by Smitty

via Red Rover

Mother Jones reports that a pair of Knoxville-based mystery corporations contributed $12 million to the FreedomWorks super-PAC in September. Dick Armey, whose exit from FreedomWorks made headlines this past week, says he knows nothing about it.

Neither does FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, “whom Armey has accused of misappropriating FreedomWorks resources for his own personal benefit,” to quote Mother Jones.

For the record, I ain’t got no $12 million, and the only person I know in Knoxville is Professor Glenn Reynolds. If Insty’s got $12 million, he’s being awfully quiet about it.

by Smitty

The tasteless joke that is the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ negotiation continues to be the antithesis of mature, rational, representative government. Also, it tastes like sawdust held together by gluten. The cynical question moves to: Who is doing a better job of phoning it in?

One is tempted to reciprocate #OccupyResoluteDesk’s four-year finger pointing odyssey, and say ‘BHO’. But who knows about that, or anything else in our shiny new Age of Uncertainty. Have a look at Front Page, with Allen Barton:

A crucial point comes in ~7:40, where the exploration of the GOP’s strange comfort level with Progressivism comes in.

I don’t want to sound all uppity and stuff, but I could find myself moving toward a conclusion that the GOP has manipulated Conservative desires for Constitutional government merely for power gain. It’s almost as if the GOP tries to bribe voters with patriotism, while the Democrats bribe voters with bread and circuses, and neither wing of the Progressive Party gives a flying French fornication about limited government.

Now, that’s a hyper-cynical take on the situation. They told me that if I voted for Romney, the rich would engaged in Olympian bunfights and succeed in crushing the economy. Fortunately, our “Lawd and Say-vee-uhh” Barack Obama will make sure nothing like that happens.

What I badly need to see between now and 2014 is a genuine reform plan from the GOP. Not new porcine lipstick, but a genuine admission that this pig ain’t got wings, the government has ceased to be representative of the people, and here is an across-board-reform plan. If the GOP doesn’t re-invent itself, then the 2010 election shall have likely proven the last gasp of any Constitutional government, as we capsize into a full-on, third world tyranny.

by Smitty

Two things are constant, and there are three things rivaling the sunrise for invariance: death, taxes, and the codpiece-like dumbness of David Brooks:

Over the past month, the Republican Party has changed far more than I expected. First, the people at the ideological extremes of the party have begun to self-ghettoize. The Tea Party movement attracted many people who are drawn to black and white certainties and lock-step unity. People like that have a tendency to migrate from mainstream politics, which is inevitably messy and impure, to ever more marginal oases of purity.
Jim DeMint, for example, is leaving the Senate to go lead the Heritage Foundation. He is leaving the center of the action, where immigration, tax and other reforms will be crafted, for a political advocacy organization known more for ideological purity and fund-raising prowess than for creativity, curiosity or intellectual innovation.

Note to David Brooks: There. Will. Be. No. Reform. DeMint departed a Senate that hasn’t passed a budget in north of three years, to the cheers of quislings such as yourself.

The Republicans may still blow it. If President Obama is flexible and they don’t meet him partway, Republicans would contribute to a recession that would discredit them for a decade. But they are moving in the right direction and moving fast. These are first steps, and encouraging ones.

Listen, you pathetic little crease-monkey: President Obama is never flexible. You are.

via Hot Air

Update: linked at The Daley Gator

by Smitty

There really isn’t any need to let Benghazi fall off the radar. Sure, a huge component of the Fiscal Cliff fracas is to control the narrative, and turn John Bohner into Emmanuel Goldstein, spray tan edition.

Obama is at least in character. All politics, all the time. Hence the murky lead-in to Benghazi, the snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory when under stress, and the subsequent creep show as President Take-no-responsibility seeks anything else under the sun to discuss.

But wasn’t Simpson-Bowles conceptually similar to proper security in Benghazi? Don’t leaders plan their way out of crises, rather than foment them?

And is Boehner a crappy substitute for Woods and Doherty, attempting to offer some kind of defense?

Meanwhile, Cassone’s dirge bears repeated playing and viral spreading:

by Smitty

Al Gore still owns what, I feel, is the dumbest utterance by a public figure, emphasis mine:

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.

No, Al, NO. This government can’t even pass a budget, can’t deal responsibly with the bills, leaving this idiotic ‘Fiscal Cliff’ crap hanging over the end of the year. The U.S. Government couldn’t redeem a coupon for a free package check in the Castro District, much less redeem any human anywhere. Oh, and I’m supposed to revere these bureaucrats or something, not bash them the way, say, Jews or Christians are pilloried in modern discourse. Whoops.
Treacher points to Jeff Poor, quoting Al, emphasis mine:

“On a national level, to use a computer term — our democracy has been hacked,” Gore said. “It no longer functions as it is intended to — to serve the public interests.”

WUT? Now, while I don’t think this quite rises to the level of theological idiocy present in “the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption”, we must admit that the elimination of protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all INDIVIDUAL aims, and its replacement with “serve the public interests” a PLURAL goal, as still fairly jacked up.

Does the relatively less jacked up nature of the second utterance indicate improvement, or should we suspect that Al Gore’s head, so oxygen deprived in its nether lair these years, is still severely damaged?

by Smitty

We Americans are not easily inspired. Forty years of reform have left us more cynical, not less — and not just about Congress but also about the very idea of “reform.” Eighty percent of Americans surveyed by Clarus believe that the reforms Congress has passed “have been designed more to help current members of Congress get re-elected [than] to improve the system.” The biggest challenge for the next reform is not just substance but also believability: It must convince America that it, finally, offers real change.

WHAT. REFORM. SIR?

• Incumbency is up.
• The debt is up.
• The ruling class is up, and the people are down.

European-style, unaffordable entitlements are up. Are THESE intellectually insulting, Constitutional-rights-crushing vote-buying schemes the “reform” you’re on about?

Respect begins with listening. It is fed by open debate. And it is encouraged by the belief that the hard work of organizing — the work that produced almost 2 million signatures demanding real change — will be at least as important in this process as the favors of insiders.

What makes you think that the likes of Princess “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Pelosi gives a Flying. French. Fornication. what you, I, or any of the peasants think? Sir, we’re simply in the midst of an ersatz aristocracy here, with every grubby implication that entails.

It is time for Democrats finally to steal a move from the Republican’s playbook: Boldness inspires. If there’s going to be a Tea Party for Reform, Democrats must start talking about ideas that give people a real reason to get excited.

Barack “#OccupyResoluteDesk” Obama has been pissing down your back and telling your it’s raining for years. When was the last time Captain Superior signed a budget into law? I know, bad news is always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it?
Prof. Lessig, you’re not a dummy. Stop acting like one.

This is not reform; it’s collapse!

by Smitty

The proceeds were given as tribute to the Imperial Executive:

Continue reading Due To Budget Cuts, The Band Has Been Reduced To A Lone Guitar →