Sword and Sextant

There have been a few flashes from this pan recently, and so it bears mentioning that our President trades in the murky waters of identity politics. What are identity politics, you ask?

Well, friend, allow me to lend a hand. Any time you hear a politician say that a bill is good for the hispanic community, or great for teenage girls, or X for some ethnic/gender/socioeconomic group Y, that’s identity politics. Of course, some of this is the cost of doing business, such as abortion laws impacting women moreso than men, or amnesty affecting mexicans, etc.

However, identity politics has a dark side, and its shadow casts a dread pall over our society. The idea that Sonia Sotomayor is uniquely qualified because she is a latina is not only hurtful to the soul of our society, but also betrays Obama’s belief in the magical power of being a minority. Its not that she is an excellent scholar of the law, or has a great case history, but that she’s a Puerto Rican that matters. Difficult to get more racist than that, to be honest. Watch/read his intro speech about her again. The only two things she has going for her, per Obama, is her personal story, and her race/gender. I’m stoked.

Sadly, this happens in my community all the time, in the worst neighborhoods. Despite the phenomenally elevated poverty and murder rates in those areas, which are above 95% black, the leaders in the black community of Milwaukee continually preach that the white man and the police just cannot understand or help them because they’re different and white. The populace won’t even tell the police if they saw a murder for reasons I can’t fathom. Blatant racism pervades these areas, and prevents the rule of law applying in such dire areas. The answer is that this keeps the leaders of the black community in total power, and nothing has to change. Something like 30% of the leaders are currently in jail, so even that isn’t enough to shield the body of their corruption and greed. Believe it or not, not only old white republicans are greedy. I was shocked, too.

If any brave official or politician challenges the black leaders to make a change for the better, they are summarily drowned in a torrential cry of racism, and those leaders trot their voters out to defame the official, to devastating effect. Of course, that person then goes back to the ghetto to live in abject squalor and danger. Thank God they prevented the white man from… what? Enforcing laws that protect them? They are the biggest losers resulting from their own identity politics, as if whites can’t understand that living in elevated danger should be avoided.

Mrs. Sotomayor has a history of similar sentiment, as well. She upheld a ruling against several firemen who passed a test for a promotion because not enough minorities passed, as well. Equal protection under the law is right near the front of our Constitution, and yet our newest Justice-to-be didn’t care about that. I’d love to hear her explanation for holding those white men back because a few minorities did not pass the test. Clearly, they were only deserving if a black man was with them. Yeah, that makes sense. Oh wait, its racist and embarrassing. The case will almost certainly be overturned by the US Supreme Court, and how ironic that Sonia will be sitting on that body at the time they overturn her own ruling (Nothing new, she is one of the most overturned justices in the US right now).

In short, identity politics is shorthand for reverse racism in today’s world. As we know, reverse racism is simply racism in another direction, except this is put up with on a daily basis, even in our government. Imagine for a moment if John McCain had referenced a “typical black grandmother”. There would be hell to pay, but Obama did the same, and he skates. Its a double standard, its detestable, and it should stop right now.

…if its African-Americans doing the intimidating.

This is so disgusting its surreal. If those dudes with nightsticks were white, they would have been in jail that evening and plastered all over the news as a beacon of proof of the white man’s racism. It would have been the right thing to do, and I’d be breathless distinguishing reasonable people from such horrid people. Problem is, they call themselves the New Black Panther Party and they aren’t white.

As this trial/process was coming to a close, higher ups in the DoJ called off the dogs. This despite the video of proof that was all over the internet on election day showing their intimidation in action. This is on AG Holder and Obama, and gives a pass to the kind of behavior we deride in banana republics.

Add this to the Sotomayor identity politics bullshit, and Obama is showing himself to be a corrupt, race-driven blowhard. Equal protection under the law no longer applies, apparently. Our President is an embarrassment.

Update: I blame the French and Obama for this. The Queen should be there. I am not French, so I can’t do much but remember how continually arrogant they nearly always are. I am American, and I place this latest snafu at our President’s feet.

I’m stunned at the arrogance/ignorance/whatever that our White House continues to show our greatest and closest ally in the world. Wasn’t this guy supposed to make the world love us again and heal the planet?

Didn’t he just give a speech on American arrogance toward Europe? Hint: He did!

So the Queen wasn’t invited to D-Day demonstrations. She effing served on D-Day in uniform. I am losing my ability to believe that even blind liberal zealots aren’t getting a twinge of “oh, what the hell” invading their twisted sensibilities.

I’m speechless. Ubercool rockstar President is looking like a bumbling fool on matters of centuries-old alliances these days. Like I’ve previously said, he better watch out. His cult of personality is based on him being ultracool, and not his policies. If he keeps at it, soon the façade will be shattered, and only his rank liberalism that is scaring my people so badly will be left.

Your taxes are going up. Obama is gonna do it, and every dumbass who believed his tripe about not raising taxes on people making less than $250k needs to look in the mirror and realize how damn dumb they were.

The Tax du Jour today is the warning flare for a national sales tax! You just float the trial balloon through a friendly news outlet (all of them, as it were), and see what doesn’t cause huge uproars.

You see, when you’re in a recession, spending like a moron isn’t the best idea. Since tax revenues are bound to be lower in a slower economy (read, less income and spending), flushing money you don’t have into Chrysler, GM, banks, etc. while promising to “fix” healthcare costs by… um, spending wads of cash leads to even bigger deficits than the already apocalyptic numbers on the rosy side of things.

Time to say this outright: Obama does not intend to keep any campaign promise that gets in his way. He’s not going to do it, and we’re going to have to live with it. See, I said this shit would happen the whole time, but why listen to the conservative guy? He’s clearly a racist for standing in the way of a historic election, and being so divisive in this post-partisan era.

As with most tax policies, this one will also hurt the poor in America more than the rich. You see, the rich can afford to pay more taxes (as liberals love to remind us) and so shaving a bit more doesn’t affect them the way a man who spends his bottom dollar on dinner, but suddenly is a few bucks short. Of course, liberals love for us to forget that even reducing spending by the rich completely hoses the millions that work in industries like massages, pricey boutiques, sports cars, speed boats, and the hundreds of other industries that only sell luxury goods to the rich.

As usual, the push for higher taxes, as Obama loves to put it, “Will return the wealth of America where it rightfully belongs” or some rubbish. He supposedly means the people, but of course all this tax would go to cover his addiction to government spending, so he technically means himself. Socialism and higher taxes go hand in hand with assuring that everyone is equally poor, or middle class is today’s moron-friendly term for it, and that luxury goods can’t exist, because no one has jobs in those industries anyway, and having money is evil. Unless, of course, you’re a Democrat in power who signed a huge book deal before taking office.

Probably the most sound decision, in terms of the law, and Californians’ right to amend their own constitution.

I say good for the people getting their way, but this will really put a huge kink in getting gay marriages legal eventually. In short, it’ll take a judicial activist with the audacity of godhood, or another amendment.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not being satisfied for all parties in this case, and its not right. However, in a voting society the opinion must be upheld, as long as its done following the legal process. There are very tough choices to make in a free country. As different freedoms intersect, and someone will get the last cookie, leaving the next guy hungry.

My advice to gay marriage champions: Do not do anything violent, and don’t get angry (outwardly). Fight the good fight, keep it free of anger, and keep making your case. Every poll through time shows you’re gaining ground in this battle. Its not fair on some levels, but take it in stride and campaign. The quiet moments after the decision is where you can win hearts and minds. People are always more reasonable coming off a victory.

You’ll win as long as you keep your cool. That said, it still may be awhile.

So, in all this terror/torture/war/etc. debate, Obama has roundly criticized the former President at every turn about just about everything as it relates to national security. I won’t catalogue the points of tension here, but I will highlight another interesting facet.

Obama has maintained nearly every vestige of power that Bush supposedly raped the Constitution with.

1) The wiretapping program has been continued unabated.
2) Obama is careful to reserve the right to “torture” as he calls it, despite blasting its practice.
3) He has talked about the need to hold some terrorists without trial, albeit in a nebulous fasion.
4) He recently suggested trying to port our Gitmo gang to “third countries”, which is very similar to what we already had in Gitmo, as well as maintaining the power to do so.
5) He hasn’t left Iraq yet, largely due to our successes and their fragility should we leave.
6) He’s poured more troops into Afghanistan and Pakistan, and politicked our weak-kneed allies in Europe for more aid (he was told no, of course).

I will spare everyone, including myself, the wailing about the media refusing to cover this obvious story, and instead ask why. Why is Obama running the ship so similarly to Bush so far? If he is so different, where are the differences in national security? Why don’t the speeches match the actions?

My answer is that he is altering his views based on the intelligence he now has. Even though damning these practices he’s careful to maintain, the President is doing what he must to keep us safe. The intelligence, operatives, and troops are shaping his policy, and not the other way around. This is pretty sound governance, although there are ways to avoid taking a crap on the people you secretly further the cause of. Still, why the disconnect?

Let me also posit that there is an episode of “30 Rock” about that I believe conveys my impression of Obama. Liz Lemon starts dating a doctor who is such a great looking guy that everyone does everything for him. For example, he gives tennis lessons to women, despite being truly horrible at tennis (they simply want to be around him), and he orders whatever he wants at a restaurant, regardless of if its on the menu, and they give it to him. He mispronounces words and people just are happy to say it his way. He’s in a bubble, and eventually Liz leaves him because he won’t leave the bubble.

If that anecdote is too obtuse, I’m saying that Obama lives in the bubble. Being a biracial, charismatic, highly-intelligent agent of change that people are willing to buy into made Obama a superstar from his last days at Occidental through Harvard to Hyde Park, and of course to DC. Everything he says is right, and he did it for the best reasons, in great earnest and wisdom. Hitching on to the Obama bandwagon is a truly enriching adventure, and simply adhering without making waves is the easiest way to get a piece of the pie. Similar things happen to child actors. They find that everything they do and say is correct, and buy in to themselves.

I am not claiming that Obama will go down in flames or drugs (or flaming drugs), but I think he feels the need to publicly lash out at what his politics tell him to, like suspension of habeas corpus, overseas detention facilities, waterboarding, war efforts, etc. to avoid being “wrong”. In the bubble, you are never wrong, you see. There is merely nuance we cannot understand. If Obama seemingly takes a stance counter to his actions, the onus is on us to understand him, or simply follow without question. Regardless of his actions, he’s right, even if it means playing Bush on national security matters.

Another example of the bubble-mindset: Obama has constantly tried to hold executives accountable for their corporations’ financial outcomes, but so far, Obama has dumped several billions into Chrysler and GM which are now gone (and forgiven by Obama himself), but there is no accountability for that. We just can’t grasp that what Obama does is above reproach, and yet corporate executives need pay limits and performance checks even over the boardrooms of those companies. The money he allocated and lost is not the same as the money lost by CEOs, in some sense we cannot comprehend.

He’s seized banks through the TARP program, and yet they aren’t getting any better, despite breathless assertions that only the government can save us from this crisis. According to Sec Geithner, not one bank is fixed, as of yet. Similarly, the TARP program hasn’t loosened the credit markets one bit, and the American production system is grinding gears at the moment. Surely this level of incompetence merits apologies/firings/changes? No, GMAC was overthrown yesterday. We just lack the ability to comprehend that Obama is doing the right thing, regardless of repercussions or results.

This is further demonstrated when Obama holds speech after speech waging war with the past, asserting that our problems are just not his fault. In the bubble, it makes perfect sense. No one tells him its his fault, and the people who think it is just don’t get it. Even though the deficit is a monster compared to Jan 20th, the deficit is Bush’s fault. If Guantanamo Bay is a carbon-copy of his want to keep terrorists overseas without trials, but Gitmo undermined our security, its still for the best somehow. If he wastes as much money as GM executives ever did, Obama is still right.

The saddest part of this story is that bubbles have a shelf-life. Eventually, beauty fades or basic performance becomes more visible than pretty words and lofty sermons. The bubble, like all bubbles, will eventually burst, and the outside environment comes rushing in to equilibrate the system. Someone will notice that Obama is wearing a Bush costume, just as someone will eventually report that the economy looks no better after two months and one trillion dollars of consumer debt. The President is in for some harsh days when that bubble bursts, when even the inner circle can’t ward off those little people who just cannot grasp the nuance.

The bursting bubble will also leave the American people hoping for a new kind of change.

From Politico:

–When feasible, try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts.

–When necessary, try those who violate the rules of war through Military Commissions.

–When possible, transfer to third countries those detainees who can be safely transferred.

The first is an arduous argument that I lack the will to wage currently. Suffice it to say, Obama and AG Holder almost certainly believe they are the only men around that can determine the feasibility of extending the rights of common criminals to men who seek to the destroy our lives just to do it. Call it the audacity of arrogance.

The second is much more palatable, but there’s another flaw in ethics here. The flaw is that Obama damns the Bushies for their practices, but again retains the right to enact them whenever he wants. Its like banning gambling, but playing poker in the den that night with your buds. Its okay though, trite notions like consistency and logic are for the little people.

The third will be interesting. Currently, we have no third countries willing to take the most dangerous criminals in the world, and we’ve been rebuffed a few times. Cuba, as it were, was willing/had to, but we’re closing that prison, BECAUSE KEEPING TERRORISTS AT THAT PLACE HURT OUR NATIONAL SECURITY, according to the President.

So what now? Keep them in a different country and this all goes away? Is it just the soil in Cuba? What kind of thinking is that? This is the momentous programme he had for us? Sorry, not worth turning away from Cheney tearing you limb from limb.

Hey ladies and gents: the government would like to introduce its newest zombie bank!

Really, the last several bailouts and federal overthrows of private banking have gone so well its time to strike up the band again. Can’t you just feel the twisted, pestilent claw of the US gov’t ripping away any notion of banking freedom/accountability as each day passes?

LET. THESE. MOTHA. EFFIN’. BANKS. GO. BANKRUPT. Can’t be any clearer than that. For over a century, businesses have gone under. They go bankrupt and close down. Now, the government, under the guise of protecting us from their failures, is grabbing more and more federal control of our money system. Hell, they’re even standing in the way of letting the “fixed” banks become whole again, so lets throw the notion that they’re trying to help right out the window. You go to bankruptcy, make the best of it, sell the assets that have value, and move on. You DON’T remove all fallibility of employees that took on risks they shouldn’t have, and/or reward them for poor business practices by subsidizing them.

According to the Treasury and the White House, there hasn’t been one bank good enough to be “cured” yet, so why do they keep taking on new patients? If it were some cancer drug that was in trials, but not curing anyone in the process, the gov’t would surely stop it from harming new patients, but not so when the lurch of total control of the financial system is at hand. This is “change”, America.

We’re literally having our financial system torn away from us by the lawless TARP program at the hands of a man who didn’t pay his own taxes before entering the Cabinet. Not only that, but as I’ve written previously, he’s turning a hungry eye on venture capital firms and hedge funds, two entities that had nothing to do with the housing mess.

The idea of a father government that can care for all our needs can be appealing to those afraid to orchestrate their own affairs, but it is much less so when its not so much a “father” government as a “crazy drunken uncle” government.

You know you’ve got the President by the balls when you schedule a speech on a given day, and the POTUS scrambles to speak atop you so that you can create a diversion.

Anyhow, I’m so tired of Obama’s sermons, he didn’t have a shot at my attention span this time. Dick Cheney, the former VP spent about 30 minutes completely eviscerating Obama’s petty, wrongheaded, and hurtful (to our security) position on “torture”, euphemisms for terror, waging a time war with the previous administration for political disagreement, and underhandedness in what he chose to release and redact in his quest to avert attention from the economy he’s failed to fix in any fashion.

Cheney’s even tone, matter-of-fact manner, and logic won applause from his audience, and this blogger. The fact is that Obama thought he could get the media to report whatever he gave them in whatever fashion it was supplied. He had no reason to believe it would be any different, to be honest. They even believed the 95% no taxes thing, although that ship sprung small leaks in November 2008. Anyhow, Obama forgot that the stalwarts who enacted the policies he seeks to lead witch-hunts against are still around, and they understand the debate far more than he. Obama also forgot that the American people may not side with Bush often, but they do side with our soldiers and operatives working for the flag.

Obama missed this, and he’s probably still confused by the ticking bomb that his own myopic mission has turned into. Not only has he got his own appointee, Leon Panetta, calling him out, but George Tenet, the CIA as a monolith, several editorial boards of major papers, and two men who wield the political machete as well as any: Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Through editorials in the WSJ, and speeches or interviews on TV, these two men have made the case for EITs as well as you can. We didn’t feel safe, and we had captured high value terror assets. We waterboarded three men in all, and gained information which the Obama administration redacted to write their twisted narrative. Several high level sources have publicly said as much, although the President mysteriously won’t let that information out.

Lost in all this mess, but not to VP Cheney, is the fact that Obama made sure to retain the powers that Bush had to waterboard somebody if he had to. I agree with this policy, but it stands loudly skew to his stance on the Bush administration. He seeks to revile Bush and Co. for a policy he fought to maintain for himself. This revealing anecdote shows us that our President, even whilst recognizing a weapon he must have against terror, is willing to incite mobs against those who used it in the past. We can only hope you receive equal treatment, Barack.

Finally, our EITs were within the laws of the Constitution. In fact, they are techniques we use to train some of our own troops for combat, waterboarding included. In this light, revealing such non-lethal techniques to our enemies largely renders them useless going forward. It is entirely possible that in the next “Jack Bauer” scenario that befalls this great nation, Obama or another POTUS will have to order more severe methods to extract vital knowledge. I will be the first to admit that I am less squeamish about torture than most, but I’m going to have an inward laugh if Obama has to pull out fingernails next time because they don’t respond to waterboarding. I will not have an inward laugh if his faux-conscience gets in the way and some bomb detonates on our soil.

In summary, the former VP has dealt a major blow to Obama in this debate, regardless of his attempts to divert attention. I can only hope the MSM decides to report it at all.

Here’s a tax.

Of course, since no people making less than $250K drink beer, this won’t hit them. I think that’s right.

Taxes on wine and hard liquor would also go up.
And there might be a new tax on soda and other sugary drinks blamed for contributing to obesity. A tax of 3 cents per 12-ounce drink would raise about $50 billion over 10 years, according to congressional estimates. Diet drinks, however, wouldn’t be taxed.

Hmm. Looks like a new tax. Dress it up however you want, but Obama HAS to veto this if he’s to keep a campaign promise that he repeated about 10,000 times during the run in 2008.

Read his lips: No new taxes.