Nero Only Fiddled Once

Is this the best way to prevent an epidemic?

About that virus that ends in "a"...

Normally, when I borrow an idea I will credit the originator.  In this case the originator deleted his tweet, and so shall remain anonymous.  The original was somewhat more provocative than my version...  

Why does Obama hate Fox News so much?

Yesterday Obama again singled out public enemy number one in a speech at Northwestern University.  No, not ISIS, terrorists, jihadists, Ebola, Putin, or the IRS abusing its power.  No, Obama singled out Fox News, of course, in front of a student audience.  In a country with a private media, a constitutional right to free speech, and a recent history of having government agencies persecute the president’s political foes, how can anyone let alone an auditorium full of young scholars tolerate that kind of abuse of power from the chief executive?  Not only did they tolerate it they applauded.

When I was growing up I always heard about totalitarian dictatorships and how they controlled their populations by controlling the media.  The Soviets were particularly known for this.  They had complete control of the media and could pretty much manipulate their people to believe whatever they wanted.  When I say media I’m not just referring to newspapers and TV news.  I’m referring to all sources of information in a society:  news, entertainment, and academia. 

Which brings us to Barack Obama.  You probably don’t think of Barack Obama as a dictator.  He was democratically elected to be the president of a constitutional republic after all, so he cannot be a totalitarian dictator.   But consider this:  there are two ways a country can end up with a dictator -  a leader or faction can seize totalitarian power by force, or the people can grant totalitarian power to an individual or faction.  For all intents and purposes Barack Obama has been granted totalitarian dictatorial powers by the latter route.  In fact he is arguably the most powerful dictator the world has ever known. 

Think about it.  Barack Obama is commander-in-chief of the worlds most powerful military, and is uniquely able to wage war without congressional votes or opposition from pacifists.  He has carte blanche to selectively enforce laws,  has carte blanche to write laws, dissolves borders unilaterally, creates treaties unilaterally,  has weaponized every tentacle of the federal government to persecute his enemies,  is politically untouchable and unimpeachable,  lies to the country with impunity, his deputies have been found in contempt of congress without repercussion, his policies have failed without repercussion.  And…he has been granted almost complete control of the media, with one BIG exception. 

That one exception is Fox News.  News Corporation and it’s flagship Fox News is the only large media institution standing in the way of Barack Obama’s complete editorial control of major media in the USA.  While there are significant opposition voices on the internet (this blog being but a miniscule one), all of them combined pale in comparison to the reach of ratings leader Fox News.  In Barack Obama’s world the constitutional protections of free speech, a long history of tolerance, respect for private industry, and a disdain for political interference all become subordinate to the Saul Alinsky tactical imperative of winning at any cost.  Rule-of-law, the constitution, and tradition be damned, there’s a revolution to be won, wealth to be redistributed, and a nation to be fundamentally transformed! 

Therefore Fox News must be stopped.  In accordance with the Saul Alinsky playbook Fox News must be mocked, ridiculed, disparaged, singled-out, personalized, and vilified.  Much like the Koch brothers who rank near #40 in political contributions but are enemy #1 in the Democrat pantheon of Alinsky targets, Fox News must be pounded and vilified non-stop.  And the useful idiots at Northwestern laughed and applauded.

Barack Obama is arguably the most powerful dictator the world has ever known – power willingly granted by the populace and popular media.  All that stands between him and complete totalitarian control, at least in his mind, is Fox News.

Why The Secret Service Isn't Concerned About Obama's Safety

Have you seen the many references to the mortal danger President Obama is in from potential assassins? The latest piece appeared today in the UK Guardian . I’m not surprised we are seeing these stories because racist whackos could be an additional threat for Obama, but make no mistake about it, Presidents face danger as all modern ones have found out.  That said, Barack Obama is statistically much safer than even George W Bush was!

The tragic fact is that virtually every modern president has been the subject of some kind of assassination attempt. Every one. That’s not to excuse it, but to highlight that danger is part of the office. The job is not for the faint-of-heart. Some nut is going to try and fly a plane into your house (Nixon, Clinton, Bush 43), or blow you up (Kennedy, Bush 41, Bush 43), or just try to shoot you (Truman, Kennedy, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 43). And that is all of them post-WWII!

But, going back all the way, your chances of actually taking a bullet are almost twice as bad if you are a Republican. Five have been Republicans, (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Ford, Reagan) and three have been Democrats (Jackson, Truman, Kennedy).

As far as actual assassinations, three were Republicans (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley) and only one was a Democrat (Kennedy). In short, your chances of being killed are three times worse if you are a Republican! Moreover, Kennedy, the only Democrat was a tax-cutting supply-sider. If you look at it that way, Barack Obama will surely die in his bed as an old man.  Now, if he could only quit smoking…

(This was written in March 2010.  Hopefully Obama has quit smoking, but how would we know?)

Golf War II

Today we learned that President Obama has skipped about 60% if his daily intelligence briefings.  The Daily Caller goes on to compare Obama's golf time to his intelligence briefing time, and finds where the presidents true priorities lie.  All of which leads me to re-post this:

      

Contract with America 2014

The Contract with America was a stroke of genius in 1994.  It was introduced a scant six weeks before the election, and it helped Republicans win big.  As a result, Bill Clinton was forced to “triangulate” for the remaining six years of his term.  He eventually backed lower taxes (yes, Clinton was ultimately a tax cutter!), reformed welfare, supported NAFTA, shrank the federal government (remember “The era of big government is over!”) and arguably was backed into a projected budget surplus.   The economy and markets took off the day after the election of 1994.

Unfortunately, lacking geniuses in today’s GOP, there is nothing similar happening this midterm.  I expect Republicans will lose their shot at Senate control, and they deserve to.  This was as close to a gimmee as you get in politics.  But remember, we are not that far past the scant six weeks it took in 1994! 

The argument against doing something like the Contract with America is that it would give the Democrats a target to shoot at.  But that argument is valid only if the proposals are controversial and specific.  By proposing items which are inarguable and non-specific, Democrats would be forced into a position of either arguing against inarguable proposals, or keeping quiet.  My hunch is they would not keep quiet, and would expose themselves and their anti-freedom agenda.     

With that in mind, here is my version of an ad-hoc 2014 Contract with America: 

Restoring the Constitution 2014
or
Freedom Agenda 2014

If Republicans are granted control of both houses of congress in the November election of 2014, we pledge to propose the following legislation within the first 100 days of taking office:

1. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free from being persecuted by the IRS, or any other agency of the federal bureaucracy, for political purposes. 

2. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free from being stonewalled by any branch of the federal government during an investigation of corruption, malfeasance, fraud, misuse of government resources, or other dereliction of duty.

3. A law which strengthens the tenth amendment and strengthens the rights of citizens and states to be free from usurpation of their powers - “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

4. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free from stealth and hidden taxes.    

5. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free from taxation without representation. 

6. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free from foreign invasion across any border of The United States. 

7. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free from federal taxes that are levied for purposes other than the constitutionally mandated functions of the federal government. 

8. A law which strengthens the  rights of citizens to be free from having any congress bind future congresses to its laws.

9. A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free to purchase any lawful product.     

10.  A law which strengthens the rights of citizens to be free to offer for sale any lawful product.   

Properly done these ten freedoms would shrink the federal government to its constitutional boundaries and put an end to:  nationalized health insurance (ObamaCare), IRS and other agency abuses, the uncompetitive corporate income tax (corporations can’t vote), all federal wealth redistribution (placing all redistribution at the state level, and ending the conflict of interest that arises from redistributing wealth at the level of government that also prints the money), the perpetuation of bad laws (each congress would need to approve existing law), open borders,  the executive branch stonewalling investigations by congress, and stealth taxes, to name just a few benefits.

Democrats would have a very difficult time arguing against any of these proposals, and Republicans would win big without ever having to explain a single one in detail.  Their base would know exactly where they were going, and would support it with votes and contributions.    

But alas, no one’s home in GOP-ville. 

This post has been updated.

The Golf War

Mobs are always right. Right?

The unedited version of this is making the rounds on social media today,  because as everyone knows, mobs are always right!  

What To Do About ISIS? (bumped again)

What should we do about ISIS?  (Or as the president prefers, ISIL, which uses the French diplo-speak term "Levant" for the mideast, and after all who amongst us doesn’t get a tingle up their leg from using French diplo-speak?)  Whatever you call it, we should do everything we can here in the US to prevent domestic attacks from these extremely dangerous jihadists.  Overseas, we should retreat from areas where any jihadists may attack.  Beyond that we should probably just pray.

I realize this is a contrarian position.  There seems to be a bi-partisan consensus forming that the Obama administration must take bold and decisive action to fight ISIS “over there, so we don’t have to do it here”.  Never mind that this sentiment was once known as “The Bush Doctrine”, and that it’s repudiation is one of the core ideologies of our current president -- it only makes sense as national policy with a competent Commander in Chief.  Barack Hussein Obama is not and will never be that person. 

If you want to occupy the student union, Obama is your guy.  If you want to choose brackets for March Madness, Obama is your guy.  If you want to hear platitudes read off a teleprompter, Obama is your guy.   If you want to hear how this country is racist, guilty, flawed, corrupt, unfair, mean, nasty, sexist, and has a crappy constitution, Obama is your guy.  If you want to play golf, attend fundraisers, and do talk shows, Obama is your guy.  But if you want to communicate with deadly jihadists in the only language they understand, the language of force, I’d recommend anyone other than Barack Hussein Obama, and that includes my Labradoodle.  

So let’s prepare ourselves here and do everything we can to ensure the jihadists can't hurt us.   Beyond that, let's do nothing until we have a competent president.  Will there be chaos and mass casualties?  Perhaps.  But going to war with an incompetent commander would be like having open heart surgery performed by a comedian -- better to do nothing, pray, eat healthy, and get to the gym.