Bent Notes

I haven’t had much to say about where I stand regarding benefit of the doubt for the president-elect.  Certainly it’s on my mind a lot.  There’s no shortage of column space in this world devoted to the subject, that’s for sure. 

After much swirling around of my thoughts and feelings on the matter, I’ve landed on something pretty close to what Michael Medved comes up with in his Townhall.com piece today.  Barack Obama remains, in my estimation, a hardcore leftwinger with truly frightening policy proclivities and a majority of personality traits that I find off-putting if not disgusting.  That said, there is no alternative universe to run to.  He will take the oath of office on January 20.  He is assembling his administration in the most precarious time I have personally ever witnessed.  It would be foolish to wish him anything but the best - the most refined judgement he can muster,  and the most favorable circumstances fate can bestow.

The unfortunate quality of Medved’s let’s-hold-off-and-see-what-he-puts-in-place stance is that, given the dizzying pace with which economic and security-related events are unfolding, as well as the aggressiveness with which Obama is pursuing his vision, it becomes more superceded hourly by developments that we must decry as alarming.

Today’s Wall Street Journal is full of articles, columns and editorial comment that make plain the madness of the FHer regime’s approach.  Everything about it is the exact opposite of a real remedy for the ills of the day.  On page A8, for instance, is a story about how the regulatory machine is gearing up.  Top Obama aide Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, crows that the “agenda is going to be bold.”  “Activists” will run the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the EPA and the Department of Labor.

One can see it coming, like the next stage of a cancer:  The very measures that have damaged and possibly killed our domestic auto industry - unsustainable UAW contracts, CAFE standards - are just the beginning of what the new regime wants to impose on the (formerly) Big Three.  The editorial page of today’s WSJ features a required-reading alarm bell entitled “The Environmental Motor Company.”

Let’s continue to extend the benefit of the doubt where we can as much as we can, but let’s also plainly state things that become clear.  One is the fact that the new administration is going to distort the notion of private ownership of business, base policy on a sham scientific concept (climate change), and seize more of citizens’ assets to pay for it.  This, at a time when the economy is screaming for people to be able to keep more of what they are earning.

The American public voted for this to transpire.  That may be the most disorientingly irrational aspect of our current juncture.  These are not times to expect encouragement for proceeding in a sane and rigorously reasoned way.  The kudos in post-modern America go to those who conduct their affairs in the opposite manner.

Sure on the surface, it looks like his forthright assertion that his cap-and-trade scheme’s effects of “skyrocketing prices” for coal-engendered energy and the bankrupting of the coal industry is all about his principled fealty to pristine air.  Don’t kid yourself.  It’s all about a Stalinist thug’s lust for absolute power.

This Freedom-Hater no-drilling-where-the-oil-actually-is sham coming out of the House is going to get the Big V from W.  Ace of Spades also includes the phone number of the Republican Senatorial Committee, so you can let the Gang of 20 know what you think of this outbreak of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome in that chamber.

Heck, here’s the phone number right here:  (202) 675-6000.

I’m about to make my call.  If these idiots succeed with their “compromise,” the GOP will have given away its absolutely best domestic issue in this campaign-season home stretch.

As we always say here at BN, “reaching across the aisle” is another way of saying “roll over on your back, expose your underbelly and invite the Freedom Haters to claw out your entrails.”

 I was going to link to just the Kimberly Strassel WSJ piece about this, but America’s Anchorman quotes that liberally (how’s that for taking a fine word back?) and adds some further perspective demonstrating how outrageous this is.

Here’s why “reaching across the aisle” to “compromise” and “break the stalemate” and “get things done” is always, in every instance, a horrible idea:  The Freedom-Haters get their agenda completely and you get nothing but acquiescence to it.  The end result is that the American people have to experience a further diminishing of their individual well-being and their country’s greatness.

I wasn’t surprised to see Lindsey Graham on board with this.  I think he caught RGS in his mother’s uterus.  But Saxby Chambliss?  I thought he loved freedom, prosperity and common sense.

These idiots run a very big risk of undercutting the brave stand the House GOP members are taking.

UPDATE: Ted Nugent, in a column in Human Events, weighs in with characteristic clarity and ferocity.

Stop the ACLU has a pretty nice post on the dust-up over The Marxist From Chicago’s attempt to make it look like some kind of negative thing that McCain has received lots of money from oil-company employees - and the subsequent revelation that TMFC has taken more such money than McCain has.

It is indeed a valid point to ask what business it is of anybody’s who any politically involved American citizen’s employer is, but I’d like to assert a much larger point here.

Oil is wonderful.  It makes our lives safe, fair, convenient and fun.  It makes it possible to act on noblehuman impulses like compassion and community in ways unavailable to previous generations.  God bless oil companies.  God blesstheir profits, not only in terms of raw numbers, but their profits margins as well.  May they increase to thirty percent, as soon as possible.

While we’re at it, God bless pharmaceutical companies.  May their profits maximize sothat they may conduct moreof their wonderful research into future generations of life-saving products.

Let’s get on a roll here.  God bless the fast-food industry.  God bless trans-fats, cattle farming, marketing, assembly-line training and the packaging industry.  All I ask of the major burger chains is that they offer onion rings, as my favorite bars do.

Let’s right here, right now, all lovers of freedom and dignity resolve to overtly celebrate the miraculous contributions of the consumer-sector titans who have made our lives safe, fair, convientient, interesting and tasty beyondanything our predecessors could have imagined.

House Republicans stayed even after the lights were shut down for vacation time to debate ways to get some oil-price relief (that is, DRILL).  San Fran Nan says “I run this House and I won’t stand for you upstarts trying to subvert my will!”

The towering Mike Pence from my own district calls it a great moment.

Meanwhile, The Marxist From Chicago wants to play Santa Claus, with funding from a “windfall profits tax” on ‘Big Oil.”

This fool must not be let anywhere near the Oval Office.

He Who Is Not Only A Marxist But A Vulgar Victim-Monger, A Solipcist, And A Fool To Boot trots out the race card again.  It’s the quintessence of the Freedom-Hater rule of polemical engagement: preemptively strike those who point out your very real blightedness on both a policy and personal level by telling your brainwashed minions that your opponents are trying to scare them by tapping into some kind of core bigotry.

Modern Conservatism has a marvelous refutation of this dog vomit.

This man must not become president.

UPDATE: And you may have heard about his exhoration to the masses to keep their car tires properly inflated as a better energy plan than drilling for oil.  Does this guy have a grand vision of America’s future or what?

He must not become president.

The mixed bag that is our current juncture is very mixed indeed.  Just as Iraq is looking like a stable, unified country ready to take its place as a player in its region and in the struggle against jihadism, the danger from its neighbor to the east, Iran, looks like it’s reaching critical mass.  Domestically, productivity and employment remain high, while bank failures blemish the landscape and inflation, a negligible factor for years, has come roaring back.

America is screaming for clarity and leadership.  Or maybe the problem is that it’s not screaming for clarity and leadership,at least en masse in sufficient numbers.  There is nothing plaguing us that adherence to the time-honored principles that have paved our way out of every similar past situation wouldn’t cure.

You do see little glimpses of it here and there.  Thank God W finally said that we need to drill for oil.  If the man who hopes to succeed him as a GOP president can find a graceful way to put his previous pristine-ANWR statements behind him (I guess I am calling for McCain to flip-flop, which isn’t per se a bad thing, if your previous position was stupid) and point out the stark difference between the corporation-bashing of the Freedom-Haters and the overwhelming obvious good sense of turning loose oil companies anywhere it seems likely that there’s oil, he and the congressional candidates of his pary may have a chance.

There are hopeful signs that the public is likewise beginning to see that the core of the banking and mortgage mess is likewise fairly simple: easy credit and shaky responsibility met head-on and shareholders, depositors and taxpayers were left holding the bag.  A little of that is sufficient to make the vast majority of timely bill-payers say, “Now hold on, here.  Why am I taking a whuppin’ for someone else’s failure to live up to his obligations?”

What I do not understand is this sudden overture the W administration is making to Iran.  Sending Under-Secretary of State William Burns to meet with his theocratic counterpart?  How does that jibe with the recent stories about W giving Israel an “amber light” to take care of business regarding a nuke program?  It may be that there is some highly sensitive factor at play here, some consideration that must be kept tightly under wraps for the time being, but I feel that W owes the American people at least some kind of statement along the lines of “I know this looks like an abrupt turnabout, but if it leads to the favorable changes we anticipate, I will explain it thoroughly in due course.”

Yes, it’s a complicated world.  That’s all the more reason to have a consistent set of bedrock principles that guide us as we encounter all manner of wacky twists and turns and some real threats.  In a sense, it’s like having a chart in front of you when you’re playing music.  If you get lost in the tune, you can’t blame the piece of paper on the stand.

Larry Kudlow interviews Alaska governor Sarah Palin.  This is the stuff that can win elections.  This is the stuff that can rescue America and Western civilization.

On the day the W says outright - finally - that we need to drill in ANWR, what do the House Freedom-Haters call for?

Nationalizing the country’s oil refineries.

We’re the frogs, and the water’s just about at full boil.

The Stalinist windfall-profits legislation gets voted down.  For now.  You can be sure this kind of thing will resurface soon if you don’t carry passion for America’s foundational principles into the voting booth with you in November.

The jack-booted totalitarians in charge of the U.S. Senate aren’t even waiting for the Marxist From Chicago to take office.  They’re pushing a bill right now - as in as I type this - on the floor of their utterly degraded chamber - to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies.  Of course, those companies can avoid the tax if they “invest” the “extra” profit in alternative energies.

Get a clue, America, before we’re all hauled off to the re-education camps.

The Chicago Marxist reiterates his resolve to slap oil companies with a “windfall profits tax.”

Here’s the thing about Freedom-Hating totalitarians like Obama (you read me right; note the relish implicit in his phrase “I’ll make them pay . . . “):  their proposals come across as stupid, of course, but they themselves are not stupid.   They just count on voters being stupid enough to swallow this stuff about “using the tax money to help working families reduce their costs.”  They know oil companies will pass the costs along to consumers as yet higher prices, which leaves consumers as strapped as they are now. And there won’t be one more drop of oil than there is now.  But the Marxists will have power, and that’s all that matters to them.

He must be stopped. 

Herman Cain on the fate of Senate Bill 2958.  And kudos to Mary Landrieu for having the courage to beak ranks with her Freedom-Hater party on this one.

One of the five finest opinion writers on the planet today gives us the last word on Shultz, Durbin et al.

(Who are the other four?  What a delicious discussion-thread topic.)

Michelle Malkin has the most comprehensive roundup of the sensible perspective on the continuing gas-price spike. 

 Once again, the GOP prez candidate shuts the blinds against the light beams of common sense trying against all odds to stream in. 

Think about it. 

 He’s chiming in with the preening Stalinists who have a majority in Congress and are going to run it outright come January.  A few lone legislators that no one gives a diddly about are all that’s left in the struggle to hold utter madness at bay.

Send this to every smart person you know, even if they’re still willfully wallowing in stupidity because they think it’s somehow clever.

It’s very late in the day, people.  Have a good time in your personal lives.  Have a festive summer.  We’re all going to be doing some big-time adjusting to a very unfamiliar way of operating all too soon.

He Who Definitely Doesn’t Walk On Water in Oregon, pronouncing on Iran and Venezuela and environmental leadership.

Oh, and on Good Morning America, he tries to  delare his wife untouchable.

The Dems say no to domestic drilling.

Blogging has been light the past few days.  That’s because life is good, professionally speaking.  I’ve knocked out a couple of things for Indie-music.com’s May issue - a review of a lackluster CD, but also a very cool interview to which I’ll link when it comes out.  Also doing some copywriting for a PR / marketing guy I’ve worked for over the years.  I also had to do next Sunday’s Republic column (on why nuclear proliferation isn’t a bigger issue this political season).  I’ve also been lining up musical associates for several upcoming gigs.  Also grading papers and getting ready to administer tonight’s final exam.

I have been paying attention to the world around me, though.  It’s wacky out there, ain’t it?

Were you like me when you heard about Miley Cyrus’s Vanity Fair photo shoot?  I immediately thought, “Oh, no, our sordid, rotten culture nabs another Disney kid.”

I doubt if Obama’s denunciation of Rev. Wright yesterday ends the matter.  That would depend on the Trash Talker from Trinity not shooting his mouth off any more.  How likely is that?  Plus, He Who definitely Doesn’t Walk On Water sounded, shall we say, less than resolute when he said, “I mean it.”  Not the man he met twenty years ago?  Oh, please.  And if he’s that poor a judge of character, we sure as hell don’t want him sitting down one-on-one with Kim, Ahmadinejad and Chavez.

Iran looks to be a front-burner issue.  There’s yet another warning-shot-to-a-speedboat incident in the Persian Gulf, another American aircraft carrier sailing into that body of water, more proof of Iranian weapons and Iran-trained bad guys turning up in Iraq, and, of course, Dennis Ross’s warning to that Toronto congregation that the West has less than a year to prevent Iran from having nukes.

Gas prices won’t be coming down any time soon, for two main reasons: Mideast tensions and Congress’s refusal to allow drilling in places like ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmentalists aren’t just dweebs; they’re agents of misery.  Riot-causing food shortages are menacing the entire world, in no small part because of the diversion of perfectly edible grain into biofuel production.

Zimbabwe’s oppostion is bravely trying to see that political justice and national stability prevail.  Robert Mugabe is showing us how evil dictators operate when they have no more ability to dress up their motives as anything civilized, like “the national interest.”

As I say, it’s wacky out there, ain’t it?

Once again, the House Energy Committee has dragged executives of Shell, Chevron, BP American, Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips before it, insisting that they genuflect, repent and generally puke all over themselves because gasoline prices are high. 

This is a request and not a requirement that these businessmen go, correct?  Couldn’t they just tell Ed Markey and his politburo of preening, demagoguing socialists to just go to hell?

And the Freedom Haters not only browbeat the oil guys about prices, but asked them why their companies aren’t investing mre in alternative fuels research.

Here’s why, you stool samples: there’s no profit in it.  Our civilization runs on oil.  Oil makes possible our advanced, convient, comfortable, secure way of life.

If ever any of BN’s detractors needed a simple example of why the rhetoric occasionally gets a bit purple around here, it’s this kind of thing.  There’s no other term for it but Freedom-Hatred.