Category: Politics

Obama speaks out on Augusta, silent on Islam

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If Augusta became a club for Islamic golfers tomorrow, would Barack Obama or Jay Carney criticize it? Magic 8 ball says, "not likely."

The Masters is once again upon us, so you had to know it was only a matter of time before President Obama or a prominent member of his administration spoke up on Augusta National’s men-only policy. Today, White House spokesman Jay Carney got the call.

President Obama thinks women should be allowed membership in the Georgia golf club that is hosting the Masters tournament this week, according to the White House.

“His personal opinion is women should be admitted,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a press briefing on Thursday.

The Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters golf tournament began on Thursday morning, only accepts male members, and is considered sacred ground in the world of professional golf. …

“We’ve kind of passed the time that women should be excluded from anything,” Carney said.

Interesting, Jay. If Augusta National became an Islamic golf club tomorrow, American liberal feminists and men like Jay Carney wouldn’t say a peep. Suddenly, criticizing the practices of the male members of such a club would be off limits. Barack Obama has nothing to say about “allies” like Hamid Karzai and his “code of conduct” for beating women, and yet a men’s golf club gets a dressing down from the White House Press Secretary. Telling.

Mr. Carney, I invite you to walk down to the nearest mosque in Northern Virgina, summon up the disdain in your voice that you had for Augusta, and say the exact same sentence: “We’ve kind of passed the time that women should be excluded from anything.” Something tells me that I’ll be waiting awhile…

With that said, let me be clear that I’m not inadvertently making the case against Augusta. Whereas I see Augusta as a club where a bunch of guys can get together, drink some beers, smoke a few cigars, play golf…and be guys, Islamic fundamentalists treat women as sub-humans and seek to dehumanize them through a variety of ways. I see Augusta as the ultimate “man cave” for American guys who like to play golf, and I see radical Islam as the religion for guys who literally want to bring us back to the Stone Age. Big difference.

I’m being somewhat facetious, but when is Barack Obama going to issue a statement on Curves, the women’s health and fitness club with the motto: “no makeup, no men, and no mirrors,”? Why do overweight women get a place to call their own and feel comfortable with their…curves, but chunky men on the verge of Type 2 diabetes get the cold shoulder? Or was that the cold double-chin? The point is, there are organizations that cater specifically to men, and there are organizations that cater specifically to women. Sadly, the type of person who wants men to become androgynous, “mantyhose” wearing fools also wants a world where men and women must do everything together. No thanks. I love my wife, but sometimes I like to hang out with a bunch of dudes and just be…a dude. Guys like Tim Allen have made really unfunny sitcoms featuring characters who do the same thing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, all this talk about guy stuff has me itching to watch the Expendables 2 trailer again.

GOP Nominee to pivot towards the Center? Try a Hard Right Instead

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This election cycle, voters need to see a stark contrast between the policies of the Republican Party and the policies of President Obama. The GOP can start by making a hard right.

Every election season pundits talk about the need to move to the center. What they don’t mention is that every four years the cultural center of the nation has moved leftward. In the tug-of-war for the heart and soul of the country, conservatives are told that if they walk toward their rivals they’ll somehow win the war. And then unconstitutional healthcare mandates are passed. Catholic organizations are essentially told they need to give the collection plate to the administrative assistant so she can buy birth control. 15 trillion dollars of debt can go through the ceiling, but the nation isn’t allowed to drill its own soil for oil.

As the race for the GOP nomination continues, the usual suspects will question whether Santorum’s social conservatism would weigh him down in the general election. Alan Colmes and MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson infamously called the way the Santorum family dealt with the loss of their son Gabriel “crazy” and “weird” respectively, but the Obama administration’s attack on religious liberty apparently doesn’t generate newsworthy sound bites. Rick Santorum’s personal beliefs on the gay lifestyle are seen as a harbinger of nasty things to come, but the judicial activism of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is met with cheers out in California. In almost every facet of American life the left shifts the center under our feet. The correct response is not to play along to get along—it’s to pull back.

Ronald Reagan was “The Great Communicator” for a reason. He articulated conservative public policy in a way that resonated with all Americans. Correction: Enough Americans to win 49 of 50 states in a landslide victory in 1984. Instead of triangulating issues like minimum wage for unfriendly media, he laid out a principled conservative case before the American people, and by and large they followed. Today GOP nominees often appear to be vying to become “The Great Capitulator.”

If perpetual unemployment rates previously seen only in Europe are what we’re after, the GOP should pivot to the center. If attacks on religious liberties or financial implosions modeled after Greece are what we’re after, the GOP should pivot to the center. If a return to fiscal sanity and a limited government that respects religious institutions is what we want, a hard right will go a long way towards returning balance to the nation.

Update: Check out hotair’s take on “the pivot”.

Plato’s Man in the Cave Allegory Updated: Nation in the Toilet.

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Someone needs to update Plato's Republic. We are no longer the man in the cave. We are the nation in the toilet. I invite you to climb out with me.

In January the world saw video of Alan Haywood, a DC florist who was attacked on the Metro Green Line by a bunch of thugs…for minding his own business. Less than one year later I had the unfortunate experience of writing about a run-in with a Green Line low-life, although it ended quite differently since thugs don’t like it when their victim becomes the aggressor.

Today there is the case of Scotty Mandingo Strahan, who it appears is the young man responsible for cold-cocking a homeless, elderly man along Chicago’s Red Line. We can thank WorldStarHipHop for bringing this incident into the light, where it can now be examined (and possibly used to ensure that justice is served).

Some people despise sites like WorldStarHipHop and its glorification of a culture that finds entertainment value in treating homeless people as a punching bag. To me, WorldStarHipHop is whatever you make of it. For me, it’s a mirror that simply reflects American cultural decline. It serves as a wake-up call for those caught in the cesspool created by decades of moral relativism. Are we too close to the waterfall to prevent ourselves from going over a cliff? Are we stuck in an undertow and only gasping for breath before it all goes black? I don’t know, but the image of a homeless elderly man lying unconscious on the cold concrete, while his hand rests on the American flag on his chest, is powerful for all the wrong reasons.

Listen to the audio, and in between the hoots and hollers and laughs and giggles someone asks why the perpetrator didn’t go through the man’s pockets! The response: He’s homeless! (i.e., I would have robbed him too, but I knew he didn’t have anything on him).

When it’s not psychoanalyzing our political process, the world wonders why a Penn State coach can get away with robbing children of their innocence for years on end. The world wonders why it’s ignored or under the radar until it blows up in our faces (at which time everyone gets up on a moral pedestal and pretends like they would have been the Knight in Shining Armor if only they were there to rise to the challenge).

The truth hurts: We’re like the man in the cave Plato speaks about in The Republic, but instead of a deep dark cave we’re the Nation in The Toilet. We’ve been in the toilet so long that most of us don’t even realize it because we’ve never looked up. Most people think they live in a pretty porcelain palace until they get hit in the head with a big piece of crap (e.g., The Penn State scandal).

Sad, isn’t it? Instead of swimming in circles, try climbing out of the toilet and helping a few others on your way out.

You Can Call Someone a Dupe if You Have Evidence. Eugene Robinson is a Dupe.

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It must be nice to be Eugene Robinson—not everyone gets paid to be wrong on a daily basis. By the smile on his face, you almost have to believe he has no clue just how dreadfully detached from economic reality his conclusions are. Take for instance his most recent column, in which he states that both sides are not at fault when it comes to the debt impasse (no need to guess who he blames for the ordeal):

This is patently false. The truth is that Democrats have made clear they are open to a compromise deal on budget cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have made clear they are not…

Progressives understand that Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable on their current trajectories; in the long term, both must have their revenue and costs brought into balance. Pelosi’s position is that each program should be addressed with an eye toward sustainability — not as a part of a last-minute deal for a hike in the debt ceiling that covers us for two or three years…

Meanwhile, though, the clock ticks toward Aug. 2 and the possibility of a catastrophic default becomes more real.

A quick look at history, provided by U.S. Census Bureau, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Congressional Budget Office shows that it doesn’t matter who’s been at the wheel in Washington, DC for decades—federal spending has continued to skyrocket. Both Democrats and Republicans have been driving us towards the cliff Thelma and Louise style, only one Party slows down briefly from time-to-time to think about the impending disaster (before turning the wheel over to Thelma again).

When Eugene Robinson goes to the eye doctor, all he sees are R's on his chart. Really angry, recalcitrant looking R's.

Eugene notes that “in the long term” our entitlement programs need to be addressed so that costs can be “brought into balance.” Wrong again, Eugene. Revenue rates are generally close to their historical average, while spending as a percentage of GDP has  accelerated at a faster clip than talking heads at an opportunity to roll around in partisan cat nip. They need to be addressed now.

Eugene Robinson does not believe in the Laffer Curve. He believes in Eugene Robinson. When that fails there's the Partisan Parabola of Economic Ignorance.

In Robinson’s world, there is no difference between a “revenue cut” and a “tax cut.” To Eugene, it’s impossible to have increased revenue through lower taxation and a limited government. The vast majority of his arguments are tethered to a false premise instead of solid economic ground, which is why tax-paying Americans watch them float off into space. Case in point: “The clock is ticking toward Aug. 2 and the possibility of a catastrophic default.” Got that? Unless we mimic the financial malfeasance of Europe we’ll wind up like Europe.

Eugene’s right: don’t blame both sides. Blame guys like him on August 2nd, who spend their time using scare tactics on the public instead of teaching them Basic Economics.

Paul Ryan’s Wine Passes Sniff Test. Susan Feinberg’s Behavior Smells Like Rotting Monkfish à la Soubise.

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In the grand scheme of things, the Paul Ryan wine fiasco means nothing. For those unfamiliar with the story, Ryan and a few economists were dining in an upscale restaurant. His guests ordered a $350 bottle of wine. And then they ordered another. Susan Feinberg of Rutgers University, also an economist, was celebrating her birthday. She became so (weirdly) incensed at the choice of beverages that she had to give Ryan “a piece of her mind.”

She approached the table and asked Ryan “how he could live with himself” sipping expensive wine while advocating for cuts to programs for seniors and the poor. Some verbal jousting between Feinberg and the other two men ensued. One of the two men said he had ordered the wine, was drinking it and paying for it. In hearing how much the wine cost, Ryan said only: “Is that how much it was?”

The clash became especially heated when Feinberg asked the men if they were lobbyists.

“F— her,” one of them replied and stood up in a menacing way, according to Feinberg’s account. Feinberg said her husband then “puffed out his chest” in response before the manager and a waiter came over and Feinberg decided she had said her piece and it was time to leave.

It’s bad enough living in D.C. with people asking you for change when you get off at every Metro. Now a Congressman can’t even go out to eat with a few economists without a liberal professor going Code Pink Crazy on him? Paul Ryan should have been the one confronting Rutgers’ Susan Feinberg, asking how she could clog her pie hole with Steak Tartare Atilla and Duck Confit Façon Tarbais while liberals are out there trying to convince the American people Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid don’t need the kind of fundamental changes he’s advocating for. How can Susan Feinberg “live with herself” when Keynesian economics has a track record of abysmal failure? Liberalism’s deepest footprints leave nothing but crime and misery and hopelessness where Feinbergian good intentions once once stood.

Paul Ryan’s friends happen to like a good glass of wine with their meal. In Susan Feinberg’s mind, perhaps it would have been better if the Congressman was home taking pictures of his crotch and posting them on Twitter Weiner-style since it’s free! (although, how do you calculate the cost of moral decay by Anthony Weiner advocates like Janeane Garofalo?)

Next time I see Susan Feinberg in a restaurant perhaps I’ll confront her over unconstitutional health care mandates. Maybe her husband will “puff out” his chest and I’ll recoil in fear (because who knows how much testosterone surges through the veins of liberals dining at Bistro Bis. It has to be off the charts).

In short: Susan Feinberg’s self-righteous pomp is a joke. When’s the last time she confronted a Congressional tax cheat? Never. Put in elitist DC Beltway terms an ivory tower foodie can understand: The smell of Selles-sur-Chere gone wrong wafts downward from the moral pedestal she stands on. It’s time to step off and back away.

Now excuse me while I turn my attention to a serious politician.

Update: Allahpundit over at hotair covers Susan Feinberg’s sudden silence. I wonder why…


Obesity Epidemic? Try Stupidity Epidemic, America.

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Newsfat (I mean "newsflash"): If you swap spit with a fat person, you won't grow love handles. If you eat fried foods with them before going to bed every night, you will. Shocker.

America doesn’t have an “obesity epidemic.” You don’t “catch a fat” when you’re in enclosed spaces with your overweight coworker. Fat rolls aren’t picked up by people who don’t cover their stomach when they sneeze. If we’re going to play that game, let’s be honest: America has a “stupidity epidemic.” And on that topic Slate has a story that’s worth unpacking:

Racial and ethnic minority adults continue to make up the largest share of the epidemic. Among the national population, obesity rates were the highest for African-Americans and Latinos.

In addition, Americans who made less money and had less education were more likely to be obese. Adults making less than $15,000 per year, for instance, had a 33 percent obesity rate, compared with a 21.5 percent rate for those making at least $50,000 per year.

Anyone who’s occasionally listened to rap knows that guys like Kanye West believe the government concocted the AIDS virus to kill poor minorities, and the CIA unleashed cocaine  on inner cities to do the same.

Before you ask me to get a job today, can I at least get a raise on a minimum wage?/
And I know the government administered AIDS/
So I guess we just pray like the minister say/
Allah o Akbar and throw em some hot cars…

Question: When will rappers start throwing out lyrical daggers at the fast food industry? It will be interesting to hear theories about how George Bush and the GOP created the Quarter Pounder with Cheese to ensure a never-ended cycle of poverty and diabetes. But I digress…

The point is—fast food is cheap. We should thank our lucky stars we live in a country where rich white liberals lament the tasty, tasty burgers and crispy golden fries the less-affluent have to deal (or was that deal meal?) with.  But that’s besides the point. There are plenty of healthy alternatives. Black beans and other legumes are extremely good for you. There are many frozen and canned vegetables that are not that expensive. Meat can be pricey, but there are cost-effective options for anyone who’s willing to put in a little effort looking. This underscores the more important point: a little education and initiative go a long way. The Nanny State, however, saps initiative and drive from the citizenry. Over time, the communities  that abdicate character-building responsibilities to the federal government become human gerbil farms performing tasks for fat pellets.

We’ve become a nation that sits in front of the television for hours on end. We eat sugary snacks and carb-loaded crap while doing so. We spend hours watching vapid California girls make Japanese-inspired fools out of themselves. We actually find it entertaining to tune in to talking heads screaming at each other every night instead of going outside to play catch or ride a bike with our kids. We’ve convinced ourselves that we have to spend countless hours looking at our Blackberries or iPhones for the latest email, instead of going on a long walk with our significant other.

Cold hard truth: There is no obesity epidemic; there is a national State of Denial. We’re in denial about federal deficits. We’re in denial about entitlement programs. We’re in denial about our horrid education system. We’re in denial about how important it is for America—the freest country the world has ever known—to remain strong and vibrant on the global stage. Are you the sensitive type who thinks an American superpower creates enemies? Wait until we’re a has-been afterthought of a nation and let me know how that works for global peace and stability.

On issue after issue, we’re a country that has become the fat, lazy, bloated guy who looks in the mirror and still sees himself as a leaner, meaner version of his younger self.

One of the precursors to diabetes is acanthosis nigricans, a discoloring of the skin (usually around the sides and the back of the neck). As a nation, we have acanthosis. We’ve enjoyed the empty calories of government-goodies for a long time, and the clock is ticking before our vital signs fail. It’s obvious to our friends and neighbors, but too many of them sit silently because it’s the polite thing to do. Unfortunately, it’s also the deadly thing to do. Worse yet, the people who are supposed to serve as public-policy doctors with a prescription for healthy living aren’t doing such a bang-up job.

Keep telling yourself you have an “epidemic”, America. When you go into diabetic shock there will be no Greece or Europe or China to give you your insulin. Instead of your common dirge, might I suggest something by Radiohead at the national funeral? How to Disappear Completely seems eerily apropos.

Liberals Target “Discriminatory” Homeschooling Success.

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The Department of Education is "troubled" by the success of home schooling families. Their standards are higher than national standards, which can only mean one thing: they must be controlled. As a nation, we need to be equally mediocre.

In what is bound to be the talk of the town in the coming months, prominent liberals have decided to target homeschooling. Long viewed by conservatives as an alternative to failing schools, a new philosophy has taken shape on the left: homeschooling is discriminatory. The logic goes as follows:

  • Homeschoolers tend to come from intact families. Low income areas have higher rates of divorce and single-parent homes.
  • Homeschooling families cite religion as an important part of their life, and report regular church attendance at higher rates than families that attend public schools.
  • The homeschooling community could generally be painted on a national portrait with one color—white.

What does all of this have to do with Education reform? Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association weighs in:

School choice, homeschooling, and a number of other conservative “solutions” to education reform have proven track records of success. But at what price? The improved test scores overwhelmingly benefit a white crowd. We did away with “separate but equal” years ago, but the homeschooling community doesn’t seem to have received the memo. We’re all in this together—or at least we should be—and that includes the growing pains involved with improving public education.  There’s a dark underbelly to all those improved tests scores and college degrees touted by homeschooling advocates. Let’s just word it this way: they get an A for effort when it comes to hidden racial agendas.

The United States’ Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, would not go as far, only willing to go on record as “troubled” and “concerned” about reports of homeschooling success. Likewise, he indicated that a “special task force” would be put together to look into the “disturbing” trend among the American population to advocate for a return to federalism when it comes to education reform.

Perhaps Illinois Senator Dick Durbin put it best for proud liberals everywhere:

These homeschoolers oppose national standards. Why? Because they want to hold their children to higher standards than everyone else. Long story short—unacceptable. Washington should determine that sort of thing, even if it means we’re all equally mediocre. The last thing this country needs is a class of self-motivated scholars thinking they’re better than the rest of us.

It’s unclear if the Obama administration will take up liberalism’s newest battle cry, but if it does one thing is certain: they’ll lead from behind.

Editor’s Note: This post brought to you by The Administrative State, with special thanks given to the United States Department of Satire.

Ben Bernanke Thinks He’s Ashton Kutcher. He’s Really a Japanese Zombie.

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The New York Times and Ben Bernanke both want you to know that the reason why the economy is growing at an anemic 2% rate is because of—wait for it—the earthquake in Japan! What about all those predictions of 4% growth, you ask? What about the Keynesian explosion about job-awesomeness we were promised with hundreds of billions of stimulus? If you believe in the Butterfly Effect (or the Ashton Kutcher movie by the same name that no one saw because Ashton Kutcher was in it), perhaps a little insect sat on a fault line on the coast of Honshu, Japan, caused an earthquake, there were supply disruptions, and now we’re alluding to the possibility of a double-dip recession! The Times explains:

Few economists are predicting an out-and-out return to recession, but the risk has increased, with the health of the American economy depending in part on what is really “transitory.”

During the first press conference in the central bank’s history two months ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke used the word to describe factors — including supply chain disruptions after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and rising oil prices — that were restraining economic growth in the first half of the year (emphasis added).

Earlier this week, Mr. Bernanke confessed that “some of these headwinds may be stronger and more persistent than we thought,” adding, “we don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting.”

You “don’t have a precise read,” Ben? I think you do. And so do other economists:

[T]he unexpected shocks from Japan and the Middle East in the first half of the year go only partway toward explaining the deceleration. Many worries remain: housing prices have continued to fall, hiring is weak, wages are flat, growth in emerging economies like China and India is slowing and the debt crisis in Europe could have ripple effects.

Our troubles are certainly linked to Japan, only not in the way that Mr. Bernanke wants to admit. It isn’t the Japanese earthquake that caused our problems, but the Japanese solution to financial problems (i.e., liberalism) I wrote about in October:

In short, most of Japan’s prolonged economic woes stem from…the kind of “stimulus” programs liberals (and bizarrely, some Republicans) embrace no matter how unremarkable—and often counter productive—the track record at home or abroad.

Japan has turned into a nation of liberal zombies. Amazingly, guys like Joe Biden and Harry Reid keep proving that once you’re bitten by Keynesian undead it’s incredibly difficult to come back to reality.

If only more people watched F.A. Hayek in the Fight of Century instead of Ben Bernanke playing Ashton Kutcher, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

The government’s long been in bed
with those Wall Street execs and the firms that they’ve bled.
Capitalism is about profit and loss.
You bail out the losers there is no end to the cost.
The lesson I’ve learned is how little we know.
The world is complex, not some circular flow.
The economy is not a class you master in college,
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.

People aren’t chess men you move on a board
at your whim, their dreams and desires ignored.
With political incentives, discretion’s a joke.
Those dials are twisting; just mirrors and smoke.
We need stable rules and real market prices
so prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis.
Give us a chance so we can discover
the most valuable ways to serve one another.

Next: Left to Use Gay Rights Logic On Fiscal Crisis.

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Jason Alexander believes New York’s gay marriage law was a great step for “humanity.” Next up for liberals: applying gay rights logic to the laws of supply and demand.

Hollywood was certainly happy with New York State’s passing of a gay marriage bill. In fact, liberals everywhere were so psyched by the development that some have already surmised that the same logic can be carried over into the budgetary realm, where the law of supply and demand and its conservative disciples have thwarted “progress” for centuries! Faced with skyrocketing national debt and no way to pay for it, New York’s gay marriage victory has instilled hope that the world will finally “advance mankind” when it comes to knuckle-dragging creditors (as Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander might put it).

Wiping tears from her eyes in Greenwich Village, a young Bongo Studies Major at New York University puts it best:

I’ve never been attracted to men. I’ve never had a desire to be with one. Now society has progressed to the point where a majority of New Yorkers understand. The conventional wisdom and the Laws of Nature strongly suggest that a union between men and women should have a special institution set aside for them—but that’s not true. Likewise, certain mathematical properties suggest that algebraic equations only work if strict adherence to the rules of dead white men are followed. Well, I’ve never had a desire to live within my means. I’ve never had a desire to balance my budget. And millions of others around the globe haven’t either! Perhaps those old dead men…were wrong. Did you ever think of that?

Paul Ryan may have a budget plan, but it appears as though his hard data may be up against a new foe: “progress.” For years conservatives have based public policy on the idea that prices mean something, that they’re not just arbitrarily decided upon by “greedy” businessmen (playing poker with liberals like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in a smoke-and-cocaine-filled hooker closet). Now, if the left gains traction, the right will have to convince millions of Americans that unprecedented debt isn’t something to be embraced. What’s an easier sell: fiscal conservatism or Repudiation Pride parades? Long story short: free market conservatives have their work cut out for them.

Editor’s Note: This post was written in a Safe House for Satire.