Ramble for 6/13/11

Wesbury, Long Island, NY– I’m here at one of my regular stops. I ran down to Carlisle, PA to pick this load up, and ran it here this morning AT the moment, I’m waiting to get unloaded so I can get out of the city.

• No, gang, the Tea Party is still here.Neil Munro says:
  

  These days, Tea Party activists are focused on state and local issues, such as school choice legislation in Pennsylvania, Kibbe said. They’re not looking to mount another massive D.C. march, such as the 9/12 protest in 2009, in part because the movement has already proved its influence during the 2010 election, he said.

  They’re still adding 500-2000 members a day…  They’ll be concentrating on get out the vote efforts. Assuming that the GOP nominee shares Tea Party Values. And the movement is more than hinting it’ll sit on it’s hands again if the GOP nominates Romney. And, rightly so, says I.

• IS THIS THE END? Walter Russell Mead:
  

  But Fannie Mae represents a special problem for the Democratic Party and Democratic ideas.  It is not just a vitally important institution led by prominent Democratic figures and part of a broader Democratic patronage network; Fannie Mae is one of the original New Deal institutions and the vision it was intended to serve stands at the heart of the concerns of the Democratic Party of the 20th century.The fall of Fannie Mae is bigger than just another politicos run wild scandal.  It stands as one of several signs that our current way of life is reaching its limits and that big changes are on the horizon.  The Fanniegate debacle tells us that the progressive ideal is in the process of jumping the shark.

  I think Mead’s chosen phrase “our current way of life is reaching its limits”, is itself a bit overstated. I think it should be said, rather, that the way of life that the left would have us living, is being shown as unattainable, or at least unsustainable.   Certainly, however, it must be said that Mead is correct that progressivism is once again shown as the failure it always has been. The current situation that we are in, all of it, can be traced directly to, and laid at the feet of, the left.  Its ideas and ideals are precisely what landed us in this situation.  Of that they can no longer be any logical argument, though most of the left has been trying illogical arguments for decades, now.  At some point, the majority of the voters must recognize that as Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.” I dare to suggest to you that day has already arrived, with the rise of the tea party and other anti big government groups.

  Unfortunately, the party in the best position to take advantage of this situation, and to set us on the course we should’ve been on all along, the GOP, itself still does not believe what most Americans do; that either the age of progressivism comes to an end, or America does.

• It’s by intent: I made mention the other day about how I had long since come to the conclusion that Obama and his people were intentionally crushing America’s economy.  Remember, it is Obama himself who said that he wanted America to take on a less prominent role in the world.  What better way to enforce that vision than to make sure we couldn’t afford taking on anything bigger than say, Guatemala , in world events than to make sure we couldn’t afford it?   I also made mention that McPhillips had said something similar.   I spoke to Martin about that over the weekend.  He seems convinced that this is not about making America a socialist country.  He says  Obama simply wants to crash our economy, and therefore our way of life.  (One assumes, though Martin doesn’t say as much that Obama considers this “Social Justice”.)  Frankly I’m not convinced to go quite that far.  If one wanted to eliminate our constitution and our way of life so as to set up a socialist environment, wouldn’t one need to tear down what was already in place, first ?  I begin to think that some public discussion on these points between he and I is in order.  I’ll have a word with them later about it.
• Whatever happened to Freedom?Interesting notes from Paul Hsieh:
  

  In the realm of health care, the Obama administration is forging ahead to implement its “universal health care” plan, despite consistent popular opposition and numerous legal challenges. They claim they must restrict patients’ freedoms by forcing them to purchase insurance on government terms and restrict doctors’ freedoms by herding them into Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in order to guarantee everyone the supposed “security” of guaranteed health care.

  Yet, as we’ve already seen in Massachusetts (which has a health plan similar to the national ObamaCare program), this results in patients having theoretical “coverage” — but less of an ability to get actual medical care.

  Hsieh mentions this matter in some detail a few weeks ago, here.

  As an aside….This Romney Healthcare monster is exactly why I want Romney nowhere near the White House and I tell you, should the GOP be stupid enough to pass him through what laughingly is called a primary, I will, like most of the GOP, sit on my hands and we’ll have 4 more years of Obama.

  I hasten to add that this warning is not limited to Romney… ANYONE NOT A CONSERVATIVE… A REAL CONSERVATIVE, will get the same response from the voters. Are you listening, GOP leadership? Forget the bak room deals, forget the “It’s his turn” BS, forget the attempts to mollify the increasingly non-existant middle, and put forward a real conservative.

  As to Romney’s healthcare monster, the problem, here, is one that Romney tries to dance around , by saying that it is so much better because it is run by the state versus the Federal government. Here is someone who doesn’t understand at his core that the problem is government, period. He is thereby no brand of conservative at all, and does not deserve our support. The fact of the matter is anytime the government is involved, regardless of the level of government, state, Federal, local , it doesn’t matter things get massively screwed up.  Indeed, the only difference that I can see between them is the level of screw-up tends to increase, the more centralized the program is.   THe difference between Romneycare and Obamacare is not enough to fit water through.  But let’s not get too diverted.    Hsieh continues:

  In the related realm of pharmaceuticals, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims it must restrict patients’ freedom to purchase (and manufacturers’ freedom to sell) drugs in order to protect our safety. However, pharmaceutical industry experts fault onerous FDA regulations for contributing to the current dangerous shortage of many injectable drugs by artificially raising the costs of drug creation and production.  Hence, many seriously ill patients are now unable to get the medications they need.

  Even worse, as Mark McCarty of Medical Device Daily recently described, FDA advisors have sought to deny terminally patients access to potentially life-extending treatments on the grounds that “the risk-benefit ratio was not up to par.” Similarly, medical device makers are now finding Europe a more hospitable environment for innovation than the U.S. due to FDA regulations. Rather than protecting Americans, the FDA is endangering them.

  In the realm of transportation security, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is already a national joke for groping grandmothers and babies. Yet when tested with fake bombs and real guns, they’ve failed miserably.
  .

  The conclusion that anytime you involve government you invite corruption, and a less effective (insert function here… healthcare, employment, finances, etc) is completely inescapable. Or as Reagan said, Government isn’t the solution, government is the problem. It is also inescapable that the Democrats think the solution is we haven’t handed enough over the government yet.  Apparently, reality has no bearing on their outlook.  The republicans, meantime are marching is down the same road, all be a more slowly.  Hence, my objection to the centrist John Q Milquetoast McCain types. The only escape from this is a return to constitutional fundamentals.  The democrats and the left certainly aren’t going to give us that.  The republicans have thus far demonstrated themselves incapable of doing it, for fear of alienating too many of the center.  What each fails to understand is that the vast majority are to the right of center, and have become increasingly so once exposed to the disaster that is liberalism these last few years.

  Let me remind the GOP leadership that Reagan won in a landslide over Jimmy Carter when this country was suffering terribly as a result of liberal policies the Carter and the Democrats in Congress put in place.  The resulting unemployment at the time of the election was seven and a quarter percent, or somewhere in that neighborhood.  As it stands right now this nation is suffering with unemployment in the neighborhood of 10%, officially, and in reality far higher than that.  Obama’s going to have to scramble to get UP to Carter’s level,m and given his inability to admit what policies work and what doesn’t, he won’t do it.  When presented with that reality, under Carter, the American voter went for the unabashed unapologetic conservative… Reagan.  Does anybody think that situation is not going to repeat itself? Aside form the GOP leadership, I should add. And let’s remember also that the GOP leadership was not tremendously happy about Ronald Reagan’s candidacy, either.  Even then, there was a disconnect between the GOP leadership and the GOP rank and file.That’s a situation that needs rectifying immediately.  Else, it’s time to start looking for a third party, one that will actually produce conservatives to vote for.

• Palin vs Al Capone’s Vault: It seems that there was an anything there, after all.  All those emails have been gone through, all those correspondence check, cross checked, double checked, and those using these Revelations to attack Kaelin, or at least to attempt to,have come up handed once again. It’s as I said a couple weeks ago; I’m not there Lee convinced that Kaelin is the best we can come up with for GOP candidate.  That said, the woman has been fully vetted, the left and the GOP establishment have gotten about as vulgar as they possibly can get in the process of trying to knock pale and out of the race.  It hasn’t worked.  It won’t work.  Even the Democrats in those rare honest moments, are beginning to admit that the woman can win easily over Obama.  Of course all the sniping that they’ve been doing all this time about her, tells us that.  There really expressing their deepest fear.  I say again it’s all about the power.  They see Palin as a threat to that power.Amusingly, Prof Bainbridge asks, do you have to like Sarah Palin to be a conservative now? And one of his readers answers, correctly, “I don’t think you’re required to like Sarah palin, but you are required to give a reason for disliking her that is more cogent than the simple fact that she’s Sarah Palin.” The fact is, that nobody’s come up with a reason that is so qualified, yet.  They just happened.  I say again she might not be the best candidate we have to offer.  But I am still waiting for a logical reason that she should not get my support.
• Weiner used government property in his exploits. Not that this should shock anyone. I actually had somebody suggest to me the other day that in a post Bubba Clinton world, this kind of offense really isn’t all that bad.  After all, didn’t the blue dress get that stain in the Oval Office?  Well, certainly it’s not all that big a deal for Democrats, but let’s ask Mark Foley about that.  Larry Craig, also.  The outrage of the left was palpable in those circumstances.  Yet they defended Clinton, and they continue to defend this slimeball. There is perhaps no more glaring double standard. And of course, what’s it all about?  Power. Plain and simple, the big attraction is power.  Even for the congressman, himself.  Look at the scramble he’s going through just to hang on to that power.  is there any doubt about what motivates the man?  This is not about what’s good for the people, this is about what’s good for him.