Libya Gaffe: This Was No Boating Accident!

I owe Herman Cain an apology. This “Libya gaffe” thing is just another smear, and sadly, I bought into it. Mea culpa. Here’s what really happened, along with my thinking on what really matters with the candidates.

Issue One: The Libya “Gaffe”

When Cain’s candidacy started taking off, the media smeared him with bogus sexual harassment allegations. Brought as anonymous and non-specific allegations, the MSM obsessively savaged Cain for failing to satisfy some undisclosed moving-target standard to acquit himself. Yet, within only a week, it became clear there was no substance to these allegations. The accusers aren’t credible: a serial complainer and a money-desperate liar. They have ties to David Axelrod, who has a history of this type of smear. The media witch hunt was overplayed. And polls continue to show Cain at or near the top. The scandal is D.O.A.

But just as Cain appeared to be recovering, a new allegation appeared: that he’s stupid. This allegation was based on his supposed “Libya gaffe,” and has again been pushed by the MSM and useful idiots like Byron York at National Review. But this is a smear too.

According to people like York, the Libya gaffe is this: A reporter asked Cain if he agreed with Obama’s policy on Libya. Cain had no idea what that policy was. He eventually mumbles something about Obama opposing Gaddafi, and then has to ask the reporter if what he’s just said is true.

IF this is true, then Cain really isn’t all that bright. Only. . . it’s not true.

Commentarama reader tryanmax sent me a link with the full interview. Here’s the link to the interview (LINK) and here’s a link to tryanmax’s thoughts on the subject (LINK). The interview is a lengthy discussion of many topics. About 20 minutes into the interview, they turn to the question of whether or not Cain would support democracy movements abroad. Cain tells the reporter he would support democracy movements, but he wouldn’t try to create one. Up to this point, Cain has come across as knowledgeable and relaxed.

The reporter then asks whether Cain thought Bush’s foreign policy was effective in this regard or if Cain has “a major critique” of how Bush handled the balance between American interests and democracy movements. Cain thinks about this and says he believes Bush ultimately struck the right balance. Cain repeats that where a democracy movement exists, he would support it, but he “won’t try to talk people into democracy.”

The reporter then says: “so you agreed with President Obama then on Libya or not?” Note first, that this is a strange question and it assumes much that has not been said by Cain or the reporter up to this point. They were talking about Bush’s foreign policy and suddenly the reporter asks this statement-question which assumes what Obama’s policy was and assumes that Cain has just provided an answer consistent with it. I am not saying this is a “gotcha” question, but it is a vague and ambiguous question with an uncertain subject. It is the kind of question a lawyer would object to and make the reporter rephrase.

Cain again thinks for a moment. Then he says:

“President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi. Just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say ‘yes, I agree’ or ‘no, I don’t’.”

There’s the supposed gaffe. This is what is being portrayed as Cain asking the reporter to help him with the facts. The MSM is saying Cain’s use of the word “correct” means Cain needs the reporter to assure him he guessed right what Obama did in Libya. BUT that’s a blatantly false interpretation. Watch the video and it immediately becomes clear that Cain is neither confused nor is he asking the reporter to confirm the facts. Instead, Cain is asking the reporter to confirm that this was the topic the reporter meant with his odd question. Cain is using the word “correct” as a rhetorical device to make sure they were talking about the same thing. The fact both Cain and the reporter remain calm and continue the interview without any sense a gaffe has occurred confirms this.

There is NO reasonable way you can interpret this video as Cain being unsure what Obama did in Libya or asking the reporter to help him get the facts right. To assert that, as supposedly-reputable conservatives like National Review have done, is to adopt yet another smear, just as they did with the sexual harassment allegations. It is to intentionally pretend there is confusion, where there is none – just as they continue to wrongly claim Cain was confused about the difference between pro-life and pro-choice or as they tried to turn his verbal slip about China’s nuclear capability into evidence of ignorance.

I have also heard claims Cain must be stupid because he took time to consider his answer before responding. That is simply ridiculous. To expect someone to provide rapid-fire soundbites throughout an informal, 20+ minute conversation style interview on a variety of topics, rather than gather their thoughts, is disingenuous at best.

Issue Two: Dissecting Candidate Brains

Finally, I want to explain why I don’t care if Cain makes gaffes or Perry freezes up occasionally or Romney sounds prissy. Those things don’t matter. They are style over substance. What matters is understanding how the candidates think because what is truly critical is understanding how each candidate will approach whatever problems they face on the job. In other words, whether or not they know the capital of Mexico doesn’t matter, but knowing how they would analyze an invasion of Mexico by Venezuela does. Here is what I’ve seen so far (you may see things differently):

● Cain: Cain thinks like an executive. He’s hands off when it comes to details and he expects “his people” to carry out his orders. This is similar in style to Ronald Reagan. However, Cain lacks Reagan’s strong knowledge base and fundamental theoretical understanding of conservatism, and he has yet to show solid political instincts. His biggest flaw appears to be an assumption that those around him will work toward the goals he sets.

● Gingrich: Gingrich is the smartest man on stage. He is also politically savvy. BUT his history tells me he will often base his decisions on the wrong motives, such as ego or a desire to be loved. This overrides his intelligence and makes him unpredictable.

● Paul: Paul is a smart man with deep knowledge and a generally solid decision making process. However, he is prone to erroneous conspiracy theories and is fundamentally wrong on certain issues.

● Romney: Romney is afraid of decisions. He avoids them at all cost and immediately backtracks at the first sign of disagreement.

● Perry: Perry wants to let others make decisions for him. This means we don’t know who will actually be making decisions.

● Bachmann: Bachmann has failed to demonstrate any independent thinking. She follows bandwagons and believes knowledge of trivia is a substitute for analysis.

● Santorum: Santorum is a disaster. He only wants to hear people who agree with him and he simply does not understand the issues or people.

Some of these problems I can overlook, others I can’t. But one thing is clear: most of the things the MSM focuses on are irrelevant to understanding these people.

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60 Minutes Outs Pelosi

The Democrats are masters of corruption. They talk about hating evil corporations and helping the poor, but it’s all for show: the Democrats use government to enrich themselves. The reason they’ve gotten away with this for so long is the media covers up for them. So why did 60 Minutes just “out” Pelosi?

Here’s the story. In 2008, Nancy Pelosi “somehow” got the chance to buy into (subscribe to) the Visa initial public offering (IPO). For those who don’t know, this is something only insiders get to do. IPOs are almost always limited to company employees, their families, and large companies connected to making the public offering happen, i.e. the investment bank, a few institutional clients, company creditors and lawyers. Pelosi was none of these, yet she got in.

Indeed, Pelosi bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock. She paid $44 per share to buy in. Two days later, the IPO was issued to the public and the stock price soared to $65 per share. Two month later, it was $85 per share. She had almost doubled her money in two months.

So how did Pelosi get into this IPO? Well, it turns out that companies looking to build good will in Congress will sometimes let selected members of Congress in on their IPOs. And why would Visa care about Nancy Pelosi? Because two weeks after Pelosi bought into this IPO, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act was introduced in the House. This bill would have prevented credit card companies like Visa from charging certain fees. How much in fees? The credit card companies took in $48 billion in these fees in 2008 alone.

This bill passed the Judiciary Committee and apparently had broad public support as high as 77% in one poll. Yet, for some strange reason, Pelosi never let this bill get to the House floor for a vote. Imagine that.

And Pelosi wasn’t done there. Another bill, called the Credit Card Interchange Fee Act of 2008, which would have required credit card companies to disclose rates, met the same fate: Pelosi killed it. Instead, she brought to the floor a vote on a similarly named bill which only provided for further study. That's not a bad return on investment for Visa since it cost Visa nothing to let Pelosi ride along on their IPO.

Other IPOs in which Pelosi made money include Gupta (88% profit in two days), Netscape and UUNet (100% profit in one day), Remedy Corp., Opal, Legato Systems, Act Networks, etc. In 2007, Pelosi put $100,000 in an IPO with natural gas company Clean Energy Fuels and $500,000 in an IPO for natural gas company Quest Energy Partners. Then she started pushing natural gas bills in Congress. Tom Brokaw actually asked her if she had made significant personal investments in natural gas companies and if this represented a conflict of interest and she dodged the question.

But this is nothing new for Democrats. In just the last couple years:

● Pelosi got special treatment for donor Kaiser Permanente under ObamaCare.

● Democrat Max Baucus, who made his girlfriend the US Attorney for Montana, apparently made the same kinds of insider trades Pelosi did.

● Democrats Jim Moran, Peter Visclosky, and John Murtha directed $137 million in defense contracts to clients of a lobbyist who funneled more than $380,000 in illegal campaign contributions to them.

● Democrat Chris Dodd, who wrote banking regulation legislation, got sweetheart loans from the banks that would have been effected.

● Pelosi budget supercommittee appointee Xavier Becerra, sent out a fundraising letter to the companies whose programs he could now cut.

● The Congress Black Caucus has been particular good at illegally giving federal money to their friends and family, see e.g. Democrats Sanford Bishop and Eddie Bernice Johnson (scholarships to relatives), Charlie Rangel (tax breaks to donors) and Maxine Waters (money to relatives’ banks).

● As a Senator, Democrat Joe Biden, who was basically owned by MBNA worked to make credit card debt harder to discharge in bankruptcy.

● Democrat Obama gave the Treasury to Goldman Sachs and GM to his union friends. His donors at GE had record profits yet paid no taxes. GE also gets waivers from Obama for laws they’ve lobbied for. Of course, Obama also gave thousands of Obamacare waivers to donors.

● It’s getting increasingly obvious Obama steered $535 million in taxpayer dollars to big-time Obama donor ($100k) and “green-jobs” showpiece Solyndra as it was failing.

● Democrat Jon Corzine managed to “lose” $700 million in client money when his new company, MF Global went belly up. . . after donating $500,000 to Obama’s reelection.

Of course, the MSM has long ignored all of this. So why report the Pelosi story now? Could the MSM be about to become honest about exposing Democratic corruption? Or did Pelosi just cross some secret line?

How about this: this information was first uncovered by the Heritage Foundation. They were, in fact, writing a book about it. I suspect 60 Minutes realized this information would reach the public, no matter how hard the MSM tried to ignore it because Pelosi has such a high profile. Rather than let this blow up during the election and hurt all Democrats, 60 Minutes chose to cover this now, during the silly season where little is happening in Washington and the public is preparing for the coming holidays, i.e. 60 Minutes wants to defuse this now.

If I’m wrong, then 60 Minutes will follow up on this and attempt to get Pelosi to disgorge the profits and/or resign from Congress. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

What do you think is going on?

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Debate Wrap Up: 89 Seconds And Counting

The current debate system is a joke, as highlighted by Saturday’s foreign policy debate. There isn’t enough time to get anything useful from the candidates, the format encourages speaking in soundbites, the division of time is incredibly biased, and the questions asked are awful. Here is your debate wrap up and a few complaints.

● Unequal Time: If you’ve watched the debates, then you noticed there are too many people on stage to get any useful flow of discussion or meaningful answers. In fact, the candidates are being asked to speak in soundbites. But before we get to that, have you noticed that the distribution of time is highly skewed toward Romney and Perry? Here’s some proof.

A University of Minnesota study has determined how much time was given to each candidate in the last three debates before this week. Here are the results:

41 min. Romney
34 min. Perry
24 min. Bachmann
22 min. Huntsman
21 min. Cain
21 min. Gingrich
21 min. Santorum
18 min. Paul

Fascinating, isn’t it? Romney gets twice as much time as anyone except Perry. In last Tuesday’s debate, Romney actually got 25% of the total time, leaving the other seven to divide the rest. In Saturday’s debate, Ron Paul was given a grand total of 89 seconds to speak. . . less than one second for every minute of the debate.

After the debate, Bachmann’s campaign produced an email proving that CBS intentionally minimized candidates. In an email inadvertently copied to Bachmann’s staff, CBS News political analyst John Dickerson was lukewarm about a post-debate interview with Bachmann hoping he could get a higher-tiered candidate. Interestingly, he mentions in this internal e-mail that Bachmann would not be getting many questions during the debate: “let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”

Why invite her at all?

● Inadequate Time: Even beyond the issue of the time being divided unfairly, the real issue is the completely inadequate time in these debates. How in the world can you explain how you would reform health care in 30 seconds? How can you explain what’s gone wrong with Obama’s foreign policy and what you would do different to solve both Afghanistan and Pakistan in 30 seconds?

Unfortunately, this leads to speaking in soundbites, which tell us nothing. Newt in particular has mastered this art, and that’s one thing that keeps me nervous about him. Indeed, Newt’s answers all follow this pattern: Attack the moderator for asking the question and complain about being unable to answer in the short time given. Huff. “Reluctantly” agree to answer and spit out a rapid succession of key words and phrases to give the impression Newt has significant knowledge about the issue and that he was prepared to give a lengthy response before he “shockingly” learned he would only be given 30 seconds to respond. Finish with soundbite. The next time he does this, ask yourself if he actually told you anything? The answer is no, he didn’t.

Romney, by comparison, goes straight to soundbite speak. He spits out lots of words and generic thoughts that mean nothing: “I’ll be tough with people that deserve it and rebuild our relationship with our friends while maintaining America’s interests.” Does that actually mean anything? No. Being tough could be anything from nuking them to sending a harsh letter, and how do you rebuild a relationship with a friend, whoever that is, and rebuild it into what? And what are America’s interests? This is placebo-speak. Newt finishes his responses the same way.

Moreover, the questions are horrible: How do you make decisions? Do you believe in torture? Should we ever go to war? How do we “fix” Pakistan? These are softball, meaningless questions that are so vague they cannot lead to genuinely useful answers.

● Saturday’s Performances: Finally, you want to know how the debate went, so here's a summary.

● Gingrich: Gingrich won. He had excellent soundbites and sounded the most knowledgeable. He also had an excellent answer, which he and Cain seemed to share, about how to handle Iran -- covert action to disrupt their nuclear program including killing scientists and supporting Iranian opposition groups. He also said when an American joins a terrorist group and goes to war against the United States, they have no civil rights and our military can kill them just like any enemy combatant -- it's sad this even had to be explained to the MSM. Newt also has adopted Cain’s happy outlook and has nothing but love for everyone else on stage. That plays well.

● Cain: Cain had a great night because he had solid answers (though the neocons continue to mock him). In particular he led off on Iran and his answer was a home run (see Newt's answer above). He also gave a solid answer about how he would make decisions, which is listening to knowledgeable people with a variety of opinions and choosing among them. He gave a good answer on torture too, which is he wouldn’t allow torture, but he doesn’t think waterboarding is torture.

● Romney: Romney offered many platitudes. He believes in sanctions against Iran. . . and war, though he won’t call it that and he won’t say when it would become an option.

● Perry: Perry wasn’t drunk or drugged, but he made it clear he still doesn’t understand the difference between Texas and Washington -- his answer to how he would make decisions was that he knows good people in Texas. He had a great applause line about zeroing out foreign aid, BUT he actually backtracked immediately and said each country could then explain why they needed aid. . . so “zero” is actually “no change.”

● Bachmann: Bachmann tried to bury us with minutia by listing lots of troop numbers. Yawn. She also said the US has nowhere to put people it captures in the field, which is laughably stupid.

● Santorum: Santorum exposed yet another serious flaw in his thinking when he said he would only hire people who think like he does. Those are called “yes men,” and Santorum sounds increasingly like someone who should never be trusted with power. He also continues to whine that if all those evil Republicans in Washington hadn’t opposed him over and over, the world would be nearly perfect today.

● Paul: Paul didn’t promise to disarm. To the contrary he said that if we need to go to war, then he would go to Congress, get the authority and win it and get it over with.

● Huntsman: I’m going to say something nice about Huntsman, though it pains me. Huntsman was more honest than the others. On instances like how to handle China to the elimination of foreign aid, the other candidates said things to rile up the pitchfork crowd, but always quietly reversed that in the small print. Huntsman was the only one to be honest about these issues and went straight to the small print. For that, he deserves credit. Unfortunately, his foreign policy sounds a lot like Obama’s.

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Debate Wrap: The Education of CNBC

Another debate is in the books. We learned little. CNBC made fools of themselves. One candidate imploded spectacularly. A couple impressed. And the rest were there too!

●Epic Loser: Rick Perry. Do you remember the “agony of defeat” guy from Wide World of Sports? Rick Perry just topped him. For the first half of the night, Perry proved he doesn’t realize that being President won’t be like being Governor of Texas where even the Democrats are solid conservatives. Then it happened. Perry proudly claimed he would eliminate three departments if elected. He named two. . . and then he froze. For about a minute, he was unable to tell us which agency he passionately wanted to eliminate, and he couldn’t think of a way to end his sentence either. He just stood there stunned like Wiley Coyote with his arm pointed at Ron Paul and two fingers stuck up in the air. Finally, he said, “Oops.” Then someone suggested “the EPA” and he heartily agreed, only to admit a moment later that wasn’t the agency and he still couldn’t think of the name of his nemesis. Rick. . . quit.

●Winner: Newt Gingrich. Newt was the big winner, just edging out Cain. Newt was on fire. He was calm and brilliant. He showed both the breadth and depth of his knowledge and he took down the CNBC hacks with devastating wit:

● He took down Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer with: “it’s sad the media doesn’t report accurately on how the economy works.” Both Cramer and Bartiromo had shown a lot of economic ignorance, like when Cramer demanded from each candidate: “do you really believe a company can make a profit and create jobs at the same time!!!” Uh. You pretty much have to Jim or you fail and all the jobs go away.

● Or when he blasted Maria’s ridiculous question asking the candidates to tell her in 30 seconds how they would fix health care (18% of the economy): “My colleagues have done a terrific job of answering an absurd question!!” Maria didn’t like that.

● Or when he crushed a sleazy question by John King on what Gingrich told Fannie and Freddie (King wrongly implied Gingrich was paid $300,000 by Fannie and Freddie to act as their lobbyist): “I gave them advice which they absolutely didn’t follow.”

Ultimately, Gingrich won because he gave the strongest performance. This will continue to solidify him as the alternative to Cain for conservatives, which will keep him in the race and may let him overtake Cain when Perry/Bachman/Paul and Santorum start quitting. Don’t be surprised if he draws neck and neck with Cain soon.

●Winner: Herman Cain. Everyone wanted to know how Cain would handle THE question. He was brilliant. He tossed it away by pointing out the public wants to hear about important matters and said America deserves better than character assassination. An upset Maria Bartiromo immediately tried to assassinate his character with the sleazy tactic of asking Romney if he would hire Cain given Cain’s answer. The audience booed her. This is significant because it tells us Republican primary voters despise the gotcha game the media is playing with Cain and want to move on.

Beyond that, Cain explained why his 9-9-9 plan works: (1) it eliminates $430 billion Americans waste manipulating the tax code each year, (2) it eliminates hidden taxes, and (3) it gets Washington out of the game of picking winners and losers. He argued it would make America more competitive against China: “the tax code is what sends jobs overseas.” He also shot down the argument it would result in higher rates by first questioning the stupidity of the idea that this was a unique problem to his plan (this argument can be used against any plan) and then by saying the transparency of his plan would make it harder for politicians to get away with raising rates -- an argument against the tax code tinkerers.

Cain was jovial and knowledgeable -- something which tells us he’s not affected by the harassment issue. My one criticism is he needs to speak more broadly than just his 9-9-9 plan or it will start to sound like snake oil... it can’t cure everything.

●Winner: Ron Paul. Ron Paul was excellent. He made the great point that the areas where we have problems (housing bubble, student loans, stock market bubbles, health care) are all the direct result of government intervention and government money. And when the government helps one group it often hurts another, such as when the government keeps interest rates low to help banks, it cheats the elderly who rely on interest for income. The CNBC crew were oddly stunned to hear this. Call it a teachable moment.

●Draw: Romney. On one hand, Romney’s a clear winner because he continues to come across as acceptable. But I suspect he’s actually a loser. His current strategy is like a prevent defense in football: rather than trying to win the nomination, he’s just trying to survive while the others all lose the nomination. The problem with this strategy is he’s letting others decide his fate for him. Right now, that works because people haven’t made up their minds -- so 25% support keeps him tied for the lead. But once the other 75% begin to settle on one or two candidates, 25% won’t be enough and he will have blown his chances to win people over.

This strategy also confirms the fear conservatives have that Romney has no leadership skills. You see this whenever he gets criticized because he starts to dance because he’s afraid to defend his beliefs. He had no response when CNBC pointed out that his tax plan accepts the Democratic premise that progressive taxes are good and the implicit class warfare arguments. At one point, he firmly agreed with Ron Paul about health care, only to turn to Jello moments later when he was asked if that means he no longer believes there’s a role for government to provide insurance to the uninsured.

His answer to the Cain question also demonstrates the problem. Bartiromo sleazily asked him to attack Cain (“would you hire Cain as a CEO given his answers”). A leader would have seized the moment: “I don’t know what Herm did or not, BUT I think it’s obscene the way the media.....” Romney didn’t do that. Instead, he said it wasn’t his place to comment. If he doesn’t think it’s his place to comment when an American citizen is being slandered by the media, then why would we want him as a our leader?

Last night, it struck me for the first time that this prevent defense wasn’t working anymore. Romney seemed a lot less relevant than before. So I suspect he may eventually look back on last night as the moment his candidacy started to slip away.

●Loser: Maria Bartiromo/CNBC. CNBC sells itself as a no-nonsense pro-business channel. Their claim is based on having more knowledgeable reporters and deeper analysis than others. Last night was full of nonsense “gotcha” questions, cheap shots, and whiny, abusive and shrill comments. Maria and Jim Cramer were particularly rude and proved they don’t actually understand economics.

●Loser: Michele Bachmann. Bachmann continues to talk about her tax plan, which doesn’t exist. If you ask her any question, she whines her way through all of her talking points, always in the same order, and she’s never seemed less relevant than last night.

●Loser: Rick Santorum. Rick can’t win the nomination. So presumably, he’s playing to raise his profile for fundraising purposes. But Rick is not helping himself. In the last couple debates he was simply obnoxious, talking over people and making unfair attacks. Last night, he smugly fell in love with himself. Then he declared himself an advocate of the poor by throwing the Republican Party under the bus. He didn’t understand what “picking winners and losers” means or why it’s bad. He also chastised the others for wanting to cause problems with China, after saying last time he wanted to start a trade war with them. He also promises subsidies to his favored industries while saying his plan (which also doesn’t exist) would eliminate subsidies. And yet, Mr. Inconsistent attacks the others for not being consistent in unspecified ways.

●Loser: CNBC. Finally, CNBC gets a thumbs down for not streaming this over the net.

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Occupy Animal Farm

Meanwhile, in fantasy land, the OWS (bowel) movement continues its inexorable march toward Animal Farm. We’ve got oppressive government, crime waves, deaths, and ironies galore! Come one come all, unless you’re homeless or a Jew. . . or you don't want to be raped.

Occupy Rape

Zuccotti Park, the Mecca of OWS, has turned into a gathering of predators. Apparently, the west end of the park has become so dangerous that people are warned not to go there anymore. This has included assault, drug dealing, drug use, and rape. Naturally, the idiot protesters are claiming this is all the doing of the police. Said one protester:

“We are convinced the rise in crime is being partly manufactured by the authorities. A lot of people who have ended up in the park have said that the police told them: ‘Take it to Zuccotti.’”

Snicker snicker. I wish that were true, but I’m not on drugs, so I know better.

Rape, by the way, is becoming an epidemic. In the past few weeks, there have been a series of rapes and attempted rapes at OWS camps all over the country. In Zuccotti park, it’s gotten so bad that OWS females have banded together and created female-only sleeping tents under the theory that there’s “safety in numbers.” Interestingly, the OWS gangs have discouraged the victims from calling the police and are actually threatening protesters who do contact the police. Check out this odd quote from an OWS woman: “We don’t tell anyone. We handle it internally. I said too much already.”

And how have they handled it? So far, they’ve formed a police force that shines flashlights in the faces of rapists and then yells at them to leave with the chant (and no, I’m not kidding): “Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!”

Call me crazy, but I don’t think the drummers are getting value for their taxes.

So let’s think about this for a moment. First, they are allowing OWS females to become rape victims because they're doing nothing to stop the rapists or keep them from repeating. Secondly, they've done nothing to reform the rapists, which is something leftists always claim is society's responsibility. Apparently not. Third, since when has it been acceptable in liberal circles to accuse someone of being a “pervert?” And since when has it been acceptable to just chase criminals away to another jurisdiction? Try chasing ours to Mexico and see what liberals say. Finally, the rape industry, which tells us there are ten rapes for every reported rape, chastises society for discouraging the reporting of rape. Yet these same people are telling these women not to report their rapes because they fear the publicity will make OWS look bad.

But at least they’re sympathetic to these young women, right? Uh, no. Scoffed one male OWS protester: “Sexual harassment gets called rape, and it’s not.” Interesting. So women make false rape allegations and sexual harassment isn’t a big deal then?

Anyhoo, Zuccotti Park isn’t the only free-fire zone when it comes to sexual predators. Rapes have been reported at: OWS Cleveland, Baltimore, Boston, Glasgow, Lawrence Kansas, and Ottawa. In Dallas, an OWS protester sexually assaulted a child. In Seattle, an OWS protester exposed himself to children. In Portland, a sex offender has registered OWS as his home. In Denver, a protester groped a TV journalist. In Kansas, they sexually assaulted a reporter. In Manchester New Hampshire, a woman pimped out her teen.

Other incidents of note, excluding the thousands of arrests, property damage, and using children as human shields, include two overdose deaths in Vancouver, a murder at OWS Oklahoma City, a knife fight at OWS Austin, Neo-Nazis in OWS Phoenix, etc. And of course, there is massive anti-Semitism throughout the movement.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

Finally, there is yet another irony that just has to be pointed out. You may recall, this “leaderless” group of anti-fascists has formed a General Assembly, right? (Plus the police force, the taxes, the rules, etc.). Well, the brown-shirts have taken over.

First, a small group of them formed a new politburo, called the Spokes Council. This group, apparently numbering around six, is locate at Zuccotti Park and have seized control of all the money the OWS movement has gathered. . . and they don’t want to share with the others or the other OWS sites. When other OWS dissenters objected or tried to find out details about this Council or what they were doing with the $500k, they found themselves silenced. Not only has the council ordered that they be ignored, but they’ve been drown out by the zombie crowds.

This Council also imposed rules on the General Assembly which allow 1.27% of the protesters to overrule the other 98%. They have made it impossible for anyone who isn’t in Zuccotti Park to have a voice in their “government” and they apparently meet in secret.

I guess Kumbaya has been replaced with Zuccotti Űber Alles.

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Austerity?! You're Kidding, Right?

It drives me nuts that everyone keeps claiming we’ve entered an “austerity” period in government. You can’t read an article in The Economist without them whining about this supposed austerity “endangering the recovery.” Seriously, every. . . single. . . article. And they aren’t alone. Most journalists now whine that “austerity” has “sapped growth” and hurt the economy. Noted liar Paul Krugman recently claimed “the turn toward austerity is a major factor in our growth slowdown.” This is demonstrably false.

In April, the White House and Congress agreed to a “draconian” $38 billion cut in the 2011 budget -- a whopping 1% of the $3.82 trillion leviathan. Oh my! Then in August they agreed to cut $2.4 trillion over the next decade. . . which would be 6% assuming the budget doesn’t increase for ten years (RFLMAO).

So there is austerity, right? It’s slight, but it is there, right?

Well, no.

Data from the Treasury shows that federal spending in 2011 is actually $120 billion higher than it was in 2010. In other words, spending is 5% higher than it was in 2010 and the supposed $38 billion in cuts has somehow morphed into $120 billion in additional spending.

That doesn’t sound like austerity to me.

Ok, so maybe we’re looking in the wrong place? Maybe the problem is really at the state level? After all, we keep hearing about belt-tightening and layoffs at the state level. Could that be where this supposed austerity is happening?

Well, no.

State budgets in 2010 were 8% higher than they were in 2008. And in 2011, they are 5% higher than they were in 2010. And in 2012, they’re estimated to be 2.6% higher again.

So where is this austerity? It’s made up. Liberals have spent like drunken sailors for the past decade. Federal spending is up 93% in 10 years and state spending is up 72% in 10 years, and there are no signs this growth is slowing any time soon. But they don’t want you knowing that, so they whine about austerity. And supposedly reputable magazines like The Economist prove they are too incompetent to even look up the truth. It’s a sad world.

Finally, let me point something out vis-a-vis the Democratic belief in stimulus spending. Federal spending increased 93% in ten years, yet the economy produced ZERO new jobs this decade. What gives? Maybe federal spending doesn't create jobs after all. . .

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More Leftist Stupidity And Scandals

This has been an interesting week full to the brim with leftist/Democratic stupidity. Of course, the MSM hasn’t noticed because. . . well, they refuse to notice. Plus, they found something else to entertain themselves, lynching Herman Cain. Let’s discuss!

● Item One: Cain Non-Fallout. Despite the MSM’s best efforts, this whole Cain scandal doesn’t appear to be hurting him. To the contrary, it seems to be making his support more entrenched and it brought out the support of people like Ann Coulter and Rush. Also, the day after the scandal, Cain had his biggest fundraising day ever online. That means average people are voting with their dollars and they want to show their support. That’s what happens when you slander someone. . . you make them more popular.

● Item Two: StupidStudent Loans. Obama suddenly wants to rescue college kids. Now let me say up front, there is a huge problem in this country with the cost of education. It is ridiculous what college students are being charged and it is hurting our economy by making people less mobile. Something needs to be done.

What I am not in favor of doing, however, is increasing the amount of student loan money available. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. Colleges have been able to jack up their costs precisely because Uncle Sam handed out student loans to cover the costs. That was a subsidy to fat, rich schools paid on the backs of young professionals.

So what does Obama want to do to fix this problem? Increase the availability of student loans. Jerk.

To trick students into thinking they aren’t getting the shaft, Obama is promising to reduce the minimum monthly payment from 15% to 10%. . . so you pay longer. He also promises to let you consolidate your loans. . . so you pay longer. And as anyone who has ever taken out a loan knows, this will dramatically increase the amount the students repay. I guess being a community organizer didn’t include lessons on credit management.

But never fear, Obama wants to reduce the time before loan forgiveness kicks in from 25 years to 20. So if you graduate from college at the age of 25, your college loan slavery will now end at 45 instead of 50, and you can then start saving for your retirement. . . 20 years behind the curve. Bravo President AAAhole, bravo.

● Item Three: Where’s Waldo’s Money. With Solyndra waiting in the wings, a new scandal has emerged. This time the company is called MF Global. MF Global is a commodities trading company that just went belly up. The man who ran MF Global is none other than Jon Corzine, former New Jersey Senator/Governor (lost to Christie), former chief of Goldman Sachs and MAJOR Barack Obama fundraiser. Since April 2011, for example, Corzine has raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s re-election.

But it’s not the fact the company went bankrupt that is the problem. What’s interesting is that $700 million of client money is “missing.” Right now, it’s believe that as the firm began suffering losses, it used its customers’ money to cover its own trades, which of course violates trading regulations which require brokers to keep their own funds separate from their customers’ funds. If any of this proves true, look for jail time to come out of this one. I wonder how much of the $500,000 Corzine raised for Obama came from MF Global customers?

● Item: Celebrity Weirdoes. Hollywood is stumbling back into Obama’s arms as we knew they would. Scarlett Johansson, who is famous primarily for keeping naked pictures of herself on her cell phone, plans to support Obama: “My heart belongs to Barack.” Yeah, and your brain belongs to Low-Grade Brain Rental. Others are lining up as well to offer their best Lewinskies.

Meanwhile, unfunny adult-bed-wetter (yes, that’s true) Sarah Silverman is attacking Rick Perry. She’s upset the “N*ggerhead Scandal” had no effect, so she’s determined to try to keep it alive until someone cares. Personally, I think like many liberals she just likes using the N-word while pretending she’s actually outraged. . . ditto with her prior use of “chink.”

And from the land of the absurd, Michael Moore is trying to fit in with the OWS Movement. Sadly for Michael, who has net worth of $50 million (but value of only $1.25), he’s more of a 0.99%er than a 99%er. On the plus side, he’s got the right level of stupid and hypocrite to fit right in!

● Item: OWS Irony of the Week. Finally, there is a rumor making the rounds that OWS is now trying to copyright their name. Capitalist pigs.

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Judge A Man By His Friends

I’ve been trying to put together a voting guide to give you the “pro” case for each major candidate. Unfortunately, every time I start gathering “pro” information, certain candidates come out with more “con” reasons, candidates like Mitt Romney. The latest example is that Romney keeps hiring former Bush people. Ugh.

Hiring Bushies is bad in and of itself. Whether you liked Bush the person or not, the fact is he was not a conservative. From needlessly raising CAFE standards, to the Ted Kennedy No Child Left Behind Act, to expanding bankrupt Medicare to cover prescription drugs, to failing entirely to prepare for post-war Iraq, to opening the doors of the Treasury to Goldman Sachs, to doing nothing to lower the nation’s regulatory burden, to his tinkering tax cuts which did nothing to increase the national incentive to work, to TARP. . . Bush was no conservative.

His staff was worse, as they’ve continued to prove over and over again now that they are out of the White House. They bleed RINO blue and spend their days attacking conservatives and pimping for lobbyists. The advice they give is “surrender” and “stop being so partisan.” They never have unkind words for liberals, but somehow can’t find anything good to say about conservatives. So who in their right mind would bring these people onto their team? Romney.

And it gets worse.

The latest former Bush staffer in question is Alex Mistri. Beside being a Bushie, Mistri was a registered lobbyist for Solyndra. Yes, that Solyndra. This is one of the bigger Obama scandals and should become one of the bigger clubs with which the Republican nominee will beat Obama during the election. Hiring Solyndra’s lobbyist all but prohibits Romney from making that attack -- in fact, it basically says there was nothing criminal involving Solyndra. This is beyond stupid. Hiring this man at this time tells us something is very wrong with Romney’s judgment.

The next Bushie is Jim Connaughton, a big firm attorney and energy company lobbyist. Connaughton was the architect of Bush’s climate plan when he was Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. This is the same White House that mandated the use of renewable fuels in 2005 and raised fuel economy standards at the urging of the Democrats when he was a lame duck. Near the end of Bush’s term, Connaughton even embraced a national goal for controlling “greenhouse gases,” i.e. regulation to stop global warming.

The other Bushie is Greg Mankiw, the former chairman of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mankiw was an “outspoken advocate” for a carbon tax. His current job is to help craft Romney’s jobs agenda.... presumably destroying jobs, not making jobs. In September 2007, Mankiw wrote this in the New York Times:

“There is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it. So if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax.”

Maybe we should tax stupidity.

Since Romney is noted for his flip-flops on global warming, these last two choices are downright foolish. What should we trust? Should we believe Romney’s recent conversion to global warming skepticism? Or should it concern us that he’s filling his team with global warming enthusiasts?

Finally, as we mentioned yesterday, Cain is being smeared with unidentified sexual harassment allegations. It is worth mentioning again, that Bushie Karl Rove, who has been acting as an unofficial Romney cheerleader on Fox, has jumped on this along with the MSM and is trying to smear Cain. Way to go Karl.

Whether we believe these people will influence Romney the wrong way or not, their hiring demonstrates a lack of judgment by Romney. In hiring them, Romney defuses two strong issues which should be used against Obama and instantly raises skepticism in conservative ranks that he is who we fear he is -- an establishment, dead-center technocrat. Yet, he gets NO benefit from hiring them because whatever wisdom they may bring is readily available in less offensive personages all over the country. So doing this was stupid. Romney gave himself a self-inflicted wound and got no benefit for it in return. That’s not the kind of judgment we want in a Republican President.

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European Elfcation

By the Boiler Room Elves

Elves live to travel, especially Boiler Elves. From touring boiler plants in Brazil to fact-finding missions at plush resorts in the Caribbean to top secret visits to an ocketsleigh-ray actory-fay in ina-Chay, we just can’t get enough. In fact, we just returned from London, where we attended the Elf Professional International Cookie Accounting Conference (EPICAC.) The topics this year have been somewhat disheartening:

- Biscuits, Cookies & Shortbread: The Crumbling World of Multi-national Baking
- Emerging Markets and Sugar Quality
- Baked Goods at Tea Time - A Necessity? (an extremely heretical stance even to question, mind you, but not surprising in this day of cutbacks)

As we listened to lectures on chocolate chip depreciation recapture, our minds started to wander, and we found ourselves thinking - does it really matter if Europe collapses?

Europe teeters on the edge. Everything south of Germany is broke. No one wants to throw good Elf Marks after bad Euros. European banks are near collapse. Britain just had riots and now their government is fighting to keep Britons from voting to take back power from Brussels. Government after government seems ready to collapse, and the headlines scream about the end of Europe. Even Alan Greenspan said yesterday that the European Union is doomed to fail.

In our networking sessions at the conference, we met several elves whose lives have changed because of the crisis. One elf from Portugal, well into his maple years, told us he hoped to retire quietly to his kitchen, but was now forced to start anew in the UK. Carlo, an elf from Italy had been happily making a living as an actor until about a year ago. Now he works in England as a waiter. The cookie buyers guilds’ profit forecasts were way down. A consultant from Baker & McElfzie, said his firm had been driven to branch out into teacakes and muffins. (How the mighty have fallen...) Difficult times, my friends, difficult times.

But this is how capitalism works and what Europe doesn’t seem to understand. When people stop buying red and white candy canes, you innovate and give them red and white and green. If the candy cane market dries up altogether, you find something new to do for a living. You don’t wait for another handout from another government because your red-and-white candy cane union needs their 6 weeks of paid vacation and retirement at age 50. The USA never went as far as Europe down that path, and you can see the pain we’re having just trying to back away.

There’s no doubt a collapse of Europe would be bad for stock markets, big companies, European governments, and red-tape makers everywhere. It’s going to get uglier before it gets better, but in the long run, the whole world will be better off if every country just takes its medicine.

Of course, you know the old conventional wisdom -- “as goes Europe, so goes the North Pole.” The North Pole’s Santa-based economy is admittedly highly export oriented and its biggest market is Europe. Even America, the land of the soon to be free again and the home of the Boiler Room Elves does a lot of business with Europe. We elves would like to see Europe grow strong again. Will it take a complete collapse to do set them straight?

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Hispanics Foil Democratic Race Dreams

You’ve all heard America is destined to become an Hispanic country, right? The Democrats are in fact counting on that to stay relevant. They’re hoping to get Hispanics to buy into racial identity politics and then vote exclusively for their race-hustling party. But there are three flaws with this plan.

Flaw One: Bad Demographics

The argument works like this: in 1980, there were 30 million Hispanics in the US. By 2000, there were 45 million. If you draw a straight line between those points and extend it to the future, there will be 104 million in 2040 and they will be the new majority. But as I first mentioned in May of last year (LINK), there are serious flaws with this.

First, this assumes Hispanics are having huge numbers of children. The truth is that most of the population growth in Hispanic ranks has been the result of illegal immigration, not from births. Indeed, 12 million of the 15 million growth in the last twenty years was pure illegal immigration. So it’s immigration that matters.

But illegal immigration can’t continue at this rate because Mexico is running out of Mexicans. Mexico accounts for most illegal immigrants. But Mexico’s birthrate is in free fall. In the past decade alone, it has fallen 20% (from 24 birth per 1,000 persons to 19), and it keeps right on falling. Mexico, like Europe, is starting to suffer from a birth shortage and, consequently, a worker shortage. That means there won’t be waves of millions of Mexicans sneaking across the border in each of the next 3-4 decades. So instead of having 104 million Hispanics in 2040 as expected, the US is more likely to have 60 million -- which won’t be anywhere near a majority in a country of 350 million people.

Flaw Two: The Race Baiting Ain’t Working

But even beyond the pending illegal-immigrant-supply shortage, something interesting just happened with the last Census. To the race industry’s horror, “whites” suddenly jumped by 12.1 million people (to 223.6 million or 72% of the population). What could account for this?

What happened is the number of Hispanics who identified themselves as Hispanic went down 5% and the number of Hispanics who identified themselves as “white” increased 5%. Overall, 53% of Hispanics now identify themselves as “white,” while 37% identify themselves as “some other race” (the choice on the form) with the rest selecting other races such as black.

What this means is that Hispanics are doing what the Irish, the Jews, the Polish, and everyone else who is now considered “white” did -- they are identifying with the larger group and trying to fit in. They are joining the melting pot. And American-born children of Hispanics are even more likely to identify themselves as “white.”

This is horrible news for the Democrats, because the whole idea behind racial identity politics is to make people think they are part of an oppressed group. If people see themselves as black, white, Hispanic, etc., then it’s easy to get them believing in group rights. But Hispanics aren’t buying it.

Flaw Three: Escape The Plantation

Finally, there have been a number of articles lately by shocked journalists who can’t understand where all these conservative blacks have come from? It turns out the racist Tea Party got them all elected. Oh my! In fact, these articles have pointed out that in each case where a black (or minority) candidate won a Republican primary, it was with Tea Party backing over an establishment Republican honkey.

In effect, genuine diversity has finally arrived on the right and it’s the Tea Party that caused it because. . . imagine this. . . Tea Party people vote for people whose ideas they like, not people whose color they like! The Democrats are shocked.

This is a huge step toward smashing the idea of racial identity politics in this country. As more and more conservative blacks, Asians, Indians and Hispanics get elected into office, the idea that you need to be a Democrat if you are one of these people will simply fall apart. And that will be the final nail in the coffin of the Democratic Hispanic-America strategy.

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2012 Campaign Weekly Round Up!

Lots of interesting news this week from the 2012 Campaign, one item in particular has me truly fascinated. . . a debate! Then there’s the other stuff. Bachmann continues to implode. Perry offers a plan to entrench liberalism. Santorum has indigestion. And George Will slapped Mitt Romney. Read on. . .

● Item One: Lincoln Douglas II (electric boogaloo)! The big COOL news is this: Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain have agreed to engage in a “modified Lincoln-Douglas debate” in Texas on November 5.

Bill O’Sullivan, the treasurer of the Texas Tea Party Patriots explains that: “We initially wanted a forum with all of the candidates. But when we heard Gingrich say he wanted a more serious debate, like the Lincoln–Douglas debates, we wanted to do that, especially since watching the recent superficial debates has been frustrating.”

The debate will involve both men going back and forth, “in a respectful way,” with no moderator. Sadly, no network has agreed to broadcast this debate (HINT: INTERNET BILL!!!), but I would LOVE to see this.

● Item Two: Flatsnake Oil Rick Perry. Last week Rick Perry told us he wants a flat tax. This week he finally released the rate. Who knows what next week's fortune cookie might bring?! His plan apparently calls for a 20% flat tax with a $12,500 deduction per individual OR household (plus all the usual deductions). This is a HORRIBLE idea:

○ 1) This makes the problem of 47% of Americans not paying any taxes much worse. This plan takes at least another 48 million people off the tax roles, which increases the number who pay no taxes to 62%. Way to entrench liberalism Rick!

○ 2) This doesn’t produce anywhere near the income needed. Hence, it is fantasy meant to dazzle you only. Do not take internally.

○ 3) This creates a massive marriage penalty, something Republicans worked for decades to fix.

○ 4) Perry's deductions only apply if you aren't rich, which he defines as making $500,000 a year. In other words, Perry plays right into the Democrats' class warfare strategy.

○ 5) Ricky also doesn't address what constitutes income or valid deductions, which is where people with lobbyist blood (like Perry) make sure their friends like GE pay no taxes.

Somebody drag Rick back to Texas before he hurts himself.

● Item Three: Irritable Bowel. Ricky Santorum says a Ron Paul nomination would “give me indigestion.” Ironically, that’s how I feel about Santorum. . . only the pain would be lower and involves too many tacos. In fact, I would prefer the rollercoaster of a Paul presidency and his attempts to dismantle the government to the stifling idiocy of a Santorum presidency and his Jihad against the scary, essence-sapping homosexuals in our midsts.

● Item : Mutiny On The Bachmann. For months now, Bachmann has been experiencing a steady flow of staffers quitting her campaign. Many have taken the highly-unusual step of calling her a liar on the way out. Indeed, I recall one of her senior Congressional staffers very politely explaining that he still supported her, but he just got sick of trying to explain away her constant lies and fictions to the press.

Now Bachmann’s entire New Hampshire staff has quit on her and badmouthed her in the process. She promptly went on the radio and denied this had happened and tried to blame other campaigns for smearing her, going so far as to say that she had “called the New Hampshire staff” and they “said that isn't true.” This was yet another lie. So yesterday, the ex-staff released a letter in which they describe the campaign as “rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel.”

● Item : Duller Than Dirt Squared. George F. Will has always struck me as the dullest man alive. In fact, I’m pretty sure the first question doctors ask about coma patients is “were they listening to Will?” So when the Willster tells you someone else is dull, you should listen. You’ve probably stumbled upon the essence of dull, or at least dull extract. Will just slammed Mitt Romney by describing him as the GOP’s own Michael Dukakis: “[Cain] is rising as more and more Republicans come to the conclusion that the Republican Party has found its Michael Dukakis -- a technocratic Massachusetts governor running on competence, not ideology.” Ouch! Careful George, Mitt might strongly disagree with your premise in a very stern letter.

● Item : Rolling In The Mud. I can't tell you how little I respect Karl Rove. If he gives you an opinion, you can put money on it being wrong. He’s now after Herman Cain because that's how Rove stays relevant. To that end, he’s declaring Cain “finished” because of five “gaffes” Cain supposedly made. Three of these involve foreign policy minutia, which doesn’t resonate with people. And the other two are Rove’s interpretation of Cain’s statements and require you to assume Cain doesn’t know the difference between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” and doesn’t understand his own 9-9-9 plan. Obviously, this is bull.

However, Herm is making a mistake: he’s letting the establishment’s yammering heads get him frustrated and he’s shooting back. Cain needs to ignore them and stay positive -- counterattacking should be done by Cain's friends, not Cain. When the candidate gets dragged down into the mud, they cannot win no matter what they say. So let the pigs like Rove wallow . . . no one listens to them anyway.

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Should The Democrats Embrace OWS?

OccupyWallStreet (OWS) is the new Tea Party, right?! That’s what the Democratic Party wants to believe. But are the Democrats making a mistake embracing these idiot malingerers sleeping in their own feces. Yep. And now one Democratic pollster is alarmed.

The Democrats have been busy embracing the OWS “movement” because they think this represents a leftist Tea Party. They think OWS can be transformed into a broad national movement which will energize dispirited Democratic voters, just as the Tea Party breathed life into conservatives. Thus, Pelosi, Obama, Frank and the rest are out there praising these idiots and trying to reshape their confused message into standard Democratic talking points.

But things aren’t going so well. An AP poll the other day found that only 39% of the public supports the OWS protestors, and that poll's sample was skewed about 17% to the left. Moreover, almost all of that 39% comes from Democratic and Socialist ranks. So is it really a good idea for the Democrats to embrace OWS?

That’s what Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen wanted to find out. So he sent a researcher wading into the crowds (presumably in a biohazard suit) to conduct face to face interviews with 198 of them. What he found was not a new Tea Party of the left. Instead, he found an angry bunch of clueless leftists who hate you. And he thinks Obama/Pelosi are making a “critical error in embracing” these fools and it could cost them the election:

[T]he Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people. . . . What binds a large majority of the protesters together is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Specifically, he found they have a distinct hard-core leftist ideology:

● More than half of these protestors (52%) are professional protestors.

● 98% support civil disobedience to achieve their goals and 32% support violence.

● Schoen found no Republicans or conservatives. 50% are Democrats, socialists or anarchists. Most of the rest claimed no party. But 74% of them voted for Obama in 2008, and about the same are likely to vote for him again in 2012. The other quarter say they won’t vote at all in 2012.

● 77% want to raise taxes on “the rich” and 36% want to raise taxes on everyone.

● 73% oppose free trade and support protectionism.

● 65% think government has a “moral responsibility” to provide guaranteed healthcare and college education.

And check out these views as well:

● 40% blame corporations or capitalism for the nation’s problems. Another 6% blame “income inequality”, which is a proxy for “capitalism” on the left.

● 7% blame the nation’s problems on Bush.

● 2% blame military spending.

● 15% blame the American people, those fools.

● 2% blame the Tea Party.

● And strangely, 21% blame “partisanship”. . . said the highly partisan crowd. I actually interpret this either as a code word for imposing a single-party government or they think this is what the public wants to hear.

Their goals include:

● 4% Dissolution of our representative democracy/capitalist system

● 4% Radical redistribution of wealth

● 7% Direct Democracy

● 9% Mobilizing Progressives

● 4% Single payer health care

● 4% Pulling out of Afghanistan immediately

They're hypocrites too. They claim to speak for the unemployed but 85% are employed or students. They claim to oppose Wall Street, yet 49% supported TARP. They claim to hate capitalism, but 68% want more money.

Finally, we have this entertaining note. Apparently, the OWS drummers are upset. The fascists who run the leaderless protest “are becoming the government we’re trying to protest,” whined a 19-year old, feces-covered inbred. “They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said another pothead, before he added this bit of racism: “They suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”

What has upset them? Apparently, the OWS organizers have imposed a “tax” and are taking the money the drummers are “earning” fleecing passing idiots. This has upset the drummers, who feel they aren’t getting anything in return for the taxes being taken from them. . . no irony there, nope, none at all.

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Our Overseas Military Presence

To give you a quick update on the 2012 election, Perry now claims he wants a flat tax at some unknown rate. Perry's supporters seem really blind to how poorly he’s coming across. Cain says he will go on the attack in the next debate because the other candidates “are getting on my last nerve.” Palin thinks Newt won the other night. And Politico wants to convince us that the race is between Perry and Romney. But the guy I want to talk about today is Paul.

In the last two debates, Paul has said the US has 900 military bases overseas in 130 countries. This struck me as likely true, but also highly misleading, as I will explain.

Looking this up, I found the US actually has military personnel in 148 different countries. That doesn’t surprise me. We also have 662 installations outside the country. That doesn’t surprise me either. And I’m not going to quibble about 900 versus 662: either number is huge and within the same order of magnitude.

So Paul is correct, right? Sort of. He is technically correct about the numbers. But I think he is implying something much bigger than the reality. When Paul says the military has bases in these countries, it sounds a lot like we have an active military presence sitting on self-contained “bases” in almost every country. In effect, it sounds like we have occupied every country in the world.

But that’s not really what is going on. The truth is that only 13 countries host more than 1,000 troops: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Japan, Bahrain, Djibouti, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Most of the rest have only a handful of troops, typically in single digits.

So what are they doing? That’s impossible to determine for sure, but most likely they are guarding embassies. There are about 30 Marines at the embassy in Moscow, plus some other officers from the other services. So let’s exclude any country with fewer than 40 military personnel from this list on the assumption they are just embassy staff.

Suddenly we are only in 19 countries, 13 of which are in Europe. . . where we are part of NATO.

The 662 bases is misleading too. All but 32 of those bases are either small sites or owned on paper only. For example, some of these sites are apparently nothing more than unmanned radio towers. One site listed in Canada is only 144 square feet -- a 12x12 room, just like our “base” in North Korea is just a room with two guards assigned.

Thus, when Paul says we have 900 military bases overseas in 130 countries, he is technically correct (give or take). But what he’s really should be saying to not be misleading is: we have 32 military bases overseas in 19 countries. That doesn’t quite have the same punch.

I don’t subscribe to isolationism at all. Isolationism is a horrible policy because it eliminates your ability to control your destiny and it turns you into a victim of circumstance. And ignoring a bully never works.

But I do agree with Paul to this extent -- I would like to see a stronger analysis on why we are in each region. I get Asia, for example. If we pulled out of Asia, China would dominate the region, Japan would re-arm and go nuclear, and war would probably break out in the Koreas, between China and Taiwan, and between China and Vietnam. That would be very bad for the US. And I understand we’re in Europe mainly to keep bases needed to transport troops. But why are we in Africa, South America or throughout the Middle East?

I think those are valid questions.

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Jokers To The Left of Me, Clowns To The Right

Last night’s debate was a disgrace. Newt tried to blame CNN at the end for using a back and forth format that encouraged bickering. He’s wrong. CNN had nothing to do with it. Several candidates (including Newt) made conscious decisions to act like jackasses. They acted disgracefully and honestly need to drop out.

● Winner: Obama. The big winner last night was Obama as the Republicans as a group came across like liars, fools and angry children. Also, our biggest idiots (Santorum, Bachmann) both fell for Obama’s Iran-Mexico diversion even as everyone else on the planet has decided Holder made it up. Bravo.

● Not Loser: Mitt Romney. If you look at Romney in isolation, he came across as knowledgeable and well-briefed, and defended himself well. On the minus side, I don’t recall anything he said and he never came across as conservative. But the real problem last night was the nastiness of the entire debate. This was a debate filled with cheap shots, lies, unprofessional conduct and childish behavior. Even though his performance was solid, Romney gets downgraded for guilt by association because no one looked good. I do, however, give Romney a slight win over Cain because Romney seemed more in control.

● Not Loser: Herman Cain. Cain was smart, knowledgeable and relentlessly positive. He defended himself well and always remained a gentleman. He displayed his sense of humor about electrifying the fence to Mexico and during the unfair attacks on his 9-9-9 plan. He proposed a real healthcare solution (not just “repeal ObamaCare”), i.e. allowing insurance across state borders, loser pays laws, and allowing patients and doctors to make decisions. And he refused to apologize for telling the OccupyWallStreet kids that it’s their own fault they don’t have jobs -- he said they should blame Obama, not bankers.

But the mud was too thick last night. Each of the others used numbers from a leftist think tank and liberal arguments to attack his 9-9-9 plan. It was bizarre to hear conservative Ron Paul defend progressive tax rates. Bachmann and Santorum falsely claimed Cain’s sales tax is a VAT. Newt pretended it was hopelessly complex. And Romney and Perry tried to mix in state taxes to confuse the plan. Essentially, seven supposed conservatives either knowingly lied or used the liberal ideas they have themselves criticized to attack a solidly conservative plan. Even worse, these attacks were done in smarmy, condescending ways. It was shameful. I thought the pile-on effect hurt Cain, though CNN's Gloria Borger thought Cain defended himself extremely well.

A bigger problem came when he suggested he would negotiate with terrorists. He actually said he would consider a hostage trade for a captured American soldier depending on the circumstances -- and the truth is every leader negotiates with terrorists. But since this was hypocrite night, the others jumped on this even though they would do the exact same thing. Cain backpedaled. He should have stood his ground. The public can accept views with which they disagree, but they don’t like backpedaling. Cain also seemed to backpedal on the TARP issue. He says he supported the concept, but not the execution. Personally, I don’t think that plays well for a man who is known as a straight shooter.

● Ron Paul: Not much new to report here. Paul wants to bring the troops home from Korea and Japan, causing an arms race in Asia. Other than that, he was mostly right all night, but still 10% insane. Last night’s secret word was “inflation.”

● Loser: Newt. Newt reminded us why people don’t like or trust him. He claims to be an outsider, yet he attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and then advocated “targeted” tinkering with the current code instead. Welcome back to K Street Newt, we missed you.

Then he got caught lying about supporting the individual mandate for health insurance when he attacked Romney for including such a mandate in RomneyCare. Romney shot back saying he got the idea from Newt. Newt acted outraged and called that “a lie.” Except it wasn’t. Newt danced for a while and then had to admit he did in fact support and advocate the idea. And he tried to explain his lie away by saying Romney had falsely said “Newt” came up with the idea when it was really “Newt AND the Heritage Foundation.” Only a corrupt politician would think that’s a valid distinction.

Newt also pandered to the Religious Right by saying he wouldn’t trust anyone who doesn’t pray. . . though he didn’t specify how many minutes of prayer are required. Finally, he tried to blame Anderson Cooper for his own misbehavior and that of the other children.

● Total Loser: Rick Perry. Perry’s performance was pathetic. He interrupted and spoke over people. He took nasty cheap shots all night and even went back to the same ones after they were discredited. He got booed repeatedly. He kept talking about his “plan,” which he apparently released last week or might release next week, depending on which Perry you believe. The only economic idea he could mention was drilling for oil. He tried to attack Romney for hiring illegal aliens, which turned out to be a contracted lawn service and then tried to leverage this into making himself sound tough on illegal immigration -- until Romney pointed out that Perry wrote an editorial supporting amnesty. Perry also got caught lying about supporting TARP. He tried to blame all of Texas’ problems on the federal government, but offered no solutions. He smugly tried to redefine conservatism to fit him. And he tried to go toe to toe with Romney in verbal gotcha and got destroyed. The boy is stoopid. Rick needs to find an exit strategy pronto.

● Total Loser: Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is proving to be a politician in the worst sense. She's a clueless hypocrite who doesn't understand the Constitution. She's incapable of answering direct questions. Her whole platform depends on emotional appeals based on irrelevancies. And worst of all, she speaks in disingenuous generalities and then attacks anyone who won’t ante up to her pandering. Here are some examples.

She attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for being too extreme and then proposed eliminating the entire tax code. Huh? And as usual, she gave no hint what she would replace it with. Why? Two reasons. First, she doesn’t have a clue. Secondly, the only thing it could be replaced with is a sales tax. . . like the one she keeps slamming Herman Cain for proposing. Also, despite being a former attorney for the IRS (which actually means nothing -- she was just a debt collector), she doesn’t understand the difference between corporate income tax, a sales tax and a value added tax. And after attacking Cain's 9-9-9 plan for “raising taxes on millions of people,” she then said she wants 100% of Americans to pay taxes -- which would raise taxes on at least 145 million people. Also note that she hasn't proposed even a hint of a plan how she would do this.

Bachmann jumped on Cain for the supposed “negotiate with terrorists” thing even after he clarified his statement and denied that’s what he meant. Then she tried to one-up herself by stupidly claiming she’s so tough she wants to demand “reimbursement” from Iraq and Libya for what it cost us to invade both countries -- that's how World War II started.

She also dubiously claimed she will ban immigrants from getting “any government benefits” (which would violate the Constitution) and she equally dubiously claimed she could fix the “anchor baby” problem through legislation without changing the 14th Amendment.

● Total Loser: Rick Santorum. Santorum is a disgrace. He's a whiny fake who tries to disrupt the other candidates by talking over them, by mischaracterizing their statements and plans, by hitting them with liberal talking points, and by making illogical, disingenuous, contradictory and hypocritical attacks. All he’s done is poison the debates. And for the record, while Rick claims he’s the only one ever to win in a swing state (cough cough Romney and Bachmann) and he claims he did better than Bush, let me remind you how his last election went: 2006 Bob Casey 59%, Rick Santorum 41%. Get bent Rick.

Conclusion

What really struck me last night was the difference between the professional politicians and the businessmen. The businessmen kept trying to promote their ideas and tried to stay positive, though Cain succeeded more than Romney at that. The professionals (excluding Paul) used gotcha questions, false logic, cynical emotional appeals, lies, distortions and distinctions so fine they were nonexistent. They were angry. They offered nothing but the same old, same old. And frankly, it made me sick watching them. Am I wrong?

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Analysis: Cain's 9-9-9 Plan

A couple of you have asked that we provide more detail on Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. With another debate tonight (join us for another play by play), now is a good time to discuss the Hermanator’s plan.

Here’s how the plan works:

● Businesses would pay a flat 9.1% tax on gross income less purchases from other US located businesses, capital investment and net exports.

● Individuals would pay a flat 9.1% tax on income, less charitable deductions.

● A 9.1% national sales tax would be created to make up lost revenue.

Here are the reasons this is a good plan:

● The elimination of deductions ends the incestuous relationship between Big Business and government where Big Business buys politicians who insert deductions into the tax code to allow companies like GE to declare record profits and yet pay $0 in tax.

● This plan ends the economic misallocations caused by the current code because it eliminates the deductions which encourage people to hide their income. It does not give preferences to savings or consumption, capital or labor, or dividends verses income growth. In effect, the government gets out of the business of telling people how to structure their economic lives.

● It reduces the disincentive to work because it lowers payroll taxes. And it boosts the incentive to work, hire and buy new equipment because it lowers the overall tax rates for those activities.

● It encourages spending on American goods and services as only those can be deducted. And it encourages exports.

● This forces everyone to pay taxes, i.e. it broadens the tax base. Right now 47% of the public pays no tax, but gets government benefits. That needs to change to change the incentive these people have to keep demanding bigger government. Making them pay taxes goes a long way toward that.

Here are the arguments against:

● This will create a hidden Value Added Tax! Europe uses the VAT because VATs can be raised without people knowing. But this isn’t a VAT. This is a sales tax and would only apply to the sale of new goods or services to end users. In other words, whereas a VAT gets added at each level, a sale tax only gets added once. Moreover, you would see this tax on your receipts -- something you don’t get with a VAT.

● This weekend Cain admitted that some people will pay more under his plan. So what? Finding a plan under which no one pays more but revenues remain about the same is an impossibility.

● Idiot liberal: “Poor people will pay more!!” Idiot progressive: “The evil rich will pay less!!” A lot of information is being produced to claim this plan shifts the tax burden from the rich to the poor, but that's all fake -- it's based on unreal assumptions about what the rich and poor pay now (like assuming GE actually pays taxes) and it assumes neither rich nor poor will change their behavior in response to the plan. The truth is the 47% of people who currently pay no taxes will pay more. The others (the productive 53%) will pay less. And frankly, that doesn't bother me in the least.

● Grover Norquist: “This raises taxes!!” Grover is again equating the elimination of all those deductions with tax hikes. But if we accept Grover’s logic, then we are trapped in the current tax code forever. What a tool.

● The plan doesn’t raise enough money! Opponents scored the plan and claim it will only raise $2 trillion, not $2.2 trillion as Cain claims. Frankly, that’s more accurate than anything else proposed by Congress. But more to the point, this is standard static scoring where they just take current spending/ income and apply the new rates. They did not determine whether people would work more once they can keep more of their income (they would) or whether people would spend more once they have more income to spend (they would). (They did the same thing to criticize Reaganomics.) No one knows what this plan would actually bring in, but if the critics are claiming $2 trillion, expect it to do much better in reality.

But there is one more problem with the plan. . . this plan ain’t happenin. Our government is specifically designed to prevent radical ideas from being implemented and this plan is deeply radical. This plan would require a complete change in the way Washington works, and that will upset too many vested interest. For example:

● K Street will lose most of its business with the end of the deductions in the tax code.

● The poverty lobby will lose its cherished progressive tax.

● Most tax attorneys and tax accountants would lose their jobs.

● All the people who currently use deductions (everything from home owners to GE) will try to save their own deductions.

● Businesses will whine about the sales tax hurting their sales.

● Foreign countries will complain about “predatory taxation” designed to steal businesses.

That’s too much opposition for Congress to do something this radical. The Democrats will cling like grim death to the old system, as will many Republicans. Still, this plan tells us a lot about Cain and his goals and it is a worthwhile goal.


P.S. Check out Herman Cain singing about pizza: Not, I'm not kidding

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Immigration: Reality Strikes Liberals Again

If you haven't seen it yet, my latest article is up at Big Hollywood (Click Me).

Sometimes it’s amazing how daft leftists can be. We spent more money than we could afford and now we’re broke? How did that happen?! We tax rich people and they send their money overseas. Nobody could have seen that coming!! We let criminals out of jail and somehow the crime rate soars?! How? Now liberals have discovered that massive immigration depresses wages. Ya think?

While Britain’s Labour Party was in power between 1997 and 2010, they threw open the immigration doors to let pretty much anyone who wanted into Britain into the country. Part of this had to do with new European Union rules which allowed free movement from Eastern Europe and part of it was leftist political correctness which sought to de-British Britain.

To give you a sense of how open the doors got, consider these figures:

● Between 1980-1991, the UK lost an average of 42,000 people each year.
● Between 1992-1995, the UK gained 9,200 immigrants per year.
● Between 1996 and 2010, under Labor, the UK gained 178,000 per year.

A couple weeks ago, a report was released, which had been commissioned by Labor when it was in power and then suppressed, because Labour didn’t like its conclusions. In fact, they ran around telling the public the exact opposite of what the report found. But now the truth has come out.

According to this report, this wave of immigrants flooding Britain depressed British wage and “undercut” British workers. You don’t say?! It was so bad in fact, the Labour Party has had to admit Labour “got it wrong” on immigration and concedes this “had a big effect on people in Britain.” Great. . . now explain why you kept lying about it?

But can they seriously claim they had no idea this would happen? Assume you make widgets and you need a new worker. In Room A, there are two potential employees. . . they look surly. In Room B, there are 500 potential employees. Do you think you will end up paying more if you hire from Room A or Room B? It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Yet, somehow it was never obvious to liberals that flooding Britain with workers, i.e. turning Britain’s labor market from Room A into Room B, would have a negative effect on the workers already in the country? How stupid do you need to be not to see that coming? Oh, that’s right, liberals don’t think about the future, they assume there are no unintended consequences.

Britain has shown that the consequence of importing a ton of labor are very clear. It will increase the competition for jobs, which will result in wages being depressed because there are more people bidding for the same number of jobs.

Now let's look at America. We are letting people in at three times the rate the British were when they “got it wrong”. . . we are letting enough people into this country every year to populate Denver, Colorado. That’s unsustainable.

The Democrats support this because they think these immigrants will vote Democrat, which will overcome the white flight their party has experienced. But what do they think the effect will be on the wages of blacks, Hispanics and uneducated whites.... the very groups the Democrats claim to want to help? The fools currently squatting outside Wall Street want this too (check out Bev’s article on their list of demands). Those idiots want both (1) a hike in wages and (2) open borders. But of course, those are contradictory demands because once you open the borders, wages will crash. Not surprisingly, Big Business wants this too because it keeps their costs down.

Talk about an unholy alliance!

I'm all for immigration, but there need to be limits. Clearly, three times the British level is too much.

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