Pundette Ponders Perry Problem

With Texas Governor Rick Perry entering the presidential race, we all knew the 'serious thinkers' of the main stream media would soon set about their predictable 'analysis' of whether or not Perry had the smarts to get the job done. Their conclusion was rather doubtful, which drew a bit of blow back from Michelle Malkin and fellow right thinking bloggers.

I loved the take Jill took over at Pundit and Pundette:

Which brings us to that other Perry resume item, Governor of Texas. Who's smarter, the guy who has effectively run one of the US's largest states for ten years (though he's "not a thinker"), or the credentialed empty suit who is running the US economy over a cliff?

I'll stick with the "dumb" guy.

Sounds good to me. Read the whole thing.

Colin Powell's Head Explodes ... and no one cares.

Colin Powell may be a bright enough fellow, but straight and reliable? Not so much. Certainly not as classy as many of those he worked with in government. I have read much of John Bolton's book, and his enthusiasm for Powell is guarded to say the least. Powell has been no friend to those from the republican party that supported his career. An opportunist more than a loyalist. The point of discussion today falls upon former Vice President Richard Cheney's new book, In My Time, to which Mr. Powell took exception:

Mr. Cheney may forget that I'm the one who said to President Bush if you break it, you own it. And you've got to understand that if we have to go to war in Iraq, we've got to be prepared for the whole war, not just the first phase. . . and he also says that, you know that I was not supportive of the President's position. Well, who went to the United Nations and regrettably with a lot of false information? It was me. It wasn't Mr. Cheney.

Yeah..and? You went up there with the best information you had available. You believed that Saddam Hussein had a WMD program, that he had made weapons, that he had used those weapons, and that he was likely to do so again in the future. All of that is true, Mr. Powell. Whether large stock piles of those weapons were found on hand or not is irrelevant. It is only played to be significant by those that are seeking political gain out of a rather empty point. Such protestations does little good for the Kurds who died from poison gas, and for the many thousands who may have died had Saddam used those weapons again.

On the Valerie Plame leak:

Then he goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair, and tries to lay it all off on Mr. Rich Armitage in the State Department and me. . . if the White House and the operatives in the White House and Mister Cheney's staff and elsewhere in the White House had been as forthcoming with the FBI as Mr. Armitage was, this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached.

Powell says “White House operatives,” especially those “on Mr. Cheney’s staff,” did not fully cooperate in the FBI’s investigation and were not “forthcoming.”

This is where Colin Powell's stock hits bottom as far as I'm concerned. Robert Novak remained silent throughout the entire Pat Fitzgerald Valerie Plame leak investigative hullapaloozaa, as he was ordered to do by Mr. Fitzgerald. This "crime" was played by Joe Wilson (and Sean Penn in the Hollywood replay of non-historical events) as a White House effort to injure Wilson and punish him for "telling the truth to power." In reality, Wilson lied when he claimed Iraq had made no effort to obtain yellow cake uranium from Nigeria. He lied again when he claimed the White House was attempting to punish him. The White House had nothing to do with naming his wife as the person that recommended old Joe for the job. The name of Valerie Plame was given to Novak through Richard Armitage from the Colin Powell led Department of State.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003, touching off a federal investigation, two sources familiar with Armitage's role tell CNN.

Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists.

Later, when Armitage claimed the leak was an innocent mistake, Novak clarified that was not the case:

An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of his being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration's war policy, and had long opposed military intervention in Iraq.

Further, Novak went on to say:

For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003.

Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, went to jail because his recollection of a minor event (speaking with a reporter) from six months earlier was slightly different from one deposition to the next, thus he "misled" the investigation... a Federal offense.

The whole thing was politically motivated and had nothing to do with the carriage of justice. Powell and Armitage let it play out, to the ruin of an essentially innocent man. Colin Powell... what a clown.

Steyn Boldly Entertains Muddled Thinking at BBC Newsnight

Speaking of BBC newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, Jill over at Pundit and Pundette wonders:

"I'm not sure whether to file that under 'deliberately obtuse' or 'invincibly ignorant.'"

I'm going for deliberately obtuse.

Never fear though, it doesn't throw our hero off.

- 'Sherlock' Open Thread

Twenty-two

Really?

Wisconsisn's Governor Scott Walker visited a local Catholic grade school Friday to read to children. In response, someone vandalized the school in the early morning hours by supergluing the doors and the parking gate shut. Protesters then crowded the street outside the Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood for the Governor's visit.

"Some of these folks super glued our front doors at the prep school," said Brother Bob Smith, OFM, the president of Messmer Catholic Schools, about the grade school. One protester said " 'Get ready for a riot,' because they were going to disrupt the visit."

Liberals and the Union usual suspects just exercising their right to free speech. God love 'em.

Brother Smith said that, in his opinion, the Republican governor's visit to read to students there on Friday was not about political overtones connected to protests that have been happening all year in the state regarding the rollback of collective bargaining rights for many public workers.

Reasonable.

"People ought to start acting like adults. You've got little kids who have no clue what you're even talking about, and you make something political when it isn't, that's just flat-out wrong."

I agree with the good brother.

I'm not happy with President Obama and the many things he has done to this country. I know I'm not alone in that opinion, but would any one of us do something like this if he came to visit one of our local grade schools?

Didn't think so.

Stace Puts the East Coast Earthquake Into Perspective

With his usual shoe leather tenacity, Robert Stacy McCain has brought the East Coast earthquake into perspective:

That Reagan McCain is tough to take.

As dark as these days sometimes seem, that Other McCain guy can really crack me up! We've got to go over there and hit the tip jar! Says McCain:

"It's for the children!"

Sad. This is just so sad...

If Jim Carey were the appropriate age, he would marry Emma Stone, and they would have chubby freckled face kids, go camping, tell ghost stories by the fire, and sex .... .... ... Jim can't even say how amazing that would be, but with a roll of his eyes and a boyish smirk, he thinks Emma will be able to get an idea of what kind of fun that might be. At least Jim is hoping it conveys interest in a playful and non-threatening way. Yeah, the world would pretty much be his oyster, er, her oyster, her oyster, if only he were the "appropriate" age.

Yep, that's a sad one all right. Jimmy almost gets a little misty eyed thinking of his cruel fate. Oh, and by the way, Jim has done a careful search, and all he can find in terms of signs of aging are a few lines on his face, some gray in his beard, and a longer time required for him to pee (in case, Emma, you really wanted to know).

Well, there are a few more signs, the most obvious being that the women you find yourself attracted to keep getting younger, and your pitch seems more and more bizarre and inappropriate. Can you imagine, Jim, a twenty-five year old guy making a pitch for Emma Stone by video like this? How about if you were twenty-five, would you try a video pitch about freckle faced children and roasting marsh-mellows by the fire? No, huh? Well, take that as a clue. You ain't twenty-five.

Look, Jim, you don't know this girl. Despite leaving the cut-off point vague and possibly open to correction, you're right in the first place, you are not the appropriate age for this young girl, and if you had any real care for her you would hope that she would work those issues out in her own good time, and with someone other than you.

Oh and Jim, Emma Stone will be getting older with each passing day as well. She's not always going to look so fresh and innocent. She will look more mature, and hopefully, she will be. Can we say the same for you? If not, then what? Another video play for some other twenty year old? Please. Leave that crap to Bill Maher. It's pathetic.

Update

"I was just joking!"

"People often ask me if i'm being funny or serious. The answer is 'YES'"

We know that. Hardee har.

Look Jim, to summarize for you, you're really not that good of an actor, Bill Maher trolling down at the Playboy mansion is pathetic, and your video offering is creepy no matter how you go about looking at it, because as we all know, for something to be funny, there has to be a bit of truth behind it.

What, Me Worry?

Alfred E. Neuman award nominee.

The LA Times is reporting that the national debt under Barrack Obama has increased at a rate that astonishes, placing into question the nation's future:

When Barack Obama took the oath of office twice on Jan. 20, 2009, CBS' amazing number cruncher Mark Knoller reports, the national debt was $10,626,000,000,000.

That means the debt that our federal government owes a whole lot of somebodies including China has increased $4,247,000,000,000 in just 945 days. That's the fastest increase under any president ever

The LA Times is reporting this?

Now, how much is a trillion?

One trillion seconds ago much of North America was still covered by ice sheets hundreds of feet thick.

Wow.

$500,000 Federal Grant Yields 1.72 Jobs

Plenty of trees.  No shovels.

What?! Oh yeah.

Growing jobs. Growing our economy.

"A federal stimulus grant of nearly $500,000 to grow trees and stimulate the economy in Nevada yielded a whopping 1.72 jobs.."

Nice.

Right Between the Eyes

Don't start with April Gavaza. 'Norwegian Wood' on a summer reading list? Please. Too racey? No. Too boring! Way too boring.

The New Jersey Superintendent of schools weighs in:

"The board of education ultimately approved the list. They read the books. They didn’t feel it was inappropriate based on the language that’s used, common language used on the street.” The superintendent said students have seen more graphic things on television..."

Now April:

Okay, so let me get this straight: It’s okay to assign books that include graphic depictions of orgies, sexual abuse (what else would you call sex between a 31 year old and a 13 year old?) and the glorification of meth because the teachers think the language has street cred or that kids see worse things on tv? That is pretty faulty logic. Must suck to be that stupid.

Bam.

She's not much for pulling punches, is she? I gotta tell ya, I like that. Go read the whole thing, hang out a while there, maybe venture into the deep end of the pool, wander back and drop a few bills in the tip jar.

She's great.

Perry Picking Up Steam on Leftoid Insanity Meter

Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry shot way up in the standings of potentially threatening GOP candidates based on recent results from the Logarithmic Leftoid Insanity Meter. The polling instrument now made famous by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is nearly infallible in detecting the republican candidate most feared by the left. Case in point was Perry's recent appearance in Portsmouth New Hampshire, where beside the ranting and sign waving twits the left usually sends down to disrupt a simple meet and greet event, they threw children at the governor in an attempt embarrass him.

More than a dozen protesters, many of them mobilized by the New Hampshire Alliance for Retired Americans, welcomed Mr. Perry with signs — “My financial security is not a Ponzi scheme”

What a bunch of clowns. First off, Social Security is your financial plan for the future? Wow. Well pal, the sad truth is, if any company were operating an investment scheme that ran the way that Social Security is run, the people in charge would be thrown in jail. Not a ponzi scheme? It's the mother of all ponzi schemes! No one, not billionaire investment scammer Bernie Madoff, no one, has riped off more people than the Federal government has in their ponzi scheme Social Security program. And the killer punch, as always in ponzi schemes, will fall on the last ones in. Our kids.

Kristin Bunce, 43, helped ease her 9-year-old son, Sam Beane, into Mr. Perry’s path. Sam, wide-eyed and looking up at the governor, asked Mr. Perry a question. The governor crouched down so he was just inches from Sam’s face, and in a soft, calm voice began to answer. “How old do I think the earth is?” Mr. Perry said. “You know what? I don’t have any idea. I know it’s pretty old, so it goes back a long, long way. I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is.”

Good answer. Apparently Ms. Bunce wasn't satisfied, and pressed Sam to keep after the governor.

Ms. Bunce urged Sam to ask the governor about his views on evolution, and Mr. Perry began to answer her question, still talking to Sam. “And here your mom was asking about evolution, and you know, it’s a theory that’s out there and it’s got some gaps in it,” Mr. Perry continued. “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools. I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

Damn straight.

“I asked him how old he thought the earth was,” said Sam, a rising fourth grader, recounting the exchange. “He said he didn’t know.” Ms. Bunce expressed frustration that Mr. Perry believed in teaching creationism, a theory that is not accepted by mainstream scientists. “Evolution, I think, is correct,” Sam said, looking up at his mother.

Is that right, Mom? No, buddy. First off, what difference will it ever make how old the earth is? If he said it was a million years old, or a billion years old, how will that effect your life? No effect whatsoever. So ask yourself this son, why in the world would your mom keep whispering in your ear to ask the governor that question? And while you're at it, ask yourself what kind of a man will you grow up to be if you learn to simply let people use you for their own ends, even your mother? Does she pull that with your dad? Perhaps you should ask the governor for some advice on that one. He's the kinda man that could set you straight.

State Representative Robin Read, a Democrat who sits on the New Hampshire’s Science, Technology and Energy Committee, asked Mr. Perry if he thought global warming was a man-made phenomenon.

“No, I don’t,” the governor replied. “I think the record is still out on whether global warming is man-made or not. I’m a skeptic.”

As Mr. Perry pressed on, his wife thanked Mr. Read for coming out, but Mr. Read later said he was disturbed by the governor’s response.

“To be a global warming skeptic in this day and age is stunning in its ignorance,” Mr. Read said.

What a dunce. Just ignoring for a moment the outrageously abusive distortion of the facts and the outcome pre-determined research work that has become the legacy of the AGW proponents, we are living in a nation that is in serious trouble. Huge financial uncertainty, a government of runaway spending, disastrous inflation looming around the corner, enemies abroad that are ever more threatening to our way of life, and the most important thing on the mind of this ass-clown democrat house member is Perry's opinion on Global Warming? Who the hell cares?! It doesn't matter a twit.

A few tables over, a man had sidled up to Mr. Perry with a solution to the country’s economic troubles. “I know what’s wrong with our economy,” the man said. “We’re looking up the wrong end of the horse!”

A grin spread across Mr. Perry’s face as he turned and, without saying a word, headed for the door. A few moments later, he was still chuckling quietly to himself.

“Man, that’s funny,” he said.

I like this guy, Rick Perry...

.. and the governor is rocketing off the charts!

Brothers At War

Growing up, Jake Rademacher had dreams of going to West Point and serving in the military. Unable to gain an appointment, his life followed a different direction. Two years later it was rough and tumble Isaac that gained an appointment to West Point. Now a captain, he has gone on these past ten years to serve in four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile baby brother Joe Rademacher enlisted in the army. A veteran of the battles in and around Fallujah, he has become a graduate of Ranger school, Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leaders Course and the US Army Sniper School. His last posting he served performing long range reconnasiance duties. The time in the military and service in Iraq created a gulf between Jake and his two younger brothers. In 2005 he went on a mission to produce a film that would help people understand the lives and world that his brothers live in. He sought to understand for himself as well. Brothers at War is that movie.

It is Joe that is the brother that's a little scary. The dark, brooding loner who suffered the loss of his older brother here stateside, then his brothers in arms over seas. It is the hardness and distance in Joe that is so difficult for Jake to get a grip on. Jake goes off to try to understand the world his brothers live in, but it isn't until Jake's second trip that he fully invests himself into living the life of a U.S. servicemen. Jake goes from newbie unfamiliar with how life is lived and afraid of every encounter, to a man who is largely silent about the things he has done and seen.

In the last scene young Joe is shipping off for his third deployment. Jake stands by to see him off, and reaching out to Jake, Joe gives him a brotherly hug, which Jake accepts. As he begins to break off, Joe is still holding on, which takes Jake aback a little, and it is there that you realize that Jake has crossed the bridge and come to share in the world of Isaac and Joe. Jake states "I don't know if I earned the right to sit at the table with Joe, but I have come to understand him better." As a soldier, no, perhaps not, but as a man, as a brother, the answer for Jake is 'Yes.'

It was an excellent show. Hats off to Jake Rademacher, executive producer Gary Sinise, Isaac Radaemacher, Joe Rademacher and all their family.

Steyn Steyn Steyn

Mark Steyn comments in his latest piece on how out of place and imperial the current resident of the White House appears to be:

"If Bill Clinton wants to make the increasingly and revoltingly unrepublican lifestyle of the American president a campaign issue, Gov. Perry should call his bluff. If I understand correctly the justification advanced by spokesgropers for the Transportation Security Administration, the reason they poke around the genitalia of 3-year-old girls and make wheelchair-bound nonagenarians in the final stages of multiple sclerosis remove their diapers in public is that, by doing so, they have made commercial air travel the most secure environment in the United States. In that case, why can't the president fly commercial?"

Not likely. Not when the Obama's can't even get along with just one jet, but need to take two separate presidential jets to get themselves over to Martha's Vineyard.

Also get over to April's and check the great 1980 RNC convention Ronald Reagan speech that Darrell linked to. That will cheer and inspire you!

And don't forget to catch Mark Steyn live on the radio Monday morning as he subs for the vacationing Rush Limbaugh!

Obamarama

On the road again! Barack's magical mystery tour has hit the highway, first stop... Iowa. And no, it was not a Field of Dreams moment where Barry suddenly heard a voice out in an Iowa cornfield. More like he was pitching his usual knuckle balls and killing worms with his delivery.

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."

What the...?! A run of bad luck?!! Oh yeah, Obama had it all going his way, and then, whoopsie, things went a little caca. But he doesn't cite the things that you or I or any reasonable thinking person would ascribe as impactful on the American economy. Nope, it was that darn tsunami in Japan, some trouble in the Middle East and then that crazy European debt crisis. We'd just be going like gang busters if it weren't for the hand of fate. Sheesh.

"All those things have been headwinds for our economy," Obama said. "Now, those are things that we can't completely control. The question is, how do we manage these challenging times and do the right things when it comes to those things that we can control?"

Oh, well simple. Step one would be get your god damn boot off our necks. Stop threatening to raise taxes, quit spending everything in sight, stop bullying businesses like BP and Boeing, and quit being such a jerk.

"The problem," Obama continued, "is that we've got the kind of partisan brinksmanship that is willing to put party ahead of country, that is more interested in seeing their political opponents lose than seeing the country win. Nowhere was that more evident than in this recent debt ceiling debacle."

Yeah, and the first name on the list of offenders is Barack Hussein Obama. Good grief, can this huckster actually believe he can get away with this nonsense? It's hard to imagine, but he keeps saying it.

This is a little closer look at what he's really trying to drive over the country:

All just part of another trip the White House claims is non-political. Yes, you see, the President's men explain the armoured bus tour as part of the president's official duties to discuss economic issues with the public.

Right.

With a hat tip to Jill over at Pundit and Pundette.

'Barbershop' Open Thread

  What did you think?

Jonas on Keynes

George Jonas views the political interest in economics with his usual keen perspective:

"A Marxist-trained scholar I knew encountered Keynes for the first time when he came to Canada in the mid-1950s. He knew of the British economist, of course, just as he knew of the Austrian school of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, but he never studied them. For Marxists, they were anathema. He remained unimpressed by von Mises and Hayek, but Keynes transported him in ecstasy. "Imagine the elegant simplicity," he told me. "Lord Keynes discovered that if we deny ourselves things we live poorly, and if we deny ourselves nothing, we live well."

"Are you sure that's all there is to it?" I asked.

"Yes, yes."

Really? How exactly does that work out?

Find out by reading the whole thing.

Klavan Nails the Culture

With a major hat tip to Smitty over at The Other McCain.

'Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War' Robert Coram

John Boyd never made General in the air force. In fact, he never became an 'ace' through any of our nation's conflicts. Yet he was one of America's finest fighter pilots, and his long tenure tussling, teaching and 'hosing' America's top young pilots at the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base trained the nation's top aviators that flew and fought in the age of the fighter jet. His thoughts about military strategy not only codified the complex world of air to air combat, but led to the structural designs of America's best fighter aircraft. Both the F-15 and F-16 fighters were heavily influenced by Boyd, and they will have a longevity extending from their introduction in the early 1970s through their retirement scheduled for 2028. That will be an astonishing fifty-five years, and is markedly longer then their contemporaries, the Air Force's F-111 and the Navy's F-14. He ultimately brought his theories on perception, time pressure, ambiguity and confusion to a broad understanding of the nature of conflict. Though all of his innovative thoughts were rebuffed by the air force and only brought to the fore through tireless promotion, the insights that he brought to combat ended up having the most profound influence on the most unlikely of services, the US Marine Corps. The result was the lightening campaign witnessed in the first gulf war. A conflict that was predicted to cost the Untied States tens of thousands of lives was completed after suffering only 147 fatalities, the bulk of which were suffered in a single scud missile strike.

The story of his life and struggles with the bureaucracy that is the air force and the Pentagon command structure teaches a number of great truths about life. Robert Coram presents a well written, fast paced and intriguing look into this maverick genius. I highly recommend it.

'One' Is The Loneliest Number

Many of us had thought we had heard the last of AL Gore, whose troubles releasing his inner chakra last winter turned out to be a harbinger of further loneliness for the Big Mouth Bass of the Big Theory. It seems the baloney thrower is just now realizing we aren't buying what he's still selling. With all his green energy carbon trade-off investments, it must be costing him a pretty penny. Well, he continues to press forward, advancing the intellectual argument on the dangers of CO2 in his typical fashion:

"'Man-made CO2 doesn’t trap heat. It may be volcanoes.' Bulls**t!

'It may be sun spots.' Bulls**t!

'It's not getting warmer.' Bulls**t!."

All right then... though as a man who enjoys a good discussion, I must point out that simply repeating "Bullshit!" over and over again doesn't make for a compelling argument.

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programing...

Liberal British Society Unravels "Unexpectedly"?

Smiling British youths show their outrage over...  racial issues?

The non-working British wards of the State have taken it upon themselves to break into shops, steal, burn them to the ground, rob people, burn up cars, throw things at the police, and generally have a rowdy good time.

And despite all this, all that comes to mind for Katharine Birbalsingh is the same, tired, misplaced themes of her youth.

"These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?"

Race? The vast majority of these twerps don't have any idea what she's talking about.

Good grief.

Update
August 13th

Mark Steyn has weighed in:

"For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ's Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population."

Big Government means small citizens: it corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically.

Exactly.

Free Speech Mafia

The terrible two-some: free speech proponent Ezra Levant interviews fellow freedom fighter Mark Steyn in this excellent interview:

With a hat tip to blog fav Jill over at Pundit and Pundette.

Check out Jill's other posts as well. She's hosing 'em on the debt deal fiasco.

'The Big Country' Open Thread

   What did you think?

Chi-Coms Comprehend Economic Realities, Congressional Debt Dealers Do Not

Concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden resulted in Standard & Poor's cutting the U.S. long-term credit rating from top-tier AAA by a notch to AA-plus on Friday. Today China bluntly criticized the United States over the realities of economics which US Congressional debt dealers have to this point ignored:

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.

After a week which saw $2.5 trillion wiped off global markets, the move deepened investors' concerns of an impending recession in the United States and over the euro zone crisis.

Holy cripes, 2.5 trillion! The piece scorned the United States for its "debt addiction" and "short sighted" political wrangling. The sad truth is they are exactly right, and the impact of our failure to address our spending problems are just now starting to appear.

"China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets," it said.

It urged the United States to cut military and social welfare expenditure. Meanwhile, the class clown was holding forth with his typical political double speak:

In Washington, President Barack Obama urged lawmakers on Saturday to set aside partisan politics after the debt battle, saying they must work to put the United States' fiscal house in order and refocus on stimulating its stagnant economy.

Ahfff, it's so irritating to listen to this guy. Within two short years he has brought us to the brink. And now Mr. Spendepalooza wants us to get our fiscal house in order?

S&P blamed the downgrade in part on the political gridlock in Washington, saying politics was preventing the United States from addressing its deficit and debt problems.

Well, that is certainly true from the Democrat side, and as far as GOP leaders were willing to deal with the Dems on the Dems terms, it was true of the Republicans as well.

"Both parties are going to have to work together on a larger plan to get our nation's finances in order. In the long term, the health of our economy depends on it...in the short term, our urgent mission has to be getting this economy growing faster and creating jobs."

You're a little late there, Barry. Not that you mean anything you're saying.

Dow Jones Takes Huge Hit

The laws of economics apparently don't give a fig about "the deal" the elite's worked out in Washingtown.

That humongous hard-fought debt ceiling deal that was supposed to settle things down in D.C. financially and politically seems to be doing precisely the opposite there and now around the world. And all within 48 hours.

Europe isn't buying the deal.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged almost 513 points today, erasing all of its gains this year, as fears grew of yet another recession before most people believed the first one was over. This White House returned to SOP immediately anyway.

What would that be?

You guessed it: back to partying and campaigning.

Said Texas Representative Ron Paul

"You don’t get out of the problem of having too much debt by allowing Congress to spend a lot more."

No, Ron, I guess you don't.

So... What Happened?

New Government has come our way, and it seems to be comprised of secret meetings and back door deals. The time for open and public debate on the floor of the House and the floor of the Senate and the resultant public awareness of her statesmen's positions have been swept by the wayside, and in its place we have a fumbling, foddling president, who purposely waits to the last minute to address issues, then tries to have them worked out in secret meetings.

Who said what? We don't know. We have been kept from knowing. It is the new workings of government gone amuck, and I for one am sick of it. What did they agree to? What does it mean to you and me?

By the time we can find out, it will be too late.

Big Deal

Vice President Joe Biden, the lip flapping wonder of presidential politics, uttered another hyperbolus inanity following the debt deal.

Biden lashed out at tea party Republicans Monday who refused to toe the line of Republican party leadership and would not budge despite intense arm twisting.

They “acted like terrorists” declared Biden.

It was the same carping that Biden had just been hearing at a closed door Democrat caucus meeting. Apparently Joe was parroting Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania:

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Are you brain dead, Doyle? We are in hawk 14.5 trillion dollars, with 1.65 trillion being added to the national debt in this year alone. And for what? It's all government give aways in one entitlement program or another, payoffs and sweat heart deals to donors and government directed expenditure programs. Should it not be difficult for you to spend our money?

Tell you what, Doyle, give me access to your finances so that I can spend it as I see fit for a more just and fair America. What, you don't want me spending your money without having any say so? You want to make that difficult for me?

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room. Earlier, Biden had told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals. Guns to their heads, Joe? Wouldn't it work better if they were holding the guns to someone else's head?

Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal. Representative Emanuel Cleaver called it a “Satan sandwich,” and his Housemate from Illinois Luis Gutierrez seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

That's what we're trying to do, and I'm sorry to say that this deal doesn't constrain you and your ilk enough.

Biden told Democratic lawmakers that the deal would take away the tea party’s “weapon of mass destruction” — the threat of a default on U.S. debt obligations.

“They have no compunction about blowing up the economy to get what they want,” Doyle told POLITICO after the meeting.

Look around, bozo. The economy already has been blown up.

Unbelievable.