"The Electorate Always Gets Things Right", Illustrated From The Bible

"The wisdom of crowds", according to Jude Wanniski, John Tamny and the libertarian quacks of Forbes Magazine, illustrated from the Bible:

"And all the people brake off the golden earrings which [were] in their ears, and brought [them] unto Aaron. And he received [them] at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These [be] thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." -- Exodus 32:3f.

Hours After Re-election, Obama Moves Against Arms Industry

Obama's way of attacking our Second Amendment check on tyranny isn't overt. He takes the circuitous route by attacking capitalism generally and specifically the arms manufacturers, who thrive on trade.

Hours after re-election he's back in negotiations over the UN treaty which would control trading of arms. His Democrat-controlled Senate could ultimately ratify this treaty, thus by-passing the politics of the issue in the Republican-controlled US House.

Better stock up. Once he ruins a few companies here, and limits the import trade, guns are going to get harder to come by.

This is what giving Obama more time meant during the campaign season. And Republicans had a candidate who never brought it up or made it an issue.

Too late now.

Reuters reports here:

Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.

Hey John Tamny! Did The Electorate Get It Right Last Night?

The invisible hand of the electorate and the invisible hand of capitalism cannot be falsified by anything, because they are, well, invisible, here:

Put plainly, Wanniski argued that the electorate always gets things right, or in his words:

“…the electorate as a whole is wiser than any individual member in understanding its interests, it is wiser than any economist or group of economists.”

No doubt many readers are scratching their heads in response to the above, but as Wanniski put it to the late William F. Buckley (paraphrase), “You’re likely smarter than every individual inside a packed football stadium, but collectively those individuals are smarter than you are.” The wisdom of crowds….

We may not have always liked the end result, but the electorate has always been right. ...

The electorate unhappily gave [George W. Bush] another shot; one it presumably came to regret. ...

Obama ... [i]s as a result presiding over a sick economy that should be strong, and as the electorate dislikes failures, Obama’s days in the White House are numbered. ...

The electorate is dying to fire Obama, history says it will given its aversion to failures, yet Romney’s timidity with regard to policies actually meant to grow the economy point to a close win for Romney when it should be a rout. Wanniski’s electoral model says so.

The libertarians are as bat-shit crazy as the Keynesians.

Why WI Senator Elect Tammy Baldwin Loves Football

"Tammy Baldwin is . . . the state’s first female senator and the first openly gay candidate ever elected to the chamber."

Presidential Aspirant Rep. Michele Bachmann Narrowly Re-elected In MN

Results here.

Her stand on many of the issues approximated real conservatism, but her district appears less inclined to vote for her after the presidential run. 

Romney's Path From 206 Ended At 266

Romney was competitive only in Florida with 49.3% (29), Virginia with 47.8% (13) and Ohio with 48.2% (18), with no evidence beyond that suggesting a path to victory, just hope (!) for the best.

Where've we heard that before? From a real liberal, Barack Obama. The opposition could smell our weakness in our imitation of them. And the voters wisely recognized that faux liberalism is no substitute for the real thing. Republicans didn't offer the country a clear alternative to Obama, just a facsimile.

This suggests money spent in places like Michigan was a big mistake, where Obama finished with 53.5% to 45.6%. And believe me, I received numerous robocalls and a fair number of live calls from Republicans trying to win the presidential here. Romney should have arguably allocated more time and money in places like Pennsylvania and Colorado.

Wisconsin Sends Rep. Paul Ryan Back To The House

Results here.

Have a nice time compromising some more with liberalism, Paul. You're good at it.

Thanks A Lot, Republicans: Liberalism Is No Match For Radicalism

Thomas E. Dewey

Thomas E. Romney

Gov. Romney Upended In Democrat Tide

Former Romney Advisor Also Picks Romney To Win With 285

And +2 in the popular vote.

Here.

Power Companies Pretend News Doesn't Exist, Just Like Liberal Media

Power companies in Long Island and the Rockaways in Queens have simply removed some areas there from their outage maps because power cannot be restored to effectively destroyed service points, aka homes, reports CBS News here.

Kind of like how the media have pretended there's no there when it comes to problems with the Obama biography and record.

If you ignore them, they don't exist.

Gee, I wonder from whom the power companies learned that trick?

Benghazi? Who's that?

Rush Says Rasmussen Puts Republican Registrations +5.8 Over Democrats

Here:

Rasmussen's out with his final Summary of Party Affiliation, as of October 31st.

This is a huge sample of people that Scott Rasmussen asks are they Republican or Democrat or independent or what have you. He has the Republicans at their highest party affiliation he's ever recorded since he's been doing this. Basically it's Republicans plus six: Republicans 39, Democrats 33. The actual number is 5.8. We'll round it up to six points. Rasmussen had the exact turnout in 2008 at Democrats plus seven.

Rasmussen has a +/- 4 margin of error in his polling, which is basically dead even in the daily presidential tracking poll, so I'll go out on a limb and say Romney gets +5 in the popular because of his overwhelming advantage with independents and in Republican registrations, and maybe 285 in the Electoral College: 206 per Rasmussen's current assumptions, plus Florida (29, hello seniors), Virginia (13, hello defense industries), Ohio (18, Kasich and Co.), Wisconsin (10, Walker and Co./Paul Ryan) and Colorado (9, pro-family voters).

Male Median Earnings Are At 1960s Levels

"[T]he earnings of the guy in the middle have declined 20% over the last four decades. As a result, the median earnings of men are back to the levels that prevailed in the 1960s."

-- Michael Greenstone, MIT, quoted here

Your Congressman Could Be On His Parents' Insurance Under ObamaCare

Guess what?

Your Congressman could theoretically stay on his parents' healthcare insurance under ObamaCare, which allows a child to stay on his parents' plan until the age of 26.

How so?

"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years." -- Article. I. Section. 1. of The Constitution of the United States of America

So an enterprising young individual could get himself elected to Congress at the age of 25 and still be on his parents' plan.

That's insane!

Gee, What Do Teachers Unions And Socialism Have In Common?

Study America Just Called Me On The Phone

I told them I'm voting for Mitt Romney tomorrow.

Neal Gabler Can't Face It That Democrats Have Betrayed Social Security

Here, for Reuters:

"There is no gainsaying that the basic purpose of the [Ryan] budget is to dismantle New Deal and Great Society programs that assist the poor and gradually remove the juice from the third rail by privatizing Social Security and essentially voucherizing Medicare. To save the country from the flood of debt, they must save us from FDR and LBJ."

The Ryan Budget isn't even the law of the land because Democrats have stopped it in the Senate. But for two years, two years!, Democrats have enthusiastically advocated and voted for reductions in the payroll tax, removing the juice from Social Security, in order to put cash into people's hands and stimulate the economy. Democrats did this in the lame duck session in December 2010, when they still had complete control of the US government: House, Senate, White House:

"In December 2010, as part of the legislation that extended the Bush tax cuts (called the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the government negotiated a temporary, one-year reduction in the FICA payroll tax. In February 2012, the tax cut was extended for another year."

Looks to me like Democrats represent the biggest threat to the sacrosanctity of Social Security.

Jim Cramer, Who Said Sell It All In Oct. 2008, Predicts Romney Gets 98 EC Votes

Here.

hahahahaha! hahahahaha! hahahahaha! hahahahaha! hahahahaha! hahahahaha! hahahahaha!

On Tuesday The Choice Is Easy

Pass it on.

h/t 'Nita

If ObamaCare's Anything Like Feds' Response To Rockaways, We're In Deep Trouble

From a harrowing tale of narrow escape from Hurricane Sandy and subsequent abandonment of his neighborhood, Brian Kelly, a retired FDNY firefighter, in his own words in the NY Daily News, here:

“Listen, I was a firefighter, I know relief doesn’t happen overnight. But we’re four days out now. I’m staying with relatives in Staten Island. I drive back to Rockaway every day because I’m afraid of my house getting robbed. In that time I haven’t seen any help in Rockaway. There are some city cops. I saw just two city garbage trucks. I saw the National Guard drive by a few times. But I’m still waiting for the guard, FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, Red Cross to set up shop in Rockaway and start helping people back to a life. I’m not seeing it.”

Power Outages In New Jersey Exceed 500,000

New York ConEd Power Is Out To 242,000

The number without power has really come down.

Long Island Still Has 429,000 Without Power This Morning

Look For A Negative GDP In Q4 Due To Sandy, Says Rosie

Here.

From The Cover Of New York Magazine Showing Two Manhattans

See it here.

h/t Zero Hedge

Michigan Gov. Snyder Is 83% Correct On Ballot Proposals

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is 83% correct on the 6 ballot proposals facing voters in Tuesday's elections. He's against all of them except Number 1, the emergency manager law, according to this story in the Detroit Free Press, here:

A gubernatorial bus tour hit Sterling Heights today to reinforce Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's message to vote yes on Proposal 1, no on the rest. ... Proposal 1 asks if the emergency manager law should stay in place. Proposal 2-6 are constitutional amendments that would protect collective bargaining, require utilities to use more renewable energy, put union rights in place for home health care workers, require a two-thirds vote in the legislature for any tax changes and require a vote of the people before an international bridge or tunnel could be built.

Amending the constitution is simply a way for legislators to avoid responsibility for taking a stand on these issues. And Michiganders seem hell bent on helping them do just that when they already have the option of punishing representatives at the polls for voting contrary to their wishes on the matters. They should exercise that option. If government isn't representing the people to their satisfaction, I suggest increasing representation, not sabotaging it by making such representation as we have even less representative by going over its head. Amending the constitution over and over again is nuclear warfare against our form of government.

The first proposal is really the same sort of thing, but if the voters really hate the emergency manager law then they should throw the bums out who passed it. Going over their heads to a ballot proposal really takes the heat off of them when it should really be on them all the more if it's such a bad law.

I happen to think it's a bad law, but I'd rather vote against my representatives who passed it.

Unfortunately, the horse is already out of the barn on this one.

Obama Spotted In Rockaways At Height Of Hurricane Sandy

Mayor Doomberg Cancels NY Marathon: Starting Line Was On Staten Island

Mayor Doomberg has canceled the NY Marathon because . . . it was to have started on Staten Island, and the optics of starting a race at ground zero for Hurricane Sandy were simply unthinkable. People there are still under water and without electricity, food and heat.

AP Obama reports here:

The storm forced cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism about running the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs. ... [O]n Staten Island, there was grumbling that the borough was a lower priority to get its services restored. "You know it's true," said Tony Carmelengo, who lives in the St. George section of Staten Island and still does not have electricity. Added his neighbor, Anthony Como: "It's economics. Manhattan gets everything, let's face it."

Rasmussen Shows Obama Support Eroding In Michigan

Rasmussen today shows Michigan only leaning Obama, meaning his support in Michigan has eroded enough to lose that dark blue hue.

He also shows the candidates tied in Ohio instead of slightly favoring Romney.

Based on the math as of this moment, Romney will come up short with 267 Electoral College votes if he does not win Ohio, Wisconsin or Nevada, assuming he wins Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida.

Election 2012: Do It For The Geezers

One sunny day in January, 2013, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Obama is no longer President and no longer resides here." The old man said, "Okay," and walked away.

The following day the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Obama is no longer President and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and again just walked away.

The third day the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama." The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Obama. I've told you already that Mr. Obama is no longer the President and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it." The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."

Don't forget to vote.

That old man is depending on you!

h/t Ruth

Election 2012: It's A Referendum On Obama, Not Romney

And a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Ron Radosh Skewers Filmmaker Oliver Stone's Mendacious Stalinism

Here:

According to his own testimony, if he had become president, Wallace would have made Harry Dexter White his secretary of the Treasury and given a position in government to Laurence Duggan. Both men were Soviet agents. As a KGB cable found in the Venona archives shows, the Soviets hoped that Duggan would aid them “by using his friendship” with Wallace for “extracting .  .  . interesting information.” ... Stone allows no critical opinions by scholars who have studied the Soviet archives to disturb his rehash of Communist propaganda themes. His sainted Henry Wallace opposed the creation of NATO, advocated abandoning Berlin in response to the Soviet blockade, denounced the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction as “the martial plan,” and justified the 1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia as a measure to thwart a plot by fascist forces. Precisely the Kremlin line.

Hillary Clinton's Got Some 'Splainin' To Do

Patrick J. Buchanan, here:

On Aug. 16, a cable went to the State Department describing the imminent danger, saying the compound could not defend itself against a “coordinated attack.”

The cable was sent to Hillary Clinton – and signed by Ambassador Chris Stevens.

On Sept. 11, Ambassador Stevens died in a coordinated attack on the Benghazi compound by elements of Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaida.

Catherine Herridge of Fox News, who unearthed the Aug. 16 cable, calls it the “smoking gun.”

The Devil Knows Latin

"When asked whether he would perform a baptism in the vernacular, he declined, replying that 'the baby doesn’t understand English and the Devil knows Latin.'"

Election 2012: Love? Or Revenge? Easy Choice!

love

revenge

Videos here, and here.

Why Obama Will Lose Ohio: Only 2,800 Show Up To Meet POTUS 4 Days B4 Election

Reported here:

“I’ve said I will work with anybody of any party to move this country forward,” President Obama told a crowd of 2,800 this morning in Hilliard, Ohio. “If you want to break the gridlock in Congress, you’ll vote for leaders who feel the same way whether they’re Democrat, Republican or independent.”

Has Anybody Noticed Hillary Clinton Is A First Class F&%K Up?

At least it ain't KoolAid

The historical high water marks of her incompetence will include HillaryCare, which got Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in control of Congress in 1994, and Benghazi, which sure looks like she doesn't have the first clue about running anything foreign either, and looks to get her boss unelected right quick like, as they say down Arkansas way.

Michael Barone Thinks Romney Could Get 285 Electoral College Votes

Just now on Hannity.

Half NYC Hurricane Death Toll Comes From Staten Island

Reported here:

On Thursday, police recovered the bodies of two brothers, ages 2 and 4, who were swept away after the SUV driven by their mother, Glenda Moore, stalled in Sandy's floodwaters Monday evening. ... The discovery was another heartbreaking blow to Staten Island, a hard-hit borough that residents say has been largely forgotten. At least 19 people have been killed in Staten Island, about half the death toll for all of New York City.

Rasmussen Has Iowa As Toss-Up, Romney Slightly Ahead

The lefty?                                 Or the righty?

Scott Rasmussen still shows Iowa as a toss-up as of this hour, with Romney slightly ahead in the polling.

Its 6 Electoral College votes added to Romney's theoretical 279, assuming Romney wins the toss-ups where Rasmussen shows Romney currently polling ahead, would give Romney a final total of 285, 15 more than he needs to win the presidency.

Watch Florida and Virginia, says Rasmussen here:

"Florida and Virginia are absolute must-win states for the Romney campaign. If the president wins either, the election will be his. It is quite reasonable to think the challenger can win these states but far from a sure thing. If he can win those two states, Romney will then have to win either Ohio or Wisconsin to stay in the game.  It is possible that the president could win both and keep his job, but that outcome is far from certain as well."

Liberal NY Hypocrites Care More About Marathon Than Staten Islanders

Staten Island Councilman James Oddo said, “The notion of taking one cop, one first responder, one resource, one asset and diverting it so that they stand at a post to watch runners go by when we’re still searching for bodies? It’s sinful to me!’’

Brooklyn Councilman Vincent Gentile said, “With some neighborhoods still smoldering, I think postponing the marathon would be a better option.”

Obviously, one hurricane wasn't enough.

Story here.

Obama Seen Visiting Staten Island

Unemployment in October Ticks Up to 7.9%

Read the report from the BLS here.

This is the big picture:

"Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 in October. Employment growth has averaged 157,000 per month thus far in 2012, about the same as the average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011. In October, employment rose in professional and business services, health care, and retail trade."

The average jobs added per month of 155,000 in the last two years has been insufficient to alter significantly the rate of unemployment, seeing that unemployment ticked up 0.1 points from September. All year the unemployment rate has been no higher than 8.3%, and no lower than 7.8%.

Meanwhile the long-term unemployed, those part-timed, those no longer in the labor force and those entering the labor force for the first time, who all number in the tens of millions, fight for that small pool of jobs. At 300,000 new jobs per month, double the current rate, it would take over 8 years to suck up 30 million people.

There remains no driver for jobs in an economy barely growing at all at 2.0%.

NJ Gov. Christie To Housing Haters: "Nothing Is More Precious To People Than Home"

Quoted here:

"There's nothing more precious to people than their homes. Those are where their families are, their memories and possessions of their lives, and there's also a sense of safety to home," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said late on Thursday.

"That sense of safety was violated with water rushing into people's homes at an enormous rate of speed and people having to literally swim, climb, jump for their lives," he said.

NRA Grades Dem. Pestka Better Than Rep. Amash In Michigan 3rd

Don't believe it? See for yourself, here.

Michigan Democrats are making hay with this. A four-color direct mail piece arrived in my mailbox today highlighting the fact, mailed from the party office in Lansing.

Amash's beef with the NRA is principled, based on his belief, which is correct, that the Commerce Clause of the constitution is not the basis for legislation for interstate reciprocity for concealed carry. The McDonald decision is another example of a "victory" for gun rights which was wrongly decided, but the NRA nonetheless cheered. The NRA is not infallible, and Amash is right to point it out, but in the political contest against the foes of gun rights, his trumpet makes an uncertain sound.

But while Pestka scores better than Amash with the NRA, you'll notice there's no endorsement by the NRA. That's because NRA members think they know Amash is a friend of gun ownership who just hasn't yet persuaded the NRA to improve its constitutional interpretation.

One might be tempted from this to think Pestka is an alternative to consider instead of Amash, especially since liberals haven't been too happy with Pestka for once voting to de-fund abortion providers, something Amash recently couldn't bring himself to do, alienating social conservatives, including me (a specialty of libertarians like Amash). See the HuffPo story, here. But Pestka now regrets his vote. His record is being used opportunistically.

Amash continues to defend his vote against de-funding Planned Parenthood because singling out PP for defunding is unprincipled, thus favoring others who still get funding. To which we say, so what? There is tons of spending in government which is unprincipled because it picks winners and losers, and is otherwise simply wrong. To err on the side of picking losers by cutting them off isn't a failing, it's a start! The journey to a clean room begins with one moldy sock.

We shouldn't make the good the enemy of the perfect as Amash does now and again. It's a lesson learned from life experience, which Amash hasn't had enough of yet. That's an argument against investing young people like him with political power until they are ready, something Aristotle understood long ago, and our Founders understood when they enshrined age requirements for office in the constitution. The young are to be tested and tried as they climb a ladder of offices, an idea which derives from the old Roman cursus honorum, with which the Founders were intimately familiar. A good boy is just that. It remains to be seen if he turns out to be a good man.

Not all matters are susceptible of resolution by appeal to the constitution. It is not an infallible holy book which dropped from the sky for our instruction in everything, as much as we rightly submit to it. For example, the constitution is now schizophrenic because it allows those aged 18 to vote, but only those aged 35 to serve as president. It is probably only theoretical that one day there could be a dearth of people in the country old enough to serve as president, or that there might one day be a surplus of people serving in Congress under 35. Nevertheless in the former case the pressure to change the constitution to lower the age requirement would fly in the face of the Founders' wisdom, experience and judgment on the matter. In the latter it could happen that the death of the president and vice president might mean a too young speaker of the house would be next in line to the presidency, in violation of the constitution.

We adhere to the spirit of the constitution, but to which part? Shall we make the 26th Amendment the enemy of Article II. Section 1, or the other way around? Shall we stifle youth and enthusiasm utterly, or channel it and shape it?

Not everything is reducible to the letter on the page, or to a single principle one only imagines superintends our deliberations. What were once thought remedies on later reflection turn out to have been mistakes, which only the good mind can conclude. 

It Takes One To Know One: Carl Bernstein Smells Radicalism In The Air

Carl Bernstein of Woodward-Bernstein fame thinks he's caught a whiff of radicalism in Mitt Romney and the Tea Party, here at The Daily Beast, imagining all sort of vain things about both of them.

By the end of the hysterical tirade he calms down a little and realizes his own progressivism qualifies as radicalism, too, but he'd much rather call his beloved progressivism a "transformational movement". In other words, "progressivism good, radicalism bad", sort of like how liberalism got a bad name and had to be replaced at all costs if liberalism were to continue to retain influence.

The reality is the Tea Party is a reactionary movement trying to forestall the radicalism of Barack Obama. Reactionary movements often are mistaken for radical movements because in order to succeed in their objective they have to get to the root being yanked out of the ground by others, by the revolutionaries, and replant it. As such reactionaries, the Tea Partiers are counter-revolutionaries: "Put It Back!"

This is not to say that reactionary movements cannot be hijacked by ideologues any less than true revolutionary movements are inspired by them. The American revolutionaries are a case in point. They never embraced the idealisms which turned into a class war against aristocrats in France. It is unthinkable that the history of the early American independence movement would have turned out as it did had it otherwise been a movement about liberty, equality and fraternity. Former loyalists were welcomed back. While enthusiasm for the idealism of natural rights among Tea Party activists is reminiscent of this, especially among the libertarian elements, the genesis of the movement was in reaction to Obama's proposed mortgage bailouts of deadbeat homeowners, many of whom were becoming infamous for "walking away". Like a good reactionary, Rick Santelli gave voice to his indignation at these people on national television in February but characteristically planned a Tea Party protest on the beach of Lake Michigan for months later, during his summer vacation. In the interim, he had to go to work.

The people, however, had other ideas about waiting. But unlike real radicals such as the Occupy Wall Street types, their protests were peaceful, orderly, clean, and came to an end, and then transformed themselves into the constructive activity of political action, retaking the US House in 2010 for the Republicans in order to stop Obama. As a political movement, it should be understood in those practical prophylactic terms despite the efforts of Republicans to co-opt the movement. The Tea Party is a movement of Americans who are radical only in the sense that they have rediscovered their roots in the constitution and the world which gave it birth.

The true radicals in the bad sense are those who would extirpate them.  

Basel III Capital Requirements May Cause 30% Of Banks To Merge

So says Victor Nava, here:

Community banks are generally defined as banks with less than $1 billion in assets. There are approximately 6,800 community banks which represent about 8% of total assets in the banking sector, but they account for almost 40% of all small business loans. The proposed Basel III regulatory capital requirements are an immense and unnecessary burden that will actually threaten their existence. Community banks were already having a hard time re-establishing themselves in a period of weak loan demand, low interest rates, and thinning profit margins. In 2011, only 3 new community banks were chartered, down from 181 new charters in 2007.

But these new regulations will further drive consolidation between them into bigger banks. Community banks that can't find affordable ways of raising capital will be left without many options other than to find a merging partner. Some on Wall Street, like mergers and acquisitions expert John Slater, predict that Basel III's compliance costs will lead to a merger boom, and that in the next 3-5 years 20-30 percent of all banks will merge.

What Did Hurricane Sandy Do In 1 Night That Obama Couldn't Do In 4 Yrs?

Create thousands of shovel ready jobs.

This Is Not Conservatism: Romney Will Move The Country Leftward

When liberals win, they make conservatives come in their direction. But so-called conservatives have never made liberals compromise to the right. This is why liberals detest them, because they are weak.

Ronald Reagan, former Democrat, didn't do it, and neither has anyone else since. The result has been a constant shift of politics in America to the left. It has never shifted to the right on any social, economic or foreign policy issue. Today's Republican Party is indistinguishable from the Democrat Party of 1960, except on paper, while the Democrat Party struggles mightily to remain American as more and more Democrats openly support self-consciously socialist and even communist ideas.

The country moves inexorably leftward, relaxing moral absolutes from divorce to abortion to homosexuality; growing government and government interference in our lives through mandates while defending old progressive achievements like the income tax, Social Security and Medicare; and ideologizing "democracy" and using it like a cudgel to nation-build abroad.

Mitt Romney will only contribute to this process if he is elected because he has stated explicitly, once again just two days ago in Ohio, that it will be his policy to compromise, to "get things done" as the feeble-minded everywhere like to say:

"We're going to have to do something that has been done in the past in this country and that is we're going to have to reach across the aisle we're going to have to find good Democrats, by the way Democrats love America too, we've got to reach across the aisle find ways to bring in people from the other party work together, collaborate, meet regularly and fight for the American people and we will!," Romney said.

Why conservatives will vote for this I can only answer with the example of Esau, who was so hungry that he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.

It would be far better to elect the intransigent radical Obama and a principled Republican US House to maintain the status quo than to risk "progress", because that is what you are going to get with Mitt Romney, progress . . . to the left.

Conservatives don't have to vote for Obama to vote for gridlock. Virgil Goode will do. 

UK Finance Minister Speaks Up For More Fascism

the flag of the Blackshorts

Quoted here:

"I wanted Lord Heseltine to do what he does best: challenge received wisdom and give us ideas on how to bring government and industry together. He has done exactly that. This is a report bursting with ideas and we will study it very carefully," finance minister George Osborne said.

Hurricane Sandy Creams Right Coast Liberals. Country Cheers!

a thing of beauty

Like Liberals, Libertarians Hate Homeowners

Like liberals, libertarians hate homeowners.

Liberals resent the competition and don't want them "moving on up" to the East Side or to their gated communities, ruining the neighborhood, and libertarians hate homeowners' bourgeois values, especially the fact that homeowners resist becoming interchangeable parts in their global corporate pursuit of economic efficiency, rather resent being treated like depreciating assets, and often think the most important gift they can give the country is future taxpayers and productive workers raised in stable, safe, socially well-adjusted environments.

But there is also a shared reason: because homeowners tend to be neither liberal nor libertarian, but conservative.

From libertarian Arnold Kling, in his own words:

'If there is a tendency for property owners to become libertarians, I find this difficult to observe. Clearly, most home owners are not libertarians. Some owners, in fact, become decidedly unlibertarian NIMBYs, where “not in my backyard” becomes their byword for infringing on the liberties of others.'

Damn right, Arnold, homeowners do tend to infringe on others' rights, just like the Decalogue infringes on my right to say everything that's on my mind, murder, steal, commit adultery, covet, practice idolatry and ignore filial responsibilities.

If you want to act like a reprobate, it's a free country, but not in my backyard.

Camille Paglia Blames Obama's Libya Mistake On Women, ObamaCare On Stalinism

Both of which we have said.

The material is transcribed by Ann Althouse, here.

Rasmussen Polling Shows Romney's Path To Victory

With a week and a day to go, Rasmussen's polling as of right now shows Romney's path to victory with 270 Electoral College votes.

With the map showing Romney likely owning 206 Electoral College votes as of today, polling in Florida (29), Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4) and Ohio (18) all show Romney marginally ahead by at least two points in a close race, but together they are sufficient to give him the presidency.

If you add Colorado (9) where Romney is also ahead by four points he will win with 279.

Blame Walmart For The Part-Timing Of America, And ObamaCare For Ramping It Up

From a very good story by the New York Times, reproduced here:

The rise of big-box retailers like Walmart . . . with their long operating hours and complex staffing needs, has contributed to the increase in part-timers.

Mr. Flickinger, the retail consultant, said when Walmart spread nationwide and opened hundreds of 24-hour stores in the 1990s, that created intense competitive pressures and prompted many retailers to copy the company’s cost-cutting practices, including its heavy reliance on part-timers.

Susan J. Lambert, an expert on part-time work and a professor of organizational theory at the University of Chicago, said the use of part-timers had also escalated because of the declining power of labor unions. “They set a standard for what a real job was — Monday through Friday with full-time hours,” she said. “We’ve moved away from that.”

ObamaCare will now put this part-timing trend into high gear as more and more employers seek to avoid ObamaCare's 30 hour rule, at which employers must provide a healthcare benefit. More and more employers are going to schedule people for up to 29 hours per week, and not one more.

If you read the full story excerpted above you'll wonder to yourself how $15,000 per year part-time earners are going to be able to afford to purchase healthcare at Obama's healthcare exchanges, especially since holding two part-time jobs is already impossible in the experience of most part-timers. The answer is they won't be able to afford to purchase insurance, and will be shuffled off to crappy care under Medicaid, which is going bust already.

The healthcare debacle in America is only just beginning, thanks to Obama and the Democrats.

Obama Believes Winning Will Be Mandate To Raise Taxes, "Reform" Immigration

Obama has stated explicitly his intent is, if he wins, to raise taxes and "reform" immigration, which is code for amnesty, as reported here:

"If we won, then I believe that's a mandate for doing it in a balanced way."

"We can do some more cuts, we could look at how we deal with the health care costs in particular under Medicaid and Medicare in a serious way, but we are also going to need some revenue."

"If we get [the debt and deficit] done, then immigration reform, I think, is there to get done."

"And I think [the Republican Party] is going to need to get it done because you can't continue to alienate the fastest-growing segment of the country. And it's the right thing to do."

Of course, there are mandates and there are mandates. Obama likes mandates. He likes telling people how things will be, which is why we have ObamaCare shoved down our throats.

In 2008 Obama interpreted his victory as a mandate when his margin of victory in the formerly Red States which went for Bush was merely 1.4 million votes. He lost that "mandate" such as it was in 2010, and if the Republicans keep the US House in 2012 that will still be the conclusion whether or not Romney wins the presidency.

Imported British "Conservative" Condescends To Instruct Us About Communism

John Derbyshire

Here:

"But Barack Obama was never about the downtrodden masses. If he associated with revolutionaries such as Bill Ayers, it was only to feed off them and advance himself. Once he’d advanced, they went under the proverbial bus, as did the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Barack Obama has always been about Barack Obama. ...

"To be a real communist is to make a serious commitment to a cause. Communism is a hard dogma, completely at odds with the soft-handed girlish narcissism of a late-20th-century American leftist such as Obama, who has never risked, fought, struggled, or suffered."

Well, by this standard most businessmen, and most people who work with and for them, aren't real Americans either because the only thing they're committed to is the advancement of number 1. Nor are they real capitalists, but fascists, ever seeking preferments in law to protect their fiefdoms. Nor are they real Christians, eschewing renunciation of the world and service to the poor.

Serious commitment to anything hardly exists anywhere at any time for very long. There are only degrees of commitment, the few outstanding examples of which momentarily intrude upon our attention, as when devotees of a 7th century bandit religion would just as soon blow them- and ourselves to smithereens as live another day.

Just because Obama is a hypocritical communist fellow-traveler doesn't invalidate classifying him as one. After all, Obama also claims to be a Christian but believes things about the unborn and human sexuality which many a Catholic bishop would say destine him for hell, but people still say he is a Christian. Obama's lavish expenditures on his own presidency, which mark him out as a tyrant according to Aristotle ("the good of one man only"), stand alongside his belief in redistribution of income, in spreading the wealth around, in the same way that his friendship with and fundraising among the rich coexists with his sustained inveighing against them because in his opinion they do not pay their fair share in taxes.

The real problem with calling Obama a communist isn't that it isn't true but that the term doesn't exhaust the possibilities. What is instructive about Obama is that he is a blend of enthusiasms and idealisms, a character Herbert Hoover would have recognized as in the mould of FDR who admired the strong men of Europe, who were at once fascist, Nazi and communist. Obama may be a dilettante communist, but you'll still get an alphabet soup of statist experiments at his dinner table. 

But, of course, communist purists would demur at this point, Stalin having been an "aberration". Yet we still call Stalin a communist dictator and his rule a communist dictatorship even though Stalin's partnership with capitalism and people like Henry Ford arguably aligned Stalinism more with fascism than with communism.

Over time the terms lose their adequacy, primarily because they are invented by human beings who will do nothing if not disappoint, eventually. There's a word for that, but like "communist" the word "sinner", to quote our British instructor, is just not "ironic enough for our very ironic age".