RadioActive Chief

Obama warns ‘unelected’ Supreme Court against striking down health law

President Obama, employing his strongest language to date on the Supreme Court review of the federal health care overhaul, cautioned the court Monday against overturning the law — while repeatedly saying he’s “confident” it will be upheld….The president, adopting what he described as the language of conservatives who fret about judicial activism, questioned how an “unelected group of people” could overturn a law approved by Congress

The Supreme Court is merely “an unelected group of people”?! Well, yes, that’s the way the Constitution sets it up, the last time I looked. Article II Section 2, and Article III section 1. Of course if one has the view that anything that limits the grandiose sweep of executive power is a mere archaism that should be ignored at will, then this WOULD be annoying. (Tough rocks, B.O. – you’re not First General Party Secretary, or Reichsfuhrer…at least not yet!)

AS for the bit about “judicial activism”…there is also a fundamental error in that also.  “Judicial activism” is extending the Constitution to say or do something that is beyond the bounds of what is Constitutionally stated as being a part of the powers granted to the government.  It is NOT, as in the present case, applying the standard of the Constitution to determine whether an act at issue is constitutionally granted.  As the prez goes on with his pseudo-reasoning he then states:

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama said.

At BEST this is wildly disingenuous; at worst he’s totally immersed in some form of governmental psychosis where his view of the reality of constitutional review, established in the early days of the republic by Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison 5 US 137 (1803). Laws have been overturned on average of about every 16 months or so since then…not QUITE unprecedented OR extraordinary.

…and Obama claims to have been a constitutional scholar? Really?

If he came up with today’s comment as a submission in a H.S. history or government class that I was teaching, it would earn an “F” grade, for having missed the whole main point that applies in this situation.

If you don’t get the above Latin,  you’re on-line, find it for yourself!

GSA chief resigns amid reports of excessive spending

The chief of the General Services Administration resigned, two of her top deputies were fired and four managers were placed on leave Monday amid reports of lavish spending at a conference off the Las Vegas Strip that featured a clown, a mind reader and a $31,208 reception.

Administrator Martha N. Johnson, in her resignation letter, acknowledged a “significant misstep” at the agency that manages real estate for the federal government. “Taxpayer dollars were squandered,” she wrote. At the start of her tenure in February 2010 she called ethics “a big issue for me.”

…and this from the agency that is supposedly the watchdog to prevent inappropriate use of government funds and resources. Yeah. Right. (Refer again to the Latin tag.)

Visualizing this “conference” brings to mind part of the trailer I saw for the current film The Death Games.

Destroy all churches
Obama silent while Saudi grand mufti targets Christianity

If the pope called for the destruction of all the mosques in Europe, the uproar would be cataclysmic. Pundits would lambaste the church, the White House would rush out a statement of deep concern, and rioters in the Middle East would kill each other in their grief. But when the most influential leader in the Muslim world issues a fatwa to destroy Christian churches, the silence is deafening.

And this is a problem with B.O. how?

The White House has placed international outreach to Muslims at the center of its foreign policy in an effort to promote the image of the United States as an Islam-friendly nation. This cannot come at the expense of standing up for the human rights and religious liberties of minority groups in the Middle East. The region is a crucial crossroads. Islamist radicals…are testing the waters in their relationship with the outside world, looking for signals of how far they can go in imposing their radical vision of a Shariah-based theocracy. Ignoring provocative statements like the mufti’s sends a signal to these groups that they can engage in the same sort of bigotry and anti-Christian violence with no consequences.
Mr. Obama’s outreach campaign to the Muslim world has failed to generate the good will that he expected.

DUH!

In part, this was because he felt it was better to pander to prejudice than to command respect.

DUH, again!

When members of the Islamic establishment call for the religious equivalent of ethnic cleansing, the leader of the free world must respond or risk legitimizing the oppression that follows. The United States should not bow to the extremist dictates of the grand mufti, no matter how desperate the White House is for him to like us.

True, but too late with the warning. Stuff like this contrinutes to polling results showing that many state that B.O. is really Muslim. By their fruits ye shall know them? Just sayin’…

Harold Camping, rapture prophet: ‘We were wrong’

The 90-year-old Alameda preacher who convinced hundreds of followers that the world was going to end last May now acknowledges he was wrong.

“Events in the last year have proved that no man can be fully trusted,” Harold Camping wrote in a letter Thursday to listeners of his evangelical Family Radio program. “Even the most zealous of us can be mistaken.”

Camping went on to state:
“We have learned the very painful lesson that all of creation is in God’s hands and he will end time in his time, not ours!
Maybe he should have read his Bible a bit more…in Matthew 24 Jesus Christ talks at some length of future dire apocalyptic events, but in v.39 warns us “But of the day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”
Seems pretty simple and clear to me.

US offered Israel advanced weaponry in exchange for delaying Iran attack

Instead of drumming up a war to meet the needs of the political moment, B.O. is trying to drum up a fake temporary “peace(?)” or something that could pass for it to the undiscriminating.

Now, what could be the motivation for THAT? Hmmmm. Oh, here it it, right in the article:

Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year.

Such a deal for Israel. Yeah, right!

The ‘Top 5’ Most Loved and Hated States

Least liked: California.

Most liked: Hawaii // South Dakota ranked 4th most liked. Not bad at all.

Received from an e-mail correspondent:

Subject: Irony

The food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever.

Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to “please do not feed the animals” because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.

This is just too obvious!

New bill takes shot at removing concealed weapon permit requirement

Unlike the first version bill (HB 1015), the current version (HB 1248) looks like a winner so far.

I like it! Of course permits will still be de rigueur for travel out of state (in states that grant reciprocity to SD).

Navy ship-naming by Secretary mired in controversy

The USS Medgar Evers? The USS John Murtha? The USS Cesar Chavez?

The SECNAV has been turning new naval construction into a series of unpaid political advertisement…what is known in the ad world as “product placement” on a previously unimaginable scale.

Our Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, has this diversity thing down cold. Each one of those ships was in a class that previous names of their sister ships had nothing to do with civil rights, or corrupt Democratic politicians. Ships are usually named after states, cities, even famous explorers and war heroes.

But Mabus has injected partisanship into this tradition, naming another ship for Democrat Gabriel Giffords, who has shown courage in her recovery from an assassination attempt but had expressed little interest in the military during her career on Capitol Hill.

As a retired Navy Chief, this form of political spoils is disrespectful of the traditions of the service that the Secretary is supposed to at least support and respect. Unfortunately, it’s just par for the course for the most blatantly anti-military administration in the history of the republic.

At least the blowback from this has apparently attracted even Mabus’ attention:

Naming of Navy ships returns to tradition
Recent choices drew criticism

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, under fire from Congress and veterans for naming ships after fellow Democrats and social activists, plans to announce another round of ship names in the near future that will be more traditional, a Pentagon official tells The Washington Times.

The official said Mr. Mabus has chosen names for five surface ships – three for war heroes and two for locations. Ships typically are named after states and cities.

“I think they would be more consistent with what most people would say traditions and naming conventions are,” the official said.

Of course, according to the SECNAV’s mouthpiece the objections to the prior politically biased naming had nothing to do with any change.

Asked whether this was a response to criticism, the official said: “It isn’t. I think if you look at these five additional ships, I think you’ll see examples that are very traditional.” The official said three ships would be named after highly decorated Navy or Marine Corps personnel.

Yeah, right!

Mr. Mabus, a former Mississippi governor, broke with Navy conventions in the past three years when he named an amphibious ship, two cargo ships and a littoral combat ship after two social activists and two fellow Democrats.

What really added insult to injury was the naming of the USS John Murtha…after the Murtha-f’er, without evidence, falsely accused Marines of murder in Iraq. (Charges were not substantiated in later proceedings.) What an insult to the Marines, and to the fleet. I pity the Sailors who will have to serve aboard ships with no Naval tradition or pride in their ship’s name.

Prof. Dershowitz calls Media Matters ‘Stalinist’

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was a key supporter of Obama in 2008, told WOR710 today that he could not vote for President Obama’s re-election unless the president cuts ties with the controversial anti-Israel group Media Matters. He also warned that Obama’s association with Media Matters – which was raised by the Daily Caller in an investigative series this week – will lose him support in the pro-Israel community:…

He went on to state unequivocally that he could not and would not ever vote for anyone associated with Media Matters (like Obama) who did not clearly and fully repudiate said organization and its running-mates.

Dr. Dershowitz must have gotten a really good cup of reality…but then, as a strong supporter of the existence of Israel, Samuel Johnson’s observation about the prospect of immanent hanging having a tremendous effect in focusing one’s mine. In any case, welcome him to the daylight!

Obama King Herod of His Day?

Someday it will go down as one of history’s most indelible ironies: the man who imposed birth control on Catholics was one without a valid birth certificate or any other kind of provable identity.

This is how future generations will read about how it all happened:

Read the article…the comparison is instructive.

Jesus wept!

Sen. DeMint: “We don’t have shared goals with the Democrats”

Simple and to the point!

Here’s Sen. Jim DeMint talking with bloggers after opening CPAC. During his speech he said cautioned Republicans in Congress on compromising with Democrats.

“Compromise works well in this world when you have shared goals,” he said. “We don’t have shared goals with the Democrats.”

“Elementary my dear Watson!”

LAPD Pioneers High-Tech Crime-Fighting ‘War Room’

The LAPD is fighting crime from a high-tech war room that gives it eyes all over the city. The surveillance hub is now a model for police forces around the world and KCAL9 got an exclusive tour inside from Chief Charlie Beck. “We are targets on our own soil,” says Beck. “We have to be ready.”…

What began as a grass roots idea following the 9/11 terrorist attacks is now a state-of-the-art Real-time Analysis Critical Response center. It’s called the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) RACR, and it’s located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

“This is a system that cuts through the red tape, that gets information to the people that need it,” says Chief Beck. He calls it “the brains of the department, Twenty Four twenty-four/seven.”

Police in the activity center monitor live feeds of city and traffic cameras, counter-terrorism information, and real-time crime mapping, with cutting edge software inspired by Fox Television’s “24″.

…er…disclosure: some of the above may not be exactly true…but fortunately the Chief was able to catch this material in the edit…although it was emotionally tough to red-line it! Oh well.

H/T to Jack Bauer.

Federal Judge Dismisses PETA Lawsuit Claiming SeaWorld Whales Are Slaves

An effort to free whales from SeaWorld by claiming they were enslaved made a splash in the news but flopped in court Wednesday….A federal judge in San Diego dismissed an unprecedented lawsuit seeking to grant constitutional protection against slavery to a group of orcas that perform at SeaWorld parks, saying the 13th amendment applies only to humans.

What? What sort of logic did he use that was apparently something that PETA was/is unable to comprehend.

“As ‘slavery’ and ‘involuntary servitude’ are uniquely human activities, as those terms have been historically and contemporaneously applied, there is simply no basis to construe the Thirteenth Amendment as applying to non-humans,” Miller wrote in his ruling.

A big “DUH!” for PETA.

Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, annihilate Israel
Iran lays out legal case for genocidal attack against ‘cancerous tumor’

The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.

Just some spouting off of another cracked-pot Imam, right? Guess again:

The article, written by Alireza Forghani, a conservative analyst and a strategy specialist in [Grand Ayatollah] Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned conservative sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine….On Friday, in a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the “cancerous tumor” of Israel. Though his statement was seen by some in the West as fluff, there is substance behind it.

Some “in the west” said that Mein Kampf was fluff too…until 1939. (By the way, in this context it’s worth noting that the literal, direct translation of the title of Adolf’s book is al Jihad and it’s a best seller in the Arab world these days…but I digress.)
The following is also of relevant interest:

The Iranian secret documentary “The Coming Is Upon Us” clearly indicates that these radicals believe the destruction of Israel will trigger the coming of the last Islamic Messiah and that even Jesus Christ, who will convert to Islam, will act as Mahdi’s deputy, praying to Allah as he stands behind the 12th Imam.

See the video:

Noted from the Pierre Capital Journal:

Professionals meet to discuss environmental literacy

This virtually reeks of the long-standing progressive paradigm. Liberal/Progressives gotta love this approach. It sounds so…nice, who could possibly object?

A group of seven professionals – all holding positions that touch the environment in some way…

Foxes guarding the henhouse: all have a vested interest in the environmental bureaucratic industry.

…pondered ways to teach children about the natural world Wednesday at the South Dakota Discovery Center.

OK. This COULD be either a good or bad thing. The devil is in the details…some of the following details don’t give cause for optimism.

They attended a session that’s part of the Discovery Center’s effort to create an environmental literacy plan that can be used widely throughout the state. The center is tapping a grant by the Environmental Protection Agency to create resources for parents, superintendents, teachers and others in a position to teach children about the environment, said Anne Lewis the special projects director of the Discovery Center.

Hmmmm. EPA? By its record, not exactly a source of balanced information these days.

Marie Steckelberg, with Steckelberg Consulting, in Yankton, led the discussion by asking questions designed to elicit views about environmental education. Steckelberg said she’d taught science education at the University of South Dakota.

Let’s see. Ms. Steckelberg has an EdD – an Education Doctorate, and as noted in the article she taught science education…NOT the same thing as science. One other notable thing from her professional website is an expertise in grant writing…how to leap through the hoops of bureaucracy in order to gain access to the Federal cash spigot.

One of the participants, Paul Lepisto, is the regional conservation coordinator for the Izaak Walton League of America.

There are some good programs that the League promotes. There is also an orientation towards limiting and restricting access to needed resources, including energy resources. May be a wash overall, but based on this setting it seems like another progressive front, albeit a rather mild one compared to some other advocacy groups.

He said his goal was to draw a different kind of attention to nature. “(The more) we can do to get kids more in tune with the environment and natural resources and the love of spending time outdoors, the better,” he said.

Uh, anyone think about what the Boy Scouts do with this stuff? Ooops. Sorry. Not politically correct. My bad!

Lewis said a catalyst for an environmental literacy plan was a 2009 federal bill called “No Child Left Inside.” States with their own plans, she said, would be eligible to receive federal money if the legislation passed.

Ah yes…the prospect for a place at the Federal cash teat! If only that pesky Congress would realize the importance of this vital conditioning educational program and pass the bill…!

The legislation has languished, Lewis said,…

Oh, rats! (sarcasm alert!)

…but she noted the value for creating such plans nonetheless – and she said there were some other funding opportunities.

Yeah, maybe B.O. can figure out a way to call it stimulus, or something. If the Feds can cough up the cash, we’ll be waiting to do the job (and of course get a sweet pay package out of it all for planning and administrating this bit of progressive conditioning education.

A goal, she said, is “to help guide people in their sphere to develop environmental literacy skills.”

Translation: We experts will educate all you yahoos out there, and only after we shove down your throats give you an appreciation for OUR view of “environmental literacy skills” will you too be fit to enter the participatory process.

By the way, searching the web tells one that the above-mentioned “No Child Left Behind” is presented in best left/lib/progressive terminolgy as “a movement”.

Happened across this on the net…from 1948!

Make Mine Freedom

More timely now than it was in 1948.

Barack Obama is trying to make the US a more socialist state

Anotehr nugget dredged (not Drudged!) up from Airstrip One (the UK in Orwellspeak)

What was it everybody used to say about the United States? Look at what’s happening over there and you will see our future. Whatever Americans are doing now, we will be catching up with them in another 10 years or so. In popular culture or political rhetoric, America led the fashion and we tagged along behind.

Well, so much for that. Barack Obama is now putting the United States squarely a decade behind Britain. Listening to the President’s State of the Union message last week was like a surreal visit to our own recent past: there were, almost word for word, all those interminable Gordon Brown Budgets that preached “fairness” while listing endless new ways in which central government would intervene in every form of economic activity.

Later, in a television interview, Mr Obama described his programme of using higher taxes on the wealthy to bankroll new government spending as “a recipe for a fair, sound approach to deficit reduction and rebuilding this country”. To which we who come from the future can only shout, “No‑o-o, go back! Don’t come down this road!”

After running through a number of the gory details, the
The United States is a country that was invented to allow people to be free of domination or persecution by the state. Its constitution and political institutions are specifically designed to prevent the federal government from oppressing the rights, or undermining the sense of responsibility, of the individual citizen. If it ceases to stand by that principle, then it will suffer a catastrophic loss of purpose and identity.

This gal over in the U.K. has it nailed! Now, why can’t the LibDonks see it?

Understatement alert! — A number of things to take note of in the current episode of the GOP Presidential Sweepstakes:

Newt goes nuclear: Gingrich slams ‘pro-abortion, pro gun-control, pro tax-increase moderate’ Mitt Romney

When asked by Jake Tapper of ABC News on the This Week programme whether Romney had the character to be president, Gingrich said that his opponent had a “very serious problem” in this area and “would not be where he is today” (presumably Gingrich meant leading in the polls) “if he had told the truth”.

This reminds me…what’s that concept from psych? Oh, yeah…PROJECTION. Look it up.

There’s a lot more political stuff out there of course…Buchanan’s disparaging view of Newt during the Reagan era, the polls continuing to strengthen for Romney while slipping for Newt, etc.

For what it’s worth, the Chief has had enough of Newt. After recently completing a US History Master’s program, with probably 20% to 25% of the time dealing with the rise, implementation, and often disastrous results (which we are STILL fighting off) of what is referred to as “the progressive movement”, which morphed over time into what is more often called liberalism (or worse), the Chief is firmly convinced that less of this is more. That is to say that less progressive liberalism (MUCH less!) will result inevitably in more: more economic growth, more jobs, etc. So, where does Newt come in on all of this?

In his own words (speaking from his own background and understanding as an historian):

“But I want to say a second about the UN because I’m a big fan of Franklin Roosevelt’s. I’m frankly a fan of Woodrow Wilson’s and I think what they were trying to accomplish was terribly important.”

Second: “I come out of the Theodore Roosevelt LaFollette progressive tradition.”

Third: “And I do want to pick up directly on what Dick Gephardt said because he said it right. And no Republican here should kid themselves about it. The greatest leaders in fighting for an integrated America in the 20th century were in the Democratic Party. The fact is that it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who gave hope to a nation that was in despair and could have slid into dictatorship. And the fact is every Republican has much to learn from studying what the Democrats did right.”

Finally, the supreme disingenuous irony of Newt attacking Mitt’s character. Hmmmmm. Character. Hmmmmm. What was that bit in the discussions when Newt was in his Congressional prime, back in the days of Bubba Clinton…? Oh yeah…CHARACTER COUNTS.

Newt largely sidestepped that one, both in his political life (with his observed reticence at the time to actively lead the charge against Clinton’s behaviors and evasions). This is not, of course to say that Newt lacks character. He has plenty, but a lot of it is negative, especially when contrasted with Romney’s lack of moral or ethical lapse.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.” — Henry V, Shakespeare

’nuff said on this.

The following all on Drudge at the same time (1636 CT 14 Oct 2011):

Meaning? If you figure it out, let me know, but the Chief would offer each in return a somewhat different finger gesture.

Comment-wise, this is a great piee of low-hanging fruit. Not quite as good as the self-writing Congressman Wiener jokes…but pretty good:

Obama on Solyndra: ‘People felt that it was a good bet’

In his first public comment on the solar-energy scandal, President Obama said Monday he doesn’t regret promoting the solar company Solyndra as a model before the company went bankrupt and lost $535 million in taxpayer dollars.

“Hindsight is always 20/20,” Mr. Obama told “Good Morning America” anchor George Stephanopoulos in an online interview. “It went through the regular review process and people felt that it was a good bet.”

A god bet? Apparently the administration can’t tell the difference between gambling and a business plan. Of course this itself is consistent with attribution of the acquisition of wealth to “being fortunate” rather than bing the result of the exercise of entrepreneurial skill in some way.

Found this with an article on the Euro Brussels Journal blog.

Vice President Joe Biden appears to temporarily lose his mind during President Obama’s jobs speech on 9-8-11. This is not an altered photo, but a well-timed freeze-frame from a video recording made by Russ Allison Loar.

“Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”

PLO official: Palestinians, Israelis must be totally separated

The future independent Palestinian state will not include a Jewish minority, a top Palestinian official told USA Today on Wednesday…

Hmmmm. This has already been tried, when a leading Euro power set the goal of becoming “Jew-free”…except that they called it “Judenfrei”:

Synagogue in German-occupied Bydgoszcz. The inscription reads: “This city is free of Jews”
And B.O. demands that Israel knuckle under in “negotiations”, while the United Socialist Nations plans on effectively converting Israel into a giant ghetto.

“Jesus wept.”

The land of the no longer free

As terrorists struck New York on September 11th, the United States vowed to fight back and protect their country, their people and their freedom. But 10 years on, it seems that freedom is just an illusion, and the US is becoming an Orwellian state.

When George W Bush spoke about the necessity of “protecting the homeland of our country”, he probably thought that the homeland was literally just that – a land that one calls home. And while most people focused on the fact that the then US president had once again made a grammatical blunder, many saw a hidden danger in his statement – not only because of the Big Brother-type security changes ahead, but also because of the very nature of the word “homeland”.

Read on…the rest of this piece makes more sense than just about anything you can find in the US media for some time:

Merriam-Webster defines “homeland” as “a state or area set aside to be a state for a people of a particular national, cultural, or racial origin.” Now, that really doesn’t apply to one of the youngest countries in the world, which has no shared cultural or racial origin. Dig a little deeper and many linguists will tell you of the word’s decidedly Teutonic origin. A blend of two proto-Germanic words “kham” (home) and “landan” (land), a homeland does not unite people by ideas or beliefs. It ties them firmly to the land. It is a concept that has little to do with patriotism – despite the fact the words do share common Greek roots – and, ironically, it was used ad nauseam by the US government in the post-9/11 world. Ironic because it’s patriotism that is more applicable to the concept of the United States as a nation – one where people of all cultures and backgrounds come together for shared ideas, opportunities and beliefs. And one of the key ideas that most people chose to make the US their home was one much propagated by President Ronald Reagan. The idea of freedom.

Reagan once said that “above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.” But 20 years after Reagan was sworn in, the terrorist attacks of September 11th happened – and George W Bush decided that there are weapons more appropriate than freedom.

Because freedom – that greatly advertised American concept – was effectively taken away from the people, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Under the new Patriot Act, The Federal Bureau of Investigation began probing almost every second of every life in the country and when people wanted to leave the country, the Transport Security Administration probed them. The Big German-sounding Brother was fully established, the people living in the ‘land of the free’ under surveillance at all times.

This makes so much sense it’s scary.

It’s a sad commentary when one realizes that RUSSIA finds itself in a position to point out the corrosive erosion of our Constitutional system.

Return of the Gold Standard as world order unravels

As the twin pillars of international monetary system threaten to come tumbling down in unison, gold has reclaimed its ancient status as the anchor of stability. The spot price surged to an all-time high of $1,594 an ounce in London, lifting silver to $39 in its train.

So, what’s this have to do with us?
Have you heard of the latest proposed run of the monetary printing presses in D.C.?

Fed chair Ben Bernanke confessed to Congress that growth has failed to gain traction. “Deflationary risks might re-emerge, implying a need for additional policy support,” he said.

The bar to QE3 – yet more bond purchases – is even lower than markets had thought. The new intake of hard-money men on the voting committee has not shifted Fed thinking, despite global anger at dollar debasement under QE2.

The Chief  humbly offers this bit as the real bottom-line takeaway message:

“…the flight to gold is accelerating at a faster and faster speed,” said Peter Hambro, chairman of Britain’s biggest pure gold listing Petropavlovsk.

“One of the big US banks texted me today to say that if QE3 actually happens, we could see gold at $5,000 and silver at $1,000. I feel terribly sorry for anybody on fixed incomes tied to a fiat currency because they are not going to be able to buy things with that paper money.”

One might be mindful of a Larry Niven comment: “Not responsible for advice not taken.”

’nuff said.

Things have been hectic lately…what with trying to organize a new pole building on the outpost, along with the necessity to remove fallen trees from the recent wind storm (yep, we are close enough to Flandreau to have caught that!), and getting the electricity, internet, (wireless–antenna was knocked out of operation) restored, facing s 30′ spruce down in a small rural cemetery that I serve as sexton….and a few more fun items to boot…phew! Enough already!

The following are some thoughts and comments I have had recently, inspired by Ronaldus Magnus, the Gipper himself, which fit the season when we commemorate the independence of our Republic. Agree or not…this is where I come from:

When the politics (“the art of the possible”) is distilled away, Reagan really did have a core of personal belief that was so deeply ingrained and taken for granted by him that it was and is unrecognizable to “players at the game of Washington”, whether they be pols, press (incl. other media), or bureaucrats. They have notebooks, in his own writing, full of stuff that R.R. wrote over a period of years, refining and developing his political philosophy, and how this interacted with various issues. Reagan’s expressions of American exceptionalism, etc. are expressions of this.

CALL IT MYSTICISM IF YOU WILL, I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED THERE WAS SOME DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT PLACED THIS GREAT LAND HERE BETWEEN TWO GREAT OCEANS, TO BE FOUND BY A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE FROM MANY CORNERS OF THE WORLD, WHO HAD A SPECIAL LOVE FOR FREEDOM AND A SPECIAL COURAGE THAT ENABLED THEM TO LEAVE THEIR OWN LAND, LEAVE THEIR FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN, AND COME TO THE NEW AND STRANGE LAND TO BUILD A NEW WORLD OF PEACE AND FREEDOM AND HOPE. Ronald Reagan, 4 July 1986

Hear, hear!

When more conventional denizens of the political scene were exposed to this, it was so far beyond their consciousness, they never could figure him out…and in many cases they still haven’t. I have had some small degree of association with political and media types from both (? maybe more!) parts of the spectrum, and all too often the level of calculation, (dare one say cynicism?)…is such that a genuine, heart-felt expression of belief is greeted with skepticism if not actual derision. It sort of hearkens back to the old progressive attitude that people can only be trusted with democracy if they FIRST are trained to have the “proper attitude”.

People who have a personal core belief that the whole American idea is a good and qualitatively different attitude, found that reflected in Reagan, who shared this faith in the American experiment. IMHO, that was, and is the source of Reagan’s appeal. I think I’m on safe ground to say that no post-Reagan president has had the sort of solid core beliefs that Reagan did. People are still looking for that (hoping for that?) in their leaders…so maybe in that sense at least there is still a Reagan era…although he was ultimately expressing what is ultimately an old theme in the American experience…hearkening all the way back to “the shining city on the hill” noted by old New England.

Speechworld vs. Realworld
The widening gulf between Obama’s rhetoric and reality

The Democrats seem to have given up on budgets. Hey, who can blame them? They’ve got a ballpark figure: Let’s raise $2 trillion in revenue every year, and then spend $4 trillion. That seems to work pretty well, so why get hung up on a lot of fine print? Harry Reid says the Senate has no plans to produce a budget, but in April the president did give a speech about “a new budget framework” that he said would save $4 trillion over the next twelve years.

That would be 2023, if you’re minded to take him seriously. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, did. Last week he asked Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, if he’d “estimated the budget impact of this framework. “No, Mr. Chairman,” replied Director Elmendorf, deadpan. “We don’t estimate speeches. We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech.”

Hmmmm. There IS a term for managing something that involves finance without a budget: mismanagement!

In Realworld, political speeches would be about closing down unnecessary federal bureaucracies, dramatically downsizing or merging others, and ending makework projects and mission creep. The culture of excess that distinguishes the hyperpower at twilight would be reviled at every turn. But instead the “hugely persuasive” orator declares that there’s nothing to worry about that even more government can’t cure. In Speechworld, “no hill is too steep, no horizon is beyond our reach.” In Realworld, that’s mainly because we’re going downhill. And the horizon is a cliff edge.

Any hope of that? Not under the current regime apparently:

Geithner: Taxes on ‘Small Business’ Must Rise So Government Doesn’t ‘Shrink’

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.”

First observation here: Why don’t we have the government shrink? Must be a version of “Too big to fail.” That would be consistent for Geitner, et al.

I think we’re getting to the real root of the problem on this one!

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade
Physicists say sunspot cycle is ‘going into hibernation’

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.

So much for Global Glowbull warming…it IS the sun, not a new Escalade that drives the climate.

Some more detailed information on this here.

Sometimes repetition works, like in the above header.

Sometimes it doesn’t, like in the described policies. We’ve been there, done that, and it wasn’t a pretty picture then, and it wouldn’t be now either.

A 62% Top Tax Rate?

Democrats have said they only intend to restore the tax rates that existed during the Clinton years. In reality they’re proposing rates like those under President Carter.

Check out the article for the gory details.