Posse Incitatus

R.I.P., MacBook Pro

My MacBook Pro is officially dead; it will join my 2001 Ford Taurus in the machine afterlife (i.e., getting cannibalized for parts and "living on" in other pieces of machinery). It hath not been cast into the lake of fire; nor hath it gained eternal life. Verily, I say unto thee, don't EVER drop a 5.5-pound MacBook Pro. It's like an elderly person slipping and falling on the ice. The long-term consequences can be devastating.

As I type on my wife's antiquated Dell desktop, I await delivery of my Lenovo laptop (I couldn't afford another Mac -- not for the time being). More on that later.

Let me just say that I am thoroughly enjoying seeing the arrogant O'Bummer administration get its name and reputation pummeled due to the disastrous roll-out of the Obamacare website. Even formerly friendly, sycophant allies like the New York Times have published critical pieces in recent days. Ironic, isn't it, that this brilliant Harvard law professor who's supposed to be so much smarter than the rest of us has as his "signature achievement" a train wreck of a law, something that's the butt of jokes. LUV IT! Much more on that later.

Today I will enjoy some hops-n-grains (the chilled, liquid variety) and take in the Michigan State Spartans at Illinois. Illinois is only 3-3, but has one of those dangerous mobile quarterbacks (Nathan Scheelhaase) who at times can give fits to MSU's defense. This guy is the real deal, with a gaudy 65 percent  completion rate and the wheels to pile up huge rushing yards. I am not comfortable going into this game, but maybe it's just because years of heartache and heartbreak as a Spartans fan have conditioned me well. More on this game later.

Enjoy the weekend, folks. I won't be doing any in-depth blogging until I get my own machine and things get back to normal. 

 

Mid-Season roundup: Spartans find rhythm, Skunk Bears find gravity

How the time has flown by!  Was it only six weeks ago that I declared Connor Cook the obvious choice as MSU's quarterback?

Yes it was.

Alas, we had to endure three more weeks of indecision, split practice time and split playing time.  The result:  losing a very winnable game against Notre Dame. 

While Saturday's win against Indiana is nothing to write home about, the prolific scoring indicates that the Spartans are developing a rhythm.  True, they could have had this weeks ago, but the improvement is clear.  Add in the road win against Iowa's stubborn defense and the progress is clear to see.  MSU has yet to face its toughest foes, but at least it is moving in the right direction.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BO SCHEMBECHLER WINERY AND KARAOKE BAR:  As is becoming an annual tradition, the Wolverines have found their latest undefeated season ruined by the sudden arrival of October.  After narrow escapes against Akron Community College and the University of Connecticut Correspondence School, Penn State finally pulled off the upset - though it took them four overtimes to do it.

I only got to watch the first half but I was amazed at how ugly the Skunk Bears look this year.  Both teams were hideously sloppy - but only one had the August Heisman Trophy Winner.

This brings me to one of the things that Spartan fans - indeed just about all college football fans - find really annoying about the Wolverine faithful:  The arrogance.

From Tate "May the Forcier Be With You" to Shoelaces, the Big Blue Nation never tires of telling the world that it is the Greatest Team Ever and that the national title is only 12 games away.

Devin Gardner is the latest incarnation of this sense of entitlement.  They guy has 11 passing touchdowns vs 10 interceptions.    Yes, he has 6 rushing touchdowns, but those are at the expense fo the running backs - just as it was with Denard Robinson.

Indeed, Indiana's Nate Sudfeld is a much better quarterback by almost any measure.  With more than 1,600 passing yards, 13 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions, he has a far better claim than The Second Coming of Number 95 (talk about obsessing about one's past...).

We'll get to see how they stack up this weekend when the Skunk Bears retreat to the relative safety of their lair.

In any event, Michigan's seemingly amazing ability to suck while winning games seems to have passed its peak.  One can only defy gravity for so long before the laws of physics intervene.  Looking back at my pre-season roundup, I predicted a loss to Notre Dame but also noted Penn State was dangerous.  I remain confident in my 7-5 prediction and will even offer that Indiana's prolific offense might be more than the Skunk Bears' porus defense can handle.

What's in a number?

It has been two weeks since the government "shutdown" began, and House Republicans are now feeling the heat. After they were relegated to the back seat over the weekend and the U.S. Senate assumed the lead role in negotiating with the administration, we have not heard much from Speaker John Boehner.

The press has been orgasmic about Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell reaching an agreement to increase the debt ceiling by three months and reopen the government. And this is couched in doomsday terms about what will happen to the stock market, our economy, our government, if we pass the mythological Oct. 17 deadline on increasing the "ceiling." (Isn't a ceiling a fixed object that never is raised?)

But very little coverage has been given to what happens during the next couple of days when Speaker Boehner brings the Senate agreement to his troops. The conventional wisdom is that he could bring the agreement to a vote, be assured all 200 House Democrats would vote for it, and only need to get 17 moderate Republicans (aka RINOs) to vote with the 200. But consider that Boehner may be concerned about getting re-elected speaker, and realizes that taking such an action will spell doom for his speakership.

And the Senate bill, from what I have read so far, does nothing to mitigate Obamacare's destructive effects. There is no delay of the individual mandate or repeal of the job-killing medical devices tax, which harms many small businesses. It is quite possible that even IF Boehner wanted to bring this to a vote, he'd be hard-pressed to garner 17 Republican votes.

I return to my rule of thumb about bad news coming from the Beltway pols: Whenever Republican and Democrat lawmakers come out of a meeting smiling, shaking hands and heaping praise upon each other, beware. It's like the adage, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch."

Which brings me to the headline of today's post: "What's in a number?" Well, the number I am referring to is the much-publicized low approval rating for the Republican Party. Only 28 percent of the American public has a favorable approval rating for the GOP (10 points lower than in September), according to a recent Gallup poll. Congressional  job approval ratings range from 5 to 14 percent, according to Real Clear Politics.

It is easy to assume that the millions of voters who are disgusted with the Republicans are unhappy because they regard the GOP as too right-wing, and the Tea Party as "extremists." But that conclusion is predicated upon what the mainstream press has been pumping out for weeks. A more realistic assumption is that millions of Americans are unhappy with the Republican Party because too many of its members are part of the Beltway elitist establishment, and don't really want to advocate conservative principles.

Americans are not stupid. A good chunk of the populace knows it is baloney to call fiscal conservatives "extremists" or worse pejoratives -- "hostage takers," "terrorists," "suicide bombers" -- names many loony leftists have hurled at the Tea Party. It is Orwellian to say that those who oppose trillion dollar deficits, who don't want to burden our children and grandchildren with back-breaking debt, who favor spending restraint, are extremist, while the same old failed Keynesian hacks are the reasonable ones.

I, for one, don't think most Americans are so twisted as to hold an Orwellian perspective. And it is the very idiocy coming out of our mainstream media that has contributed greatly to dramatically reduced circulation numbers for most large newspapers and a decline in viewership of the network news. This isn't rocket science, but then again, maybe it is for delusional leftists.

So next time you see what initially look like discouraging, disheartening numbers for Republicans, just remember that "conservative = Republican" is often untrue. And there are far more conservatives in this nation than liberals.

 

 

It's big government, stupid

Paraphrasing James Carville's famous slogan from the 1992 presidential campaign, I wonder if your average Joe — i.e., the guy who's just making his way through life, supporting his family and paying little attention to politics — is finally catching on that massive government causes massive problems.

For starters, there's the disastrous roll-out of Obamacare. The online exchanges, just like Obamacare itself, were "rushed to market" without any concern for whether they were viable and useful. Too often, idealistic liberals are hell-bent on getting their programs implemented ("We've GOT to do SOMETHING!!!!") without thinking through the ramifications. Obamacare is a convoluted tangle of contradictions, distortions and bureaucratic inefficiency. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that bad software, inadequate server capacity and website design defects have plagued the exchanges. One part of the story that jumped out at me was that information technology engineers who examined the Healthcare.gov website found a glut of stray software code that served no purpose they could identify, and that routine web-efficiency techniques were not used. Granted, private sector firms messed up with the sloppy web work. But it's government employees who designed the request for proposal, scope of work and performance metrics. Good luck on pinpointing who dropped the ball. 

It is painful watching Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Democratic mouthpiece Debbie Wasserman Schultz attempting to defend the failed exchanges. For many average Joes, Obamacare is the Department of Motor Vehicles writ large.

Next is the fact that a so-called government shutdown is having little effect on millions of people. Air traffic controllers are on the job; VA hospitals are open; the military is on duty; mail is still being delivered... Granted, if a shutdown went on for a couple months, the effects would begin to be felt in certain areas. But the truth is, there are tens of thousands of paper-pushing bureaucrats and regulation writers whose efforts would not be missed. In fact, their absence would help the economy. The Department of Education is a prime example of a bloated and fruitless entity, sucking off the taxpayer teat and creating nothing but mounds of useless paperwork while the quality of our children's education continues to deteriorate.

The Obama administration's prohibition on visiting national monuments and national parks is largely due to presidential petulance. Leave it to the O-man to bar World War II veterans from visiting their own memorial, and to allow La Raza and its illegal alien followers to hold a rally on the Washington Mall — the same mall that's off limits to most Americans. Kudos to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for defying Uncle Sam's order to shut down the national parks in that state. We need more sensible people like Gov. Walker who won't take this crap lying down.

The disgraceful incident in which families of service members killed in Afghanistan were initially told they would not receive death benefits is indicative of a behemoth government in which accountability is nowhere to be seen. Someone, somewhere, should have foreseen this possibility and made plans to ensure that affected families would receive death benefits. As much as I dislike Obama, even he wouldn't purposefully deny death benefits to grieving families to prove how harmful the shutdown is. This is a case where the negative fallout overwhelms whatever political points he might have scored with Americans ticked off about the shutdown.

Too, Americans across the ideological spectrum have been angered and appalled at spying by the National Security Agency, IRS harassment of conservative groups, a growing proliferation of drones watching over us and the Justice Department's interception of a Fox News reporter's emails. The bigger the government gets, the easier it can spy on us.

It is also quite possible that Americans — even those who consider themselves liberals or moderates — are realizing that it's immoral and outrageous for our nation to keep piling on trillions of dollars of debt (funded by the funny-money practices of the Federal Reserve) in hopes big government will eventually bring us out of our economic doldrums. That could explain the majority support for Republicans' demand that spending cuts and/or entitlement reforms must be part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. Think about it: Six years ago, it would have been unheard of to talk about annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion. But now we don't bat an eyelash. It's what psychologists and substance abuse counselors call being "in denial."

But as long as Mylie Cyrus is shaking her booty, John Stewart and Conan O'Brien are cracking people up, and college football is in full swing, it's damned tough to convince people that an out-of-control massive government and a mountain of debt could soon crush us.

KWAME THUGPATRICK SENTENCED — Disgraced ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick today was sentenced to 28 years in prison for racketeering, bribery, conspiracy and tax evasion. Perhaps it's true that we get the government we deserve. If the people of Detroit are so apathetic that they fail to educate themselves on the issues and often fail to even turn out to vote, rogues like Kilpatrick end up getting in office. It is no surprise that charlatans like Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton supported Kilpatrick's election, which they did. What's appalling is that many wealthy businessmen including Compuware founder Peter Karmanos supported the hip-hop mayor's re-election in 2005 despite the massive corruption and abuses that went on during Kilpatrick's first term. They undoubtedly expected some kind of generous return on their dollars. Detroit's fiscal and financial decline were hastened and exacerbated by the obscene and outrageous corruption of Kilpatrick's rotten-to-the-core administration. This self-serving, egotistical narcissist richly deserves nearly three decades in the slammer. Let him be a lesson to other would-be gangsta politicians.

 

Default warnings = Y2K?

Well, it has been over a week now since the government "shutdown" (actually, quite a misnomer) began. President Obama held a self-serving press conference Tuesday afternoon, and House Republican and Democrat leaders have actually had a meeting to kick off some discussions that might qualify as negotiations.

Like a proud peacock showing its feathers, President Obama obstinately says he will not negotiate about his signature health care law, which some opponents jokingly refer to as the Unaffordable Healthcare Act. But again, it's a case of "do as I say, not as I do." Obama has granted waivers to cronies, and delayed by one year the implementation of the mandate for big business to provide healthcare to employees. He often rules by executive fiat, taking the law into his own hands and bypassing Congress. So any pretense that Obamacare has integrity and is not to be tampered with is beyond laughable.

Having painted itself into a corner, the GOP has pretty much backed off of its demand that Obamacare be defunded, but it's quite possible the Repubicans will continue to insist the administration grant a one-year delay on the insurance mandate for individuals, and/or repeal the tax on medical devices.

Meanwhile, the supposed deadline for increasing the debt ceiling is only 8 days away. I say "supposed" deadline because an exact delineation is hazy at best. Uncle Sam can continuously play the shell game of moving money around and robbing Peter to Pay Paul (see the fictitious Social Security "lockbox").

The shutdown talks are morphing into debt ceiling talks, and many pundits believe some kind of "grand bargain" will be reached in the next week to address both issues. There is also talk about some kind of short-term debt ceiling increase that would allow for a few weeks of negotiations on spending cuts.

While all of this is going on, the president is being petulant by prohibiting World War II veterans from visiting their own memorial, and putting up barriers to other open air parks and monuments. While war veterans and taxpaying citizens are prohibited from gathering on the Washington Mall, thousands of illegal aliens are allowed to have a rally there. Utterly idiotic and in-your-face. No wonder the O-man's approval rating has sunk to an all-time low of 37 percent. Families of service members recently killed in Afghanistan were told the shutdown precluded them from getting their death benefits, which includes reimbursement for funeral, travel and other expenses. Fortunately, a deal was worked out so that they will be paid death benefits, but this episode speaks to the administration's usual incompetence and lack of foresight.

The question floating around in my head is this: Is the threat of catastrophic consequences for a government default really just Chicken Little B.S. like all of the fear-mongering of Y2K in the months leading up to Jan. 1, 2000? Maybe. Some pundits state that since the government takes in about $250 billion in tax revenues per month, but only owes about $20 to $30 billion per month in interest payments on its debt, it can easily avoid default. But the Obama administration and Democrats will doubtless threaten seniors with getting their Social Security checks interrupted, as well as with cutbacks in Medicare and Medicaid.

While it is true that polls show voters blame Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown, there seems to be pretty solid support for Republicans' demand that some kind of spending cuts and/or entitlement reform accompany an increase in the debt ceiling. In other words, the "folks," as Bill O'Reilly calls them, are catching on that we absolutely cannot keep digging our debt hole deeper and deeper. Time to start cutting up the credit cards and heading in the other direction.

KILLERS OF SUBURBAN TEENS ARRESTED — Police believe they have arrested the killers of two Westland, Mich., teens who were shot execution style late one night in July 2012 in an east side Detroit neighborhood after allegedly attempting to purchase drugs. I am not sure which of these dirtballs actually committed the murders of Jacob Kudla and Jourdon Bobbish, but it's safe to say all of these guys are violent felons. Some Posse readers may recall my blog about these teens' unfortunate demise. A couple weeks after Kudla and Bobbish were murdered, one of these thugs killed a Vietnam War veteran who was trying to defend his daughter in a home invasion. Regrettably, Detroit and other big cities are chock-full of these feral humans who endanger others' lives and make cities undesirable. Kudos to law enforcement for getting them off the streets.

 

Football Saturday!

I hate bye weeks. You work your arse off all week and want to earn the reward of watching your favorite football team slug it out on the weekend, only to be left with that empty feeling.

Last Saturday was a bye week for the Michigan State Spartans and Michigan Wolverines. Had the Wolverines been playing, I would have watched them, since it is a team from my home state and I know and work with lots of people who root for the maize-n-blue.

On the positive side, the Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears 40-32 last Sunday and are tied for first place in the NFC North division. Tomorrow they will play at Green Bay, where they have not won since 1991. That would be awesome if the Lions could slay another demon like they did last Sunday when they beat the Redskins in Washington, D.C. for the first time since FDR was president.

The Wolverines host one of the Big Ten's worst teams, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, and probably will finish the day 5 wins and 0 losses. But several of those wins were epic struggles against awful teams. There's no telling whether Michigan will also struggle with Minnesota, or suddenly explode like they did against weak sister Central Michigan a few weeks ago. My guess is Michigan will win by 10 points or so.

Meanwhile hundreds of miles to the west, the Michigan State Spartans will play the Hawkeyes at Iowa City. Iowa looks like a pretty good team, having won at Iowa State, at Minnesota (a weak team, but Big Ten road games can be challenging), and having put a 59-3 whipping on Western Michigan, a team the Spartans beat by the narrow margin of 26-13.

Since the Spartans' quarterbacks are just not that good, and our receivers drop too many passes, the key will be to run, run, run and keep the Iowa defense on the field long enough to get tired out. MSU gained 119 yards rushing at Notre Dame against a good run defense two weeks ago, so the Spartans ought to continue to be successful on the ground.

Defensively, MSU must stop Iowa's impressive bulldozer, Mark Weisman, a 6-1, 236-lb. load who has 615 yards rushing this season (fourth in the nation) on 119 carries -- an over 5-yards-per-carry average. MSU is second in the nation in rushing defense (58.3 yds. per game ave.), so something's gotta give.

This is a game that could easily be decided by a crucial turnover or two. When your offense is anemic, as is the case with Michigan State, there's a small margin for error, even with a great defense. Should be an interesting tilt, and game time is just an hour away.

I'll go out on a limb and predict a Spartans victory, 17-14. GO GREEN!

 

Obamacare's 'Catch-22'

I'd love to rant and rant about Obamacare. To bitch and complain until I'd get so exhausted, fatigued and dead-tired, I'd fall asleep at the keyboard. My head would crash down, jolting me awake and startling me, my left arm flailing out wildly and knocking over my glass of merlot, spilling it all over the dining room table and onto the hardwood floor...

Well, not really. As I type, it's about 5 p.m., and there's no merlot on the table. Furthermore, I am not going to spend huge amounts of time pummeling Obamacare, because it's like beating a dead horse for the 100th time. Besides, this blog is only a hobby, not something to which I should devote a lot of time or energy.

Over the past couple years, I have pondered how complex the health care debate is, and how challenging it is to explain the flaws of Obamacare to its supporters, many of whom are economic illiterates unaware of basic laws like supply and demand, and clueless about how dramatically government price controls distort the health care market.

Now, three days after the vaunted Obamacare exchanges have opened online, replete with horror stories about glitches, long waits to complete the enrollment process and difficulty reaching telephone customer service reps, I have a simple explanation for one of this clusterf*ck's main drawbacks. Reliance on  young, healthy workers to sign up and subsidize older, less health workers absolutely WILL NOT work. Let me tell you why.

First of all, even if the economy were healthy, recent college grads were flush with cash and the unemployment rate were 4.8 percent, many young people would look at the outrageous cost of premiums and realize they'd be much better off just eschewing coverage and paying the mandatory fine ($100).

But the economy is sickly, and millions of college grads are broke (so penniless, many have had to move back in with Mom and Dad because they cannot afford their own place).

Young people, whether or not they have a college degree, have been hammered by the Obama economy. Many cannot find work at all; some can find only part-time jobs, with varying wage rates on the low end of the scale. Quite a few others do have a bachelor's or master's degree but are working for minimum wage or something close to it.

Employers have often eliminated full-time positions and reduced full-time workers' hours to below 30 per week to avoid the Obamacare mandate to provide health care insurance to employees. Therefore, teens and 20-somethings, many faced with daunting student loan debts, have few employment options and struggle to make ends meet. The odds of them signing up for Obamacare are slim to none, and slim just left town.

Moreover, by allowing young men and women ("children" in lib-speak) to remain on their parents' insurance policies until age 26, Obamacare subtracts millions of young adults from the hoped-for subsidizer contingent.

Large numbers of these young Americans, dumbed down by our pathetic K-12 schools and far left academia, supported The One because they were brainwashed by his demagoguery and convinced that Mitt Romney was an obscenely wealthy aristocrat who would put the screws to them 24/7. Now they are learning the bitter truth.

And the arrogant pricks of the Obama administration (seemingly as plentiful as grains of sand on the beach) are learning, whether they admit it or not, that their fiasco health care scheme is bound up in a Catch-22 tangle of contradictions. The harsh truths of the marketplace and economic realities have smashed head-on into the ivory tower pipe dream. It's gonna be a hideous accident scene.

 

 

How not to negotiate

As a public service, we at the Posse are pleased to offer a little free advice to help resolve the budget impasse.

For starters, don't insult your negotiating partners.  It may score you points with your own extremists, but all it does is make an agreement that much harder to achieve. 

Next, focus on points of agreement rather than disagreement.  Look for areas of common ground, not places where you can pick each other apart.

Finally, in dealing with a fractious organization, try to isolate the moderates from the extremists by offering modest concessions.  These will give the moderates cover and force the radicals into an untenable position.

What you should not do is draw such a hard line that moderates believe that agreeing with you is political suicide.  That is what the extremists want them to think.  You are only playing into their hands.

Of course if your true objective is the total destruction of your enemies, at least be open about it - and don't be surprised if they turn to the biggest firebrands they have to fight you off.

Failure to communicate

So today the government is shut down.  The administration and its hallelujah chorus in the media wish to lay this all at the feet of the House Republican majority.  While one can question the decision - that is to say, is this the issue to shut down the government - one cannot question the fact that the president's negotiating skills are non-existent.

The current spin out of the White House is that the House majority are nothing better than terrorists, and of course one should never negotiate with terrorists.

The language is however illustrative of the failure of the administration to deal with, well, anyone not already in agreement with it.

For starters, there is the problem of applicability.  Terrorists by definition operate outside the political system.  The ideal outcome in dealing with them is for them to either disappear entirely or become integrated into it.

Though they may share different policy preferences, there is no question that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is part of the political system.  Without their participation, the entire Constitutional order collapses.  Thus attempts to read them out of the Constitutional order can only destroy that order.

Of course, on a more basic level, it is the height of foolishness to demonize one's negotiating partner.  If I want something from you, prefacing the discussion by calling you names is probably not going to help us find middle ground.

For those Democrats who say "Ah, but Republicans are uniquely awful," I must respond that this is irrelevant.  The President lacks the authority to rule by decree.  If he wants a budget, he has to work with the lower chamber.  That is going to require some kind of compromise.

The interesting part is where we go from here.  Given that the House GOP has been demonized non-stop since 2011, there may be a sense that they may as well take their lumps until the administration folds - next week or next year.  At no point has the administration offered an olive branch or acknowledged common ground. 

That being the case, there must be a strong temptation to just let it burn.

The irony is that the House GOP is deeply divided and the only thing holding them together this point is the constant stream of invective from the White House.