Piersing Christine O’Donnell

Celebrity, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Pop-Culture

Admittedly, it didn’t take much to revive the moribund CNN slot which had been occupied for decades by the braindead Larry King. Piers Morgan is a lefty, but for a bloke who works for CNN—and does lightweight stuff—Piers does a good interview. (I mean, contrast Morgan with the mindless Anderson Cooper!)

And boy-oh-boy, did Mr. Morgan, politely yet emphatically, expose Madam Christine O’Donnell’s high-and-mighty antics. The former Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware appeared on “Piers Morgan Tonight” to promote a book (which some major publisher, sadly, found worth publishing). O’Donnell being O’Donnell, she refused to answer a question about a topic she discussed in the very book her host had had the courtesy to read. (I give Piers props for that; it must have been torture.)

Speaking of mindless and narcissism, here Cooper goes into paroxysm of laughter over a an overwritten spoof he or one of his side kicks wrote about actor “Gerard Depardieu’s [recent]… airplane peeing incident.” I find the Keith Obermann-like bloated text from which Cooper was reading far more offensive that the actor’s behavior (which you just know had to be provoked by the American airline on which he was flying).

Counterfeiter In Chief in the Crosshairs

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Neoconservatism

More and more in mainstreams are finding fault with the US’s counterfeiter-in-chief, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Jeffrey Bell’s point is mild and purely utilitarian:

To maintain interest rates at zero, the Fed prints endless amounts of dollars, driving down the dollar’s value. In the short run, this props up the bond and stock markets, enabling big banks and big business to thrive. But the absence of interest rates is suppressing the lines of credit that enable small business to expand by a factor of two thirds, according to Stanford economist Ronald McKinnon. And in the U.S., small business is responsible for most new jobs.
So unless this printing of dollars is halted, we’re doomed to continued high unemployment. Gov. Perry should be commended for starting a debate that’s long overdue.

But at least he’s not fussing childishly about the Perry Fed statement, which, according to neoconservative Andrew Sullivan, “disqualifies Perry from the race.” The author of the Daily Dish is furious that “the integrity of a civil servant” has been impugned:

If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.

Euro-Bondage

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

If European Keynesians—the “fattened aristocracy of economic experts”—have their way, northern Europeans will soon be working for Southern Europeans (the more productive Europeans are already subsidizing and bailing out their profligate neighbors). Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy will have to resist “the idea of collective liability, often referred to as ‘eurobonds,’ [which] has been floated various times since last year.” “A full fiscal union, underpinned by eurobonds,” is tantamount to full-throttle debt monetization, in conjunction with a policy of inflating the currency in-unison.

Merkel’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is working against the better instincts of his Boss (Merkel) and supports an integration of Europe’s “national economic policies,” so that they can “act as a single borrower.”

Conservative politicians in Germany and other northern European countries have previously dismissed the proposal as a violation of the European ideal, in which countries cooperate but remain responsible for their own fiscal affairs.

In the prescient “Adieu to the Evil EU,” you an read a better description of what the EU (generally supported by American neoconservatives) aimed to achieve. And has pretty much accomplished.

The EU “endeavors to herd Europeans by stealth into a supranational European State and… block off all the exits. This it intends to achieve by rigid central planning and harmonization of laws across the continent. In the absence of political and economic competition, the bureaucrats of Brussels will be free to rule and regulate; tax and inflate the money supply at will. This is what the rejectionists, including the cheese eating surrender monkeys, have defeated…for now.”

As I wrote in 2005, “An overarching tier of tyrants—the EU—to European governments will benefit Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.”

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.