Why Rove Is a Trifle Overrated

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by Smitty

Karl Rove enjoys sounding like the big insider, and maybe he is, emphasis mine:

The GOP needs to push back now—thoughtfully and aggressively. Yet in conversations with Senate and House Republicans, I was amazed to find they weren’t talking to each other. Though the Senate and House GOP leadership may be, congressional Republicans need to settle on a common negotiating posture sooner rather than later.

If congressional Republicans wait until June to offer their proposal, they’ll have fallen into the Democratic trap. Mr. Obama will beat them like a drum, blaming them for any hiccups in the markets and every bit of bad economic news, all while demanding a clean debt ceiling.

It’s not enough for the GOP to insist on a vote on a balanced budget amendment. Even if the amendment were to muster the two-thirds vote required in Congress, it could take years to be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures. Robust spending and deficit caps requiring rescissions and cuts if spending or deficits breach historic norms would be better and effective almost immediately.

His first quoted point may simply mean that the GOP aren’t talking to him. And should they? Perhaps.
The point that a balanced budget amendment is of little immediate value is slightly better, but still wide of the mark. Let me put it like this: why would the Congress honor a 28th Amendment any more than it has the 10th? Dass ist die Frage, Mr. Rove.
Karl would be more impressive if his analysis started around P. J. O’Rourke

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

What we need from the GOP is the sober realization that the current crisis means that the Progressive State of America is done, a thousand times done, and, again, stick a fork in it. You’re worried about the GOP falling into the Democrat trap, Rove: the Tea Parties recognize all of this for the usual Ruling Class kabuki. Thanks, Karl.

Hot Air notes a Politico article saying, in essence, that the GOP bark has been upgraded from Yorkshire Terrier to Dachshund. Go, doggies, go!

Unborn, Businesses: Is There Anything The Nihilistic Left Will Not Abort?

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by Smitty

Stacy mentioned the myopia of the Left with respect to providing future voters earlier today. Down in the land of Nikki Haley, there is a similar outburst of nihilism afoot, attempting to abort Boeing’s efforts to build planes.
Karl Marx famously said “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The practical implementation of this has been “If I can’t have it, you can’t have it.” Thus is the Decalogue’s admonition not to covet converted from sin to Lefty ‘virtue’.

By challenging Boeing’s right to build aircraft in South Carolina, labor’s bureaucratic allies in Washington are threatening the ability of states to compete for new jobs and investment—and risking the economic recovery to boot.

In 2009 Boeing announced plans to build a new plant to meet demand for its new 787 Dreamliner. Though its union contract didn’t require it, Boeing executives negotiated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to build the plane at its existing plant in Washington state. The talks broke down because the union wanted, among other things, a seat on Boeing’s board and a promise that Boeing would build all future airplanes in Puget Sound.

Labor isn’t doing anything noble. This action is the antithesis of guts:

The NLRB obliged with its complaint yesterday asking an administrative law judge to stop Boeing’s South Carolina production because its executives had cited the risk of strikes as a reason for the move. Boeing acted out of “anti-union animus,” says the complaint by acting general counsel Lafe Solomon, and its decision to move had the effect of “discouraging membership in a labor organization” and thus violates federal law.

It’s hard to know which law he’s referring to. There are plentiful legal precedents that give business the right to locate operations in right-to-work states. That right has created healthy competition among states and kept tens of millions of jobs in America rather than heading overseas.

This is another brick in the wall of the mausoleum of American manufacturing. These unions, apparently, won’t be satisfied until they ensure that no aircraft are built in America. The notion of the union members, to paraphrase WFB, ‘starting their own goddamn aircraft company’ and competing with Boeing, rather that parasitically draining it seems to escape the discussion.
I suppose if you’re Airbus, you might use the union as a proxy to attack a competitor, but there isn’t any evidence of ought but bloody minded idiocy at work in the minds of these union twerps.
It’s great that Sarah Palin likes to use her and her hubby’s union history. However, the scorched earth approach taken by these unions cannot be reconciled with any notion of recovery. Union labor is overpriced. Hating capitalism and destroying commerce will nearly achieve a Pyrrhic victory, but, just at the last second, deliver self-destruction instead. Just as they’re doing on the demographic front, it seems.

More at Hot Air.

At the Old Ball Game!

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My son Jim, 18, hoists son Emerson, 10, atop his shoulders and son Jefferson, 12, joins in a thumbs-up Wednesday night at Camden Yards after the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Minnesota Twins 5-4. Jim got four free tickets from his boss, and the seats — Section 26, Row 17, behind the home-team dugout — were excellent.

It was also an excellent game, with Baltimore getting home runs from Matt Weiters and Vladimir Guerrero, plus two RBIs from Adam Jones, to build a 5-1 lead after the third inning. The Twins battled back, led by Danny Valencia, who helped Minnesota pull within a run in the eighth inning. Orioles reliever Koji Uehara managed to work his way out of that jam, and then Baltimore’s ace closer Kevin Gregg shut ’em down in the ninth.

So I did The Dad Thing yesterday, and you probably ought to hit my tip jar as encouragement.

What I Would Argue Is That This Shows the Federal Reserve as Antithetical to the Constitution

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by Smitty

Senator Sanders (D-upe) underscores that from the mouth of bozos truth occasionally escapes:

“You can argue that the chairman of the Fed is more important than the president of the United States, but very few Americans understand what the Fed does,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who successfully pushed for the Fed to disclose more about its secretive bank lending. Addressing the press, Mr. Sanders says, will be “a step forward.”

Here, in a graph, is what the Federal Reserve does, Senator Sanders:
As the economy continues its slow-motion capsize, keep in mind that the centennial of the Federal Reserve is coming the year after next. Can we bring about its demise? Why yes: yes, we can. Thomas Sowell on the Fed:

When someone removes a cancer, what do you replace it with?

Via GaltsGirl on Twitter, here is some intriguing Fed news:

In terms of the larger trends, the fundamentals that have caused so much pain and economic woe over the last ten years or so remain intact. If anything, they’ve gotten worse. We’ve gotten currency debasement, not just in the U.S., but especially in the U.S. dollar, which is not just any currency, but the world’s reserve currency.

We’ve got a truly mind-boggling expansion of the reach of government into all aspects of society and the economy, with all that that implies in terms of regulation, taxation, controls over investments and finance, impact on personal liberty, and so forth. By recognizing this destructive trend for what it is, investors can position themselves to avoid the worst, and to profit by betting on things like the continuing debasement of the dollar.

So that’s the big picture.

There is growing evidence that in the next month or two, we will head into a very dangerous period. The Fed has been extremely supportive of the U.S. government’s insane spending, polluting its own balance sheet by buying up toxic loans by the hundreds of billions and by pumping enormous quantities of cash into the money supply.

You don’t have to look very hard to understand why we have seen some small recovery in the economy, much of which has been driven by the financial sector that has been the recipient of so much largess – it was bought and paid for by the government, working hand in glove with the Fed.

But there is about to be a fundamental change in this arrangement. It appears that the Fed has decided that it’s time to take a step back from its monetization – or quantitative easing (QE), as they now term it – in the hopes that the market will step in to fill the large gap it will leave.

Unfortunately, there is going to be massive pressure to do whatever it takes to support the reality show Obama II: It Just Gets Creepier.

Wisconsin: Are Liberals Aborting Themselves Into Political Oblivion?

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In writing about Tricia Willoughby — the 14-year-old home-schooler who showed such poise during her speech Saturday at the Tea Party rally in Madison — James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal took note that Miss Willoughby is the daughter of Wisconsin pro-life activists. Taranto also noticed that between 1975 and 1992, there were 316,457 abortions performed in Wisconsin:

There probably are many more like Tricia Willoughby, aren’t there? After all, her parents are “pro-life activists,” which means they have a tendency to follow the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply. People on the other political side are more inclined toward subtraction (or as they call it, “choice”), as we explained in our 2005 paper “The Roe Effect.” . . .
Scott Walker won the governorship last year by a margin of 124,638. That may not be within the margin of abortion; after all, some of the missing 316,457 would have voted Republican had they existed, and many would not have voted.
But JoAnne Kloppenburg, the left-liberal state Supreme Court candidate who was supposed to save Wisconsin’s labor monopolies from Walker’s reforms, lost by just 7,316 votes, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . . . It’s almost inconceivable that the Roe effect alone is insufficient to account for Justice David Prosser’s victory.
Oh, and in four years, Tricia Willoughby will be old enough to vote, while an additional 54,522 will not be.

Kinda sucks to be you, doesn’t it, progressives? Meanwhile, Instapundit tips us to Miss Willoughby’s e-mail to Ann Althouse about that union bozo who shouted ugly words during her speech: “I was thinking ‘That is what you want to say to me? Really? You’re not even listening to what I’m saying, or criticizing my actual logic. You are simply just calling me names because I am on the opposite side’.”

Professor Jacobson dubs the Wisconsin recount “Kloppenburg’s Folly.” Of course, in a state where many employees are forced to pay union dues, Big Labor has money to burn, so this recount is just a way for them to impose additional costs on their opposition.

‘Snowbilly Grifter’? And Incest Jokes?

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Decent Americans recoil in shock at the latest eruption of Palin Derangment Syndrome in which Wonkette’s Jack Steuf wrote:

Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.)

As I say, I’ve met Todd Palin, and I’d love to see one of these clowns say some crap like that to his face.

UPDATE: Dana Loesch reports that advertisers are dropping Wonkette. Remarkably, in reporting that Steuf has been put on probation, Wonkette publisher Ken Layne attempts to justify the smears on the Palins, prompting Da Tech Guy to observe:

The first rule of civility for the left is this, any statement no matter how vile or misogynistic that is directed against the Palin family is OK.

Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in all the years of Bush Derangement Syndrome did the Left unload as much concentrated hate as they’ve piled onto Sarah Palin since August 2008.

UPDATE II: There were many other things I’d intended to blog about this morning, but Ken Layne’s reaction is just so astonishing that I feel the need to extend this post. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection quotes Layne:

I wouldn’t parade my children around in the media. What kind of mother does that?  . . . Trig is cool with us. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is a grave danger to America.

And it is Palin’s “grave danger” that, in Layne’s demented mind, justifies the no-holds-barred anti-Palin attacks.

Let me address this from a couple of different angles. I have been known, from time to time, to make intemperate or ill-advised remarks, including jokes of questionable taste. When I loathe somebody, I don’t bother to disguise my loathing, and so I would be a hypocrite if I posed as having been a model of civility toward, inter alia, Meghan McCain.

However, Meghan has thrust herself into the public eye, tried to make herself a spokesperson for conservatism, and generally cashed in on her inherited importance, so she bought her own ticket to this dance, you see. I sure as hell don’t need a 20-something bubblehead lecturing me about political philosophy, so Meghan “Don’t You Know Who I Am?” McCain has arguably invited whatever insults I’ve thrown her way (which have been numerous, and ROTFLMAO funny, I might add).

So that’s one political child who has been “paraded around in the media.” What about Chelsea Clinton? I’ve met Chelsea, who is absolutely charming in person. Is there anyone who would deny that Chelsea was, in some sense, used as a campaign prop by her parents over the years? Indeed, aren’t there many observers who have depicted Bill and Hillary’s marriage as more a political partnership than an actual marriage?

There was a time, circa 2005-07, when Republicans demonized Hillary Clinton almost as thoroughly as Democrats now demonize Sarah Palin. But if any conservative commentator dragged Chelsea through the mud the way liberals have done with the Trig-Truther stuff, I must have missed it.

And something else: By the time I started covering Hillary’s campaign in March 2008, she was already fighting for her political survival and I found myself — despite my every partisan or ideological instinct — admiring her feisty determination. When she got to Shepherdstown, W.Va., in early May, the press corps was more or less demanding that Hillary quit the race. It was painful to see Chelsea have to stand next to her mother at that press conference while reporters peppered Hillary with variations of the same question: “Why don’t you quit, loser?”

Because you see, Hillary had the temerity oppose the anointing of Obama and, just as Ken Layne says of Sarah Palin, that made Hillary a “grave danger to America” in the eyes of the Obamaphiliac press.

Liberals think we’re stupid, but we’re not too stupid to see what they’re doing or to understand why they’re doing it.

Note To 2012 Candidates: A Harder Line With The UN Is A Good Thing

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by Smitty

Managing the definitions is a crucial aspect of information dominance. It comes as little surprise that, a decade on from 9/11, the Altogether Foolish United Nations (A.F.U.N.) stands there, panties wadded, unable to define terrorism:

The main hurdle, then as now, is the insistence by the bloc of Islamic states that any definition of terrorism should leave a loophole for “resistance” against foreign occupation.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which was established in 1969 with “liberating” Jerusalem as its primary focus, is unwilling to give ground on the issue as many of its governments believe that doing so would be tantamount to betraying the Palestinian cause.

The “occupation” exemption is usually cited in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it would also provide cover for the anti-Indian jihad in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority territory divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both.

India has been a major target of terrorism, both in what some Islamic states call “Indian-occupied Kashmir” and elsewhere. Not coincidentally, New Delhi has spearheaded the push for a international terrorism convention since 1996.

Now, per Wikipedia, the U.S. and allies cough up 2/3 of the funding for the U.N., right?

United States 22.000%
Japan 12.530%
Germany 8.018%
United Kingdom 6.604%
France 6.123%
Italy 4.999%
Canada 3.207%
Spain 3.177%

The cause of peace is not advanced by these disingenuous professional victims peddling their crap. The Law of War is meant to manage the Evil That Men Do in a way that keeps things proportional and minimizes collateral damage.

Terrorism is to the Law of War as cancer cells are to healthy: unwillingness to face terrorism at the U.N. level is, itself, a watered-down act of terrorism.

It is well past high time that the United Nations either do something useful, or be replaced with something smaller that can. The U.S. alone is picking up over 1/5 of the tab. If we’re paying the band, we should be calling the tunes. Freebird!