The Night of 53 Smiles
Joe Biden’s Creepy Smile Take Two
October 13th, 2012Mark Steyn Lays Waste to the Obama Adminstration’s Libyan Lies
October 13th, 2012Mark Steyn’s comprehensive takedown of all the Obama Administration lies and incompetence in the Benghazi terrorist assault and the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens is so righteous it deserves a link of its own.
“The entire reason that this has become the political topic it is is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.”
Thus, Stephanie Cutter, President Obama’s deputy campaign manager, speaking on CNN about an armed attack on the 9/11 anniversary that left a U.S. consulate a smoking ruin and killed four diplomatic staff, including the first American ambassador to be murdered in a third of a century. To discuss this event is apparently to “politicize” it and to distract from the real issues the American people are concerned about. For example, Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki, speaking on board Air Force One on Thursday: “There’s only one candidate in this race who is going to continue to fight for Big Bird and Elmo, and he is riding on this plane.”
She’s right! The United States is the first nation in history whose democracy has evolved to the point where its leader is provided with a wide-body transatlantic jet in order to campaign on the vital issue of public funding for sock puppets.
Snip.
Obviously, Miss Cutter is right: A healthy mature democracy should spend its quadrennial election on critical issues like the Republican party’s war on puppets rather than attempting to “politicize” the debate by dragging in stuff like foreign policy, national security, the economy, and other obscure peripheral subjects.
Snip.
For most of those four weeks, the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and others have persistently attributed the Benghazi debacle to an obscure YouTube video — even though they knew that the two events had nothing to do with each other by no later than the crack of dawn Eastern time on September 12.
Snip.
Secretary Clinton linked the YouTube video to the murder of her colleagues even as the four caskets lay alongside her at Andrews Air Force Base — even though she had known for days that it had nothing to do with it. It’s weird enough that politicians now give campaign speeches to returning coffins. But to conscript your “friend”’s corpse as a straight man for some third-rate electoral opportunism is surely as shriveled and worthless as “politicization” gets.
Snip.
Liberals are always going on about the evils of “outsourcing” and “offshoring” — selfish vulture capitalists like Mitt shipping jobs to cheap labor overseas just to save a few bucks. How unpatriotic can you get! So now the United States government is outsourcing embassy security to cheap Welshmen who in turn outsource it to cheaper Libyans. Diplomatic facilities are U.S. sovereign territory — no different de jure from Fifth Avenue or Mount Rushmore. So defending them is one of the core responsibilities of the state. But that’s the funny thing about Big Government: The bigger it gets, the more of life it swallows up, the worse it gets at those very few things it’s supposed to be doing. So, on the first anniversary of 9/11 in a post-revolutionary city in which Western diplomats had been steadily targeted over the previous six months, the government of the supposedly most powerful nation on earth entrusted its security to Abdulaziz Majbari, 29, and his pal, who report to some bloke back in Carmarthen, Wales.
Read the whole thing.
Vice Presidential Debate Reaction Roundup
October 12th, 2012Lots of commentators said that Joe Biden did better debating against Paul Ryan than Obama did against Mitt Romney. I found Biden the far more irritating of the two, his his constant grinning and interrupting. He was like some weird, glad-handing political coelecanth that had somehow survived into the 21st century, and didn’t realize how fake his antics look on high def television. (And that’s to say nothing of Biden’s outright lies. No evidence of green pork cronyism? Right. Pull the other one.)
Other reactions:
Joe Biden’s Carter Smile
October 11th, 2012Separated at birth: Jimmy Carter:
and Joe Biden?
Rick Perry Gets a C from the Cato Institute
October 11th, 2012Texas has benefited greatly from having a better economy than the nation as a whole, and Rick Perry made the low-tax, small government model Texas uses the centerpiece of his abortive run for President.
However, the Libertarian Cato Institute seems considerably less impressed with Perry’s job as Governor, as they gave him a C on their Fiscal Policy Report Card. Indeed, his numerical score of 51 is only two points above California’s spendthrift Jerry Brown (!!!) with a D at 49, and lower than the Republican average of 57.
Here’s their knock on Perry:
Governor Perry has a conservative reputation, but he hasn’t cut state taxes substantially or reduced the size of Texas government. Indeed, Perry has presided over steady increases in spending. Between the 2000–2001 biennium when Perry assumed office and the 2012–2013 biennium, state general fund spending rose at an annual average rate of 3.2 percent, and total state spending rose at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent.
His record on taxes is mixed. In 2003 he signed into law a package of tax and fee increases.In 2006 he approved a business tax overhaul that replaced the corporate franchise tax with a modified gross receipts tax called the “Texas Margin Tax.” The new tax hit 180,000 additional businesses and increased state-level taxes by more than $1 billion annually.
The added state revenues were used to reduce local property taxes, but the overall effect of the package has been to centralize government power in the state and reduce beneficial tax competition between local jurisdictions. Nonetheless, Perry has supported increases in small business exemptions for the Margin Tax. And in 2011 he vetoed a bill to tax online purchases. In 2012 he proposed a five-point Texas Budget Compact, which includes transparency in budgeting, a constitutional limit on spending growth, opposition to new taxes, a strong rainy day fund, and the cutting unnecessary government programs.
One reason Perry may not rank better is the report is based on data covering January 2010 to August 2012, so presumably Perry’s work as Governor in the preceding decade isn’t covered (despite it’s prominent mention in the section quoted above). Another is that several higher ranked governors scored well for things like cutting individual income tax rates, while Texas has no state income tax. I also wonder how well they factor in population growth.
While I don’t want to reject Cato’s ranking out of hand, the opaqueness of their rating system (which must necessarily involve a substantial subjective component) makes me very wary of taking it at face value. You would think that Brown would rank much lower, especially with his state’s municipal bankruptcies, tax hikes and the train to nowhere. Though I do think Perry still has considerable room for improvement, I have to take Cato’s ranking of him with several grains of salt.
And if you’re looking for a more readable version of the report, click here.
So What Was It Romney Said About Libya, Again?
October 10th, 2012So remember right after assault on our Libyan embassy in Benghazi, Mitt Romney issued a statement, then clarified those statements the next day?
Let’s roll the video, shall we?
Remember how the press jumped all over him, said it was a potentially campaign-ending gaffe?
Since then we’ve learned that:
This video timeline might help:
Watching and listening to Romney now, who do you agree with more: Mitt Romney, or reporters sounding outraged at his criticisms of the Obama Administration?
Both the Obama Administration and their lapdog media surrogates seem far more interested in defeating Obama’s political opponent than America’s Jihadest enemies, or telling the American people the truth.
France’s Punative Tax Rates Driving Out Supermodels
October 9th, 2012You may have heard that France’s new socialist President Francois Hollande wants to tax anyone earning more than a million francs a year at 75%.
One of the people that France’s high tax rates have already driven out is supermodel Laetitia Casta.
So remember liberals: When you hike taxes to the stratosphere, you’re driving out this:
Won’t someone please think of the supermodels?
LinkSwarm for October 8, 2012
October 8th, 2012Today was dedicated to exercise and fiction, so here’s a quick LinkSwarm:
New Pro-Romney Ad: “The Dinner Table”
October 7th, 2012Take a gander at the latest ad from American’s for Prosperity:
Not only does it work for me, it has a subtle, minimalist brilliance that not only makes it stick in the mind, but makes it hard to fight. What are liberals going to say? “No, unemployment isn’t high?” “No, middle class families aren’t suffering?” “No, it’s all Bush’s fault?” “No, let’s keep doing the same thing?” The very lack of dialog all but eliminates attack vectors against it, and any attacks against it will only make more people watch it.
I got this via Ace of Spades who, strangely enough, doesn’t like it. A commentator suggests that it’s because it stresses feelings over facts. But if facts and figure by themselves swayed the majority of voters, Obama would never have been elected President, and would stand no chance now.
If you have liberal friends on Facebook, chances are that they’re not forwarding links that show how objectively great a job Obama is doing. No, what they’re doing is forwarding links designed inflame fellow liberals with what horrible people Republicans are by focusing on the stupid things said by a few Republican office-holders. (Todd Aiken before, Paul Broun this week.) It’s meant to distract from Obama’s manifest failures by making the opposition evil incarnate. Political ads play on emotions because playing on emotions works.
Which isn’t to say it’s the only advertising you should be doing. But as part of a larger advertising strategy I think this particular ad is very effective.
You know what they could do to make liberals really crawl of their skin? Do the exact same ad with a black family.
Pictures from Tony Dale’s Fundraising Luncheon
October 5th, 2012I attended Tony Dale‘s fundraising luncheon, and snapped a few pictures of the swells assembled there. Click to embiggen.
First, the lovely and talented Holly Hansen of Williamson County Conservative, who I finally got to meet in person! We’ve only been trading blog links for two years. Next to her is Cedar Park Mayor Matt Powell.
Congressman John Carter and Williamson County Commissioner Lisa Birkman.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
Abbott next to Your Humble Blogger and his freakishly long torso.
And naturally, since this was a luncheon for Tony Dale, none of the pictures I got of him came out. Go figure. But don’t let that stop you from voting for him…
Edited to Add: Tony Dale was kind enough to send this picture along:
