Clarence Thomas: Constitutional Hero

Clarence Thomas could end up destroying progressive statism

Walter Russell Mead writes that the left has gone from declaring Clarence Thomas a dunce to ringing all-hands-on-deck alarm bells over the horrible realization that this justice has been patiently sapping the very foundations of New Deal statism for over 20 years.  Shock and horror, ladies and gentlemen:  The left has finally realized, hopefully too late, that Justice Clarence Thomas is a brilliant constitutional scholar of formidable intellect.

What we didn’t know, and what the world at large didn’t know until very recently, was that the New Deal constitution was not as permanent or unalterable as it looked.  Intellectually its foundations were shaky, and after two decades of a Clarence Thomas-led assault, the constitutional doctrines that permitted the rise of the powerful federal government could be close to collapse.  (New Blue Nightmare:  Clarence Thomas)

The Sun Also Sets

In the case of the Second Amendment, the collapse has already come.  Back in my Pundit High days, anyone who dared to suggest that the Bill of Rights gave individuals the right to bear arms would have been laughed out of the class as an ignorant yahoo.  These days, that is the accepted view of the US Supreme Court and most of the legal profession.  The resurrection of the Second Amendment proves that the “dead letter” clauses of the Constitution can come back to life — and suggests that Clarence Thomas understands how this can be done.

Justice Thomas is the intellectual firepower that will eventually blow the Obamacare Battlestar Gallactica out of the sky...

...which is why liberals are screaming for him to recuse himself on such a flimsy premise:  His wife, instead of being an angry feminist footsoldier in progressivism's long march, instead has become a tea party activist.  Liberals hate how conservative male chauvenist pigs control their women, but hate it more when they don't.

The next topic for Constitutional revisionism is the expansive reading of the commerce clause that the New Deal judges used to justify the Roosevelt administration’s ambitious economic programs.  The Obamacare health reform depends on that kind of reading of the commerce clause; the penumbras must stretch pretty far for the Constitution to give Congress the right to require all Americans to buy private health insurance.  And if the commerce clause can be stretched this far, one must ask whether there is anything that the Constitution blocks Congress from doing.

The terrified left realizes that this is not the end of Thomas' efforts, but rather just the beginning...

The Second Amendment was a constitutional landmine for the left; the Tenth is a nuclear bomb.

A strict reading of the 10th Amendment would invalidate many expensive and expansive federal programs.  Thomas's cogent arguments in a few key cases could restore personal liberty to its rightful primacy and return us to a serious reading of the enumerated powers, finally arresting the progressives of all parties who have hijacked the ship of state.

Taken seriously today, that approach to the Constitution would change the way Washington does business.  Radically.  The list of enumerated powers is short and does not include, for example, health care, education, agricultural subsidies, assistance to the hungry or old age pensions.  Most of the New Deal and Great Society (with the interesting exception of civil rights laws which enforce the Civil War era amendments) would be struck down.  Whole cabinet departments would close.

Mead tempers expectations, saying none of this will happen tomorrow, if at all.  But it is the single greatest threat the all-encompassing progressive state has ever faced.  Even if nothing dramatic transpires, Justice Thomas has moved the intellectual football and advanced the cause of liberty, actually changing scholarly legal thought, and that will redound to our good for decades to come.

I've only given you a taste of this erudite and entertaining writer's article.  I recommend you go read the whole thing.  It will lift your spirits while enlightening you.  He couches this entire article in a Lord of the Rings theme, making the reading of such weighty matters an absolute delight.  

All quotes from:  New Blue Nightmare:  Clarence Thomas

Please go read the original Jeffrey Toobin article, Partners.  You will gain a great appreciation of just how badly Justice Thomas and his brilliant wife frighten the left.

Why Does Obama Hate American Workers?

The Chavez twins

Barack Obama is the Hugo Chavez of North America

Western Hero doesn't celebrate international communist holidays, but we recognize our American Labor Day, since it has been cleansed of it's embarrassing socialist origins.



Obama and the Democrats Wage War on the American Worker

Obama used the power of the state to punish another enemy this past week, sending armed agents to storm a guitar factory whose owner had the temerity to not bribe, er... pay a campaign contribution to the Obama campaign.  The pretext?  Indian workers should have sanded those boards, not Americans!

Boeing's newest plant remains shuttered and thousands out of work because Obama has again used the power of the state to punish South Carolina for not voting for him.  

Add to this the fact that President Obama's "Jobs" Czar has shipped tens of thousands of jobs to China, and it is clear that President Obama and the Democrats hate the American worker and have done everything in their power to discourage American businesses from hiring them.

President Obama and the Democrats are gold-plated members of the DC-Chamber of Commerce Cheap Labor Cabal that supports the exploitation of illegal immigrants.  They violate the human rights of immigrants while denying millions of American workers a decent wage for their labor.  Millions more Americans are completely out of work thanks to the Democratic party jobs program for illegal immigrants.

Strangling Job Creators with Red Tape

Another dictatorial tactic is to tangle up a company with confusing and contradictory regulations so that no matter how diligent and sincere its efforts are, an army of compliance bureaucrats can storm its offices and quickly find damning evidence of corporate malfeasance and disobedience to the state.

Trucking company Old Dominion took an alcoholic trucker off the road, following Department of Transportation regulations.  That same action ran afoul of another government agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). (See the Human Events article)  Another company impaled upon the horns of a government-created dilemma.

We need to get rid of EEOC, Department of Labor and every other agency that enforces labor laws or enshrines the enforcement of some laws over others.  So many government agencies serve as nothing more than infestations of special interest activists to they can sap this nation from the inside by using the government's powers against their enemies.  It is a sure sign of a destructive, hidebound government when one private sector business action complies with one government regulation while simultaneously breaking another.

Pass the laws and let violations be dealt with in civil court.  As a bonus to liberals, that action could increase labor union membership, making unions actually useful again as an advocate before the bar for workers whose rights have been abused by employers.

Our government must also cease raiding places of business as if they were Al Qaeda strongholds.  The federal government's armed raid on the Gibson Guitar factory was a gross overreach befitting a Latin American dictatorship, or perhaps a Russian Kleptocracy raid on BP.
 
Obama's Jobs Machine is Stuck in Reverse

So if you're out of a job, you should be marching on the White House and demanding an end to job killing statism that supports foreign workers over American workers.  Demand an end to illegal immigration that is stealing millions of jobs.  Tell the government to call off the regulatory gestapo that harasses the people who hand you a paycheck.

Australia vs. Germany

I'm still stuck in the Thomas Sowell "Compared to What?" mode, so I thought I'd do a quick economic comparison between the US, Germany and Australia.
 
We've been arguing a lot over economics here at Western Hero and around Right Blogistan.  I want to present a few basic economic facts to help us keep it in perspective.  All information is from The Heritage Foundation 2011 Index of Economic Freedom.

It is useful to state statistics as a percentage of GDP, since GDP is the generally accepted (although imperfect) expression of a nation's total economic output.   It's the whole pie.

A Tale of Three Countries

Here are a few facts about America, Germany and Australia.  I include Australia because it ranks #3 on The Heritage Foundation's index and it is a model of small government.  I list Germany because liberals, with reason, like to cite that country as a successful example of enlightened progressive governance. 

United States of America
GDP:  $14.2 Trillion
Total Revenue:  26.9% of GDP
Total Government Expenditures:  38.9%

Germany
GDP:  $2.8 Trillion
Total Revenue:  40.6% of GDP
Total Government Expenditures:  43.7%

Australia
GDP:  $851.2 Billion
Total Revenue:  30.8% of GDP
Total Government Expenditures:  34.3%

One thing that immediately stands out is that all three countries spend more than they take in. Must be an international contagion.

Liberals want us to be more like Germany

I at least credit them with ignoring Communist North Korea and Castro's Socialist island paradise to pick a pretty good model.  In order to emulate Germany, we'd have to tax everything, making the price of everything go up.  Imagine a 19% sales tax.  Denmark, Sweden and Norway have a VAT of 25%!  We'd also have to strip states of their remaining rights, since the federal government only collects 18% of GDP, with the other 10% collected unevenly and unfairly among the states.  Get that done and you still have to figure out how to squeeze another 15 cents of every dollar out of the taxpayer.

Note the small difference in expenditure/GDP between Germany and the US.  We're almost on par, yet our social services stink in comparison to Germany's.  I think this points to horrible inefficiencies in how our government operates.  This also explains why Obama and his liberal fellow travelers are demanding draconian tax hikes to feed the voracious beast.

Conservatives should point to Australia

Australia is the gold standard of how a country should operate. It is ranked #3 in the world in The Heritage Foundation index.  Only Singapore and Hong Kong are higher (but who wants to live where you can get sick breathing the air or get your ass caned for chewing gum in public?).

Australia has a relatively small and efficient government, low corruption, and light but effectively enforced regulations on the economy and banking. It is an excellent business climate, and that translates into Joe Biden's favorite three-letter word:  J-O-B-S.

I would glady pay taxes for a government like Australia's that provides a great return on taxpayer money and doesn't stifle freedom in the process.

See also:  Western Hero - How to run a Country:  Australia

Quotes of the Week & Cetera

It's been a fun week here at Western Hero.  The highlight was perhaps when Jersey accused a college professor with a PhD of being anti-intellectual.  Good one man!

I do agree with Jersey that it is tiresome to see an Ivy League alum like Bill O'Reilly try to act like an anti-intellectual working class mug living in a two-bedroom bungalow on the south side.  Like Jersey, I don't know any working class multimillionaires.

Conservativesonfire had a trenchant comment on intellectuals:

Intellectuals should be locked in rooms and only allowed to pass their written ideas under the doors. Smart people with good common sense would then read and discard most of them while implementing the good ideas far better than the intellectual ever could.

I would be more charitable and put them on an island paradise somewhere out of harm's way where they couldn't screw up society by trying to run it.

Here's a quote on women from FreeThinke:

There's a powerful charm -- and a great deal of quiet power -- inherent in old fashioned ladylike behavior. I regret its passing. Women don't have to take on the worst characteristic of male behavior in order to compete successfully with males.

A quote like that could only have come from a wise gentleman with more than a few years behind him...

Rush is Right

I rarely have the opportunity to listen to the radio at the jobsite, but I really, really like Rush Limbaugh, most of all because he lives in the left's head rent-free 24/7.  They pay more attention to him than tea partiers do.  Rush is also right.  He's got talk radio down to a science.  My only complaint is that he is so good as to be mechanistic, and he doesn't debate liberal callers well.  But you can't have it all.  The only reason I don't mention him very often is because it invites the inevitable stoopid leftwing ding-dong comments about getting my talking points from Rush.

Here's what FreeThinke thinks of Rush:

You can practically hear the twinkle in his eye as he speaks. Of course he only appeals to truly bright people.

Rush functions like an Intelligence Test. If you don't like him, you're either a dodo or a Marxist.

Rush is the prime mover in the Conservative Radio Talk Show phenomenon. He got there first, has the strongest, most charismatic personality, and the most facile wit. And he's proved himself to be incredibly durable. He's withstood the test of time. If it weren't for Rush there would be no such thing as Conservative Talk Radio.

Of course naturally I love him, because I write all his material, and he delivers my lines perfectly -- just as though he were making it up on his own. He and I have had a great partnership going for a very long time. I SO enjoy being the silent, unseen, unknown guiding genius behind the scenes.

And just who am I?  The Great No-Longer-Silent Majority that's who I am.

Still, Michael Savage is my favorite...

Popping a beer in the evening and listening to Michael Savage on internet radio is like inviting an interesting old raconteur uncle into my home.  I like Rush, but I love Doc Savage.  He talks about nutrition, music and anything under the sun, and he unleashes some righteous angry rants. He's a conservative who hates the GOP establishment, and an unreligious man who extolls the wonders of God and reads the Bible.  Last night he had a friendly conversation with uber progressive former NY Governor David Paterson.

Savage has a lot of wisdom behind him and he's full of common sense.  Pictures are now out of boxing great Oscar de la Hoya wearing women's undergarments.  He paid millions to keep them hidden lest they damage his macho image, but somehow they got out anyway.  Now he is engaging in long confessions as part of his rehab from drug and alcohol addiction.  His wife, God bless her, is staying by his side.

Uncle Mike's take?  He admires de la Hoya, and he said he should not have let anyone blackmail him.  If anyone tried to make fun of him over the pictures he should have said, "Oh yeah?  Get in the ring with me.  I'll beat your ass while wearing pantyhose!"  That's wisdom and common sense.

FreeThinke again puts in words what I am thinking:

The only other talk show host worth his salt is Michael Savage. He really tells it like it is, and pulls no punches. Of course he's an awful braggart, and unlike Rush he means it, but he's an honest, authentic Noo Yawk type -- like a lot of the men I grew up around -- so his crassness and utter lack of diplomacy and finesse don't bother me a bit. In fact it's refreshing.

I try to listen to liberal talk radio but I just can't stomach it.  Randy Rhodes is a hateful shrike, the Molloy guy sounds terminally depressed, and the rest of them are so unremarkable I can't even remember any names.  Thom Hartmann is about the only liberal talker I like, and I highly recommend his book, The Edison Gene.

Who are your favorite talkers?

Compared to What?

Dr. Thomas Sowell says there are three questions that can cut through the fog:

“Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?”

Anyone who has ever bought a car or a house instinctively understands this.  The wife and I wanted a luxury home in the foothills with acreage and a big horse barn, but a little bungalow in a working class neighborhood was all we could afford, so here we are.

Campaign Season is Upon Us

All sides shovel hard facts, some more creatively than others. So after sifting the information, "Compared to what?" is the salient question.  We tend to compare a program or candidate against a mythical ideal that just does not exist in real life.  We're human--we're flawed, so "compared to what?" is the question that must be asked.

Some would criticize me for being an unprincipled ABO (Anybody But Obama), but I compare every GOP candidate to Obama and it's a no-brainer.  If you're talking about a third party you might as well slap an Obama Hope and Change bumper sticker on your car.

Consider the GOP field: 

* Palin has scant experience...
* Bachmann maybe a little more...
* Herman Cain shows the downside of no political experience...
* Jon Huntsman, fresh from working for Obama...
* Ron Paul is neo-nazi flypaper for some reason...
* Rick Santorum can't even get elected in his own state...
* Gary Johnson smokes pot...
* Mitt Romney is a RINO and looks like the manager who fired you...
* Rick Perry has the odor of crony crapitalism on his boots...
* Newt Gingrich is an operatic bloviator in love with big government...

Still, I would pick any one of these candidates over Obama and his gaffmaster sidekick Palooka Joe from Scranton.

Windmills and Choo Choo Trains

Michael Barone employs all three Sowell questions in his article illustrating how the private sector innovates while government spends and vacillates... 

While governments dither and dispute, the private sector discovers.

For years, governments, national and local, have been promoting wind and solar power, to little practical effect. Curiously, the biggest wind power producer is Rick Perry's Texas. But wind power isn't reliable, and both wind and solar cause serious damage to the environment.

In the meantime, the oil and gas industries -- the favorite target of Barack Obama and congressional Democrats -- have developed new techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that have vastly expanded recoverable American energy supplies. (Michael Barone - Intercity Buses )

The hard facts are that government wastes money and gives us crappy, surly service, and at a higher cost than the private sector.  Government stinks in comparison to the private sector.

Barone goes on to explain how entrepreneurs are coming up with efficient bus services tailored to the customer, a concept unheard of in government.  He compares this solution to the hundreds of billions that light rail costs.  Again, examine the facts, weigh the cost, and the comparison is easy.   

It makes too much sense for a statist to understand:  Untethered buses are much cheaper and more efficient than infrastructure-heavy trains.  As a bonus, you can cut down on petroleum usage and save the environment by converting those buses to natural gas.

So which gets us closer to the free market solutions described by Michael Barone?  Voting for Obama, voting for a 3rd party candidate, or voting for whoever gets the GOP nomination?

God Save us from Another Cerebral President

A liberal at Politico has taken the original step of questioning the intellectual capacity of a GOP candidate for president

Funny, no one on the left ever questions the intelligence of laff-a-minute good-for-nothing-but-government Maxine Waters or gaff-master good-for-nothing-but-government Joe Biden. Dim bulbs flicker across the liberal landscape, but progressives persist in smearing successful conservatives (George Bush got higher grades than Al Gore, remember?). Here’s the latest poop throwing monkey attack:

Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: lightweight, incurious, instinctual.

Strip away the euphemisms and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: Is he dumb — or just “misunderestimated?” (Politico - Is Rick Perry Dumb?)

Cerebral presidencies are rarely successful

Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama. All supposedly highly-intelligent, all dismal failures.  A president doesn’t need to be a genius, he just needs to be an effective manager and a bold leader, traits not normally found in ivory tower eggheads.

There are different kinds of smarts. There’s book smarts, street smarts, and an ability to think on ones feet, evaluate information and make good decisions using a combination of logical thinking and gut instinct nurtured by experience. Those of us with working class dads who never saw the inside of a college classroom can tell you how we marveled at the man’s ability to smell a rat and avoid making stupid mistakes. 

Leadership takes that special kind of smarts, and intellectuals usually don’t fit the bill. The best leaders, be they sergeants or generals are smart, but not the brainy Newt Gingrich intellectual type. They are interested in ideas only for their practical use, not as an academic pursuit.  Good leaders can ingest information, often conflicting, presented to them by experts. They can evaluate that information against experience and empirical evidence and pull the trigger without the dithering and the drama.

The two most important qualities to look for in a president are Philosophy and Judgment

Philosophy tells us where the candidate wants to lead the nation, and judgment tells us if he can take us there or not. Our best leaders picked good people and trusted them, encouraging open debate and then synthesizing the information to craft policy. Putting philosophy aside, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush were all very good at this. Barack Obama is not, and he's ill-served by an inept staff to boot.

Rick Perry has demonstrated these successful leadership qualities in his 10 plus years as Texas Governor:

“If he doesn’t know the answer, he’s going to find someone who does,” the lobbyist said. “He recognizes good help and brings ’em on for advice. He’s not going to know every foreign leader — but he has the good sense and instincts to pick good people who help him make good decisions.”

“Pilots execute flight plans,” Miller said. “They have a plan, they fly a certain pattern and that’s the way he’s always operated — he has a flight plan for what he’s trying to do and he executes.”

Mike Baselice, Perry’s longtime pollster, said his client is of the Ronald Reagan school of management: “Trust people and manage well.” (Politico - Is Rick Perry Dumb?)

Indeed, it’s the presidents who get too far in the weeds who get into trouble

Think Lyndon Johnson with maps of Vietnam on his desk planning bombing raids or Jimmy Carter making unilateral and ill-considered moralistic decisions on foreign policy that redounded greatly to our nation’s detriment. I’ve seen sergeants and colonels make the same mistakes during my military career.

A president can’t do it all anyway; the galaxy of subject matter is too vast for any one brain to comprehend.  I had the great fortune to study colonels and generals up close during my last few years in the Air Force. Like presidents, people who are in charge of vast enterprises are not the technocrats figuring out every problem. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were not writing code while running their respective companies as CEO. They are leading a team and managing its efforts.

The best leaders take the long and broad view, set the tone and transmit the game plan, leaving their experts to solve the Rubic's Cube.  David Harsanyi explains…

That doesn't make them "dumb." What makes a person dumb is repeating mistakes when all the evidence tells him to stop for his own good. We will witness this human shortcoming when the president rolls out his new "stimulus" package.

Some ideas, goes Orwell's saying, are so dumb only intellectuals can believe them.

On the other hand, reflexive anti-intellectualism (a misguided belief on the right that was spurred by having to share the word "intellectual" with Cornel West) is also destructive. If you're going to propose more than hope in 2012—say, some policy—you have to be prepared with scholarly backup. (Harsanyi – You Don’t Have to be Smart, Just Right)

Did President Obama Make the Oceans Recede?

Did President Obama rebuke the hurricane from his lofty NOAA command post?

The Telegraph’s Toby Harnden writes derisively of the overhyped hurricane Irene. The dire warnings blared out by the nanny state trio of Obama, Bloomberg and Napolitano never came to pass. Harnden’s reacap of the stereotypical reporters doing their stereotypically hysterical reportage from the stereotypical windswept beach was priceless. The New Jersey reporter who stood in raw sewage and commented it didn’t taste very good got special mention.


But what really happened?

Remember when, to thunderous world applause, President Obama pledged he'd make the oceans recede? The assembled press corps shivered with excitement and collectively piddled down their little hind legs as His O-ness soared to oratorical heights untrammeled by mere-mortal presidents.

David Plouffe hinted Monday that Obama has fulfilled that campaign promise this past weekend, but would not elaborate when pressed.  Others were more direct, criticizing the president for his unilateral intervention that has stirred the wrath of the ocean's rulers.

"He should not have done it," clucked the UN Special High Poobah Rapporteur for Climatological Appeasement.  "His unilateral oceanic imperialism smacked too much of that horrible Bush administration.  The ocean's denizens are angry.  President Obama should apologize."

Bush, Cheney to blame for ignoring, disrespecting the ocean kingdom

Has Obama incurred the wrath of Poseidon?

DC insiders say an apology may be forthcoming. In a face-saving move, it will be couched in criticism of the last administration. Dick Cheney's pasty white complexion was a proud testament to his total disregard for the Oceanic kings, having never once visited the beach.

And it is alleged that President Bush urinated upon their abode during various sailing jaunts off the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine. While in the very act of "drainin' the lizard", the former president is rumored to have said, "what's the ocean ever done for me? Heh heh heh!"
 
Ocean Kings Pledge to Rebuff Obama Apology

Reverend Al Gore of the International Church of Gaia insists the Earth is angry, and that includes the roiling oceans, which will "conjure up category 25 hurricanes and steal our coconuts" if we don't change our ways.

Cowering Europeans are bracing for further waves of righteous oceanic anger, certain that the foamy spillover will inevitably reach their  shores.  EU Parliament members have taken to wearing flippers and have outlawed seafood consumption in an effort to appease the angry gods of the deep.

Buy American - Buy Toyota

I bought a used Toyota Tundra awhile back...

My family had outgrown the old Ranger we used to go camping in, and going camping in a minivan just ain’t right.  We took the Tundra camping up in the mountains last week, and it hauled all our gear while handling the roughest 4 wheel drive trails.  It also serves as a vehicle the whole family can go to church in without a fight breaking out because somebody touched somebody (those with kids will understand.)

A smartass liberal at work chided me, since I’ve always been a Buy American guy, but I countered that buying a Toyota is buying American. My truck was made in Texas by American workers, and Toyota took not one dime of bailout money. Toyota did clean up on the cash for clunkers debacle, through no fault of their own, but by the free choice exercised by American consumers.

Your federal government…

…gave Chrysler’s secured creditors, who would have had priority in a normal bankruptcy, 29 cents on the dollar. Chrysler’s unions, on the other hand, got more than 40 cents, even though they are equivalent to low-priority lenders. This made a mockery of longstanding bankruptcy law, something that will make credit markets wary of lending to political sacred cows in the future. (Shikha Dalmia – Driving to Delusionville)  

Obama also favored unionized workers over non-unionized ones:

All United Auto Workers retirees at Delphi, GM’s auto supplier, got 100 percent of their pension and retirement benefits. But 21,000 nonunion, salaried employees lost up to 70 percent of their pensions, and all of their life and health insurance.

Shikha Dalmia goes on to say that GM and Chrysler shirked the opportunity to lower labor costs. At $58/hour, they are still higher than relatively high Toyota, but can’t touch Toyota’s quality and reliability standards. Worse, they come nowhere close to $40/hour Hyunai and Kia. She concludes,

“The bailout prepared GM and Chrysler to compete with the industry leaders of yesterday, not tomorrow.”

Finally, the bailout of GM and Chrysler rewarded failure and punished prudence and fiscal discipline:

By bailing out GM, the administration rewarded its recklessness and penalized Ford’s prudence. Every company that feels it is too big to fail, or is a national icon or major regional employer, will wonder whether it makes more business sense to save for a rainy day or simply hold out for taxpayer assistance.

And contrary to the propagandistic Obamablather, GM still owes you and me over $13 billion, twice that if you figure in generous tax breaks. Buy a vehicle from a car company that shamelessly put such a permanent dent in the US Treasury? That would be downright un-American. I’ll stick to my Fords and Toyotas.

Source for all quotes: 
Shikha Dalmia – Driving to Delusionville

Unbalanced Demographic Perversity

Leticia had an interesting post over at her conservative Christian blog, My Daily Trek.

In yet another expansion of government through Executive Order, the Obama administration has created an Office of Diversity and Inclusion to boost minority participation in the federal work force.

She quotes Judicial Watch, stating that the Obama administration’s goal is to...

“Eliminate demographic group imbalances in targeted occupations and improve workforce diversity. To attain this, special initiatives have been created targeting specific groups, including Hispanics, African Americans, American Indians, women and gays and lesbians.”

What if African-America lesbians are underrepresented in the government janitor category?  Will Obama force random lesbians at gunpoint to grab a mop and broom?

I guess hiring the best person for the job is too simple-minded. If your young daughter is going in for a serious surgery, do you go to the hospital that hires the very best surgeons, or do you go to the diversity hospital that includes witch doctors and those practiced in non-conformist techniques?

If your daughter died at the hands of an inept doctor, would it really make you feel better knowing that at least the doctor was an American Indian lesbian messianic-Muslim?  Or, as Howard Portnoy observes, if diversity is the the supreme good, then why don't we "see women playing in the NFL?"

Progressives have build a bonfire of stupidities, and this is just the latest log on the fire

Here's how to short-circuit this crap: 

Declare yourself and your opposite-gender spouse to both be homosexual.  Demand special rights and recognition.

When challenged by the diversity police, scream loudly that you are being discriminated against because you don't fit the traditional gay lifestyle.  Insist the feral government create a new category for you.  Call Jesse Jackson and go on MSNBC to demand mandatory diversity training that indoctrinates everyone into your alternate lifestyle.

There! You've just created for yourself an even smaller, more exclusive and more oppressed minority.  See how easy it is?

Rational Self Interest, Morality & Liberty

How do we reconcile public morality and personal liberty?

“poverty does not create our social problems; our social problems create our poverty.” – Marco Rubio, US Senator-Florida

In a post last week, I observed that the British looters were acting in their rational self-interest, and Bastiatarian took me to task, albeit in a polite and friendly way…

Bastiatarian:
I don't really think the looters are acting in their rational self-interest, though. I believe that they think they are, but it's a very short-sighted self-interest. At the very least, they don't take into consideration the deep and lasting damage done to their characters by such behavior.

So true.  I could not agree more, and I appreciate Bastiatarian's professorial mien.

What I meant was that those lost souls (on both sides of the Atlantic) live in their own narrow world of the id-driven here and now.  Cash, a flat screen and new sneakers are everything, and a little smashy-smashy to get them is just payback to the store owner for being rich.  That is the incentive system the social engineers have put in place.  Get it all while you can, and getting it at someone else's expense makes it all the better, be it free electronics, housing, money or sex. 

We've imprisoned them...
... with shoddy schools and no expectations.  They cannot see over the horizon; there is no future.  We could preach morality, but we have that embarrassing little issue of the DC-NY bandits in suits looting trillions with impunity.


So here we are in the creeping jungle, staring helplessly as it reclaims the space that Western Civilization had cleared

Anyone who has ever raised children or trained animals (remarkably similar activities!), knows that morals are the foundation of individual and societal success.  It doesn't have to be a religious thing.  Simply teaching people age-old virtues that predate Christianity and holding them up as the ideal would get us most of the way there. 

Trestin:
The truth is society needs a combination of the morality championed by social conservatives and the individual liberty championed by libertarians. Freedom does not work without morality, and morality can not exist without freedom.

Bastiatarian:
Exactly right. Without agency (freedom), there is no ability to choose between right, wrong, or anything else. Regardless of the specific system, morality implies that there is also immorality, and vice versa. One requires the opposing other. Otherwise, it would merely be one big clump that is neither morality nor immorality […]

If I have no choice, my actions are neither good nor evil, neither moral nor immoral. They may be beneficial or damaging for somebody, but those actions do not make me moral or immoral.

What about liberty?

Bastiatarian:
Authority without accountability is tyranny.
Accountability without authority is slavery.
Only when authority and accountability are combined can liberty exist.

If the Marco Rubio quote is too high minded for you, here's one from British writer James Delingpole.  He applies it to his home country, but it fits here almost as well:

For those of us who never got to experience the Second World War, this is the beginning of the most dramatic, turbulent and terrifying era of our lifetime. The rules have changed; the old keep-whistling-cheerfully-and-pretend-it’s-all-going-to-go-away political bullshit is no longer valid currency. (Delingpole - What are the Police Good For?)

For an even more provocative take, see conservative David French's short article, The Sources of Poverty.  Be sure to read the comments as well.  Lots of liberal dissenters showed up and made some valid points to the contrary.

For a concise and entertaining treatise on rational self-interest, see:  UNC - Economicae:  Rational Self-Interest 

Booze is My Anti-Drug

2 The Dogs

An old military buddy of mine has started blogging.  I think he was the last person in America who didn't have one. You can go visit his new blog here:  2 The Dogs

OD is the hick on the right

OD and I fought the War on Drugs with rum and radios.  More importantly, we left married and came back the same, which is not easy when you deploy to South America.  It is the land where single men come back married, and married men come back single.

To be honest, he's more virtuous than me.  I had already spent many wild years in Latin America as a young single man, so I'd had my fill. 

Here are a few good links 

If you're trying to make economic sense of what's going on, these two men know how to break down complex economic issues so that we amateurs can understand them.

Robert Samuelson explains the downside of monetary expansion:  Inflation isn’t the Answer

John Tamney explains why Europe's problem is not the Euro, it's the rampant borrowing and spending:  Europe's Problem is Decidedly Not the Euro

If You Can't Debate 'Em, Smear 'Em

Liberals sure do a lot of name-calling...  

We're terrorists, hostage takers, and we want the economy to collapse so we can blame it all on Obama.  They also enjoy shouting "racist!" at anyone who doesn't fall on his knees before The Man Who Would Make The Oceans Recede.

It's all part of a larger progressive strategy to delegitimize what they are intellectually incapable of arguing against, explains Dr. Krauthammer.

For weeks, these calumnies have been Obama staples. Calumnies, because they give not an iota of credit to the opposition for trying to promote the public good, as presumably Obama does, but from different premises and principles. Calumnies, because they deny legitimacy to those on the other side of the great national debate about the size and scope and reach of government.

Charging one’s opponents with bad faith is the ultimate political ad hominem. It obviates argument, fact, logic, history. Conservatives resist Obama’s social-democratic, avowedly transformational agenda not just on principle but on empirical grounds, as well — the economic and moral unraveling of Europe’s social-democratic experiment, on display today from Athens to the streets of London. (Krauthammer – Bad Luck?)

Krauthammer observes Obama leveling the old charge of “Playing politics:”

These people, who inhabit Congress (guess which party?), refuse to set aside “politics” for the good of the nation.

I’ve always thought that such criticisms were illegitimate. Of course it’s politics! Politics is the art and science of government, and the people we send to DC don’t always agree with one another, thank God. Consensus and compromise are the primary ingredients of the toxic economic stew we find ourselves drowning in.

Which is worse?  “Playing politics” by defending a philosophy you believe will better the country and its citizenry, or calling your opponents terrorists and hostage takers?

Angry democrats have poisoned the waters. Tea partiers want debate based upon the political philosophies of our founders, the left wants everybody to sit down and shut up.

So tell me again who the liberals are in this debate?

Keynes: Economist of the Dictators

I don't know much about economics, but I do know that a politburo full of eggheads can crash the economic ship just like us simpletons in the free market can. Only the egghead crashes are much more spectacular.

Economics is the dismal science, so I hope this post is not too dismal. 

Ducky asked me about liquidity traps in one of his posts last week, and this this the response.  It's Keynes versus the Misesian free marketeers.  I've included lots of links for those who want to explore these pressing but timeless issues further.


Keynesianism is a cold, mechanistic theory sprung from an era when strongman dictatorships were admired for making the trains run on time

"[T]he Krugman/Keynesian viewpoint is based on an extremely mechanistic interpretation of human action. People within a market setting do not purchase goods they believe will meet their individual needs; no, they spend, as though the spending itself is the ultimate end of an economy." (The Deepening Depression)

To the Keynesian statists, we are merely cogs in the machine

Paul Krugman and the rest of the big government, spend spend spend, more stimulus crowd are Keynesians. They believe that if government just spends enough, it can stimulate a down economy. They also believe in the fiction, the fatal conceit, that government central planners can flatten the hills and fill in the valleys of the free market economy.

What modern-day Keynesians tend to forget is that Keynes’s recommendation for governments to spend more in times of economic crises was predicated on the assumption that government would bank up cash during the good times. As we are all now painfully aware, that didn’t happen.  They Keynesians were wrong, again, and the Austrian School has been vindicated, again.

After all, this Keynesian nonsense has had many trial runs, and it has failed every single time. And there are specific reasons: government spending drains reserve capital, nationalizations prop up inefficiencies, and money creation distorts reality and forestalls recovery.

It doesn't take a fortune-teller to discern that this hokum will not work to accomplish its stated aims. All it does is prop up the state and its friends at our expense. (Jeffrey Tucker - The Austrians were Right)

Governments worldwide spent like there was no tomorrow during the good times, so there is no reserve to draw from.  Keynesian stimulus must be funded by putting ourselves further in hock to Communist China. Do any of you know anyone who has borrowed his way to prosperity?   

Liquidity Traps and Other Keynesian Fictions

When Keynesian schemes collapse, as is happening now on a global scale, statists like Krugman resort to that shiniest of glittery baubles, the liquidity trap.
 

Liquidity Trap:  A theoretical fiction created to explain away the failures of Keynesianism.  The point at which you cannot induce people to borrow and spend, even if you give money away. 

The only reason they get by with such nonsense is because the average citizen has little understanding of economics.  There's a lot of "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" in central-planned statist macroeconomics.

Swedish economist Richard Johnsson writes a short but dense riposte to this nonsense, The Liquidity Trap Myth.

William Anderson provides a less-scholarly, more layman-friendly explanation in his short article,  The Deepening Depression 

 Contra Krugman:  The Austrian School

Murray Rothbard delivered many a withering critique of Keynesianism.  Here are two good ones.  I have to point out that his critique of Reaganomics was principally due to the fact that Milton Friedman's supply-side theories were founded in Keynesianism, government manipulation of people and markets.

Rothbard – Keynesian Myths
Rothbard – Keynesianism Redux

 

Supply Side is Suspect as Well

Finally, Richard Ebeling delivers a critique of Supply Side economics.  He also explains why the Laffer Curve may be a wonderful visual aid used to explain a general concept, but it is not a viable mathematical model.

Supply Side economics is based upon Keynesian principles, and therefore Austrians see it as just another means for statists to chain We The People to the mill wheel of government, albeit in a perhaps more efficient fashion.

I know this may be confusing to those who haven't delved into the dismal science, but it's important to understand it, because this is what future arguments will be revolving around as the slow-motion global economic collapse continues.

See also:   Reason – How Long Will it Take for Keynesianism to Die?

Rick Perry Pledges to Blow Up Hoover Dam

Rick Perry continues to fascinate me. He is the only candidate other than Ron Paul who poses a real threat to both the GOP Establishment and the Obama Democrats.

Karl Rove has stopped attacking democrats and is now going all MSNBC on Perry.  In response, the left has gone from bawling for The Texas Turd Blossom’s imprisonment to praising his Perry-bashing sagacity.


The reason I like Perry right now is because he has kicked off a loud and much-needed dialog about the size and scope of government, complete with talk of jobs, overregulation and tort reform. He’s not the only conservative itching for such a throwdown, but he’s attracted the brightest spotlight and he’s the only candidate with a real record of grappling with these issues.

Here’s a news excerpt that reveals the media's barely disguised hatred of the man:

(API – Herford Station, Iowa) To clamorous crowds of government-hating Tea Partiers, Rick Perry pledged to blow up Hoover Dam if elected president.

He also removed any doubt about whether he was packing heat by shooting out a chandelier in the ball room where he held his post-rally press conference. When confronted by horrified reporters, most still cowering under tables, he replied that the offending light fixture “looked too French,” as he calmly tucked the Smith & Wesson Model 500 back inside his jacket.

A disheveled CNN reporter with a visible wet spot covering his crotch indignantly challenged the Texas governor’s hostility to all things government. “Why do you hate welfare babies and infrastructure?” “You just want to blow up government!”

“Yeah,” replied Perry, eyes narrowing to slits, “and y’all don’t even want to know what I got planned for that yapping pack of French Poodles y’all call the press corpse.”

Governor Perry wrapped up the press conference by forcibly baptizing a crying msnbc reporter in a bucket of Jack Daniels while loudly shouting, “praise Jesus!”

Brilliant conservative commentator Jeff Jacoby then stood up and efficiently batted down the liberal “conservatives hate government” meme:

But it isn’t highways or veterans’ programs or minority voting rights that conservatives find so objectionable about Washington. When Perry speaks of making the nation’s capital “inconsequential,’’ he isn’t proposing to dismantle the Hoover Dam. Hard as it may be for liberals to accept, the Republican base isn’t motivated by blind loathing of the federal government, or by a nihilistic urge to wipe out the good that Washington has accomplished.

What conservatives believe, rather, is what America’s Founders believed: that government is best which governs least, [...]

But as government grows larger and more powerful, it crowds out private action. It replaces local, familiar, and organic institutions with remote bureaucratic ones. As state and federal governments swell, taking over functions that used to be left to individuals and voluntary organizations, communities are weakened.

Increasingly citizens are taught to rely on government, rather than on themselves or their neighbors. They develop a sense of entitlement, and entitlement in turn fuels selfishness. (Jeff Jacoby – When Inconsequential Means Better)

Bill Bennett explains Why Rick Perry is a Strong Candidate, reminding us that before the candidacy and before the pathetic Demagogic party attacks, Perry’s Texas attracted a lot of non-partisan praise:

In 2009, one nonpartisan poll of business executives ranked Texas as "the No. 1 state to do business" for the fourth year in a row. And, the Economist magazine highlighted Texas in 2009 as "Lone Star Rising" with a subtitle to its special report: "Thanks to low taxes and light regulation, Texas is booming." This was in addition to several favorable data points comparing Texas to California in a separate piece in the magazine.

Ed Morrissey explains how twisted statistics lure in Jersey Shore liberals who fail to pause and notice the lack of a statistical baseline or detect the common trick of comparing dissimilar or different time periods. If it sounds too good (or too bad) to be true, it probably is.

For the opposing viewpoint, see American Prospect explain Perry’s Pitfalls

My favorite article about Governor Perry is by liberal Texan James C. Moore. I wish I could write like this talented man…

Romney has business experience and intellect that are not on Perry's resume' but he is from "Massatoositts," (Webster's Texas Edition, see also "Massachusetts"), and Texans love to kick their political boots into New Englanders' squishy parts. (Why Rick Perry is headed to the White House)

Game on!

Cult of Personality

Maxine Waters saying something stupid

Every court needs a jester, and Maxine Waters, whom I suspect is not intentionally trying to be funny, has kept us laughing for decades…

"We don't put pressure on the president," Waters told the audience at Wayne County Community College. "Let me tell you why. We don't put pressure on the president because ya'll love the president. You love the president. You're very proud to have a black man--first time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us." (Unleash Us – James Taranto)

So people love him just because he’s black. He may be a complete failure and an incompetent boob, but he’s a black man, so we gotta love him, can’t criticize him, regardless of skyrocketing minority unemployment and the economic chaos he’s caused.

It’s not a black thing…

Talked to any Palin fans lately? Any criticism, no matter how thoughtful or respectful will be met with a screaming flurry of teeth and claws. 

Europe is also in the thrall of America’s First Black President, although the Olde Continent has yet to elect a leader outside the exclusive pasty-white club. The Guardian’s Martin Kettle worries His O-ness may not get reelected, thanks to our raucous overabundance of rednecks, yahoos and otherwise unenlightened, unsophisticated un-Europeans (barf alert!):

That changed in 2008. With one mighty bound, the nation of mad people became a nation of visionaries, electing not a buffoon but an incredibly cool, incredibly smart, incredibly articulate leader who was so progressive and sensitive that, guess what, he might almost have been one of us. Except that, inconveniently, he wasn't. But that didn't matter. We gave him the Nobel peace prize when he'd only been in office for five minutes and drooled whenever he looked in our direction.

Now, with 15 months to go before the next US presidential election, a spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre is the possibility Barack Obama might not be re-elected. (Guardian – US Voters are not Mad)

Ideas are Bigger than People

I view candidates as conveyors of ideas, tools to get things done. If my politician heroically dies in the act of righting some wrong, I will mourn his political loss, but cheer the gain for the country. If he takes a wrong turn, as President Bush did, I’ll criticize him.

With Obama, it’s the opposite. He survives and thrives, trudging along the path of failure, fanboys and fangirls cheering all the way.  His twisted ideas are choking our economy, our society and our bedrock American values of hard work, entrepreneurship and personal liberty. Still, the goose-stepping Obama-Lama-Ding-Dongs cheer him on and the press gives his out-of-touch Cape Cod family vacation the Hollywood treatment.

Our stubborn love of W damn near killed us. The left’s Worshipful Cult of His Barackness, with its hatred of free speech and studious ignorance of the facts, could end up finishing us off.

Banker's Bailout

How do we fix the banks?  Set them free 

 I normally frown upon blog posts consisting of large chunks of direct quotes, but John Tamney has hit a home run.

Deregulation and free markets didn't wreck the world economy--Government protections did. Bad banksters and the governments who love them are the Bonnie and Clyde of global monetary scams.
 
Governments have shielded banking from market forces, and we're all now paying the price:  

it's apparent from the myriad bailouts of banks within it in modern times that, absent government protection, the financial world would look quite a bit different. Put simply, political unwillingness to apply market forces to the business of finance means that its long-term health and dynamism is in fact reduced.

Government intervention distorts markets and creates perverse incentives

The better, more realistic, explanation for the paralyzed credit situation in the aftermath of Lehman actually goes back to the spring of 2008. It was then that the Fed and Treasury, fearing "contagion" relating to Bear's demise, saved its creditors through a deal in which the Fed took Bear's debased assets on its balance sheet.

Then J.P. Morgan was offered the still-functioning bank on the relative cheap, its downside covered by the federal government. As Wallison put it, "I see the market meltdown that followed the Lehman bankruptcy as a result of the moral hazard created by the rescue of Bear Stearns six months before."

Your government took the toxic assets off of the banksters's accounts and put them on YOURS

Other accounts of the time in question support Wallison's view. The fact that the federal government subsidized J.P. Morgan's acquisition of Bear Stearns created an expectation among healthy financial institutions that they too should have their downside protected in snapping up insolvent firms. 

As Andrew Ross Sorkin put it in his 2009 book, Too Big To Fail, acquirers wanted "Jamie" (J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon) deals whereby the government would guarantee the most toxic assets of companies being purchased. Absent the subsidized buyout of Bear, there would have been no presumption of a government role as savior of any financial institutions, thus a more realistically priced market for banks in trouble.

What the episode teaches us is that while markets can ably prepare for and weather all manner of calamities, what they handle badly are opaque government policy stances whose changing nature causes information vacuums and panics like that of October 2008.

I'd love to see the US Government finally give free market capitalism a try... Source for all Quotes:  Global Economy Held Hostage by Lehman

... If we would all just sit down and shut up...

The president addressed the nation’s jobs crisis by touring the rust belt in a caravan of foreign-made buses. Jobs are so important to him that he’s going on vacation.

Taking a page from European royalty of old (Please continue reading this with a high British accent), His Highness hopes that pictures of him and his family splashing in the sun will gladden the hearts of his poor downtrodden subjects. Not to worry you poor grubby blighters, blistering away in the teeming inner cities! He’s giving a jobs speech in September!  Chin up!

Global Flash Mob

This globalization/I.T. revolution is also “super-empowering” individuals, enabling them to challenge hierarchies and traditional authority figures — from business to science to government. It is also enabling the creation of powerful minorities and making governing harder and minority rule easier than ever. See dictionary for: “Tea Party.” (Tom Fried man – A Theory of Everything)

Every now and then I actually agree with limousine liberal and Chinese Politburo fanboy Tom Friedman. He has a good point about how the democratization of technology is turning the tables, but then he went and blew it.

What’s the danger to America, according to the New York Times Davos men? 

Not Philadelphia flash mobs, or people getting beat up at the Wisconsin state fair. Not an out of control government that has literally destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth… No. The Tea parties and, horror of horrors, that Texas gunslinger Rick Perry. They are the problem.

The European-North America Connection

I see a healthy young man standing in the Safeway parking lot with a cardboard sign announcing he's lost his job, his wife is pregnant and they are hungry. “Yeah right,” I think. Millions sneak across our southern border and easily find a job despite illegal status and limited ability to speak English.” The guys I see doing this appear to be in their early 20’s, in good shape, and white. And shameless? Or willfully useless?

Not so much different than England’s youth being aced out of employment by harder working higher skilled Eastern Europeans.

Our angry mobs and swarms of criminals are not so different than those of Europe.  And we haven’t seen the worst of it yet, writes Walter Russell Mead in his article, Urban Warming and Racial Climate Change. He concludes that whether we like it or not, we will have to have a national dialog on race. Unfortunately, Obama and his “Justice” Department Poobah Eric Holder, have proved themselves incapable of dialog with us cowards.

Class Warfare isn't just for England

There have been numerous outbreaks of street violence across Europe, including in France and Greece. One can expect more in countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal, which will now have to impose the same sort of austerity measures applied by the Cameron government in London.

And how about the United States? Many of the same forces are at play here.  The prospects for a widening class conflict are clear even in China, where social inequality is now among the world’s worse.  (Joel Kotkin - Global Class War)

My Objectivist libertarian friends will hate his conclusion:  Ayn Rand individualism will not get us out of this.  Uneducated unskilled looters running off with sneakers and big screen TVs are acting in their rational self-interest.

Send Warren Buffett to Afghanistan!

Warren Buffett continues to express a grandfatherly concern for the nation’s working class…

“OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.” (NY Times – Warren Buffett)

There’s an easy solution to that one!

Expropriate the property of Buffett and his fellow billionaires, put guns in their hands and send them to Afghanistan. Turn their property over to the returning working class soldiers and their families. Problem solved.

But seriously, he raises some valid criticisms of our tax system...

“To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes.” (NY Times – Warren Buffett)

Workaday people cannot escape such taxes, the rich routinely do, especially those who “make money from money” as Buffett explains. These are people who make money on trading, commission and dividends from investments. They don’t have to pay the payroll taxes working people do.

The El Lay Times editorial board chimes in on Buffett’s side…

Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was signed by President Reagan, the number of tax brackets was reduced, loopholes were closed, the top tax rate was lowered and capital gains were taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. Yet in the years since, Congress has steadily drilled loopholes back into the code while lowering the tax burden for wealthy people who make money through investments rather than labor. That was the source of Buffett's complaint. (El Lay Times)

Some kind of a flat tax or national sales tax that exempted basic food staples would put an end to this class warfare rhetoric. And we need get it done so we can focus on real solutions that start by taking a crowbar to the Washington DC-Big Business pornographic embrace.

Democrat Mudball Fight

The Democrat party’s favorite tactic is demagoguery.  The Clintons raised it to a high art.  A raw form of it is mudslinging. Obama has messed things up so badly that he cannot stand on his record, so all he has left is the “they’re even worse than I am” ploy. Throwing mudballs takes that shine right off your enemies (yes, Obama has called us enemies, not opponents).

His $859 billion economic stimulus program was a miserable failure, solid majorities of the public now demand repeal of Obamacare, unemployment remains above 9 percent, his Gallup approval rating is in the tank at 39 percent, and many economists say there's a one-in-three chance of a double-dip recession. In other words, Obama can't run on his own record, so he believes he has to run down everybody else's record to have a chance at a second term. (Washington Examiner)

Which would you rather have? A Rick Perry Texas McJob, or an Obamanomics No Job? Crappy job beats no job every time in my book.  BTW, go here for a fact-based analysis of the Texas job machine that blows the libtard propaganda out of the water.

We had more leftwing propaganda spillage here yesterday, so here are a few more links that shine the light of truth and expose the liberal lies. A favorite trick to to pick a little downturn in an overall upward trending line and say , "SEE!  They Lost Jobs There!"  It's entertaining to watch the gyrations lefties go through to "prove" their point.  Fact is, blue states are bleeding out people, and most are choosing to move to Texas, where the jobs are.  The people have voted, with their feet.

Paul Krugman is Troll, and He's Wrong
Don't Mess with the Texas Economy

On a related note, Chuck DeVore has written a tight defense of Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor project

I bring this up not so much to defend Governor Perry, but because DeVore raised some interesting privatization issues as well as shedding light on how changes outside of the US will shift a lot of port traffic from California to Texas.

Obama Bites into a Hot Chili Pepper

Being President is Harder than it Looks

“You never really know how people are going to perform until you see them out there,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior strategist, said in an interview last week. “This is a guy who has never done this before. It’s harder than it looks.” (Bloomberg)

That’s right, Axelrod. You can tell Obama has never run anything before. He’s screwed up everything he’s touched. Being president is harder than it looks.

Of course, Axelrod wasn’t talking about Obama’s horrible failure as president, he was talking about the horrified left’s view of Rick Perry’s kinetic campaign launch.

The Left is Scared, Folks

As Papa Silverfiddle used to tell me, “They only try to tackle the guy with the ball.” Ken Blackwell’s dad had a similar saying, “A dog don’t chase a parked car.”  The tea party scares the crap out of the statist left, and so does Rick Perry. He’s a hot jalapeño dropped into the plate of bland political pablum, and the left is already screaming at the offensive spiciness.

The Demagogic democrats have already framed the issue as a Texas Cowboy “threatening” the Fed Chief, and the lapdogs in the press have obediently adopted the trope. He did no such thing.

This is a threat...

...Delivered with one hand hovering over a holstered pistol, eyes narrowed down to slits:

“I’ll kick your ass and drag you behind my horse, Ben Cartwright style, if you print more of that neon toilet paper you call money.”

Perry didn’t say that, he said this:

"If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all will do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas," Perry said to laughter from supporters in Iowa.

"Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, treasonous in my opinion," he said. (Reuters)

Karl Rover, handmaiden of the establishment and the left’s newest go-to Republican, chimed in as well, calling criticism of the fed irresponsible. Balderdash! The more scrutiny on The Fed and DC’s failed monetarism, the better.

It’s not the “Swaggering tone,” that threatens the socialists of all parties who infest the establishment. That’s just the propagandistic meme they use to scare the masses away from this dangerous man. What they are scared of is talk like this: 

“I’ll promise you this,” Perry said. “I’ll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.”

And this…

The governor was appearing at an April 15 anti-tax rally in Austin, the Texas capital, where people in the crowd were yelling, “secede.” Perry responded, “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.” (Bloomberg)

Notice that contrary to the lying liberal liars, he did not threaten to secede. What he was doing was standing up for the 9th and 10th Amendments to the US Constitution, and that’s what’s really got progressives shaking and piddling down their legs like an overbred lapdog.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.  -- 9th Amendment, US Constitution

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.  -- 10th Amendment, US Constitution

Even liberal Froma Harrop, who detests everything Rick Perry stands for, thinks more states’ rights would be a good thing. It would take many contentious issues off the national scene, allowing states to adopt or reject laws as they see fit. Liberal Massachusetts would have gay marriage and infanticide on demand paid for by the public, conservative Alabama would not. Perry also gets grudging respect from Ezra Klein, who while disagreeing with Perry, graciously concedes that the governor makes a powerful and cogent case for states rights.

The progressive model is collapsing in a bankrupt heap. We need a national debate on how we replace it. Progressive statist Obama vs. States rights Perry is the perfect forum.

UPDATE!  Informational vandals spreading liberal lies and lefty propaganda in the comments section of this post has forced this update.  

Political Math has the definitive post on the topic of Texas jobs.  It links to authoritative government sources for its data and puts all liberal efforts to shame, included the smears by Enron weasel Paul Krudman.  Please go here for brilliant analysis of this topic:  Political Math - Rick Perry and Texas Job Numbers