Obama's Marie Antoinette moment

One of many, really, but maybe this one will catch the public imagination.

Can't afford gas? Buy a new car!

That's the ticket. Glenn Reynolds has two posts so far. The first has a screenshot and link to video. The second, more thoughts on the matter. Update: Make that three posts: I missed this one.

And a couple of days later, another, with a nod to historical accuracy.

Heh. Another post on this: "LET THEM BUY HYBRID VANS." This topic keeps on giving.

Van der Leun speculates on Presidential malice

The question of to what degree Barack Obama hates America and wishes to destroy it comes up in conversation from time to time. Van der Leun's analysis, contrasting Hanlon's and Heinlein's razors, seems like a good contribution. Excerpt:

21 months is an extremely long time to have a rogue ego and malicious mind actively guiding and making the day-to-day, life and death, decisions of the nation. Twenty-one months of appointments, foreign policy, executive orders, and the odd military adventure here or there, can add up to a lot of problems unless your goal is the weakening of the United States. In that case, it might just be enough time after all.

Read the whole thing: Presence of Malice: Against the Conservative Portrait of the President. There is much discussion in comments.

And see, for contrast, the next post: "Palin-bashing by the brain trust."

Fear of a free future

Michael Barone had some thoughts on the SOTU speech. (Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the pointer.)

Obama’s Antique Vision of Technological Progress.

Barack Obama, like all American politicians, likes to portray himself as future-oriented and open to technological progress. Yet the vision he set out in his State of the Union address is oddly antique and disturbingly static.

Read the whole thing.

A lot of the speech was like finding an article in a magazine from 1930 about what the year 2000 would be like. The left can't let go of the dream of a command economy, even though command economies always fail. The knowledge problem is not amenable to wishful thinking. Over-regulation stifles activity of all kinds. How many nuclear plants could be under construction now if even half the money from the stimulus programs had been put into a program of construction? Killing the coal and oil industries without replacing them is a recipe for poverty. Lefties fear prosperity because poor people are easier to rule. Lefties fear technology because technology can lead to prosperity. You don't find computers in private hands in Communist countries. You didn't use to find typewriters, copiers or mimeographs, either.

Obama's EPA turning off the water to California's Central Valley is poverty by decree. It's not of the same magnitude as Stalin's Holodomor, or decreed famine, in the Ukraine in the 1930's, but it's the same type of thing. Shutting down West Virginia's largest coal mine is another move to promote poverty. And these moves do not have only local effects. They raise the prices of food and energy to the whole country, and indeed the world.

Update: Rick at Wizbang links to William O'Keefe at the Examiner: "Setting a goal to raise energy prices seems to be the last thing we would want to do as a nation." Yet it is the Administration's policy.

Looking at the SOTU speech

I remember thinking more than once during that speech that it was so far removed from reality as to be "not even wrong." Jerry Pournelle has been writing about it. Three parts so far: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. "[W]ind, solar, and biofuels won't support a first world economy."

Ace has a long, thoughtful post looking at Obama's tendency to vote "present," then take credit for whatever happened next, and how well or poorly this approach works for an executive: Obama the Passive-Aggressive Coward.

Obama gives a speech studded with claims about his own "boldness" while punting on all the important issues and only offering cute-sounding, poll-tested anecdotes about the wonders of government intervention. Solar shingles! Fuel made from sunlight and water! High speed trains!

None of these address the central problem this nation faces, which is that we are going bankrupt and in fact stand on the edge of a financial precipice.

It's so much easier to address made-up problems than to deal with real ones.

Preview of the State of the Union speech

There's a first draft of the speech posted at Professor Jacobson's place, which I've recently added to the "recommended reading" list over in the sidebar (it's the one with the dots, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion). Funny stuff, if you can stand some bitter truths with your funny.

Also, a post on "why people like me, who currently are open-minded as to the field of potential candidates in the absence of knowing who will run, will not support any Republican candidate during the primaries who attacks Palin." That goes for me, too. She is an example of the best in America. Her principles are American principles. Knowing the name of the prime minister of Tadjikistan is of far less importance than having the right principles.

Some things to watch out for in 2011

At PJ Media, a list of Ten Political Flash Points for 2011. First on the list:

Obama Governs by Executive Power

Having lost large majorities in both houses of Congress, expect Obama to deploy his considerable executive powers. A glimpse of what to expect occurred near Christmas as the administration unilaterally issued three new regulatory rulings governing the Internet, greenhouse emissions, and federal wilderness areas. These actions taken by the Federal Communications Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Interior Department exhibited raw regulatory power.

The FCC action defied a federal court. The EPA greenhouse ruling came even as the Senate voted last June to deny the agency power to issue rules over climate change. The Interior Department administratively reversed Bush-era rules on limiting wilderness protection.

In the absence of the consent of the governed, we are seeing rule by decree.

No mention of those Iranian missiles going to Venezuela. There was a Democratic President in the last century who thought that sort of thing was a pretty big deal. This one … apparently not so much.

Obama's anti-colonial inspiration

Thanks to Neo-neocon, an important article by Dinesh D'Souza, How Obama Thinks.

Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government's control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama's approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.

The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling." Did you read that correctly? You did. The Administration supports offshore drilling--but drilling off the shores of Brazil. With Obama's backing, the U.S. Export-Import Bank offered $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance exploration in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro--not so the oil ends up in the U.S. He is funding Brazilian exploration so that the oil can stay in Brazil.

This piece is a must-read.

Update: D'Souza talks about it some more.

Neo-neocon is keeping a sharp eye on Obama

His grandiosity: Still not getting it about Obama.

His racial dog-whistling: Obama the great bamboozler.

Refined, erudite, nuanced BS at NY Times

J.M. Bernstein, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City, goes on at considerable length to demonstrate that he has no idea what the Tea Party people are talking about, but he thinks they are just awful! Angry! Scary!

A type specimen of academic bafflegab. Many of the commenters say they agree with him, and herein lies the danger of this kind of claptrap. Bernstein presents his strawman in so persuasive a way that those leaning in his direction feel that they have been provided with logical, intellectual proof for the gut feelings they already had.

Part 1: The Very Angry Tea Party

Part 2: The Usefulness of Anger: A Response

Hey there, Professor Bernstein: who is it that's angry?



Tea Party people are upset about the spending. (This graphic is old; numbers are much bigger now, with Obamacare in the mix.)



Democrats are angry that anyone dares question their authoritah.

Instapundit:

ALEX LIGHTMAN ON FACEBOOK: “After researching the issue carefully and interviewing people in a position to know, I can now reveal that the current primary purpose of the United State government is to bankrupt the United States. It comes as a relief to know this. So many things now make sense.” Least hypothesis, and all that.

Doing everything possible to allow the oil blowout in the Gulf to go on fits right in with that. Golf on, Obama.

USA invaded, surrenders

Gateway Pundit:

The federal government is now telling American citizens to stay out of three southern Arizona counties.
It is too dangerous because of armed smugglers from Mexico.

Is anyone answering the phone at "Homeland Security?"

Thanks to commenter njartist49 at Neo-Neocon's place. Neo's post is "How hard can it be to be a competent president?" Read the whole thing.

Obama surrenders the high ground, without a fight

Three things.

An open letter from Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan, and 25 other astronauts, about Obama's new direction for NASA. They don't like it.

Charles Krauthammer says,

We are seeing the abolition of the manned space program.

When Neil Armstrong speaks out, that’s an event. This is a guy who is the most self-effacing American hero in our history. He could have been Lindbergh and he became J.D. Salinger.

And now he speaks out in an open letter together with [Eugene] Cernan, the last guy that walked on the moon, and James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13. And they are saying that the program that Obama has abolished — has cancelled — is essentially the end of man in space. It turns NASA into an R&D agency for pie-in-the-sky ideas like having humans on asteroids and ends its role as the agency that actually gets us into space, even low-Earth orbit and back.

Obama spoke about — we’ve done the moon, so we are going to do asteroids and Mars. This is total pie in the sky. On what rocket? With what space capsule? With what simulators? With what training program? There’s nothing here of substance.

And when Kennedy committed us "in this decade," as he said, he meant it within his presidency. He intended to be — he expected he’d be — president until January 1969. Obama is talking about 2025, 2030. All of this is total speculation.

And what it does is it ends our human dominance in space, which we had for 50 years. We have no way to get into earth orbit. We’re going to have to hitch a ride on the Russians who are charging us extraordinary rates and are only going to increase that.…

All the private stuff [launching humans into space] is complete speculation. What we’re doing is we're ceding the certainty of access into space. We are not going to have it. The Russians will have it. The Chinese will have it.

We spent tens of billions on the space station and spent three decades in constructing it. We're not going to have any way to get there....

And we'll look up in a decade and there’s going to be a lunar base ... [there are] not going to be Americans on it.

Sarah Palin, on Facebook, asks,

"Mr. President, is a strong America a problem?"

Yesterday at 10:09am

Asked this week about his faltering efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama did something remarkable. In front of some 47 foreign leaders and hundreds of reporters from all over the world, President Obama said that “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”

Whether we like it or not? Most Americans do like it. America’s military may be one of the greatest forces for good the world has ever seen, liberating countless millions from tyranny, slavery, and oppression over the last 234 years. As a dominant superpower, the United States has won wars hot and cold; our military has advanced the cause of freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan and kept authoritarian powers like Russia and China in check.

It is in America’s and the world’s interests for our country to remain a dominant military superpower, but under our great country’s new leadership that dominance seems to be slipping away. President Obama has ended production of the F-22, the most advanced fighter jet this country has ever built. He’s gutted our missile defense program by eliminating shield resources in strategic places including Alaska. And he’s ended the program to build a new generation of nuclear weapons that would have ensured the reliability of our nuclear deterrent well into the future. All this is in the context of the country’s unsustainable debt that could further limit defense spending. As one defense expert recently explained:

The president is looking to eliminate the last vestiges of the Reagan-era buildup. Once the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are “ended” (not “won”), the arms control treaties signed, and defense budgets held at historic lows while social entitlements and debt service rise to near-European levels, the era of American superpower will have passed.

The truth is this: by his actions we see a president who seems to be much more comfortable with an American military that isn’t quite so dominant and who feels the need to apologize for America when he travels overseas. Could it be a lack of faith in American exceptionalism? The fact is that America and our allies are safer when we are a dominant military superpower – whether President Obama likes it or not.

And the question is, Are the first two things related to the third thing?

Private space development would be great. But what Krauthammer says about ceding the certainty of space is not speculative.

Will NASA and the FAA and the rest of the government get out of the way of private space efforts? Encouragement would be too much to ask for.

Update: Harrison Schmitt, astronaut and US Senator, has more to say:

“I am very much of the mind that America can’t afford to be second-best in space. It’s the new ocean. It would be as if the United States decided in the last 200 years or so not to have a Navy. The oceans were where the competition between nations existed, and now that competition has moved into space. We should not be afraid of it. We should embrace it.”

Via Althouse. One of the commenters at the linked CapTimes article says,

"Wait, so here's an area where Obama would just as soon not spend $230 billion (likely more, because, remember, the shuttle program ultimately came in at a 55% cost over-run), and the same people who scream about the exploding deficit are saying we need the program, we need to spend the money? This just proves that nothing Obama could do would appease these people."

This is the kind of thinking that comes from someone who would eat the seed corn, or skip the oil changes to buy spinner hubcaps and mag wheels. Speaking of wheels, I'm inclined to agree that NASA has been spinning its wheels for years, as a result of being run by pork-minded bureaucrats who have lost sight of the mission, but what's called for is not abandonment of the mission, but a return to it. As I said in an earlier post, "Men will go to space; but no law of nature requires that they be Western, or free."

There are a couple of fairly zingy comments by yours truly on that Althouse thread.

Hope you like your house the way it is

Remodeling will become much more expensive, starting April 22. Small contractors might as well close up shop now. Neo-neocon has the story, and the comments: Next on Obama’s hit list: small contractors.

I can't recall another American President who thought that prosperity was a Bad Thing, and worked so actively against it.

Sunday afternoon concert

Today, ladies and gents, Victoria Jackson!

Do you remember Victoria Jackson from Saturday Night Live? Here she is, to sing for you again. This is a poignant little ditty called "There's a Communist Living in the White House." Let's hear it for Victoria, folks!



Thanks, Victoria!

Potatoes come from Sycasuse

Speaking of potatoes. It was a big deal when Dan Quayle put an "e" on a potato. And why did he do that? He was "working from an inaccurate flash card prepared by a teacher," that's why. What a situation. Embarrass the teacher? Ask the student to add a letter? He should have embarrassed the teacher, we know that now.

But no teacher handed Barack Obama a flash card when he tried to spell "Syracuse" and failed. He did that all on his own.

Klavan introduces a much-needed innovation

An actual BS detector that rings an alarm bell. He calls it the "crap alarm." Here it is in action, applied to Obama speaking. Oh, did I need to say more? Speaking about his "health care reform." Which, as you no doubt recall, has nothing to do with health care, but much to do with insurance, and the IRS, which is going to withhold the refunds of people who do not comply with its unConstitutional mandate.


I must look up Klavan's books, one of these days.

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

Neo-Neocon quotes Lenin. Read these, and see if you don't think they match the Obama agenda.

Van der Leun on Obama

Just a few.

The bow to Abdullah. The bow to Akihito.

A new General Theory of Obama, with emphasis on Afghanistan and chaos. W.B. Yeats and Steely Dan are mentioned. Follow-up to the General Theory, with zombies.

The Mao jacket and the crotch salute.

Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court in NYC: Obama's worst idea yet?

He never seems to have any good ideas.

NY Times: 9/11 Trial Poses Unparalleled Legal Obstacles for Both Sides

Althouse: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the alleged 9/11 mastermind — and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — the alleged planner of the USS Cole bombing — will go to trial in federal court in NYC

Neo-neocon: The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: a 9/10 approach to 9/11 justice

Drew at Ace of Spades has video of Rudy Giuliani commenting on this: Rudy Goes Off Over Decision To Try KSM In Civilian Court In NYC. "It comes right from the top."

Allahpundit has video of Charles Krauthammer: "Mr. Holder has honored mass murder by treating it like any other crime."

Shannon Love: "How Obama is Bringing Martial Law to America."

Jerry Pournelle, passim: "Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide."

The Columbia way

So the professor of community organizing at one of Obama's old schools (almae matres?) was discussing race relations with a woman in a bar. (It's not a joke.) His eloquence failed to persuade her to his point of view, so he gave her a poke in the eye.

The NY Post story calls McIntyre an "architecture professor." They jumped to a conclusion. He is "Nancy and George Rupp Associate Professor in the Practice of Community Development and the Founding Director of the Urban Technical Assistance Project at Columbia University." Not an architect or architecture professor, but a community organizer. Columbia, Chicago, they both start with "C" and Obama spent time in both places. I wonder if McIntyre was one of the President's teachers?

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds, who credits JammieWearingFool, whose post I should have read before writing this one, as it covers the same ground and a little more.

Krauthammer: "Decline is a choice"

We (who is that?) don't have to let everything go to heck. No, we (for limited values of "we") are choosing to slide down the slippery slope into the tar pit of socialism.

Krauthammer: Decline is a choice.

Sowell: Dismantling America.

Yeats: The Second Coming.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.