Posse Incitatus

Dogs-n-Ponies 'r' Us

A heck of a lot of wasted words have been uttered, printed and broadcast in the past few days about the debt ceiling machinations.  There's the "Gang of Six," the Boehner plan, the Reid plan, the Reid-McConnell plan, Plans A, B, and C... blah x 3...

Just hours ago, the House passed the Boehner bill, but who the hell cares?  It will be shot down in the Senate.  And if by some miracle it  passed in the Senate, President Obama would surely veto it.

Ditto for Sen. Harry Reid's bill.  It may squeeze through the Senate by a narrow margin, but will most likely be shot down by the House.  I don't think there are enough dense Republicans to buy the snake oil and empty promises the Demagogues will try to peddle.  But then again, the Republicans have often had a tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Aug. 2 "deadline" is a man-made, ficticious bogeyman that will prove about as "catastrophic" as Jan. 1, 2000 did to computers and software.  In other words, all of this hysterical scare-mongering by the Demagogues and their media lackeys is about on the level of the grossly hyped Y2K scare of the 1990s.  We are NOT going to default.  We'll find a way to move money around and keep paying our bills, even if it means a temporary government shutdown.

President Obama has been so pathetically detached during this whole mess, and so childish in his finger-pointing (it's GEORGE BUSH and the evil REPUBLICANS!), that much of the public has lost all respect for him.  Even some of his formerly ardent supporters have given up on him.

American Thinker's J.R. Dunn sums things up well in this piece, castigating the Celebrity-in-Chief for being a hollow and petulant man, utterly derelict of his duties with regard to the budget process.

Obama's presidency now reminds me of Jimmy Carter's in the woeful summer of 1979, when the peanut farmer gave one of the most wretched speeches in the history of politics: "Crisis of Confidence," aka the "malaise" speech.  Obama will do what Carter did, and blame the American people, now that we're so sick of hearing him blame Bush and the GOP.  But the collectivist's act has worn thin, and millions are tuning him out. 

Let's just say that for the past few months, Obama has been having an extended, prolonged version of the famous "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" scene from "The Wizard of Oz."  As someone once remarked, "There's no there there."

Some kind of debt ceiling deal will be worked out in the next few weeks; what shape or form it will take I have no idea.  But it's worth remembering that the context of the debate has changed dramatically, especially since the 2010 election.  The Democrats are at least willing to concede that there won't be tax increases in a debt ceiling agreement, even if their supposed "cuts" are really smoke-and-mirrors.

If the Republicans had not stomped the Dems and claimed the House last November, quite a few Democrats would have voted in favor of Obama's farcical budget two months ago.  Instead, the budget went down in flames, 97-0 in the Senate.  That really ought to tell you something.  And it does, to those of us without the thick skulls of our fearless leaders inside the Beltway.

The hour is late.  While Rome burns, Nero Obama fiddles with massaging his ego and catering to his narcissism.  His weak-brained media stooges continue to carry his water, but hardly anyone is paying attention to them either.

It staggers my mind that there are tens of millions of people in this country who consider the debt ceiling an issue that ought to be debated.  We are digging ourselves deeper and deeper into economic hell, and we're debating how much more to dig?  Isn't there an adage, "If you find yourself in a hole, quit digging"?

The debate ought to be on how much to cut spending NOW, not on how much more red ink we can pile onto future generations.  This is an absolute no-brainer.  If there were such thing as negative I.Q., I am afraid a lot of lawmakers would fall into that territory.

Go ahead and work through the weekend, you jokers.  The nation will still go on no matter what you do.  But some of you might want to update your resumes and start tapping into your professional networks.  November 2012 isn't that far away.

 

When the conventional wisdom is insane

There is a lot of talk about the debt ceiling increase and the nominal “centrists” (or, if you prefer, “moderates,” “pragmatists,” or whatever) are claiming that if the US does not raise the debt limit right away, the economy will collapse and the Democrats will enjoy a beautiful upland of permanent majorities.

The paragon of this school of thought is Megan McCardle, whose blog never ceases to surprise me with its mediocre yet self-important arguments.  Why the Hated Instapundit links to her, I do not know.

McCardle worries that both parties are fundamentally misjudging the debt ceiling “crisis”, but fundamentally blames the Republicans because apparently actually trying to bring the US government’s revenues in balance with its expenditures is destabilizing or something.

I suppose this isn’t entirely her fault.  She gets a lot of her instruction from the conventional school of economics that believes that the sum total of a nation’s consumption plus investment plus government spending equals the gross domestic product (for you econ types, this equation is represented as C+I+G= GDP).  To this one can add the sum of exports minus imports, thus C+I+G + (EX-IM) = GDP.

All nice and neat, except that it doesn’t work that way.

This model assumes that government spending is every bit as efficient as private sector spending.  It isn’t.

Clearly McCardle has never read (or perhaps understood) Seen and Unseen by Frederic Bastiat .  That is, she sees only the reduction in government outlays which must therefore erode the overall well-being of the country.  But this ignores that which is not seen – that the same money might have been better invested without government getting in the way.

Consider a government loan guarantee.  These are usually made based on politics, not economic worth (which is why the guarantee is needed in the first place).  A large percentage of these go south, and when they do, they take money that otherwise would have been attracted to a viable investment and waste it on one that merely looked good to a politician.

This fallacy is the first part of why McCardle’s analysis is fundamentally wrong.

The second part is that she argues that Wall Street (and the bond market) only think in the short term.  That may be so, but we are rapidly moving beyond the short term.  Our national debt is growing so rapidly that the nice clean debt increase that she (and the Democrats) pine for will only make the problem worse.  Far from demonstrating the willingness of the US government to pay its debts, it shows that we will borrow as much as we can, and are incapable of taking any steps to stop.

Now is as good a time as any to apply the brakes to this self-destructive cycle.  The GOP needs to stand fast and force spending cuts because they are the only way out of this mess.

WIN-WIN SCENARIO?  If the ratings agencies do downgrade US debt, that also has its advantages as it illustrates the immediate need for the government to stop borrowing money and live within its means.

Higher interest rates would send a sharp signal that we cannot pretend that we’ll balance the budget in 2024 or whatever arbitrary year the Dem spin doctors have picked that conveniently falls after their careers in politics are over.

Sooner or later, the debt party is going to have to end.  The earlier it does, the less total damage there will be.  I say we get on with it.

Hold firm, GOP

There has been all sorts of speculation and punditry regarding who would be harmed more by a failure to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2: President Obama and the Democrats, or the GOP.

I have a gut feeling that Obama, despite the media being in his vest pocket, and his cool, calm arrogance, may just fold like a cheap suit.  And if he doesn't, and we pass the deadline, he still could pay a heavy price politically.

The public perception is that a president must be a leader, even if he's working with a split Congress or one controlled by the other party.  Ronald Reagan managed to accomplish some important goals, including the 1981 tax cuts, various budget cuts, and a massive defense buildup to counter the Soviet Union, despite having a Congress that was controlled by Democrats most of his two terms.

Failure to work out an agreement in the next week or so won't result in the public bashing the Republican House or Congress as a whole.  It will more than likely cause even Obama supporters to throw up their hands and think, "This guy is a joke.  He's utterly incompetent."

Granted, there will be avid New York Times readers and MSNBC viewers who loathe Republicans and will blame them for a debt ceiling failure while not holding Obama accountable.  But then again, these hard-core lefties would blame the Republicans for EVERYTHING, because that's how warped they are.

But the American public knows better.  Failure to achieve a compromise on time will harm Obama far more politically than the GOP House.  House Speaker John Boehner knows that he doesn't have the votes in his chamber to pass most any bill that Obama finds acceptable (i.e., one that includes tax increases).  He also realizes that the Democrats lie through their teeth when it comes to promising spending cuts in exchange for tax increases.  And further,  any tax increase will only dampen economic activity and fail miserably to reduce the deficit. 

You could sock it to the wealthy, and watch them put their assets in tax shelters, stop investing, and move money offshore.  But just for the sake of argument, let's say none of that happened, and Uncle Sam's revenues really did increase from boosting high-income tax rates.  Turns out, the Obama spending machine is so voracious, so utterly insane, that it would gobble up 10 years worth of extra revenues in the time it takes for a blast furnace to melt a Hershey's bar.

This is very basic stuff.  Yet so many supposedly deep thinkers inside the Beltway, and reporters in the lamestream media, just don't get it.  But those of us in "Flyover Country," the supposed rubes who cling to guns and God, understand it perfectly.

In sports, sometimes a game is closer than it needs to be because the refs favor one team, the underdog with less talent but with a "Golden Boy" reputation. (See Duke in college basketball.)  Opponents that are superior in talent and/or coaching end up losing or barely winning the game because they're not just playing the other team, they're playing against the refs, too.

The Republican Party and its supporters go up against a hopelessly biased media that waves its pom-poms for Obama with gusto, not to mention frequent election fraud by the Democrats that has become as commonplace as, oh, January snow in Michigan.

Yet the Republicans manage to win quite a few governors' races, and have held the White House for most of the past four decades.  I believe real progress will be made in reducing spending without tax increases.

Obama cares far more about getting re-elected to massage his monstrous ego than he cares about the well being of the country.

Stand by.  Things are about to get really interesting in the next few days.

 

 

The dog days of bummer

The Posse has been distracted for the last few weeks with business trips and chores around the ranch, and the blog has been languishing.  For this we apologize, but long-term readers have no doubt come to expect such lapses over the summer.

While most of Washington obsesses about the latest manufactured drama (the debt limit) the rest of the world continues on its merry way.

The war in Libya is effectively at a standstill.  While the optimists at Strategy Page continue to talk up the many strategic advantages held by NATO and its rebel allies, the fact remains that Gaddafi holds a superior position.  Yes, he is surrounded, isolated and at bay, but the effort required to pry him out of his stronghold is beyond the means of his enemies.  The French – who were one of the big supporters of this operation – are now working on a deal to buy him off.  This is not what one would expect if NATO’s situation were as strong as some believe it to be.

In fact, as this blog noted more than two weeks ago, NATO’s ability to fight is rapidly being eroded.  The military prowess is there, but the political will – and therefore the financial/logistical support – is not.  Just as the UK is watching its helicopter fleet wear out years ahead of schedule over Afghanistan, many NATO allies are seeing their pared-down air forces exhaust themselves at a sortie rate far beyond anything they are used to, or are willing to pay for.

NATO’s trump card is of course the US military, which could oust Gaddafi within a few days.  Yet the president cannot escalate matters without further damaging his own credibility.  Unlike his predecessor, Barack Obama does not tend to dig in when matters go against him.  He may become petulant and peevish, but he almost always backs down.  Even his signature accomplishments – the stimulus and Obamacare – owe far more to Nancy Pelosi’s arm twisting than any White House pressure.

So it is that US involvement is downplayed as much as possible so as to provide credence to the bizarre and logic-twisting contention that the War Powers Act doesn’t apply because we aren’t technically doing anything warlike in Libya.

Given that the last thing the president wants is to explain the three-month stalemate, the ongoing soap opera over the debt limit makes perfect sense.

Meanwhile, all Gaddafi has to do is hang on.

 While a flamboyant dresser and ideological lunatic, Gaddafi does possess a high degree of cunning, which is how he has survived so long.  He can read opponents quite well, and the irresolution of the West is helping to sustain his own hopes that he may somehow ride out the storm around him.

Even assuming that Gaddafi can be toppled, what comes next?  Libya is a deeply fragmented country whose component parts – the east, west and south – historically have not gotten along very well.  The Duck of Death may well decide to partake of a negotiated exile and leave the messy cleanup of his reign to someone else.  Is the US prepared to shoulder that burden?  Of course not.

Oh well, at least the economy’s booming and the job market is surging.

 

The Death Throes of a Taurus

An old car with a ton of miles on the odometer is like an elderly parent.  Things keep going wrong, and it's one thing after another.  It is painful to see someone or something that has been such a big part of your life nearing the end.

Unfortunately, both of my parents are deceased.  But my trusty, reliable 2001 Ford Taurus, which I bought used in 2005 with 72,000 miles on the odometer, is still living.  Barely.  It now has just over 198,000 miles on the odometer, and has not been running since Wednesday, July 6.  It is sitting in my driveway at home, baking in the sun.

Fortunately, I am away on a month-long work assignment, enjoying an air-conditioned rental car and avoiding long commutes, which have become a regular part of my life since I took a full-time job in Detroit in October 2009.  Regular readers of the Posse may recall that my old Taurus has had  non-functioning air conditioning for at least two, and maybe three years now.  The compressor is broken, and it would cost upwards of $1,000 to get the AC working again.

In early July, the engine overheated as I was driving to Detroit one morning.  Fortunately I was only 7 or 8 miles from a Ford dealership, and have AAA Road Service, so there was a nominal towing charge of $15 for exceeding the 5-mile towing limit.

The dealership replaced some external cooling tubes that had rotted, corroded and leaked anti-freeze.  Total damage: $441.  The problem is, the engine was running rough as I drove home later that day.  I feared I may have driven the car too long after the engine overheated and damaged a valve or several valves. 

And more bad news:  I knew I had a broken coil spring in the back, but the Ford garage notified me I needed not just one, but TWO new coil springs, plus new ball joints.  The total would have been north of $1,000.  The brakes may need replacing soon, and the tires are getting long in the tooth.

My wife says I should get the car running again if I can do it for $1,000 or less, rather than take on a car payment as we try to pay down debt incurred during my unemployment in late 2008 through the summer of 2009.  I am not so sure.  I am afraid I could get the engine running fine, then the transmission would croak.  Then it would be an alternator, or water pump, or serpentine belt. 

The harsh reality is this: It may be time to cut my losses.

I paid $4,700 for this vehicle, and have put 126,000 miles on it in six years.  Yes, there have been a couple of big repair jobs (new serpentine belts for $300 or $400 a pop; a new fuel pump; a couple of new fuel injectors; suspension parts).  But these things are to be expected with an old car.  As I've stated many times, a once-a-year major repair bill on an old car ends up being less than $100 per month if it's no larger than $1,200 (or two $600 bills, or three $400 repair jobs, and so on). 

That $100 per month computes to far less than your typical monthly car payment.  Owning an older vehicle also means saving a bundle on auto insurance.

Fortunately I'll be raking in lots of overtime during the next few weeks.  Then it's off to Maryland for some mandatory training.  I will have about 1 1/2 days at my home in early August before leaving for the East, then will finally be back home on Aug. 19.  At that point, it will be time to deal with the Taurus.

There are no nursing homes or assisted living facilities for old vehicles.  Sometimes they can be sold or donated to someone who can rehabilitate them for continued use.  But more often than not, they go to the auto graveyard, aka the salvage yard.

It will be another five weeks or so until I know the fate of the Big Blue Bull.  But if it's time to surrender, it's almost like a Major League player suffering a career-ending injury when he's 1 or 2 hits short of 3,000 for his career.  I REALLY wanted to get this beast over 200K, but alas, it just might not happen.  Especially not if it needs a valve job on top of everything else.  Heaven forbid.

MISC. — I just discovered a cool website.  It allows you to take a template that looks like a famous sign or card (e.g. Monopoly's Get Out of Jail FREE card) and put your own wise-ass message on it.  A hat-tip to Michelle Malkin for using it to make fun of Obamacare's hypocritical waiver policy.

DEBT CEILING — Expect the worthless mainstream media to carry President Obama's water during the next couple weeks as the Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline draws nearer.  Powerlineblog.com Sunday pointed out that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio effectively eviscerated CBS hack Bob Schieffer when he tried to take Republicans to task for not compromising with Obama (read, not giving in to his demand for tax increases).  It seems to me this whole thing is a softball that the GOP is passively watching without swinging.  I'm not very good in math, so I hope some conservative-leaning economist will compute the numbers and demonstrate that even if taxes are raised significantly on the wealthy, the added revenue is negligible in comparison to Obama's insane spending plans.  It won't do any good.  The added revenue is like adding a few buckets of water to a gallant effort by a slew of firefighters to put out a five-alarm fire.

Time is running out, and if spending isn't reined in soon -- like within the next couple of years, we will certainly have passed the point of no return.

 

Scaling Back

As of July 8, I have been working on an assignment that demands long hours, so I won't be able to post many blogs during the next several weeks.  Besides, I suspect our readers are enjoying summer, and won't miss us much if we scale back on our posting frequency during the summer months.

Tonight I found myself with a little extra time and decided to post a short blog.  It is getting really interesting with the debt ceiling talks heating up and the scare-mongering from the Obama camp being ratcheted up.  OMG, we could default and RUIN our economy for decades to come!!!

I give that about as much credence as A) We would have had a second Great Depression were it not for Obama's economic policies in early 2009; and B) Obama will run the most transparent and ethical administration ever.  Hee-hee ha-ha-har-d-har-har...

One thing I found amusing is this piece from Time magazine, a once respectable organ (oh, maybe 20-30 years ago) that has turned into a joke of a rag in recent years.  I still like to check in on it every now and then to see if they will ever report something true and unflattering about a leftist politician.  In the case of the Limousine Liberal Nancy Pelosi, her air-headedness is like the elephant in the living room.  Just can't ignore it.  It speaks volumes about the pathetic state of the Democrat Party that they elevated this joker to Speaker a few years ago.

I sincerely hope the Republicans dig in their heels and refuse to go along with any deal that calls for tax increases.  President Obama is as disingenuous as can be in this debate, having the gall to preach fiscal responsibility after going on an obscene spending binge his first 2 1/2 years in office, and expecting us to believe that socking it to the rich will reduce the deficit. 

First of all, whatever additional revenues are raised would be a drop in the bucket compared to the increased spending since January 2009 and the unfunded entitlement mandates stretching as far as the eye can see.  It is also possible Democrats will renege on their promised spending cuts.  It certainly has been done before (see Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, 1982).

But more significantly, it is fantasy to think the Democrats would honestly apply additional tax revenues to reducing the deficit.  It's kind of like the pan handler on the street who begs for $1 to buy "a sandwich" or a cup of coffee.  You know damned well he'll put together contributions from several people to go buy some MD-20-20 or rot-gut beer.

We don't have a revenue problem.  We have a spending problem.  The majority of Americans understand and appreciate that.  The Republicans have nothing to fear in the 2012 election if their refusal to go along with a tax increase forces us to pass the debt ceiling deadline.   News flash:  The sky isn't going to fall, the markets won't panic, folks won't be jumping out of Manhattan skyscrapers.

There is, however, one very real and present danger:  Bombastic blowhards like Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz just might burst a blood vessel and keel over on the set.

 

 

Summer gun news roundup

I’ve been somewhat silent of late, largely because I’m doing what all right-thinking Michiganders are doing:  Enjoying summer while it lasts.

It may be difficult for folks from warmer climates to understand this, but winter is never far from the mind in Michigan.  From November to March, the state is locked in an icy, overcast tomb.  When spring comes and the weather turns, the whole state essentially celebrates its good luck.

I do not exaggerate by saying that every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day is a festival somewhere in the state.  We have the Mint Festival, Highland Festival, and Coast Guard Festival – the list just goes on.

All of which is to explain why I’ve been remiss in following a series fascinating gun rights developments.

On Saturday I visited the Mason Gun Show and was (once again) amazed by how many people were there.  I recall years when that same show over the same weekend was almost deserted – empty tables and just a few milling patrons.  Not any more.  The tables were packed with vendors and despite the heat the aisles were packed with visitors.

I was interested to note that ARs are finally coming down in price – quite a bit, actually.  I saw more than one pre/post-ban AR-15 for less than $800 – in other words an amazing deal just a year ago.  Even the top-end M-4 clones were quite reasonable.

Ammunition is also getting a bit cheaper and certainly was much more plentiful.  The Bullet Bubble hasn’t burst, but it is deflating.  Indeed, I think that, given commodity price inflation, it can’t really burst because the input are still simply too high.  The market may be saturated from all the hoarding of the last two years, but that merely allows manufacturers to reduce production to two shifts from three and save on overtime.

Michigan’s big gun news was the 10th anniversary of it shall-issue concealed carry law.  Mlive had a series of features on it – some well-written, some not – but the unavoidable conclusion was that despite the gun control lobby’s fevered predictions, the streets did not run with blood.  The current system is still a bureaucratic nightmare and we can only hope the permitting process will be streamlined and handed over to the Secretary of State and treated like drivers licenses.

When the law took effect, the applicants were overwhelmingly male.  In recent years the trend has flipped and now CCW classes are dominated by women.  This makes perfect sense – women benefit far more from an equalizer than men do.

Still, this is a pretty momentous shift and one of the more telling details is the fact that East Lansing (aka Ann Arbor North) actually offers concealed carry classes through its Parks and Recreations Department.  Not only that, but it also offers shooting camps for kids at MSU’s new Demmer Center.

If you told someone 15 years ago that this would happen, they would call you insane, but now even in a liberal bastion like East Lansing, guns are becoming normalized.

All of which is to say that the Obama Adminstration’s ill-conceived and horribly executed Operation Fast and Furious may be a political crisis of the highest order.

Also known as Gunwalker, this fiasco allowed Mexican drug cartels to import hundred and perhaps thousands of American firearms through illegal straw purchases with the full knowledge and consent of the US government.  Predictably, those weapons were then used to kill innocent people, including at least two US law enforcement officers.

At first it seemed that ATF would get the blame and trial balloons were floated that Acting Director of ATF Kenneth Melson would be thrown under the bus.

A year ago, Melson may well have fallen on his sword out of loyalty, but it has since become apparent that the Obama administration regards all of its appointees as expendable and has zero loyalty to them.  Not surprisingly, they are beginning to reciprocate.  Melson has chosen to lawyer up and seek Congressional protection.

This bodes poorly for the administration.  The One is supposed to be above, well, everything.  Clinton and Bush could weather scandals because they were just normal politicians like everyone else.  But Obama?  He’s a lightbringer.  Lightbringers don’t smuggle guns to drug lords.

Right now the mainstream press is refusing to cover the story, but when the Attorney General faces a criminal investigation, things may be different.

All of which is to say, lots of things going on, but summer also has its charms.  It's hard to blog when the weather is this nice.

 

Casey Anthony Weiner

A quick comment on my headline, then I'll get to the real purpose of this blog.  I've long had an odd habit of combining last names with first names just for the fun of it: Elton John Lennon, Upton Sinclair Lewis, Al Gore Vidal, etc.  Given the publicity and hype about lefty-perv Anthony Weiner and his Twitter tendencies, I couldn't resist playing the last name/first name game for this blog.

As you've probably heard, Casey Anthony today was acquitted by a Florida jury of murder in the 2008 death of her young daughter, Caylee. This case has dominated the airwaves for more than two years, but I have not followed it closely, in part because I don't have the time, but also because I hate to see sensationalism playing out for months like a slow-motion, six-mile-long vehicle pileup with red lights flashing and rubber-necks gawking.  Especially when an innocent toddler is dead.

From what I've heard and read about this case, I believe Ms. Anthony is guilty of being a piss-poor mother.  She partied and selfishly pursued her own romantic interests with a bevy of lovers, at the expense of her daughter.  Casey did not report her daughter missing for 31 days in the summer of 2008 which raises red flags all over the place. 

If not murder, she may well be guilty of manslaughter and at the very least, gross negligence.  The O.J. Simpson trial comes to mind, as I suspect prosecutorial incompetence has blown a sure-fire opportunity for conviction.  I am pretty sure millions of Americans share similar sentiments.

This has been bread-and-circuses on steroids.  Americans eat it up, perhaps because it's such a thorough diversion from our economic woes.  That's a sad commentary on where we are as a people, a nation, and a society.

Oh, and one other thing: Has anyone ever figured out who the biological father of Caylee is?  You'd think with our 24/7 voyeurism, someone would have hounded the father with interview requests and taken his picture for publication in the supermarket tabloids.  But this does not seem to be the case.

R.I.P., Caylee.

 

 

 

 

 

Those Evil Corporate Jet Owners

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

On this special day, let's be grateful for the courage of our founding fathers and the soldiers who fought for our independence.  And let us also not lose sight of the fact that resisting taxation without representation, and defiantly opposing heavy-handed and arrogant rulers, are what spurred the bold American Revolution.

Today, 235 years later, we find ourselves in much the same situation, only the oppressor is our own government.  During his 2 1/2 years in office, President Obama has strangled our economy with a toxic brew of heavy-handed regulations, Keynesian spending, ruinous deficits, payoffs to cronies, ill-advised environmental proposals, and thuggish favoritism toward corrupt unions.

His love of class warfare rivals only his love of golf and Muslims.  In his recent petulant speech about the deficit and debt ceiling standoff, the Celebrity in Chief hauled out the same old tired, lame class warfare bogey-men: hedge fund managers, "millionaires and billionaires," and corporate jet owners. (When did Michael Moore get hired as White House speechwriter?)  If things keep going like this, corporate jet owners might just replace the Koch Brothers and Sarah Palin as the obsessive left's favorite whipping boy.

It is astounding that a President of the greatest nation the world has ever known must resort to such low, crass demagoguery.  It is appalling that the president can be so petty, so thin-skinned, and so downright childish.  If this is hope and change, I want a hopeless status quo.

It would take all day to pick apart Obama's piece of trash speech, but for starters, let's just say that corporate jets are built and maintained by people.  People who have mortgages, pay taxes, and buy products.  The companies they work for pay taxes and employ thousands of American workers.  Untold other people own stocks in these companies, and earn dividends or possibly appreciating stock value. This is very basic stuff, but it escapes those whose leftist bent, arrogance and condescension know no bounds.

I am convinced that liberals are petty, jealous people who won't be happy until they can take away from wealthier people as much as they deem "fair" for so-called "social justice," which is whatever their ivory tower dreamers and perpetual left-wing activists say it is.

If this blog comes across as inappropriate for the Fourth of July, so be it.  I have not lost faith in the people of America, nor have I stopped being forever grateful that I was born in this country.  But I am growing more distressed with each passing day at what passes for leadership in the Land of the Free.

There. Glad I got that off my chest.  Enjoy the rest of the holiday, everyone, and stay safe!

American Bourbons

Today is the Fourth of July, otherwise known as Independence Day.  In previous years, I've focused on the importance of this day in terms of political freedoms.

This year, however, economic freedoms loom large in my thoughts.  As my co-blogger pointed out a few days ago, even the most optimistic debt projections show that we will be driven into insolvency - the question is simply when and how deep.

The Obama Administration simply does not care.

It is a fact that this government spends more than it has, and it makes up that difference by borrowing.  Candidate Obama's pledge was to cut the deficit in half - not the debt, merely the rate at which the debt was increasing. 

This is like an alcoholic pledging to go from drinking two cases of beer a day to merely one.  It only counts a progress because we are truly terrible shape.

Even now, it demands increases in taxes before it will consent to spending reductions because the addiction is now a core plank of the Democrat party.  They used to be the Tax and Spend Party, now they simply Spend.

For years, this was nothing more than background noise, and when one thought of freedom, the more pressing issues of self-defense, speech and religion came to the fore.  Threats to those freedoms still exist, but they are now being eclipsed by the threat of total insolvency.

This insouciance in the face of financial catastrophe reminds me of the Bourbon monarchy in France - obsessed with status and their pleasures, substituting speeches for action and appearance for accomplishment.  The White House staff is like Tallyrand's description of the French court - they learn nothing and forget nothing.

So it is that the President insures that every percieved slight is answered for, but no changes in policy can be considered.  He crosses the land having his fetes with his government drowning in debt and real unemployment near 15 percent - all the while lecturing us on the how good things will be later.

Independence Day reminds us that it need not be so, and that no government can survive without the consent of the governed.  He may act like the Sun King, but the president has no divine right to rule.  The Republic will endure - no doubt transformed, perhaps dimished, but it will go on.

For this, we can be thankful.