December 6th, 2013
It’s Friday, and I’m feeling to lazy to put up a real LinkSwarm, so here’s the Mini-Me version:
“Anger among Democrats over the rollout of ObamaCare is deep.” It’s nothing compared to the anger among voters…
An example of why Rick Santorum wasn’t the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012, and won’t be in 2016.
Once again, a super-secret military plane started under Republicans is revealed by a Democratic Administration.
Austin Attorney Marc Rosenthal, who helped bankroll the Williamson County Democratic Party, including gave $58,000 in donations to (now ex-) state rep Diana Maldonado, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for “racketeering, conspiracy, bribery, extortion, tampering, and mail fraud.”
Charles Barkley rides the New York City subway: “If they never see me again, tell my family I love them.”
You know that whole “I’ll never have to buy music ever again” thing? Yeah, not so much.
Texans fire head coach Gary Kubiak. It was time. Thy also fired Special Teams coach Joe Marciano, which was many, many years overdue…
Man survives two days in air pocket in overturned ship:
Tags: Austin, Charles Barkley, Democrats, Diana Maldonado, Marc Rosenthal, Military, New York City, Rick Santorum, RQ-180, Texas, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Military, ObamaCare | No Comments »
December 5th, 2013
Given conservatism’s understanding of flawed, immutable human nature, our outlook can tend toward the cynical. (Or, as we like to call it, the realistic.) But every now and then, event turn out somewhat better than we expected. The most peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union was one example, and the reign of the post-Apartheid government of Nelson Mandela, who died today at age 95, was another.
Conservatives were deeply skeptical of Mandela’s African National Congress due to its close ties to the South African Communist Party at a time when brutal communist regimes were making life hell for the citizens of Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique. SACP was fond of “necklacing” political enemies by placing tires filled with gasoline around their necks and setting them on fire. Conservatives wanted to end Apartheid, but didn’t think sanction or Mandela were the right way to do it.
Nelson defied our expectations by presiding over a mostly peaceful, mostly legitimate and mostly democratic (and, ineed, far more of any than the average state in Sub-Saharan Africa). South Africa did not descend into civil war like Mozambique, or become an economic basket case like Zimbabwe. For that all the world owes Mandela thanks.
Tags: Communism, Foreign Policy, Nelson Mandela, South Africa
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
December 4th, 2013
Even though this happened in my neck of the woods, I missed this call from a welfare recipient bragging about how much money she got from the government, and have no intention of working:
This is what the welfare state has wrought on the American underclass.
This is what the Democratic Party stands for.
Tags: fraud, welfare, Welfare State
Posted in Austin, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
December 3rd, 2013
Some news from before Thanksgiving weekend, some after. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Detroit is eligible for chapter 9 bankruptcy. “Judge Steven Rhodes turned down objections from unions, pension funds and retirees, which, like other creditors, could lose under any plan to solve $18 billion in long-term liabilities.”
Missed this earlier: The ObamaCare cancellation-to-enrollment ratio is 50-to-1.
Selling ObamaCare door-to-door is not exactly going swimmingly.
Colorado’s ObamaCare enrollment numbers are worse than the worst case scenario. Then again, Democratic losses in 2010 (and 2014) are probably worse than the worst-case scenario as well.
How the MSM is trying to cover for Obama’s ObamaCare lies and their own complicity in them.
How’s that “jobless recovery” coming along? “The number of people on payrolls in the U.S. is still 1.5 million below the number in 2008, even after a 5 year-old rally that has boosted the value of stocks by $14 trillion. A 167% advance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index during the past 57 months has been driven by reduced costs and record-low borrowing costs boosting corporate profit, analysts say. Employee compensation relative to net corporate profit is at its lowest level since 1966.” To put it in lefty terms: Obama is obviously God’s gift to the 1%.
Paul Krugman, idiot. Though to be fair, long-term the Euro probably is doomed…
Ultra-liberal DailyKos accuses ultra-liberal cartoonist Ted Rall of being a racist. Rall is a nasty piece of work, and no liberal deserves a free “get out of charges of racism simply for being a liberal free” card, but he happens to be right in this respect. This has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with liberals circling the wagons to protect Obama in the wake of ObamaCare’s massive failure.
Non-poor preppy liberal campaign consultant whose mother bought her a house garners over $62,000 of donations by claiming to be poor.
The problem with linking to this Charles Davis article on liberal media exploiting intern labor is how the entire piece reeks of Special Snowflake Syndrome. It would be a far more compelling story if Davis didn’t come across as such a self-righteous, self-important douche-bag.
“It always cracks me up when I hear lefties like Matthews bemoaning “incivility”, as if their side didn’t invent it, didn’t expand it, and didn’t propagate it at every opportunity. They think all the disgustingly vile rhetoric they’ve hurled continuously at every conservative starting with Goldwater and continuing on through Nixon, then Reagan, Gingrich, Bush, Palin, etc. has been flushed down the memory hole. I think what they mean by “incivility” is really “conservatives talking back”.
A question for my readers: Can anyone tell me whether HR992 is good or bad for the taxpayer? On the surface it looks like more underwriting of crony capitalism, but the technicalities lie outside my sphere of expertise.
Tags: Democrats, Detroit, Media, ObamaCare, Ted Rall
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, ObamaCare | No Comments »
December 2nd, 2013
Amidst Thanksgiving weekend festivities (which for me included visiting with family, eating copious amounts of food, shopping for books, and watching the Rockets beat the Nets and Spurs), I kept seeing reports of unrest in Ukraine pop up on my Twitter feed.
Ukraine’s current president, Viktor Yanukovych, is a toady for Putin’s Moscow, and in that role he rejected a trade deal with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia. Ukrainians, tired of centuries of Russian domination, were naturally pissed, and took to the streets to protest. Those protests continued to grow during the weekend, with the attendant clashes with police and volleys of tear gas, and even some members of the ruling coalition quitting in protest. Even John Kerry’s ineffectual State Department was forced to issue one of its toothless, pro-forma protests.
What it boils down to is the latest incarnation of a very old struggle of Ukrainians trying to throw off the yoke of Moscow’s rule. It looked like they had succeeded in the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005, but then Putin’s catspaws managed to slither their way back into power, all part of Russia’s attempt to assert control in its “Near Abroad” (i.e., the other states of the former Soviet Union). Then there’s that little issue of the Soviet Union killing between 4 million and 14 million people in the Holodomor.
Will Democracy succeed? Never underestimate the willingness of authoritarians (or totalitarians) to murder their own people when push comes to shove. But Yanukovych can only do so much. There’s no love lost between Ukraine’s armed forces and their Russian counterparts, so I sincerely doubt they would back Yanukovych in an actual revolution or civil war.
Would Russia intervene militarily in Ukraine? I never put anything past Vladamir Putin (remember, he’s almost certainly the guy who ordered the poisoning of Yanukovych’s rival Viktor Yushchenko with dioxin), but invading the Ukraine would probably be a bridge too far for even the squishy EU.
Recent reports have troops moving in toward the protestors.
Russia Today has regular updates on the situation. (Note that’s Russia Today, not Ukraine Today, and adjust for bias accordingly.)
Tags: Communism, Foreign Policy, Holodomor, John Kerry, Orange Revolution, Russia, Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, Viktor Yushchenko, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
November 28th, 2013
Over on my other blog, I have a warning from William Shatner not to set yourself on fire frying a turkey.
Now, thanks to Dwight, we have a more local warning from The Round Rock Fire Department. Take it away, boys!
The turkey frying warning video is indeed a rich genre…
Tags: PSA, video, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Uncategorized, video | No Comments »
November 28th, 2013
Expect slow blogging the rest of the week while I’m giving thanks by stuffing my face, so here’s Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Thanksgiving address.
“It’s people, not government, who create wealth and provide growth.”
Quite a contrast with current occupant of the White House…
Tags: Ronald Reagan, Thanksgiving, video
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November 27th, 2013
I’m guessing a lot of people will be traveling or furiously cleaning their house today, so here’s a small pre-Thanksgiving LinkSwarm for the distracted:
Dear America: In case you didn’t notice in the ObamaCare meltdown, the economy is still screwed.
Current estimate for people losing their employer health insurance thanks to ObamaCare: 80 million.
Abbott Labs CEO: ObamaCare provides “clear incentives for companies to drop their health care plans and move people onto the exchanges.”
Noted right-wing white supremacists Al Sharpton and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter say the Knockout Game is real. (Hat tip Jammie Wearing Fool.
Israel is not the only country upset over Obama and Kerry’s Iranian cave-in; the Saudis are pissed, too.
The pro-Amnesty lobby thinks they can punish politicians for agreeing with the will of American voters. Fuzzy, feel-good “immigration reform” polls well right up until voters realize what they’ll actually get is illegal alien amnesty.
Leander ISD is bankrupting its children.
Tags: Border Controls, Crime, Foreign Policy, Illegal Aliens, Iran, Jihad, ObamaCare, Saudi Arabia
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Foreign Policy, Jihad, ObamaCare | No Comments »
November 26th, 2013
The Venezuelan Parliament just passed an “enabling law” to give Socialist President Nicolas Maduro dictatorial powers.
Gee, you know what other Socialist President had his country pass an “Enabling Law” to give him dictatorial powers?
Go ahead.
Guess.
Maduro’s opponents? Not happy.
Earlier this month, Maduro sent the army to seize electronics store and force them to sell goods below cost, i.e. at the laughable “official exchange rate” of 6.3 bolivars per dollar rather than the real black market rate, which is some eight times higher. (They even tried to get Twitter to block unofficial exchange rates.) And Maduro is looking to loot more stores ahead of the December 8 elections. Given that Hugo Chavez has been hollowing out the country since 1999, I’m not even sure it’s possible for the opposition to win a large enough victory to escape the margin of voter fraud anymore.
Inflation is running at 54%. Oil prices are at 16 month lows, and the country’s oil production has been declining for a while. That, and the crazy Socialist looting, have sent Venezuela bond prices into a tailspin and sent their interest rates to an all-time high. Crime is also high, with Caracas being the murder capital of the world (yes, even worse than Chicago).
Maybe that’s why Goldman Sachs has a scheme to help Venezuela swap gold for dollars.
It’s almost as if Maduro read Atlas Shrugged and saw it as a blueprint rather than a cautionary tale. Imagine Greece, if hyperinflation was just getting started and they didn’t have German taxpayers to bail them out.
You can decree imaginary exchange rates the same way you can decree that π be set to exactly 3, and the reality will ignore and punish your delusion. Watch inflation skyrocket and business collapse as sellers are unable to buy goods and unwilling to sell at a loss, guaranteeing that a far-from rich country is about to get a whole lot poorer.
The only question now is whether Venezuela’s economic collapse will bee Argentina bad, or Weimar Germany bad.
Tags: Crime, Economics, hyperinflation, Nicolas Maduro, oil industry, socialism, Venezuela
Posted in Crime, Economics | No Comments »
November 25th, 2013
This was supposed to go up Friday, but Stuff and Things interfered once again.
Obama’s “deal” with Iran drops sanctions and lets them enrich uranium to their heart’s content. I guess Obama needs the Iran agreement as a disastrous fake achievement to distract from ObamaCare, his last disastrous fake achievement. I haven’t read all the details, so I can’t tell if it’s Madeleine Albright bad, or Neville Chamberlain bad, but it doesn’t appear to address Iran’s continued support of Assad, Hezbollah, or their other terrorist activities. Still to be decided: whether Obama personally plants the knife in Benjamin Netanyahu’s back, or has aide do it. (If Hillary Clinton wanted to put distance between herself and the Obama Administration, now would be a great time to denounce the Iran deal.)
Mother forced into Medicaid. “There was just one option—at the very affordable monthly rate of zero. The exchange had determined that my mother was not eligible to choose to pay for a plan, and so she was slated immediately for Medicaid.”
The real rationale behind ObamaCare was the redistribution of wealth. “The redistribution of wealth has always been a central feature of [ObamaCare].”
“Insurance is complex to buy”? Really, Mr. President? I’m pretty sure Forest Gump could have figured that out in less than 3 years…
The real reason behind Obama’s laughable deal with Iran is to shore up his shrinking liberal base, the only group that still supports him after the ObamaCare debacle.
John Bolton calls the deal “abject surrender”.
End result of the Iran deal? “War has now become a much more likely prospect.”
Given all that, Harry Reid nuking the Senate’s filibuster gets pushed further down the Stack of Perfidy. What it tells us is that Democrats believe they’re going to lose the Senate. “They think it’s very likely that they will lose their Senate majority in 2014. They are essentially writing off the last two years of Obama’s presidency, which means getting as much done as possible right now. They are going to spend the next year packing as many liberal justices and appointees onto the courts and various bureaucracies as they can.”
Democratic Rep mugged in DC. Does this mean she’ll turn Republican? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
16 things people couldn’t believe about America until moving here. (Hat tip: Michael Totten.)
I wonder how John Carter feels about being labeled part of “the House’s own pro-amnesty gang”?
Related: How Amnesty dies: Part 1, Part 2.
Syrian Kurds declare autonomy.
Crystal Mangum, the central accuser in the Duke Lacrosse “rape” case (which wasn’t) has been convicted of murder. Somehow I managed to miss Nancy Grace’s wall-to-wall coverage of her trial…
Tags: amnesty, Benjamin Netanyahu, Border Controls, Crime, Crystal Mangum, filibuster, Harry Reid, Iran, John Bolton, John Carter, Kurds, Michael Totten, Neville Chamberlain, ObamaCare, socialism, Syria
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »