Pardon Rudolph!
As further evidence of how exceedingly mediocre this President is, this topic will cause more outrage among friends than
Bill Ayers did for those on the left.
Eric Robert Rudolph conducted a one-man bombing campaign for political purposes in the 90s. He was captured and now resides in the Federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Rudolph's bombings, most notably the 1996 Olympic games, killed two. William Ayers
founded and led an entire movement that killed scores more.
Ayers himself is responsible for at least one, and has never spent a day in prison. I would even entertain the concept of some false duality whereby both Ayers and Rudolph were jointly pardoned, as confused and misguided political reactionaries who now disavow their terrorist past, but oh wait, Ayers isn't sorry for his crimes and said he didn't do enough. Regardless, it shows the intellectual cowardice of the right that in its closing moments of power, for at least four years, this issue isn't even on the radar. It also helps that the left-wing donor class is more attuned to making sure that traitors like
Marc Rich are let go, and their monied interests are outraged when pardons aren't issued for those who kill federal agents such as
Leonard Peltier. If Bill Ayers can walk free, then it is a moral outrage that Rudolph is in prison for the rest of his life.
Labels: abortion, Bush, obama
Why Bush is a failure
This small little drudge snippet says so much by saying so little. I wonder whether the White House has the courage to ask why its own party defected on an issue critical to Bush by a 2-1 majority? I doubt they do. And yet, never could it be clearer that the priorities of this President are irrelevant even to those who are his 'friends.' Indeed, I wonder whether this lame-duck President has any chits to cash with this Congress, whom he strong-armed into a bogus Prescription Drug Benefit, has drug through a now unpopular occupation and has demonstrated almost zero leadership in sustaining public support for, and has directly gone against the interests of most of his own caucus in proposing amnesty for illegal aliens. The Democrats since 2004 have been exceptionally well disciplined and well-organized, but that's only half of this President's problems, for his biggest problem is himself. And the lack of leadership from Bush, especially on any issue important to his base, is critical to this. Would that Bush extended half the energy he has to this bailout to gut the millions of federal dollars given to Planned Parenthood. Or an iota of this effort to real border security. If only his administration had a tenth of the attention to an exploding federal budget as he does to a bailout that helps such a fraction of the American people. No, we couldn't get any of that kind of leadership from George no matter how much we, his supposed friends, and even those who consider themselves "Republicans" begged. I don't know what else to say with a man who treats his 'friends' and his party like this, whose priorities are so out of line. Maybe history, time and an awful McCain/Obama presidency will leave us longing for Bush, but I doubt it.
Labels: bailout, Bush, history, policy, politics
George W. Bush and his Economic Destruction: "Compassionate" American Socialism
Leave it to Bush to bring about economic devastation, the legacy of compassionate conservatism is apparently that the 'compassion' is really code for 'I drown your economy in the bathtub when no one's looking'
We are going to see a 30% reduction in the quality of life, in the cost of essentials, over the next year and we won't even realize it. We are being strangled financially and when these costs rise, we'll wonder, "why did our rent just go up 30%" or "why did a gallon of milk get so expensive" and not wonder whether it has to do with the reduced purchasing power of the dollar.
Let us list out our various crises that King George has handled with such expert care:
1. Energy Crisis - no new plants = increased costs of production
2. Iraq Occupation - lots of good men overseas, huge costs = higher govt spending causing greater debt which causes inflation, and 250k men abroad means those wages aren't working within the civilian economy
3. Immigration Crisis - too many illegals = decreased wages, strained social services, higher taxes
4. Oil Crisis - regulations kill production and preventing new development = increased costs of production, inflationary pressures
5. Insurance Crisis - bad mortgages cause major investment houses to approach bankruptcy = possible spread of the insolvency to other banks, constriction in credit causing businesses to stop expansions and halt economic growth, bailing out the banks will cause a larger national debt which is a strong inflationary pressure, as well as the added inflationary pressure of the defaults on the economy
6. Mortgage Loan Crisis - lotsa bad loans = increase in foreclosures and people losing their homes, causes banks to go insolvent, puts individuals in higher-paying apartments which will cut into their disposable income causing less purchasing and a general economic slowdown
7. Healthcare Crisis - antiquated laws and enough socialism to kill the market forces = increasing inflationary pressures as healthcare costs skyrocket thanks to a total lack of political will to implement very basic reforms such as those proposed by Senator Coburn.
coming soon:
7.
Collapsing Dollar - inflationary pressures cause the value of the dollar to keep falling = we'll be selling companies in this country for pennies on the dollar in order to get foreign capital, most of the businesses in this country will become foreign-owned, our exports will also increase and imports decrease thanks to an inability to buy anything globally due to our weak dollar and while this sounds good on the surface we import so many things that it will ultimately drive up the costs of production even further.
8.
Entitlements Crisis - not enough babies = Social Security and Medicare bankruptcy, either old people will be bankrupt or on welfare, and medical costs will skyrocket as the demand overwhelms supply
Labels: Bush, Economics, policy, politics
Nationalization is Socialism in every country but this one.
The Treasury department has now
effectively nationalized Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as this very lengthy Wall Street Journal article explains. And the rationale for this is that no one wants to default on these loans and start foreclosing on houses where loans shouldn't have been approved in the first place. If you want to read between the lines as to what this means, you'll have to consult
the always prescient Steve Sailer, who explains that
this is the "diversity recession" caused by foolish loans to those who were completely unqualified to handle them, but who benefited from having the right skin color. And now, after assuming this debt, the government gets to make another crisis within a current one, by writing loans to these clowns, and taking equity within the companies. Not only is the federal bank a perpetual donor, it is now going to be an owner. This will have disastrous consequences for the financial industry later on.
And we ought to be more outraged and more alarmed by this. We would call it socialism or nationalization elsewhere. The long history of antipathy towards Fidel Castro stemmed in no small part from his nationalization of industries in Cuba in 1959, we effectively okayed the assassination of
Allende in Chile in 1973 when he moved to nationalize industries there and institute socialism. And I don't point these things out in order to castigate them, rather, quite appropriately, to demonstrate how serious it is when this nationalization effort happens. It affects an entire country, it screws up the financial industry, and it throws economies into chaos. The US foreign policy gets criticism from all sides, but I don't think it's legitimate when it undertook actions to stabilize the world and provide the security for countries to keep doing business. A Pax Americana based on trade and free markets is at least a predictable, stable and a relatively fair one. But now, we are clearly in the midst of a rule by emotional appeal to the masses, mob rule.
When
Hugo Chavez nationalizes foreign industries, it's appropriately labeled socialism. When we nationalize our own financial industry to protect it against a preferred political class of voters, a de facto ruling elite (noting that the actual ruling elite simply relies on this class of voters), it's... somehow different.
When Bush
promises "
universal home ownership" in his state of the union, who was he appealing to? He was promising wealth from the homeowners to those who didn't have the means to own one. It was a power-play, and socialism. It is mindless "equity" in the most base of material ways. We think, "houses" and say, "happy" but we don't wonder whether the same things that cause a man to be in debt or financially unstable might cause him to lack the stability needed to keep that house. Or the many people in this country whose jobs are too transient to be in one place long enough for a 20-30 year mortgage. I recall discussing this aspect of Bush's policies with conservative friends, and everyone came back to the same essentially liberal line: that all our minority problems will just go away, crime will finally come down, education will go up, drug use will go away, when minorities are "invested" and are part of this great "ownership society" and feel like "stockholders" in their community.
How silly. How naive. And how foolish of myself that I didn't see through those arguments.
We are reaping what we have sown. We elected a soft socialist who didn't want "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and proclaimed how "compassionate" he was, and despite all the hype and hope, and the hyped hope, we got what it really was: socialism, just in small doses. Shame on us for not seeing this for what it truly was, and for trying to buy our way out of racial discord. The result will no doubt be more chaos and instability in the financial markets, and bring about more racial discord when these homes finally default, and will lead to greater government control over the economy which will, again, promote more inefficiencies and economic uncertainty.
Labels: Bush, Economics, government, policy, politics, race
Diseased Notions of Tolerance
Though there are plenty of anecdotes that are meant to pull on the heart-strings, it becomes an objective ridiculous proposition to allow those with terminal diseases to immigrate to the United States.
The prohibition against those with AIDS, leprosy and other ailments from entering the country has recently been lifted by the Democrat Congress, assuredly under the guise of "tolerance" and "respecting the rights of others." Now, of course, our disgraceful President even endorsed this idea when he signed it into law, but let's not forget what this will unquestionably mean: more diseased Americans contracting an illness because the government doesn't want to be seen as "intolerant" towards people who aren't even citizens! The nation-state may be on the wane, but the interests of Americans ought to be put before those of prospective Americans. Why shell out huge chunks of foreign aid to Africa to those with AIDS when we can just open the border and let them all come here! The government should be taking steps to use immigration to reduce disease, not promote it, and not bring in people who will further strain our health care system.
Labels: Bush, Congress, Democrats, disease
More Bush Olympics frustration
At the risk of sounding like a leftist, I was ashamed that this man was our President in
this story about the Olympics. Here is the leader of the free world, who has no problem declaring human rights abuses, in a country built on slave labor, aborting children forcibly, that is the epitome of everything wrong with totalitarian society, and he says he had a great time. Instead of trying to help people, or restore American pride in the country, he got excited for the photo ops with the different teams. Ridiculous.
Labels: Bush
Bush at the Olympics
Let's not forget who the Communists really are.
Well, Bush went to the Olympics and instead of giving a rousing speech on human rights, ended up
playing volleyball with some very good looking women.
Fark captures the moment with a caption contest. Again, I guess any sort of accomplishment or achievement is apparently too much to ask from the President.
Labels: Bush, China
One last chance for a positive Bush legacy: Olympics
The President has done many things wrong, including squandering his political capital in exchange for zero serious policy reforms. Though I consider myself pro-Iraq-war, I concede that there are serious problems with the invasion that are now clear in hindsight. And Bush's democracy talk, clearly Wilsonian, is a dangerous precedent to establish as official policy. However, as a nation built on values and unquestionable human rights, without even engaging deeper topics of democracy and the proper forms of government, while Bush is in China for the Olympics I think it would be a transformational moment in the narrative of the Bush legacy were he to clearly, publicly, and resolutely condemn the inhumane Chinese Human Rights abuses in front of the entire world community. Since China's acceptance of the games was predicated on this silly notion that it would somehow imbue them with a better government, and not just provide an international acceptance of a superpower built on slave labor and totalitarianism, it ought to behoove the President to tell the Emperor they have no clothes, and give a memorable, inspirational, declaratory and deafening exposition of the crimes of the Chinese in front of the world community: the madness of the Great Leap Forward, the barbarism of the one-child policy and the many twisted ways in which births and families are regulated, the persecution of dissidents and the ridiculous judicial system. Granted it's bad form to criticize a man in his own house, but it is equally as bad to not criticize a murderer when your silence connotes acceptance of the murders. Bush ought to deliver a serious condemnation of the ChiComs, in front of everyone, in front of them, and let the chips fall where they may. This, it should be noted, might require the layoffs of everyone in the State Department to prevent a bureaucratic revolt, but it'd be worth it.
Labels: Bush, China, pro-life
Energy policies worthy of the Soviets
Bush is
apparently removing some executive order prohibiting the development of energy resources off the coast. Now, thankfully all the Bush sycophants have been shamed into silence, but shouldn't we right of center people ask why it took this administration eight years to take such a simple action? Wasn't it Paul Begala that regaled at how easy it was for Clinton to make policy, "at the stroke of a pen" and yet, one wonders, how many thousands, millions, of missed opportunities has Bush fumbled. There was such hope and promise to bring this country back from Clinton's reign of terror, and instead we got a lazy, out to lunch administration that was so busy with global war that it forgot even the most basic conservative principles while governing. I realize it's cliche to pick on Bush, and all too easy, but the more that time goes on I find no reason to defend him and no redeeming qualities to the administration. A few years ago Richard Viguerie was on the Daily Show and he said that in 64 conservatives figured out how to nominate the President, in 80 figured out to win, but we're still really trying to figure out how to govern.
Labels: Bush, energy
The roads to serfdom and bankruptcy ought to be renamed Bush Blvd.
Apparently
the Fed is talking about taking over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Welcome to the socialist state given to us by President Bush and the Federal Reserve. No one is held to blame, no one is even properly condemned for this mess, and the entire economy and taxpayers end up footing the bill, potentially nearly doubling the national debt in one stroke by assuming the $5 trillion in debt held by the two. Granted, most of that won't sour, but the implications are staggering, and the involvement by the government into the economy is perpetual. That this is even being discussed makes my stomach turn at the thought of a Bush presidency. One cannot allow a country to be systemically taken apart as his most inept and incompetent administration has, and not be repulsed by the staggering idiocy of his advisers and himself. This President is even more foolish than the worst of his leftist detractors, and will ensure the financial ruin of this country through the reckless budgets he has agreed to, and the reckless spending he has proposed, and these reckless policies which are destroying the economy. Such is the cost of easy money from the Fed, and
insane lending mandates to cover borrowers who cannot afford them or keep a job long enough to make consistent payments.
Labels: Bush, Economics, race
