Obama and the Ring of Power

At RealClearPolitics, Obama Misread His Mandate.  Jay Cost makes the case that Obama bungled the political landscape.

I disagree.

What Obama misread was the Power of the Presidency.  It was leftist dogma that the Evil Lord Dubya drew upon the power of the One Ring forged by the hand of the Prince of Darkness itself, the Dick of Cheney, to conjure up Katrina and kill black people in New Orleans.  It is an article of faith among the left that the President Rules the Country.  This is probably natural since the political model of the left is Stalinist Soviet Union, followed right down that path by all the other dictatorial socialist “workers’ paradises” like China, Cuba, and ending up with Venezuela and the like.  When the liberal/leftists accused Bush of causing Global Warming, they meant it.  Not because of policies, but because the Presidency Runs Everything.

What Obama thought he was getting was not a political mandate from the People.  He thought he was going to inherit the Ring of Power.  When he said “I won.” his minions were still scurrying through the cupboards and cellars searching for the Ring.  What he was really claiming was the Power to control weather and everything else on Earth that the left attributed to Bush.  But it turns out that the power of the presidency is purely a function the character and political and executive skills of the current officeholder.  Three areas where Obama has shown to be seriously lacking.

Does anyone believe Barry actually wrote this?

In the New York Times, Why We Need Health Care Reform, by…wait for it…Barack Obama.

I’m highly tempted to cry foul on the New York Times.  I won’t because, a) I’m a pitiful little blogger with my following of ones, and b) the New York Fishwrap is beyond shame.  Why waste my breath.

But really, presidents don’t write their own speeches.  Not since about Lincoln’s time anyway.  And especially the Teleprompter Reader of the United States, who sometimes has trouble even reading what others have written.  This is the legislator who in nine years in offices never wrote any legislation of note.  But he did spend two years as a legislator running for president reading teleprompts written by others.  If this editorial was ghost written by a staffer, it is disingenuous to put Barry’s name on it.  The implication for most people, and surely the goal of the New York Times in its role as White House propaganda rag, is that the president of the United States took time out of his busy schedule getting his face smeared all over the Obama channel news networks yet again to sit down in front of his PC (or would it be a MAC?  He’s a Blackberry guy, not an iPhone guy after all) and hammer out a few paragraphs on a topic about which he has pretty much demonstrated that he knows nothing.

Call me fishy, but I’m not buying it.

Disbar Congress?

Imagine if you will, a lawyer representing a client in a contract negotiation. It is the job of the lawyer to know what is in the contract and to advise the client if the contents are in the client’s best interest or not.  Now imagine that the lawyer doesn’t take the time to read the contract but goes ahead and advises the client to sign anyway.  Later the client founds out that they effectively signed their life away.  That the contract was in fact full of clauses completely to the detriment of the client.  Imagine also that this was the modus operandi of this particular lawyer.  The lawyer would be guilty of malfeasance and subject to disbarment for failing to properly represent the clients.

Some 80% or more of Congress is lawyers.  They are supposed to be in Washington, DC representing their home districts similar to how a lawyer represents a client.  When they approve a bill, they are in effect binding their client, their district, to a contract.  Now figure that they are habitually signing these legal contracts on behalf of their clients not only without reading them, but before they are even written.  The level of irresponsibility, the failure to properly represent their clients, surely meets the disbarment criteria of the legal community they belong to.

Somebody call the ABA.

Juan and Evita Obama

The Perons not only destroyed Argentina during their reign.  Their followers to this day have guaranteed that Argentina never becomes a major power again.

Whale Wars

We were desperate last night to find something to pass the evening during the Friday night TV desert.  We stumbled on a series called “Whale Wars” the runs on the Animal Planet channel.  This is the continuing saga of the Sea Shepherds in the  motor vessel “Steve Irwin” attempting to stop whaling on the high seas.  A film crew aboard the “Steve Irwin” records the action.

Ecoterrorists.  Plain and simple.  They try to disrupt the whaling operations by ‘distracting or disabling’ the whalers by ‘peaceful means’.

Folks, if I’m sailing the high seas, and vessel comes alongside throwing stink bombs and other chemical weapons to make my vessel unlivable, or try to foul my screws with a rope to leave me disable at sea, or best of all, attempt to board…it’s war.  Those are overt acts of piracy and the use of up to and including nuclear weapons in self defense are authorized.

The Sea Shepperds are not a law enforcement agency.  Law enforcement agencies have to comply with the law as well as enforce it.  If the US Coast Guard wants to board or detain a non-US flag vessel on the high seas, they have to get the permission of the flag country first because that vessel is under that country’s jurisdiction.  Coast Guard → State Deptartment → diplomatic channels → home port country → diplomatic channels → State Department → Coast Guard → boarding.  The ecoterrorists carry no national flag because of course, they are above such pettiness.  Their own flag is a pirate flag.

The whalers had developed defenses against the ecoterrorists.  The mother ship hung nets along the side to repel boarders, carried powerful water cannons that proved very effective against the ecoterrorists.  And finally they carried LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) acoustic cannons.  These did prove effective at making the ecoterrorist’s high speed RHIBs (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat) and small helicopter keep their distance.  Good advertising for the LRAD.  They had been used with some success against other kinds of pirates around Somalia.

Of course the ecoterrorists have absolute moral authority to attack vessels at sea.  The Sea Shepherds disapprove of whaling and abslolutely everything in the universe has to do what they say.  Typical extremist.  And the most amazing part was when the ecoterrorists get all upset because the whalers actually defended themselves.  The would talk to the camera about how the whalers were ‘attacking’ them.  The ecoterrorists are there to attack the whalers.  If the ecoterrorists have a problem with the whalers countering their offensive operations, they should go home.  Don’t whine on TV about those meanies bother us when you’re the aggressor.  The “Steve Irwin” is not a big ship.  It must be overflowing with the Kool-Aid these folks wallow in.

I don’t have big issues with whaling.  It’s a form of fishing for REALLY big fish (yeah, yeah, yeah they’re mammals.  So are Bambis and they taste great.)  Hunting them or any other species to extinction is bad. (whales are multiple species under the order Cetatea)  The international agreements that stopped most whaling years ago have brought back many of the species from the brink.  But treaties that banned the bulk of whaling left exceptions.  And the exceptions are important.  You can’t claim that whales have to be protected as if they were human, given human rights and voter cards and register them for social security…but then say it’s OK for the Inuits and other traditional whaling societies to kill them.  That means they are recognized internationally as the Big Deer of the Sea.  The worst the whalers can be charged with in that environment is poaching.  There are legal ways to deal with poaching, if that’s what they’re doing.

I do have big issues with piracy and ecoterrorism.  I have to commend the whalers for their restraint.  I’m not so sure I would be as passive  under attack by pirates and ecoterrorists knowing I had a b-i-i-i-i-g explosive harpoon in a cannon on the bow.

New toy

I inherited a laptop from my daughter.  It was originally my son’s, he moved to a MacBook and my daughter used it for her first year away in college.  Now she’s upgraded and I get to use it.  I have waited years to have a laptop to use in the living room.  Now I have to perfect my blogging style while lounging in the recliner. (yeah, my blogging style while sitting at a desk is already perfect <snark>)

Sorry…I’m amused (updated)

Obama meet your nemesis.  Hah!

Yeah, yeah, “You conservatives complained when people made cartoons of McBushychimphitler.  Now you’re doing the same thing!  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

Well actually, I didn’t.  I’m not opposed to flag burning…as long as it’s the burner’s flag.  Burn somebody else’s flag and it’s vandalism.  You buy a flag you can do what you want with it.

I’ve seen some of the cartoons made about Abraham Lincoln.  Abe as an ape.  Abe eating dinner if a field of impaled corpses.  That’s just the price of being the Big Guy.  Get over it and take it like a man.  Better yet.  Take it like George W. Bush did for over eight years.

Update:  Dang people…don’t ya’ get it?  It was explained in agonizing detail in the movie.  The Joker was Chaos.  Change without concern for the consequences.  He just wanted to watch the world burn.  The reality of Hope and Change is that you Hope the Change is for the better.  Demolition is as much change as construction and a whole lot easier.

How to create a welfare state – II

Offer people something very tangible for “Nothing”.  In the ’70s it was government cheese.  In the ’00s it’s car rebates.  Make people really happy to take a “freebie” from the government.  Get them used to it.

People ask the price of a soul.  It’s not even a car, just a downpayment on one.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I have a four clunker family.  In fact, we are in the process of trading in two clunkers for two newer clunkers.  No way we can handle new car payments while college loans are building up.  This makes me an absolute moral superior to the suckers and sell outs enabling the communization of America!  If they want my soul, it’s going to cost them at least the forgiveness of college loans.  The parent loans anyway.

ObamaCareLess

I just wanted to say that.

He doesn’t give a hoot about anybody’s health care.  He wants the power this will give him.  You didn’t vote Democrat?  No pain medications.  Not union?  No dental care.

How to create a welfare state

(As I commented on at Don Suber’s place)

Cash for Clunkers.

People waited for CFC to kick in to buy, so car sales were depressed in the weeks leading up to it. Other people are accelerating car buying plans to take advantage of it while the window of opportunity is open. When CFC runs out (sometime in August?) car sales will plummet again. Then the government will have to create another car sales incentive program to bolster sales again…and again…and again…and again.

This is how welfare states are created. In a year a two nobody will buy a car unless the government is involved.  Two advantages for the government.  1) The get to play Robin Hood with other people’s money (like yours) with a very tangible ‘bringing home the bacon’.  2) It gives the government almost unlimited control over the otherwise private transaction.  CFC, “you give us this old car and we’ll give you X dollars” is wrapped up in hundreds of pages of regulations.  It boggles the mind that the bureaucrats in Washington can generate that many rules in such a short time, but hey…they had to be good at something.  Each CFC transaction creates something like 20 pages of documentation.  And of course, if the paperwork isn’t filled out correctly, the government can deny payment leaving the evil capitalist dealer in the lurch and putting even more dealers out of business.  This the other way welfare states create “clients”.