Yesterday’s e-mail brought a rather silly request from a group which calls itself Unity Productions Foundation in which I have been asked to provide a link here at the Asylum to some stupid video about the trials and tribulations of (presumably) peaceful Muslims who are only trying to build mosques and go about their daily lives in peace, but find themselves discriminated against and unfairly singled out by the government for being 'different'.
Friday, August 05, 2011
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
On Deficits, Debt Ceilings, and Douchebags...
So, we have a deal on the debt ceiling. Did anyone ever harbor a doubt that there would be one in the first place? Neither political party would ever engage in the sort of brinkmanship that would have brought about a default -- or the lesser-and-probably-better evil of a government shutdown -- because of all the bad press such a thing invariably generates. Quite frankly, I would have thought it an interesting experience to shut the federal government down, except for truly vital services (and sorry, but printing welfare and Social Security checks are NOT vital services), just to see if anyone would notice.
I mean, let's face it; we're paying hundreds of thousands of government workers do pretty much nothing right now, so what harm would there be in giving them a few weeks or a month of unpaid vacation? Would it make any difference to anyone besides them?
Anyhow, we have a deal. I'm not exactly certain of everything in this deal, mostly because the press (the second biggest bunch of idiots after the class of morons we've elected to hold public office) can't make up it's mind whether to tell the truth about the deal, or just continue to demagogue it, if they even understand it themselves. You know the Press in this country is absolutely clueless when Nora O'Donnell stands out in Rose Garden pontificating about the wise leadership of Barack Obama, who saved us from almost certain default.
Truthfully, Obama did no such thing. His contribution to this entire fiasco was to simply insist that he get what he's always wanted, offer a 'compromise'; which was never any such thing, tell the other side to fuck off, and then immediately storm away to give a press conference in which he accused Republicans of being unreasonable.
Of course, this needed to be Obama's...ahem...default position, because if the cash spigot is ever turned off, the first victim is his questionable signature 'achievement' of ObamaCare, and because the class warfare argument that always comes out when it comes to (other people's) money is the only weapon Obama has left to use. He needed to be seen as 'fighting' for the sick, elderly and illegal aliens because this is what this Presidency is all about: appearances.
Barack Obama, whatever his true talents might be, is a lousy, transparent, clumsy liar. It shows every time he appears on your television screen to repeat the same mantra we've heard for the last three years:
"George W. Bush did it, the Republicans want kids with autism to starve in the streets, we have to 'save' this-that-or-the-other, I've sent Biden to work out the details with Reid and Pelosi, now I'm off to another fundraiser and a round of golf, Good night and God Bless America..."
Barack Obama may be the first African-American to have been elected President of the United States, but it's become painfully clear that he will, alas, perhaps be the last for many years to come, if only because he's now, more than ever, clearly associated a certain species of politics with race. If you didn't notice the rank stupidity in the man when he was busy putting your band-aids and eyedrops under government control while the economy was crumbling, when he was spending your money to ensure that endangered turtles could cross busy thoroughfares through little tunnels so they wouldn't get squashed, when he was busy nationalizing General Motors, going on three vacations during the Gulf oil spill, starting a third -- and possibly a fourth -- war while excoriating his predecessor for starting two others -- and that's just a little taste of the Obama brand of stupidity -- then you're probably not breathing without mechanical assistance, my friend.
Barack Obama was never a leader; he was a marketing campaign. This fact was made known a very long time ago. His behavior during the'negotiations' over a debt ceiling deal just made it obvious to the four of five numbskulls left who didn't get it the first 1,003 times.
Barack Obama will never be re-elected.
But Obama isn't the only shady character in this little national melodrama. Before I get into what I think one might call 'the guts' of the actual deal, I'd like to spend a little time talking about some of the abysmal personalities involved, who, if they had any common sense or decency, would do us all a favor and take rat poison with their morning coffee.
I can scarcely imagine a worse collection of doofuses and rogues, and what makes it all truly frightening is when you stop to consider that these assholes were all ELECTED.
Apparently there is no shortage of retards in America.
Let's start with the always Lady-like Nancy Pelosi, living proof that if the San Andreas fault were ever to let loose and send California adrift into the Pacific Ocean, we'd be a much better country for it. There is no possible way that one could take this woman seriously, especially when she makes an argument that the democratic party (small 'd' intentional) was fighting "to save life as we know it on this planet" with it's particular brand of Leftard stupidity during this 'historic' battle.
It's time someone retired the menstrual windbag from San Francisco.
Then comes Harry Reid, who should legally change his name to 'Doctor No', whose only position during this important national debate was to announce his intention to vote against any plan that came from the Republican-controlled House as a matter of reflex. One is left to wonder if. when California starts drifting towards Japan. if it wouldn't be to much to ask that it take Harry's little corner of Nevada along with it. A despicable human being, if ever there was one.
It's time someone retired the Senator.
Joe Biden is living proof that a jackass CAN be cross-bred with a human being. Unfortunately, unlike in the case of the mule, the occasion did not produce a sterile hybrid. If genetic science is ever to advance from it's present infant stage, it could do worse than to base an entirely new chapter upon ways to engineer the human genome so as to avoid producing more Bidens. Accusing his fellow citizens who have fundamental disagreements with his brand of insanity 'terrorists' -- and then denying he said it -- was beyond the pale.
The only reason Barack Obama hasn't been assassinated by some racist douchebag, in my view, is that even the dumbest, most-inbred hillbilly Klansman realizes that shooting Obama achieves nothing except to make Biden President of the United States. That would be an even bigger disaster than Obama himself.
Unfortunately, unless there's an accident on Joe's beloved Amtrak while he's travelling back to Delaware, we're stuck with him. Here's hoping Biden is too stupid to chew his food before he swallows and treats himself to the full Mama Cass in order to spare us all any more of his rancid mental diarrhea.
As for 'my' side in this whole brouhaha:
John McCain once again covered himself in glory. Or at least his own bullshit. But that's to be expected from a man who has made a viable career out of disaster, and usually disasters of his own creation. If you needed any further proof that Obama, at the very least, could be considered the lesser of the two evils that could have emerged from the 2008 election, here's Johnny to make that argument one you would at least have to seriously consider, if you didn't already know better.
McCain served the same function during this thing that he served in 2005, when a Republican party with control of all three bully pulpits, couldn't reform entitlements and instead wound up expanding Medicare and adding another trillion bucks to the debt so that the two richest generations of retirees could continue to live far beyond their useful years. In retrospect, we'd probably be a much better country if John McCain had died in Vietnamese captivity. McCain's role is always to be a spoiler, and often, for no other reason than the sake of spite.
It's time someone retired the Senator.
Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell put in a virtuoso performance of 'establishment Republican' crapspeak, managing to straddle the not-so-fine line between victory and full-blown, panicked retreat with all the grace of a three-legged elephant on uneven stilts. This is a guy who needs to be primaried in the next election cycle, and then outright defeated. In this debate, McConnell expertly played the role of Marshal Petain to McCain's Vidkun Quisling.
It's time someone retired the Senator.
In fact, it's time someone retired an awful lot of Senators, Congresscritters, and potential Vice-Presidential material (i.e. the career party hack who commands a lot of respect within the apparatus, but little from without), because the past decade has made it abundantly clear that we're not getting the best-and-the-brightest when it comes to our Congressional delegations, and a result, we're not getting the best-and-the-brightest when it comes to Presidential elections, or to simply putting some common sense to work in evaluating or solving this country's problems.
This debt ceiling fight spotlighted the extent of the real problem (i.e. the extent of the brain damage in Washington) in the starkest terms; the issue is a straightforward one -- the country is broke, it's time to re-organize and re-prioritize the nation's expenses -- and the majority of the infighting revolved around ensuring that each and every Congressman's and Senator's bread was buttered before they got to the nuts and bolts. If the nation was the Titanic, these would be the people who would ensure the deck chairs were properly arranged before the ship went down.
The Plan, as I understand it, promises to 'cut' $2.4 trillion from the Federal Budget (oh wait, we haven't actually had one of those for the last two years) over ten years. In a country with a $14 trillion debt, this is small potatoes, and even this apparently-staggering sum probably only comes from 'arresting the growth' of projected federal spending over that time frame, and conveniently for the current crop of doofuses in Washington, the bulk of the 'tough cuts' come at the end of the line, when someone else will have to make the decision about what stays and what gets shitcanned. The 'deal' was made without a thought being given to entitlement spending,which is the real killer in terms of federal obligations.
In other words, for all intents and purposes, the can just got kicked down the fucking road...again. Only this time the numbers are bigger.
In defense of John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, this is, perhaps, the best he could have done bearing in mind that the GOP controls but one house of Congress. The real issues that plague America's finances -- entitlements, ObamaCare, the Progressive Tax Code (more like 'regressive'), a bloated bureaucracy, a government that does too much and spends too much to do it, complete dumbasses in elected office -- will have to wait for a day when the GOP has at least control of the House and Senate (fingers crossed for 2012!).
You still have to give Boehner some credit for trying, even if you're like me and not satisfied with a result that hasn't slain the ObamaCare ogre, and which doesn't leave illegal immigrants and the elderly dying of leprosy in the streets (yes, I'm a true believer in the idea that you have truly outlived your usefulness when you've outlived your own savings and become little more than a parasite ward of the state). Still, it's a start. The actual hard work starts now: keeping the momentum going, and then riding the issue to electoral victory in 2012...and hopefully with a new generation of better conservatives (not just the kind that the Religious Fanatics like, but true small-government, reform-the-tax-code-and-entitlements, fiscally-careful conservatives).
In the final analysis, a pox upon both their houses --upon a GOP which did it's best to build the deficits we're suffering with, and upon a democratic party (small'd' intentional) which 'fought' to maintain the status quo ante despite the fact the status quo can no longer be funded -- but there does have to be a Square One somewhere along the line. This 'deal' doesn't go far enough to suit my tastes, but at least there's a clear delineation about where both sides stand (as if that wasn't aleady obvious), and it serves as a basis with which those who go to the polls next year can make a better decision; do you want to continue to fund a bankrupt welfare state with a debased currency backed by borrowed money, or do you want to get serious about changing the way the American government does business, while sparing your pocketbook?
Without that change, there won't be an America in the future. And while $2.4 trillion in mostly-deferred 'cuts' is trifling in comparison to the true scope of the problem, it's a baby step in the right direction.
I mean, let's face it; we're paying hundreds of thousands of government workers do pretty much nothing right now, so what harm would there be in giving them a few weeks or a month of unpaid vacation? Would it make any difference to anyone besides them?
Anyhow, we have a deal. I'm not exactly certain of everything in this deal, mostly because the press (the second biggest bunch of idiots after the class of morons we've elected to hold public office) can't make up it's mind whether to tell the truth about the deal, or just continue to demagogue it, if they even understand it themselves. You know the Press in this country is absolutely clueless when Nora O'Donnell stands out in Rose Garden pontificating about the wise leadership of Barack Obama, who saved us from almost certain default.
Truthfully, Obama did no such thing. His contribution to this entire fiasco was to simply insist that he get what he's always wanted, offer a 'compromise'; which was never any such thing, tell the other side to fuck off, and then immediately storm away to give a press conference in which he accused Republicans of being unreasonable.
Of course, this needed to be Obama's...ahem...default position, because if the cash spigot is ever turned off, the first victim is his questionable signature 'achievement' of ObamaCare, and because the class warfare argument that always comes out when it comes to (other people's) money is the only weapon Obama has left to use. He needed to be seen as 'fighting' for the sick, elderly and illegal aliens because this is what this Presidency is all about: appearances.
Barack Obama, whatever his true talents might be, is a lousy, transparent, clumsy liar. It shows every time he appears on your television screen to repeat the same mantra we've heard for the last three years:
"George W. Bush did it, the Republicans want kids with autism to starve in the streets, we have to 'save' this-that-or-the-other, I've sent Biden to work out the details with Reid and Pelosi, now I'm off to another fundraiser and a round of golf, Good night and God Bless America..."
Barack Obama may be the first African-American to have been elected President of the United States, but it's become painfully clear that he will, alas, perhaps be the last for many years to come, if only because he's now, more than ever, clearly associated a certain species of politics with race. If you didn't notice the rank stupidity in the man when he was busy putting your band-aids and eyedrops under government control while the economy was crumbling, when he was spending your money to ensure that endangered turtles could cross busy thoroughfares through little tunnels so they wouldn't get squashed, when he was busy nationalizing General Motors, going on three vacations during the Gulf oil spill, starting a third -- and possibly a fourth -- war while excoriating his predecessor for starting two others -- and that's just a little taste of the Obama brand of stupidity -- then you're probably not breathing without mechanical assistance, my friend.
Barack Obama was never a leader; he was a marketing campaign. This fact was made known a very long time ago. His behavior during the'negotiations' over a debt ceiling deal just made it obvious to the four of five numbskulls left who didn't get it the first 1,003 times.
Barack Obama will never be re-elected.
But Obama isn't the only shady character in this little national melodrama. Before I get into what I think one might call 'the guts' of the actual deal, I'd like to spend a little time talking about some of the abysmal personalities involved, who, if they had any common sense or decency, would do us all a favor and take rat poison with their morning coffee.
I can scarcely imagine a worse collection of doofuses and rogues, and what makes it all truly frightening is when you stop to consider that these assholes were all ELECTED.
Apparently there is no shortage of retards in America.
Let's start with the always Lady-like Nancy Pelosi, living proof that if the San Andreas fault were ever to let loose and send California adrift into the Pacific Ocean, we'd be a much better country for it. There is no possible way that one could take this woman seriously, especially when she makes an argument that the democratic party (small 'd' intentional) was fighting "to save life as we know it on this planet" with it's particular brand of Leftard stupidity during this 'historic' battle.
It's time someone retired the menstrual windbag from San Francisco.
Then comes Harry Reid, who should legally change his name to 'Doctor No', whose only position during this important national debate was to announce his intention to vote against any plan that came from the Republican-controlled House as a matter of reflex. One is left to wonder if. when California starts drifting towards Japan. if it wouldn't be to much to ask that it take Harry's little corner of Nevada along with it. A despicable human being, if ever there was one.
It's time someone retired the Senator.
Joe Biden is living proof that a jackass CAN be cross-bred with a human being. Unfortunately, unlike in the case of the mule, the occasion did not produce a sterile hybrid. If genetic science is ever to advance from it's present infant stage, it could do worse than to base an entirely new chapter upon ways to engineer the human genome so as to avoid producing more Bidens. Accusing his fellow citizens who have fundamental disagreements with his brand of insanity 'terrorists' -- and then denying he said it -- was beyond the pale.
The only reason Barack Obama hasn't been assassinated by some racist douchebag, in my view, is that even the dumbest, most-inbred hillbilly Klansman realizes that shooting Obama achieves nothing except to make Biden President of the United States. That would be an even bigger disaster than Obama himself.
Unfortunately, unless there's an accident on Joe's beloved Amtrak while he's travelling back to Delaware, we're stuck with him. Here's hoping Biden is too stupid to chew his food before he swallows and treats himself to the full Mama Cass in order to spare us all any more of his rancid mental diarrhea.
As for 'my' side in this whole brouhaha:
John McCain once again covered himself in glory. Or at least his own bullshit. But that's to be expected from a man who has made a viable career out of disaster, and usually disasters of his own creation. If you needed any further proof that Obama, at the very least, could be considered the lesser of the two evils that could have emerged from the 2008 election, here's Johnny to make that argument one you would at least have to seriously consider, if you didn't already know better.
McCain served the same function during this thing that he served in 2005, when a Republican party with control of all three bully pulpits, couldn't reform entitlements and instead wound up expanding Medicare and adding another trillion bucks to the debt so that the two richest generations of retirees could continue to live far beyond their useful years. In retrospect, we'd probably be a much better country if John McCain had died in Vietnamese captivity. McCain's role is always to be a spoiler, and often, for no other reason than the sake of spite.
It's time someone retired the Senator.
Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell put in a virtuoso performance of 'establishment Republican' crapspeak, managing to straddle the not-so-fine line between victory and full-blown, panicked retreat with all the grace of a three-legged elephant on uneven stilts. This is a guy who needs to be primaried in the next election cycle, and then outright defeated. In this debate, McConnell expertly played the role of Marshal Petain to McCain's Vidkun Quisling.
It's time someone retired the Senator.
In fact, it's time someone retired an awful lot of Senators, Congresscritters, and potential Vice-Presidential material (i.e. the career party hack who commands a lot of respect within the apparatus, but little from without), because the past decade has made it abundantly clear that we're not getting the best-and-the-brightest when it comes to our Congressional delegations, and a result, we're not getting the best-and-the-brightest when it comes to Presidential elections, or to simply putting some common sense to work in evaluating or solving this country's problems.
This debt ceiling fight spotlighted the extent of the real problem (i.e. the extent of the brain damage in Washington) in the starkest terms; the issue is a straightforward one -- the country is broke, it's time to re-organize and re-prioritize the nation's expenses -- and the majority of the infighting revolved around ensuring that each and every Congressman's and Senator's bread was buttered before they got to the nuts and bolts. If the nation was the Titanic, these would be the people who would ensure the deck chairs were properly arranged before the ship went down.
The Plan, as I understand it, promises to 'cut' $2.4 trillion from the Federal Budget (oh wait, we haven't actually had one of those for the last two years) over ten years. In a country with a $14 trillion debt, this is small potatoes, and even this apparently-staggering sum probably only comes from 'arresting the growth' of projected federal spending over that time frame, and conveniently for the current crop of doofuses in Washington, the bulk of the 'tough cuts' come at the end of the line, when someone else will have to make the decision about what stays and what gets shitcanned. The 'deal' was made without a thought being given to entitlement spending,which is the real killer in terms of federal obligations.
In other words, for all intents and purposes, the can just got kicked down the fucking road...again. Only this time the numbers are bigger.
In defense of John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, this is, perhaps, the best he could have done bearing in mind that the GOP controls but one house of Congress. The real issues that plague America's finances -- entitlements, ObamaCare, the Progressive Tax Code (more like 'regressive'), a bloated bureaucracy, a government that does too much and spends too much to do it, complete dumbasses in elected office -- will have to wait for a day when the GOP has at least control of the House and Senate (fingers crossed for 2012!).
You still have to give Boehner some credit for trying, even if you're like me and not satisfied with a result that hasn't slain the ObamaCare ogre, and which doesn't leave illegal immigrants and the elderly dying of leprosy in the streets (yes, I'm a true believer in the idea that you have truly outlived your usefulness when you've outlived your own savings and become little more than a parasite ward of the state). Still, it's a start. The actual hard work starts now: keeping the momentum going, and then riding the issue to electoral victory in 2012...and hopefully with a new generation of better conservatives (not just the kind that the Religious Fanatics like, but true small-government, reform-the-tax-code-and-entitlements, fiscally-careful conservatives).
In the final analysis, a pox upon both their houses --upon a GOP which did it's best to build the deficits we're suffering with, and upon a democratic party (small'd' intentional) which 'fought' to maintain the status quo ante despite the fact the status quo can no longer be funded -- but there does have to be a Square One somewhere along the line. This 'deal' doesn't go far enough to suit my tastes, but at least there's a clear delineation about where both sides stand (as if that wasn't aleady obvious), and it serves as a basis with which those who go to the polls next year can make a better decision; do you want to continue to fund a bankrupt welfare state with a debased currency backed by borrowed money, or do you want to get serious about changing the way the American government does business, while sparing your pocketbook?
Without that change, there won't be an America in the future. And while $2.4 trillion in mostly-deferred 'cuts' is trifling in comparison to the true scope of the problem, it's a baby step in the right direction.
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