And An Internet Meme Is Born...

Great article on the decline of Detroit by Mark Steyn.

25 Things The Next Republican President Must Do...

And when I say "must do", I really mean must. Like before anything else. Ten seconds after taking the oath of office and ensuring that the Obama's haven't stolen the White House silverware.

This list assumes two things:

a) Mitt Romney defeats Barack Odouchebag in November, and
b) The GOP retains it's majority in the House, and gets one in the Senate

Otherwise, this is all academic.

So, here's my list of the the Top 25 Things The Next Republican President Must Do (in no particular order):

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.

Without a Clue and Out-of-Touch...

I'm tired of being lectured to and patronized by politicians. Especially a particular sort that can use such hackneyed phrases as "fighting for working families", "for the average American", "the working man".

Did it ever occur to anyone that the people who can claim such affinity with the "average" person have no idea what it is to be an average person? Particularly if they've been in Washington for any length of time?

I mean, how many "average" people do you know who make asinine statements like this, and then consider themselves serious individuals:

" We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it..."

" I voted for it before I voted against it..."

"I didn't inhale..."

"We are the Change we've been waiting for..."

How many people do you know who can hit the road with a populist message about the dreadful divide between the rich and the so-called poor in America who live on a 30-acre estate with a rambling mansion on it? How many people do you know with a mansion and a multi-million-dollar bank account who can claim commonality and solidarity with the hourly-wage earner? What, exactly, does that sort of millionaire have in common, in terms of lifestyle and material comforts, with the waitress, the cab driver or the janitor?

How many people do you know who can say, like Gov. Rendell of Pennsylvania did recently on The Colbert Show, that the first thing he's going to do when he leaves office is to learn to drive a car, -- because he hasn't driven himself anywhere for the last 25 years? How many people do you know have had someone else perform such a mundane tasks for them for the last quarter century? And had it paid for by the taxpayer, to boot?

How many of us have had the opportunity to do any of the following:

Spend billions, of other people's money, to get elected to office?

Spend trillions, of other people's money, in order to secure a career once elected?

Receive Secret Service protection, chauffeur-driven cars, a private Super Airliner with all the bells and whistles, at someone else's expense?

Travel around the world on "The People's Business" on the People's Dime?

Rub elbows with the richest and most influential people in the world, all of whom are eager to crack open a checkbook, or offer all sorts of gifts and promises, just to bend your ear? And get your vote on something they care about?

Exempt ourselves from a law that everyone else must obey?

Spend our days shuffling papers -- actually, the paper-shuffling gets done by highly-paid"aides" -- engage in yelling matches at your political opponents across the Senate floor, and making multiple appearances on television to spew pablum, in a $5,000 suit?

Our politicians would have you believe that they can do these things, enjoy these privileges, but that somehow it doesn't change them. Congressman Douchebag and Senator Dingleberry are just the same as Joe the Plumber or Steve the Car Wash attendant, always was, always will be. They try to convince you that they have not become some sort of snobbish, insulated Elite that has lost touch with the reality of everyday life; that they still maintain a connection with the Common Man in America, while they go about the business of passing legislation that the Common Man doesn't want, spending money they've appropriated from the Common Man that he can ill afford, and then borrowing even larger sums, leaving the Common Man with the bill.

In what world does borrowing, printing -- or simply inventing out of thin air -- a trillion dollars on behalf of the Average American, while making the Average American pay the massive interest on that debt, sound like a good idea? Does that sound like something the Working Families in your town can do? Would choose to do, if given that choice?

Why is it that when someone in Washington, D.C. feels the urge to spend our cash, it always comes with a sermon? The usual self-serving nonsense about how the expenditure is consistent with "our values", or it's "for the children", or that "we need to do this, as a Country"?

Here's a thought; if you don't think the people in the United States Congress aren't an Elite class, then wrap your head around this; there are fewer people in Congress than there are players in the National Football League.

Five-hundred-and-thirty-five people, to be exact. That's a rather small club, don't you think?How about this one:

Those same 535 people have the ability to affect the lives, positively or negatively, of 300 million others. In fact, if you really want to think about it, those 535 people have the ability to affect the lives of every person on this planet, in some way.

Still don't think that's an Elite club? Let's summarize. Stick this in your pipe and smoke it:

Your life is being affected by the actions of 535 people who got themselves elected with other people's money, so that they may spend other people's money, while they enjoy a lifestyle of private jets, government-subsidized office space, a retinue of servants, international travel, protective details, gaining the favor of the rich and powerful -- so that they can get their money, too. They are writing laws and creating systems which you must obey and pay for, but which they routinely excuse themselves. Some have been at it long enough to have forgotten how to do for themselves: they cannot drive cars, they probably haven't been inside a dry cleaners or supermarket for ages. They probably don't shine their own shoes, make their own meals, or even lick their own stamps. That's what staff is for.

Still not convinced that your average denizen of Sodom-on-the-Potomac is living in another solar system? How about this:

I seem to remember in the 1990's, when Hillary Clinton was trying to deliver band-aids and eyedrops to the world, she used to bandy about the "fact" that 46 million Americans didn't have health insurance. Fast-forward to 2008, and Barack Obama was claiming that 30 million Americans don't have health insurance. How was it that the 16 million people left the ranks of the uninsured between 1992 and 2008, without government intervention? Was that not an indication that the free market was working it's magic, and close to 1 million folks every year were getting insurance all on their own?

(Why hasn't anyone pointed out this disparity in numbers, btw? Oh, right: the Elite are entitled to their own truth, too).

To those of us who don't make our living via politics, of course it does; if you assume Hillary's or Barack's number was essentially correct.The truth is probably that no one, not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, actually knew or knows how many Americans didn't have health insurance. Nor really cares. For all we know, the numbers are entirely fake, generated for political purposes. In any case, it was "evidence" of a "crisis" in American healthcare that required socialized medicine to remedy. So, ObamaCare was rammed down our throats by whatever means could be contrived.

And just last week, Nancy Pelosi tells us -- in defense of ObamaCare -- that 50 million Americans now don't have health insurance (sorry, I cannot produce a source for this; I simply heard it on television, but can't recall where).

In the circles that you, the Average American, move in, if you were to tell your boss that there's a problem that requires a drastic plan of action to correct -- a plan you just happen to have drawn up and handy -- and it was based upon false assumptions, and then, predictably, it fails, what do you think happens to you? In the real world, you get fired; you're walking the unemployment line. In the world of the people who "fight for America" they get to continue on the job so long as they can manage re-election. They get executive positions at Goldman-Sachs when they leave office, or someone pays them a great deal of money to write their memoirs. People who are immune to this simple aspect of real life -- that failure has consequences -- are somehow, just like you? Are able to feel your pain? Are inclined to"fight" for you?

Now, I don't know about you, but if I did things like this I wouldn't be surprised that there's so much "violent rhetoric" surrounding our politics, and if I were a politician I would, rightly, be scared shitless over it; it's the first indication that the jig is up.

Mid-term elections in which my party gets creamed and the other party feels uneasy, even in apparent victory, is simply another conformation that, perhaps, I'd better quit while I'm ahead, and reverse course if at all possible. Perhaps this is an indication that I've been "fighting" the wrong battles.

This idea that your Member of Congress is just "One of Us" who is slavishly serving our interests while jealously protecting his own holds more truth than the illusion of the public paragon of virtue, stout defender of the yeoman masses. It's usefulness as a rhetorical device to the people who have managed to perpetrate this scam is rapidly coming to an end. Now deeds, and not just words, are being noted. Authenticity rather than Style is coming back into vogue in American politics. Proof of intent and result are in demand. The sheltered life of the career patrician legislator, wheeling, dealing and collecting or bestowing favors while creating monstrosities of government bureaucracy lavishly funded by money that doesn't exist, is now on it's way to becoming a thing of the past.

With it's passing, we're about to see an old-line style of politician disappear, too. I hope.

The generation of politicians which came of age in the 1960's and 70's which currently dominates American politics -- the generation of Woodstock, the Welfare State and the Government Program for everything under the Sun -- are slowly being driven out. They lose at the ballot box, they are exposed by ten million folks with access to YouTube and Facebook. The generation which created this crippling debt, this overpowering government, this stifling regulatory climate that threatens to destroy the natural creativity and liberties of the American people, has made themselves rich and comfortable while they did it. But no more; the Inmates now have thepower and ability to run the Asylum.

Those old-style libtard pols will still claim solidarity with the unwashed rubes they call "constituents". Just like they held with "the masses" back in the 1960's. They were posers and phonies back then, and they're only richer posers and phonies now; the generation that "spoke truth to power", and "fought the Establishment" is now the Establishment themselves, and they have committed all of the crimes and excesses that they once accused their political and ideological enemies of, only with far worse consequences.

Imagine: all this damage has been done by, perhaps, a few hundred or maybe thousand people, who belong or once belonged to either house of Congress or the White House. It wasn't the people on Main Street, West Bumfuck, U.S.A. who did this: it was the Elite in Washington, D.C. If Joe Sixpack is guilty of anything, it's of having been conned by pros, and wasting his votes and tax dollars on them. Then again, Joe Sixpack is often a drooling idiot, and the Pros depended upon that fact, and a compliant media, to work their magic.

But those days are over, too. Joe Sixpack may not understand all the finely-tuned, well-oiled bullshit of how it is that NOT spending $1 trillion dollars we don't have, will have to borrow, print or invent with a banker's keystroke, blows either a $700 billion or $450 billion hole in the deficit -- depending on which party you listen to -- but he certainly DOES understand that he'll be on the hook for that $700 or $450 billion, or the 30/46/50 million without insurance, the 10/12/15 million here illegally, and the cost of President Obama --and Her Husband's -- 15 vacations this year.

He might not know shit, but he can look in his wallet and see what's there...or mostly, NOT there.

That's a problem the 535 don't seem to have, because if they did, they might do things differently. Then again, creatures of habit that they are they might have just continued to act stupidly, and just not given a shit. They can afford to buy their office all over again, come next election cycle, or depend on arcane and contradictory Federal Election Law and Campaign Finance Reform (which they wrote for their own protection) to keep any serious contender off the ballot.

After all, doesn't everybody just do that?

The next time I hear a politician, of either party, claim to be One of Us I just might start throwing punches.

Thomas Sowell Explains All...

Someone ought to put Thomas Sowell on the dollar bill.

Money Quote:

Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Barack Obama became president. The deficit he inherited was created by the Congressional Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.