The Other McCain Sells Out

Posted on April 1, 2021

DATELINE LAS VEGAS
After a shocking early morning phone call from Stacy in which he revealed that he had sold the blog to Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post for an undisclosed amount of money “and other valuable considerations”, possibly including a minority stake in the Hagerstown Suns minor league baseball team, it is my unhappy duty to inform you that this will be the last post at The Other McCain. Family spokesman Kirby took the phone and said there would be more details in a later video post on YouTube, “but right now Stacy has to talk the Ewok off the ledge.”

Smitty had no comment, but sources speaking on background to the Navy Times revealed that the former Admiral of the Afghan Sea had been recalled to duty, promoted to Commodore, and would be sent on a three-year accompanied tour of the Little America Antarctic base where he would be in charge of efforts to root out alleged multi-racial white supremacists in Neu Schwabenland.

As for your resident burrowing marsupial and linkmongler, I am sitting in my hotel room surrounded by half-naked cosplay girls and bemusedly examining the packing slip on this box I received from Amazon Prime late last night. Thirty silver eagle coins, a case of fishnet stockings, five pounds of See’s Chocolates, a gallon of Astroglide…a man could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that.

UPDATE: Stacy’s news conference.

Amazon Warehouse Deals

If These United States Are Exceptional. . .

Posted on October 31, 2015Comments

by Smitty

There is a looming domestic test of American exceptionalism. Case in point, the Commerce Department:

. . .how Commerce got to that 1.5 percent number is truly amazing.
Of the 1.5 percent, 0.45 of a percentage point came from increased health care spending. In other words, mandatory ObamaCare payments caused about one-third of the third-quarter GDP growth.
Without that forced spending, GDP growth would have been just 1 percent annualized.
But that ain’t all.
Increases in durable-goods spending contributed 0.48 of a percentage point to that 1.5 percent GDP number. Without that increase — on products like cars, refrigerators and planes, which are long-lasting — annualized third-quarter GDP would have been just 1.02 percent.
Here’s the bizarre part: Sales of durable goods have been in a free fall.
The Census Bureau, part of Commerce, reported earlier this week that durable goods sales in September fell 1.2 percent, after a 3 percent decline in August.
The only other month in the third quarter is July. And durable goods sales rose 2 percent in that month.
But how does an increase of 2 percent (in July), a decline of 3 percent (in August) and a drop of 1.2 percent in September add up to durable goods contributing 0.48 of a percentage point to the third-quarter GDP?

Read the whole thing.

We have permitted so much rank dishonesty for so long that something akin to a Great Awakening is going to be required. Where we locate the integrity to inject back into our leadership, and how the generally dishonest are purged from the government is entirely unclear.

I’m pretty confident that Her Majesty is not the answer we seek.

via Hoyt at Instapundit

How Long Can the ‘Dollar Bubble’ Last?

Posted on January 25, 2013January 25, 2013Comments

If you think this is the solution, you are the problem

“Sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.”
— Professor Glenn Reynolds

Everybody who knows anything about economics — that is to say, everybody who isn’t a liberal — is concerned about the Federal Reserve’s policy of deliberate inflation: Devaluing the dollar as a monetary solution to the nation’s underlying fiscal and economic problems. There is no real recovery, and no end in sight to deficits so, hey, let’s just print a lot of paper. It’s as logical as the Magic Trillion-Dollar Platinum Coin.

This unsustainable zero-interest policy began during the Bush administration and has been continued for nearly five years. How long before the inevitable Day of Reckoning? We don’t know. What will that monetary Day of Reckoning look like? Mike Rogers has a few thoughts:

It can’t happen here; We’re too big (to fail?); The whole world wants Dollars; We could never become The Weimar Republic/ Zimbabwe/ Greece/ 1960s Britain … After all, OUR financial wizards are too smart to let that happen!
Not so much! Just because Ron Paul has been telling us for a long time that the Federal Reserve was bad for us, doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Let’s check a few bullet points, and then I’ll explain why the warning signals are flashing a little more urgently these days . . .

Please read the whole thing. Don’t say you weren’t warned: Buy gold — a bargain today at $1,667 an ounce — and stockpile ammunition.

Federal Bureaucracy: Doomsday Machine

Posted on July 11, 2012July 11, 2012Comments

by Smitty

Echoing VodkaPundit’s rejection of Star Wars (I have never esteemed it above mildly entertaining space opera, myself) we’re going reaching back to Denny Crane’s old show for a metaphor to mock Politico’s risible title: “Southern governors secede from Medicaid”

Wow, what an absurd headline. Really shameful. politi.co/OYZXzs

— Lachlan Markay (@LachlanMarkay) July 11, 2012

Darn right, Lachlan. Progressives behave as if the collapse of these United States into a single uber-State (destined for UN assimilation) is some foregone conclusion. As though every single velvet handcuff entitlement program is irrevocable. As though liberty has to be devoured by a doomsday machine.
Politico:

Govs. Rick Perry in Texas and Rick Scott in Florida have both said they won’t expand Medicaid to more of the working poor in their states — rejecting a central part of the law designed to cover 15 million more Americans.
. . .
The reluctance of other GOP governors suggests they’re not at all sure that rejecting a big infusion of Medicaid cash makes for good policy or good politics. In fact, they’re trying to recast the problem as one that Obama must solve.

If you were so crazy as to take a common sense look at economics, you might naively think that economic effort of citizens bubbles up through states funds the federal government.

Progressives basically admit that the system is broken, and all runs backwards. We don’t budget at all, and haven’t had a balanced budget in recent memory.

Thus, ‘Zimbabwe’ Ben Bernanke is pulling money out the nether end of the Doomsday Machine, creating suction to draw in the states. It is a shameful, dishonest, un-American process. That tarted-up Star Trek image pretty well sums not only this idiotic health care debate, but the November election in general.

Stop the Bureaucratic Doomsday Machine!

Demand liberty!

Update: linked by Daily Pundit. Thanks!

Senator Coburn’s ‘Debt Elimination Ordnance (DOE)’ Adventure

Posted on May 26, 2012May 28, 2012Comments

by Smitty

Now and then it’s healthy to step outside of Obama’s ‘Real World’. To breath some fresh air. To ponder existence beyond the orbit of the Obamas, Kimberlins, and #Occupy hippies. The Left’s controlling 1% makes for a long, strange, dangerous trip.

One of the handful of political leaders worth two hoots today is Senataor Tom Coburn. Watch this interview on what is THE issue of the election:

The Obama Administration is fundamentally incapable of facing the budget reality. While you can attempt a mellow pose, and say that the problems did not begin on Obama’s watch, you’d better be honest and admit that Obama has done frack-all to offer substantial leadership in any other direction.

Even the much-derided George W. Bush at least tried to do something, anything, to privatize Social Security. Sad. The post title, by the wasy, tries to play on ‘Debt Bomb’ and ‘Explosive Ordnance DisposalDemolition* (EOD)’.

*Thanks to Quartermaster for correcting me int the comments.

Want America To Fail? Heed Van Jones

Posted on April 22, 2012April 22, 2012Comments

by Smitty

An excellent video from Free Market America (a project of Americans for Limited Government). This is of Bill Whittle caliber:About the only turn left un-stoned here is the point that the Federal Reserve has been the source of $ to support the entire politics of failure.

Moving from reality to the surreal, Hot Air points to a Van Jones interview over at The ~~Weed~~Moss Gatherer, where he waxeth eloquent in the mellifluous tones of Winston Smith:

So how is Rebuild the Dream working towards that goal?

Two ways. The financial sector is sucking the money from all of our pockets, especially when it comes to underwater mortgages and student loans. The way you used to get the American Dream was to go to college and you got a house. Today, those same ambitions are dragging people out of the middle class and into poverty. So the biggest way we can help working class and middle class people in the near term is by one, getting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce the principle on these underwater mortgages and, two, preventing the interest rates from the most important student loans from doubling on July 1.

A few points:

The Constitution was written to tackle multi-state and international challenges.
Houses occur in one state.
Education occurs in one head.
Neither housing nor education are federal tasks.
Now that the federal government has over-reached for decades, and created a vast hairball of debt, the approach that would make sense would be to revert all of this idiocy to the states to figure out.

No, Van, you Orwellian Commie, we’re not smoking your dope. None of your ideas promote liberty. Everything you have to say is about crushing free people and absorbing them into your Borg.

Consider this a War on Morons post (via Vodka Pundit).

The Lonely Conservative also has the Failure video.

Santelli To Liesman: You Can’t Drink Yourself To Sobriety

Posted on April 14, 2012April 15, 2012Comments

by Smitty

The title is a summary of Santelli’s point here:

Santelli points out that there is no way to keep Zimbabwe Ben from quaffing away at his bottle of Jethro’s 120 Proof Market Fixer-Upper And Hinge Lubricant. Liesman asks, metaphorically, what else Zimbabwe Ben should drink, and Santelli repeats that the market is going to take the bottle away.