Category: Uncategorized

by Smitty (via NRO)

From CK on Fox:

I am surprised that so many Republicans are jumping on the War Powers Resolution. They will regret it, because if you have a Republican in office, you’re going to have isolationist Democrats who are going to try to restrain his exercise of his powers… and the Republicans aren’t going to like it. I would not truck in the War Powers Resolution.

I also think that the administration’s defense of what it’s doing is extremely weak and misguided. Obama’s answer essentially is, ‘Well, the resolution is out there, but it’s not relevant because this isn’t really a war,’ which is absurd and insulting. …

What he should say is, “I, like every other of my predecessors, I do not recognize the legality of this act and its authority over the presidency.’ And that’s where he should make his stand. …

Does Charles grasp that many conservatives are unhappy with the bi-partisan penchant for saber rattling? If socialism is the opiate of bureaucracy, then military adventurism is the alcohol of the national greatness set. BHO may be giving the military-industrial complex its bottle, but a look at the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll indicates the usual suspects may be having problems holding it down.
After three years of anything but sobriety or truth, there seems little hope of the administration dealing with, well, reality.
The question then moves to whether the surreality will make it across the impeachment threshhold. I doubt that. The administration will more or less seize up, but the impeachment will be the 2012 election itself. The country will stagger forward in a political stupor for another 17 months until the next inauguration, I reckon.

by Smitty (via Insty)

TaxProf seems shocked, shocked! that the Treasury just made crap up to favor GM. As long as the power to frobnicate the economy is held in DC, that power will be used to frobnicate the economy. The useful question here is what we are doing to minimize that power, and get it back within its proper Constitutional bounds.

by Smitty

I’m reading this otherwise excellent piece at AmSpec, and can’t buy the conclusion at all. Do you need a Clue, man? “Weiner, on the Spitzer show, with the drivel”.
These are Progressives. This is who they are; this is what they do.
Why, you ask? Compensating for not being Jimmie Bise, that’s why.

Update: Perhaps something in print media, where perhaps he can prick a hole in the stiff front erected by those pornographers, as Carlin had it.

by Smitty

Showdown, you bet! And I haven’t even saddled my pony yet!

Deguello is my personal favorite ZZ Top release.
Oh yeah, Insty is on about an article on The Hill where Speaker Boehner is turning up the heat on the POTUS over Libya:

Boehner wrote: “Given the mission you have ordered to the U.S. Armed Forces with respect to Libya and the text of the War Powers Resolution, the House is left to conclude that you have made one of two determinations: either you have concluded the War Powers Resolution does not apply to the mission in Libya, or you have determined the War Powers Resolution is contrary to the Constitution.

“The House, and the American people whom we represent, deserve to know the determination you have made.”

Citing Obama’s oath of office and the Constitution, Boehner asks the president to provide the administration’s legal analysis regarding the War Powers Resolution and demands an answer by Friday. That is also the date by which the House-passed measure demands a response from the White House.

Boehner intensified his criticism of Obama’s handling of Libya and noted “the ongoing, deeply divisive debate originated with a lack of genuine consultation prior to commencement of operations and has been further exacerbated by the lack of visibility and leadership from you and your administration.”

The Speaker has suggested that if the White House does not respond adequately to the House-passed resolution, which is non-binding, the House could take further action, such as withholding funds for the mission.

Does Sprinklerman have the stones to go to the mat with BHO?
Wouldn’t touch it with a Ten Foot Pole.

by Unborn Son of Smitty (who likes Instapundit but was nonplussed by his recent Full Sherman)

Look: I wasn’t born yesterday, and may not be born tomorrow, but I have every confidence that I will be born Real Soon Now. Mother grows impatient, and threatens to eject me from the ‘house’, so to speak.
And to face what? I have not learned to count yet, and the same seems true of the government. How is it that purportedly adult people can spend more than a trillion dollars that does not exist, for the third straight year? Aside: what is straight and true about gaily, cheerfully destroying my future?

Vice President Joseph Biden and congressional leaders will meet several times next week to discuss a way to tackle the burdensome debt and increase the $14.3 trillion debt limit before Aug. 2, when the Treasury says the U.S will default. 

Oh, wait: ‘BFD’ Biden is on the case. Problem solved, for completely broken values of ‘solved’. Is it bad when even a -5 week old can see that absolutely nothing of value will come of this?
It is blatantly obvious to even the unborn observer that the Progressive Era of the last century has all the life of an abortion clinic. Biden is a ‘dead ideas’ man walking. The problem is beyond minor tweaking of the existing system. Time for the birth of a new era, America.

by Smitty

In an otherwise agreeable post on the possiblily of Texas Governor Perry running, Iron Liver remarks:

. . .good candidates can be dismissed for trivial reasons. Ask Jeb Bush about that some time.

Not to say that Jeb is a bad candidate in the slightest, but the anti-dynasty sentiment is non-trivial.
As good as Jeb may be, I just don’t see him as so overwhelmingly better than the other possibilities as to overcome the dis-interest in YAB (Yet Another Bush).
More, not less variety is key to recovery.

by Smitty

Based upon Dan Riehl’s review, The Undefeated may be bigger than the fattest documentary maker in Hollywood, which is to say: huge.
As a personal favor, if you could all just go pack the theaters, and keep this flick showing until late July, when I get home on R&R, I would appreciate it.

by Smitty (h/t World’s Only Rational Man)

I am nearly tempted to defend the Federal Reserve in the strongest terms. If I felt any more strongly that making money appear by piles of half a trillion was not theft, I would lay down a firm argument. Clearly, ‘Quantitative Easing’ has six syllables; ‘default’, a mere two. Look at Ben Bernanke:

Would you trust a face like this with protecting the value of your currency? Trick question! You’ve got no choice. Somebody else decided, by Progressive fiat, that in order to keep the Federal Reserve free of tawdry politics, they’d just, you know, appoint him. OK, that notion is a trifle whiffy when set beside the U.S. Constitution proper, but when has the Congress ever blown off the Constitution?
We really have to help these humorless Chinese. Note what a real thief looks like:

Is not he difference between good and bad blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer? Bernanke is wearing a necktie. The good guys always go that extra fashion mile.

Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies — eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said. 

See, now, that sounds like something Ron Paul or Sarah Palin would say. And have they not both been declared hopelessly out of touch by The People Who Matter?
It’s high time for all these grouchy, pedantic Chinese and conservatives to just relax. Trust your Federal Reserve. Let them run stuff. We should thank Ben Bernanke for sparing us the gory details of, say, bailing out his chums in Greece. We really have been relieved of a lot of stress there. Thanks, Ben!
It really is cool of him to permit us to retain the fiction of sovereignty and valid currency. Let’s not make Mr. Bernanke mad. Who wants to see Mr. Hand turn into Mr. Fist? Not me.