter, it’s happening now. It also started happening under Clinton, and but for the huge momentum the economy had built up by way of Reagan/Bush,would have been more widely recognized. (Hint: When W came into office, the economy had been on the skids for nearly a year, in spite of the Clinton WH trying to hide it with cooked books..)
- W’s Third Term: Both David and myself quoted Walter Russel Mead recently. I’m going to do so again today. [2]
Neither President Obama’s critics nor his defenders really want to look at this situation straight on. His critics would have to acknowledge that far from capitulating to our enemies and giving away the store, President Obama has in some respects improved America’s regional position. But his defenders must also squirm; in general, President Obama succeeds where he adopts or modifies the policies of the Bush administration.
Gee, almost like someone’s been reading my Pajamas Media articles, huh? I said, on January the 22nd the year of… indeed within days of… Obama’s immaculation:
For all the vitriol that has been coming from the left, and specifically out of President Obama’s mouth during the campaign, there’s a difference in tone coming out of the Obama camp over the last several weeks. There has been an abandonment of the hot rhetoric of the leftist in favor of a liberal forced to face the reality of the world around him (i.e., adopting existing White House policy). The change in tone is recognition that the rhetoric that the American public was offered during the election was simply not based on reality.
As President Obama and his people are briefed on what has been happening in the world these last eight years, the insider’s view has given them a completely new perspective on what to do about the situation, resulting in completely different actions as compared to the ones they were telling everyone they would take once they were given the power.
Some five months later, I said, in part:
Bush’s vindication is apparent and remarkable — see President Obama’s quiet reestablishment of the military tribunals he loudly rejected as a candidate — but perhaps the most notable phenomenon of Bush’s rise from the ashes is the political damage Democrats have suffered by sticking to the pre-election platform. The base is claiming betrayal, the dinosaur media — if they bother to recognize the change at all — is giving a confused and muffled response, and the politicians who cannot let go of their Bush-bashing ways are caught in hypocrisy and losing their constituencies.
Now, recall, please, I’ve been saying since the early 90’s that Bush… either one… is no conservative but at best a centrist. So, in short, this should not be read as a cheering section for Bush. But consider how far to the right Obama had to lunge to arrive there. Consider also, Mead’s point; The only thing that Obama has done that has worked is where he’s mimicked Bush who is no conservative yet is far less liberal than Obama. Where Obama has tilted left, he’s failed, every time.
Now, the leftist base, predictably is screaming that the problem is Obama hasn’t been liberal enough, and forceful enough in his socialism. (They dare not call it that, but that’s the truth of the matter.) But you know what? THey see as well as you or I do that the attempt at liberalism has failed once again. The only things Obama’s been able to do successfully, s where he’s been less socialistic. And they see this very well. Evidence? The despondency on the left these days is unquestionably because they see the policies they’ve had wet dreams about for years, are utter failures, policy and political disasters. Which in turn is why the left is getting far nastier of late… as I”ve mentioned a few weeks back. Meanwhile, Obama’s popularity reaches as of today a new low. [3]
- We have Met the Enemy: Did you see the Tea Party is now the enemy? Yep. [4] Well,
[5] look, I’m sure King George felt the same way, huh? - Illegals: The Democrat version of Get Out The Vote… Can anyone show me where any of the GOP front runners have made any effort to address Obama’s quietly giving amnesty to illegals? [6]
- ECONOMISTS: Do it with spending cuts. [7]
The majority of economists surveyed by the National Association
[8] for Business Economics believe that the federal deficit should be reduced only or primarily through spending cuts.So much for the call from some quarters for a ‘balanced’ approach. That kind of ‘balance’ is exactly what got us in trouble in the first place. To wit; Under Obama, our debt is growing at a rate of…. and get this… $2.95MUSD/min. [9]
- Hit the Switch, John: Remember I suggested John Huntsman would switch Parties? Seems someone else thinks so as well. Who? Howard Dean: “Huntsman is a great candidate for president but he is in the wrong party” – http://thedc.com/mPiLRI [10]
- PARTING SHOT: When I start seeing the press… and GOP establishment types… complaining that the Democrats are lean ing too far left, I’ll… perhaps… start taking seriously the charge that the Tea Party is too far to the right.
