Category Archives: Elections

UPDATED: Republikeynesians Pretend They’re Not Sidelining Paul

Barack Obama, Debt, Democrats, Economy, Elections, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Israel, Republicans, Ron Paul

Megyn Kelly interviewed Ron Paul about the snubbing he has received from the “mainstream media.” “RepubliKeynesians” have been front-and-center in a concerted attempt to ignore Ron Paul’s showing in the 2011 Iowa Straw Poll. One could say that Paul jostled with Mrs. Bachmann for first place, given the 152 votes that separated the two.

Paul sounded strong in the Kelly clip, which has not come online yet. (And he reiterated these Israel-related points, which was gratifying, of course.)

Here is the often dazzlingly brilliant Jon Stewart “savaging the media for treating Paul like he’s the ‘thirteenth floor in a hotel.'” (Via the NYT)

UPDATE (Aug. 17): Jon Stewart is often brilliant, but he is no classical liberal. He’s an economic ignoramus. Classical liberalism is first and foremost about the freedom to make a living. Stewart knows squat about such freedoms.

UPDATE III: Rick Perry: Bush Only Prettier (Or Palin Without the Bra)

Bush, Elections, Republicans

William N. Grigg puts Rick Perry in perspective: “Why doesn’t everybody admit that the figure known as ‘Rick Perry‘ is simply Josh Brolin’s version of George W. Bush?”

Another way I’d describe Perry: Palin without the bra.

I imagine that Perry and Sarah Palin get on well.

UPDATE I: In reply to an unruly fight talking place on my Facebook Wall between neoconservatives and libertarians:

“First of all, Michael Farris, you failed to transcribe my facebook Wall post accurately; it’s ‘Palin without a bra.’ You misquote me, even though my post is above yours, more or less. No wonder you were too slack to look over my Articles and Blog Archives for my GOP ticket proposal. I’ve spilled plenty pixels over the past two years making practical proposals that comport with my principles, but are not way out in libertarian wonderland. Finally, all of you: keep a civil tongue in your head. I’m going to remove rude posts”

UPDATE II: SB: But all you are talking about is style, not substance. What about Perry’s policies? Have you examined the political similarities between Bush and Perry? (Btw, we libertarains cheered Bush when he started out. That was b/c he too waxed fat about the evils of big government and promised a humble foreign policy.) What you say here makes one thing plain: Give him the gift of the gab and a better face than the Ewok Bush, and a Republican estalishmentarian masquerading as a conservative will win you over. Never mind his political proclivities.

UPDATE III (Aug. 16): Mrs. Greenspan to the Rescue! Posted by Christopher Manion, at LRC.COM:

So let me get this straight. NBC news opens with the taxpayer-funded ObamaBust tour. Obama blows off a Tea Party guy who doesn’t like Joe Biden calling him a terrorist, and then unctuously schools Rick Perry for calling Bernanke a potential traitor (but they never mention why. Forbidden word: Inflation).
Apparently, Perry has purloined Ron Paul’s view of the Fed. Good for him. But not for Mrs. Alan Greenspan (a.k.a. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell), who parades an Obama spokesman and establishment Hot Tubber Karl Rove as the voices of reason — how dare anyone endanger the Fed’s “independence,” Mrs. Greenspan wails. (I am not making this up.)

MORE.

UPDATE IV: Tim Pawlenty is a Weasel (Bravo LA Times)

Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Government, IMMIGRATION, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul

Do I really have to debate The Debate? What can I add about the Republican spat in Des Moines, Iowa, that has not been rehashed already?

I’ll set aside my ideological loyalties (which are with Ron Paul), and comment some on style and character. (Readers already know that I’m fuming because, given the status of the written word in news reports, there are no online transcripts. Just YouTube.)

Tim Pawlenty revealed himself to be a weasel. But no one in the media is making a call on character. Pawlenty is terrified of Michele Bachmann, and for good reason. She’s the man he is not. However, his tactics are underhanded.

Via FoxNews:

Pawlenty responded “to Bachmann’s relentless repetition of her claim to leadership in Washington, pointing out that Democrats had rolled up legislative victories for most of her time in Congress and passed multiple bills over her objections, sometimes using her as a foil.”

This Pawlenty argument is plain wrong, maybe even devious; it’s the argument a consummate politico will make. What do I mean? Take Ron Paul. He celebrates victories in the arena of ideas. As he has pointed out, more and more of his rivals are moving in his direction, and adopting the truth where they once dubbed this truth kooky. On the Federal Reserve banking system, for example.

So the fact that Bachmann has not gotten her way with a cowardly Congress says nothing much at all about her “leadership.” After all, most of her Tea Party colleagues in the House voted to raise the debt ceiling for a mess of pottage, a meager cut in the rate of government metastasization.

“If that’s your view of effective leadership with results, please stop, because you’re killing us,” Pawlenty snarled Bachmann.

In other words, what Pawlenty has implied is this: if cleaving to the right ideas doesn’t penetrate the wrong heads, a real leader should “stop” agitating for the truth as he or she sees it. By the Pawlenty logic, Paul ought to have given up ages ago on talking sound money and foreign policy.

Pawlenty stuck out as particularly statist.

More later.

UPDATE I: MY Straw Poll Prediction. The 2011 Iowa Straw Poll: My sense is that R. Paul and M. Bachmann will win out. This win will highlight even more my long-standing contention that, to take the country back, these two have to collaborate.

UPDATE II: VALIDATED. I called the straw poll (above) 36 minutes ago, as the Talkers pontificated on the TV. Isn’t it time to stop reading and listening to television’s political whores, who never call anything as it is? I describe these Big Mouths’ shtick in the post, “Talkers fear Losing Top-Dog Status.”

Not one (as far as I can tell) of the paid pundits on TV predicted that Bachmann and Paul would win. Yet I’ve been saying the same since “September of 2009, when this column had already picked the GOP’s winning ticket: Ron Paul for commander-in-chief; Michele Bachmann as second-in-command.”

But I’m afraid that the voting public is probably right. For a winning ticket, the order of the ticket needs to be reversed. Bachmann is just that talented. It’s not my choice, but it’s reality.

The Ames Straw Poll results:

Bachmann secured 4,823 votes, narrowly besting Texas Rep. Ron Paul who had 4,671 votes. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was chosen on 2,293 ballots, placing him third. … Part country fair and entirely political, the Ames Straw Poll has helped take the pulse of a campaign’s strength since 1979. It’s also the first opportunity for the tens of thousands of voters who weighed in Saturday on which GOP president candidate they support.

UPDATE (Aug 14): Clearly the candidates know very little about immigration policy and the labyrinth of visas the bureaucracy peddles. Most American know nothing about the topic. Herman Cain had a good line about there being a path to American citizenship: legal immigration. Back to Mitt, who complained that here in the US, we qualify PhDs in physics and then send them back “home.” Nonsense. The US has “unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the open-ended O-1 visa program … that is if the US really wanted it.”

Read about the O-1 visa (awarded to my spouse).

Gary Johnson on immigration? He’s just insane.

UPDATE IV: BRAVO LA TIMES. A transcript of the Iowa debate at last. I was looking for the Newt Gingrich segments, because the man did make a few vital points, but of course, reporting being what it is, I could not locate his words verbatim.

“… repeal Dodd-Frank, repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, repeal Obamacare.”

Very good practical points. “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, courtesy of the Republican Party, cost American companies upwards of $1.2 trillion. The capital flight it initiated caused the London Stock Exchange to become the new hub for capital markets. Given America’s habit of forcing its habits on others, SOX struck fear into quite a few Liberal Democratic hearts in the House of Lords. Lord Teverson worried about the ‘increasing danger of regulatory creep from American regulators that threatens [Britain’s] own light-touch approach to financial regulation.’”

Day-Time Tripping Over Triple A

Barack Obama, Business, Debt, Democrats, Economy, Elections, EU, Europe

In a world in which the written word is rapidly ceding to sound and images, good luck with finding the transcripts of President Barack Obama’s latest address. I’ve captured some of BHO’s verbal vapors for you. In responding to market madness, Obama, by the way, has said exactly what Bush or any Republican president would have said in his place—and that goes for mega Chris Christie, the Lovable Great Leader GOP devotee Ann Coulter fantasizes about.

Essentially, BHO believes that the downgrading of the US’s credit rating was a function of the country’s mischievous political shenanigans: the leadership’s wrangling over the debt ceiling, and not the debt itself.

Standard & Poor’s, the money market’s mortician, was reacting to our dysfunctional political system—to gridlock on Capitol Hill—and not to any economic reality.

US credit, says BHO, is still among the safest in the world. How does he know this? The rest of the world—Europe, Asia, etc.—are faring worse than we are. This is the sum-total of CNN and MSNBC’s “crayon level thinking”; the mantra John King USA, Ali Velshi (Egghead), Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews find persuasive.

But from the fact that the world is in bad shape it doesn’t follow that the US is better off.

BHO further galvanized the opinion of wealthy statist Warren Buffett who claims the USA deserves and quadruple A rating.

Yes, yes, we need to effect long-term changes, confirmed Zero, but we have already done all that can be done on the deficit and debt reduction fronts. The time now is ripe for “tax reform,” and mere “modest adjustments” to the large social programs (referred to for good reason as Third-Rail issues, because their reform is so popular with politicians and the people. The latter don’t ever want to be without the warmth of the government udder; the former don’t want to have to make a living in the real job market).

Reiterating the Matthews and Maddow “crayon level thinking,” Da Man went on to warn that any further cutting in government programs would … would… would—here I invite the reader to complete BHO’s warning with the most horrible scenario he can possible imagine. My choice: Donald Trump gets elected.

The president called on the country’s planners to show good will and promised the country—BEHOLD!—another committee, which, as this wily fox well knows, is one way to bury an issue for good.

Cutting the distribution machine that has crippled America’s private economy would be deadly to this very economy—so claims BHO. Thus, deficit spending on programs such as unemployment insurance must be extended. To be fair to this ass with ears, the president did tout the payroll-tax cut.