“Look, That Rabbit’s Got A Vicious Streak A Mile Wide!”

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by Smitty

via HotAir, Kass plays the Killer Right Wing Extremist Military Veteran Christianist Tenther Commando Raaaaacist Bunny card:

Anyone who thinks Obama is safe from a rabbit attack has forgotten what happened to President Jimmy Carter In 1979. Carter was attacked by a swimming rabbit, and the subsequent “Killer Rabbit” stories helped destroy his presidency. It led to the election of Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide and an unprecedented economic revival.

There are eerie similarities. Like Obama, Carter was at that point where he was constantly viewed as weak and ineffectual. His fellow Democrats had lost patience with him. Liberal writers who once fawned on him had turned against him.

The whole scene has been visualized at Political Clown Parade, for your delectation. Mwahahahaha.

Bonus points for identifying title reference.

Can Conservatives Use This Thatcher Propaganda Flick As Mulch?

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by Smitty

Gateway Pundit quotes the Daily Mail:

The film is littered with inaccuracies and fabrications concerning the Falklands War, the bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel in 1984 and the murder of Lady Thatcher’s friend, Tory MP Airey Neave, at the Commons in 1979.

Responding to this propaganda hit piece is actually a gold mine, when you think about it. I forsee a fine project for conservative bloggers, involving chopping this atrocious flick into tiny, Fair Use segements.

Then, explain precisely where the film team screwed up, and what the historical facts say.

You would:

  1. chide these propaganda mongers,
  2. celebrate the most important British leader since Churchill,
  3. educate people on important historical t0pics,
  4. send a message to other crap peddlers that future nonsense shall not go unanswered.

Parphrasing Rahm,

You never want a serious Leftist propaganda strike go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to educate people on what a craven pack of knuckle draggers are, with facts, that you could not do before.

Clueless Constitutional Commenter Klein: Is That A Nose In Front Of Your Face?

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by Smitty

I crashed at the end of the first paragraph from Ezra Goober:

Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

I’ll give you one more ‘graph for context:

Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs. The doomsday scenario has alarmed Republicans in the House, who have been scrambling to block the measures. Environmental groups retort that the rules will bring sizeable public health benefits, and that industry groups have been exaggerating the costs of environmental regulations since they were first created.

So what is missing?

Recall Article 1 Section 1:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States

What’s not obvious is how Congress creates an EPA, and we’re left with ‘lawmakers are grumbling’. In a representative Democracy, those lawmakers should, well, make laws. If the people grumble, the lawmakers get voted out on their ear.

The Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies. The over-arching question of our time is not how to prevent the Executive from hyper-extending itself. That joint has already been tortured beyond recognition. The question is how were going to re-set that Executive joint, and constrain it with public diligence to operating within its proper, Executive range of motion.

This blog calls for courageous candidates who will begin removing federal bureaucracies outright. Just send those fat-cat GS dudes packing. I’ve seen some of those slugs moving from meeting to meeting, lost in an acronym-driven PowerPoint daze. While the Left spews hate on corporations and their jets, bear in mind that the threat is the self-entitled homo bureaucratus slug, who will emerge from torpor quickly to address threats to funding.

Can’t figure out whether Klein just isn’t very bright, and misses the point, or is very bright, and paid to run interference for these creeps who threaten the health of the country.

Who Is Richard Kramer? Director of ‘Mental Health Professionals’ Group Admits His Own Attraction to Minors

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Controversy has erupted over a Baltimore conference this week organized by B4UAct.org, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization described by the Daily Caller as “a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists.” The Aug. 17 conference was aimed at de-stigmatizing pedophila and especially at removing pedophilia from the list of mental disorders in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual.

There might have been even more controversy about the conference if it had been known that the operations director of B4UAct.org, Richard Kramer, is apparently not a “mental health professional,” but is in fact a self-confessed pedophile — or to employ his organization’s preferred terminology, a “minor-attracted person.”

In a 2009 letter in the “Uncommon Sense” online newsletter, published by the pedophile-oriented site Newgon.com, Kramer wrote that “things were much better for BLs and GLs 35 years ago” — using abbreviations for “Boy Lover” and “Girl Lover,” terms popularized by online pedophile forums. In his “Uncommon Sense” letter, Kramer repeatedly used the first-person pronouns “we” and “our” in speaking of such people:

In the 1970s, professionals, politicans, and the media did not unanimously condemn BLs as animalistic “predators,” or lie to the public that we were supremely devious, violent, uncontrollable, unloving and unloveable, or that everything we did was for the purpose of satisfying our twisted lusts, or that any contact we had with children or teenagers destroyed their souls. We were not subject to ideological “cognitive restructuring” treatment (i.e., brainwashing), lifetime civil commitment (i.e., concentration camps), or possible execution. Thirty-five years ago BLs actually had large, real-life meetings and produced print publications. We even had some allies in the gay community and in radical churches. Now we are not even seen as human, and we have no allies to speak of.
The fundamental issue we need to address is the defense of our humanity. We need to confront the stigmatization, demonization, and stereotyping that exists due simply to our attraction to children or adolescents, regardless of our behavior. To do this, we need to be honest about our sexuality.
[Emphasis added.]

Kramer made the closing presentation at the Baltimore conference, according to a program of the event, speaking on the topic, “The DSM and the Stigmatization of People who Are Attracted to Minors.” The online program links Kramer to the Web site MHAMIC.org, the “Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors Information Center,” which he evidently established in 2003. A contact page at the MHAMIC site lists Kramer as a Ph.D., but does not state his area of expertise or his academic affiliation. In none of his online writing for B4UACT or MHAMIC does Kramer claim to be a mental health professional.

Despite this, none of the journalists covering the Baltimore conference — including Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon.com — mentioned Kramer’s distinctly personal interest in the subject under discussion. Readers may have mistakenly believed he was among the disinterested “mental health professionals” whose involvement in the conference was of a professional or scientific nature.

ELSEWHERE:

Herman Cain: ‘Still in It to Win It’

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Herman Cain speaks Aug. 13 at the Ames Straw Poll

Herman Cain is “still in it to win it,” his Republican presidential campaign told supporters in a fundraising e-mail highlighting the Atlanta businessman’s speech last week at the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames.

Describing Cain as “a real leader” with “proven results,” the e-mail sent Saturday (see the full text below) urges supporters, “Please give your most generous gift today — even $5, $10, $25 helps — to help us spread Herman’s message of ‘Common Sense Solutions’ across America.”  The fundraising message included a link to a 4-minute online video featuring the key points of Cain’s Aug. 13 speech to the Ames event:

Cain’s fifth-place finish at Ames has been seen as a disppointment by some, although the candidate himself has said he was “thrilled” to place in the top five in the straw poll. Cain has pointed out that his campaign remains debt-free, in contrast to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty who reportedly borrowed money (and required some staffers to work without pay) to finance a major TV ad campaign in Iowa. Cain ran no TV ads in Iowa. Pawlenty dropped out after finishing a distant third behind Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Texas Rep. Ron Paul in the Ames straw poll sponsored by the Iowa GOP. Cain got 1,456 votes in the straw poll, finishing behind former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who placed fourth with 1,657 votes.

Cain today completes a two-day visit to New Hampshire, where yesterday he opened his new state campaign headquarters in Manchester. Cain and his team have indicated that they are taking a long-term approach to the GOP campaign, having visited or begun organizing in such states as Tennessee, Alabama, Oregon and North Dakota whose primaries fall later in the 2012 selection calendar.

* * * * * *
TEXT OF FUNDRAISING E-MAIL FROM CAIN CAMPAIGN

Fellow patriots,
On Saturday, August 13, 2011, after 1,800 miles and nearly 20 stops across the state of Iowa in just five days, the “Common Sense Solutions” bus tour made its stop in Ames, the home of the legendary straw poll on the beautiful campus of Iowa State University.
After enjoying more than 4,500 pieces of Godfather’s Pizza, listening to the soulful tunes of Governor Huckabee and Herman Cain and enjoying a speech or two, our supporters gathered inside the Coliseum to listen to Herman give what was touted by many as the best speech of all the candidates that day.
In his address, Herman discussed the crises facing our great nation, his incredible vision, his compelling life story and the defense of American Exceptionalism. Check out the video here.

Herman Cain is a real leader whose ideas are backed by more than 40 years of proven results. Only mature leadership can provide the unity our country so desperately needs. Please give your most generous gift today — even $5, $10, $25 helps — to help us spread Herman’s message of “Common Sense Solutions” across America.
As always, thank you for your support.
Standing with you,
Friends of Herman Cain
P.S. Iowa is only the beginning. Herman’s “in it to win it” and needs your help on the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Your financial support is key. Please give whatever you’re able today.

PREVIOUSLY:


Does Rand Simberg Contradict Himself?

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by Smitty (via Ed Driscoll)

I just don’t understand this, in the context of questioning whether WWII ended the Depression:

. . .there was rationing of food and goods on the home front. The real reason that we recovered was that once the war was on, FDR was too distracted by it to continue to tinker with the economy

I’ve read Amity Shlaes, but the more the topic of the Depression vs. WWII comes up, the less clarity there seems to be. How did wartime rationing not count as economic tinkering?

As with the beginning and the end of Creation, this seems to be a topic of the size and complexity that those inclined to argument can arrive at almost any desired conclusion. Simberg’s analysis doesn’t seem to include the larger 20th Century truth that what we saw was a conflict that began with the October Revolution and ended with Perestroika. WWII, Korea, and Vietnam were the decreasingly less brutal outbursts of tension. My point here is that the economic effects of WWII with respect to the Depression occurred in a Cold War context; the boys did not come home from Japan and Germany. There was no traditional U.S. beating of swords into plowshares. Rather, Bretton Woods and the National Security Act of 1947 altered the question significantly enough to obviate it.

So, while by no means coming out as a supporter of FDR, crack-head Keynsian Economics, or historical ignorance, the least-worst answer to the question of whether WWII ended the Depression might be: *yawn*.

Leon Black Never Hits My Tip Jar

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Just sayin’ . . .

Last Saturday night, the financier Leon D. Black celebrated his 60th with a blowout at his oceanfront estate in Southampton, on Long Island. After a buffet dinner featuring a seared foie gras station, some 200 guests took in a show by Elton John. The pop music legend, who closed with “Crocodile Rock,” was paid at least $1 million for the hour-and-a-half performance.

I’m not Elton John, but I have been known to rock a karaoke mike, so if any Wall Street tycoons need some birthday party entertainment . . .

No? Then perhaps I could interest some of you “billionaire financier” types in a $120,000 diamond ring? I mean, c’mon: $1 million for birthday party entertainment and you can’t spare $20 for the tip jar? Would you maybe like to buy a “blog sidekick“? Slightly used, but still in good working condition.





The Perry-Palin Litmus Test

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by Smitty

Allahpundit, emphasis mine:

Since we’re talking Perry, Palin, and Iowa, here’s an … interesting poll that made the rounds yesterday. There’s nothing obviously suspect to me about the methodology for surveying Republicans (the poll was automated, just like all of Rasmussen’s), but I’m not familiar with this pollster so assign whatever degree of credibility to it that you like. I joked on Twitter today that it’ll be fun seeing which side Karl Rove comes down on if the race ends up being between Perry and Palin, but he’d surely take solace in the fact that things will inevitably turn really nasty online between each candidate’s supporters. Perry will get called a cronyist, Palin will get called unqualified, and thus shall the wedge be driven into the grassroots. Can’t wait to find out which of the two is the truer “true conservative.” It’s hard for us RINOs to tell sometimes, you know.

If Governor Palin is the spiritual daughter of Reagan, and his 11th Commandment was not to speak ill of another conservative, then it makes sense that she’ll discipline her troops, to heighten the contrast between her and at least the Left, if not also Governor Perry’s supporters.

But is it in her best interest to go in this early? If she lets Governors Perry and Romney bash on each other and the Left while remaining aloof, is that a bad thing? Her only opportunity cost would be near-term fundraising. However, gambling that her charisma will motivate campaign contributions from the hoi polloi may make it worthwhile to delay.

Furthermore, if a substantial number of the people already bet that she’s running, without an official announcement, then she builds pressure on BHO, while not actually being present on the field, which presence would become a rallying cry for the opposition. She continues to log hours in front of a camera, and work whatever offline coaching she’s doing, honing the message. The Recovering Liberal breaks down the pundit split, which favors a run, but cites 03 September for the announcement.

What is the fish/cut bait date? I predict a buildup during the fall, a final go/no go decision, which will be a go, and come on 13 November, with all of the appropriate invocations of Reagan. By that time, the mysterious 1 in 5 who strongly support BHO shall have ebbed about as far as they will, and the House GOP shall have had time to recycle the debt question with the FY12 spending bills. Unless BHO can find a way not to look a total boob (again) on budgetary matters (it could happen: his opponent is the GOP), he stands to be further weakened as the year drags on. Other than the corresponding economic damage to the country, what’s not to like about that?

So, sorry, Maggie Mac: your bustier straps are likely to remain twisted a few months more, if I’m right. Daily Pundit also sounds a trifle overheated:

At this point, if Sarah does jump in, I’m inclined to be annoyed with her. She dicked around playing cute for months, when she could have joined the fray and locked up the anti-RINO vote.

You’ll shake it off, I expect.

In any event, it makes little sense for Perry or Palin supporters to expend ammunition on each other. They’d fail the Reagan litmus test. And she’s not in the race. He’s still receiving the inspection reserved for candidates whose names do not rhyme with ‘trauma’. If they’re the last two standing, there may be some thumb wrestling to sort out who tops the ticket. But that’s all wildly speculative.