Quick Hits - May 7, 2012

Signed in the early hours of September 30, 1938, the Munich Pact was an agreement between France, Italy, Britain, and Nazi Germany that permitted the German annexation of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia - and ultimately, all of Czechoslovakia.  For British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, his primary goal was to do all he could to avoid another major conflict on the European continent.  To achieve his goal, he agreed to appease Adolf Hitler and show the Nazi dictator that he would not go to war to stop Hitler.

With this historical context, think about the report in today's Washington Post quoting unnamed US officials (but who sound as clueless as James Clapper and John Brennan) who are reporting that the Obama Administration is secretly releasing high-level detainees as a part of trying to bring insurgent / terrorist groups to peace negotiations.


The article has the officials admitting that this is a 'high-risk endeavor' to try to achieve the goal for the region announced by President Obama - a negotiated peace.  [Q - has it occurred to anyone that whomever is most active trying to achieve a negotiated peace is the one who is losing - or going to lose the war? Ed.] 

The writers of the article appear to be trying to imply that this predates the Obama Administration, noting that it has been 'going on for several years'.  But the tell in this is when it's acknowledged that the strategy that justifies these actions (a negotiated peace) is a 'central feature of the Obama Administration strategy for leaving Afghanistan'.  The paragraph from the article is also telling:

- And although official negotiations with top insurgent leaders are seen by many as an endgame for the war, which has claimed nearly 2,000 U.S. lives, the strategic release program has a less ambitious goal: to quell violence in concentrated areas where NATO is unable to ensure security, particularly as troops continue to withdraw. The releases are intended to produce tactical gains but are not considered part of a grand bargain with the Taliban.

Is this a 'central feature of the Obama Administration strategy' - or is it tactical (non-strategic) in nature since its also 'intended to produce tactical gains but are not considered part of a grand bargain with the Taliban? Seems to be full of obfuscation around the real intent and goals - beyond bringing Islamic jihadist groups to the table for peace talks around the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan.

To me, the concept of releasing high level detainees who we know were active participants - and remain very likely to return to their terrorist roots, is extremely short sighted. It demonstrates a fundamental weakness of the Administration and their approach. That they are looking to work from a position of appeasement as opposed to bringing on talks from a position of strength.

In our history lessons from Munich - Hitler walked away from the meetings with the British Prime Minister holding Chamberlain in utter and complete contempt. When we act in a very similar manner regarding all or part of Afghanistan, how is it our leadership thinks that those on the other side of the table will not hold them in the same utter contempt - seeing the Administration as weak, unprincipled, and the paper tiger that Osama Bin Laden always saw the US as.

Many in the and behind this Administration have always opposed the concept and the fighting of the War on Terror. They are charter members of the 'Blame America First' crowd, subscribing to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright viewpoint that 9/11 was 'our chickens coming home to roost'. But given the nature of the American people in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for political relevancy, they still had to fight the War on Terror - particularly towards it's primary face - Osama Bin Laden, founder and leader of al-Qaeda. Now that Bin Laden is dead - their mindset (and now words) is that the War on Terror is 'won' and the war is over.

We're being asked to ignore that the progressives called Afghanistan from 2006 - 2010 was called the 'good war' and that George W. Bush took his eyes off of this war to pursue Iraq. Let's ignore that we are in Afghanistan because of the direct protection and assistance that the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban provided for al-Qaeda, an alliance, to the point that they would not displace AQ in the wake of the 9/11 terror attack.

One of the apparent goals of this Administration is to segregate the fight that Islamic fundamentalists have been taking to us for decades to being just a fight centered around 9/11 and al-Qaeda. With the leader of al-Qaeda dead - and many other leaders dead or in hiding, we can declare the war won - and then do whatever is needed to negotiate a 'peace with honor' with the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and the other Pakistani supported and fostered Islamic fundamentalist jihadi groups. We can declare victory and ignore the elephant in the room - just as Neville Chamberlain did.

The war isn't over - or won - but for political purposes, the progressive left will try to sell it as such...and keep their fingers crossed that when it explodes - it will be there (like in SE Asia in 1975) and not in the American streets like on 9/11. Then they can take the 'peace dividend' and spend it on more 'fundamental change'.

It's a loser's bet - made by naive political ideologues who can only see the world as they want to see it - not as it is.

Politics and ideology are far more important than principles or values....

A spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a left-wing anti-gun group based in Washington, D.C., told The Daily Caller his organization doesn’t believe firearms trafficked to Mexico in Operation Fast and Furious have killed hundreds of civilians in that country. That those guns have been used often to kill Mexicans is a position articulated by both Attorney General Eric Holder and Mexican authorities.


Coalition spokesman Ladd Everitt argued that there was no evidence for The Daily Caller to report that “[t]here are hundreds of Mexican citizens who were murdered with weapons the Obama administration gave to cartels through Fast and Furious and two American law enforcement officers — Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata — were killed with Fast and Furious guns.”


Everitt argued that he didn’t think there is “actual trace and ballistics evidence to prove that conclusively.”

Operation Fast and Furious was the program devised and run by the Holder Department of Justice (ATF lead agency) to create the case to prove the meme that weapons sourced in the US are the primary tools for the murderous Mexican drug cartels - and the solution to this are more draconian gun control measures within the United States that are favored / promoted by progressives.

Vladimir Putin took the oath of office for his third six-year term as Russian President earlier today. He is the first to serve a third term. His inauguration as the Russian President has been marked with bloody clashes between police and protesters throughout Moscow - with protesters claiming that Putin's election, and that of the Russian Parliament before, was the result of wide-spread voter fraud by Putin's party.

One of the key planks of French President-elect Francois Hollande's platform was for a reworking of the EU fiscal pact, aka 'Merkozy', which not only provided more power for the EU centralized bureaucracy to combat the Eurocrisis, but also mandated severe austerity steps (reduced government entitlements, reduced government spending) as a key point to battle the crisis as well as being a step that countries needed to implement if they were to get an EU bailout.

Germany has announced today that any reworking of the EU's fiscal pact is 'impossible' - setting the stage for a major fiscal and policy standoff between the 2 major EU powers.

There are a few interesting examples of the mainstream media at work trying to influence as opposed to reporting on news.

The Washington Post is demonstrating their fundamental bias in a front page article today touting 'Fauxcahontas', Massachusetts Democrat Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren, a 'liberal hero' looking to retake the 'Ted Kennedy seat' in the US Senate.  The article hypes the hard left progressive who has claimed that she is the inspiration behind the OccupyWallStreet movement - and leaves until the 20th paragraph (buried deep in the paper) any mention of the kerfuffle over Warren's still unsubstantiated claim to be 3% Native American - and justified in her use of claiming this minority status throughout her career in academia.

On the other side, we have a columnist, appearing on ABC News 'This Week' openly challenging the meme promoted by many that Barack Obama is a great orator. Centrist Washington Post columnist George Will offered his theory - noting that without Obama's use of first-person pronouns, 'he would fall silent'.

On Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, Washington Post columnist George Will offered his theory on why Obama might be struggling this go-around.


“Look, self-absorption is part of the occupational hazard of politics, and it’s also part of the job description of being president,” Will said. “All that said, try to imagine Dwight Eisenhower talking about D-Day saying, ‘I did this. I decided this. I did this and then I did that.’ It’s inconceivable.”


That comparison between Obama and Eisenhower illustrated the problem for the president, Will said.


“If you struck from Barack Obama’s vocabulary the first-person singular pronoun, he would fall silent, which would be a mercy to us and a service to him, actually,” Will continued. “Because he was been so incontinent for the last three years that you wind up with, as you said, [an] Ohio State University with empty seats.”

This Day in History

1864 - After 2 days of intense fighting in Virginia's Wilderness forest, Union General Ulysses S. Grant shifts the Army of the Potomac south to continue to press and engage the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.  This marked a major change in strategy for the Union as past leaders would withdraw to regroup when stalled by Confederate forces.  Grant was set on keeping the pressure on the Confederates - despite the high cost in lives.  The cost would be high for both armies - and the shift would result in the Union besieging Petersburg, Virginia in the middle of June.

1915 - The Cunard Lines ocean liner, Lusitania, is torpedoed without warning by a German U-boat off the south coast of Ireland.  Carrying 1,959 passengers and crew, the liner sank in 20 minutes killing 1,198, including 128 Americans.  The sinking raised tensions between the US and Germany over the latter's unrestricted submarine warfare.

1940 - Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain.

1942 - US and Japanese carrier aircraft exchange strikes during the Battle of the Coral Sea. The US strike sinks the Japanese light carrier Shoho, while the Japanese sink a destroyer and fleet oiler - which they mistakenly thought were a cruiser and aircraft carrier.

1945 - Germany unconditionally surrenders to the Allies at Reims, France - to take effect on May 8th.  This marks the end of World War 2 in Europe.

1954 - After 57 days of being under siege, 13,000 French defenders at Dien Bien Phu were overrun and defeated by the Viet Minh forces of Ho Chi Minh. The defeat ended the French colonial position in Indochina.

1999 - In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens were killed, 20 wounded, when a NATO aircraft mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy.

Quick Hits - May 6, 2012

D-Day for Europe 2012....

Big election day in Europe.

In France, Socialist Francois Hollande faces off with President Nicolas Sarkozy in the French Presidential run-off election. 

In Greece, the first major national elections since the Euro-bailout, the country's troubled reform / austerity program needed to receive the bailout, and it's future in the Eurozone / Euro currency.

First, the update from France...

The Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has defeated the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy gaining about 52% of the national vote.  Sarkozy is not only the 1st French President to be defeated after 1 term in office, but he is also the 11th Eurozone leader to be swept out of office largely by the Eurozone debt crisis.

Hollande's policies are going to cause some real concern in the Eurozone beyond his promises to increase taxes - including setting a new 75% income tax rate for the 'wealthy'.  Hollande is also seen to be looking to take on the 'Merkozy' fiscal pact signed earlier this year - calling for it to be renegotiated or blocked entirely as well as watering down the regulations around the European Central Bank to force it to lend more to EU member states to 'promote growth'. 

Hollande is a firm believer of Keynesian economics - that higher government spending and greater government control can promote economic growth than depending on / releasing the private sector to generate economic growth.  He strongly opposes the austerity measures promoted by both Merkel and Sarkozy - which are being pushed across Greece, Spain, Italy, and under Sarkozy, in France to reduce government spending, entitlements, and the level of the national debt.

As Germany's Der Spiegel notes [link above]...

This melange of messages suggests that the expected new president of France, which is Germany's most important partner in the euro zone, hasn't learned a thing from the frequent crises that have emerged over the past 15 years. They were all fuelled by distortions that had been created through excessive borrowing -- by both private households and governments. But if politicians like Hollande have their way, the party will just keep going. Under their vision, growth is supposed to supplant urgently needed reforms -- a French pension system that allows 60-year-olds who are still capable of working to retire, a vastly oversized French state apparatus and a French labor market that is saddled with high wages and short working hours that is causing the country to become less and less competitive internationally.


But perhaps these fears are exaggerated. Perhaps Hollande will quickly learn the harsh, raw reality that campaign rhetoric and European reality aren't the same thing.


The new man in the Élysée Palace may fare the same as Mitterrand once did. When France's first Socialist president came into office in 1981, he brought with him a classic leftist agenda: higher minimum wages, more generous pensions, a shorter working week and also a wave of nationalizing businesses. Two years after Mitterrand took office, France slid into a state of economic disaster. The president was forced to abandon his socialist utopia and subject the country to a bitter course of austerity.

The Financial Times is already reporting that the wealthy in France are already eyeing a move away from the regressive tax policies promised by President-elect Hollande - looking to move to Britain which has a maximum income tax rate of 50%.

This should come as no surprise to anyone.  As various US states imposed a higher tax burden on the 'wealthy' in the name of 'fairness' - the result was that many of the targeted wealthy utilized their mobility - and left New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, and Connecticut to other states that did not impose such a tax burden on them.  The same happens with businesses as well - when corporate tax rates and fees become onerous and uncompetitive.

So, what does the Sarkozy loss mean to us here in the United States?

First, to call Sarkozy's policies "austerity" is to insult both austerity and socialism. The French government--like other European governments--sought to close its budget gap primarily by raising taxes, not by cutting the size and cost of government. Neither Sarkozy nor Hollande had the courage to confront the basic, failed structure of France's welfare-state economy, which is the fundamental cause of its budget problems.


Insofar as French politicians have relied on tax increases as the key to deficit reduction, that is far closer to the policy of U.S. President Barack Obama and his Democrats than to the approach of the Tea Party and the Republicans. Even so, American media commentators like Joan Walsh and Paul Krugman are blaming Congress and "austerity" for slow economic growth--though federal spending keeps growing.


Another media angle will, no doubt, be to draw analogies between Marine Le Pen's National Front and the Tea Party. It is true that Sarkozy has suffered from a split conservative vote, and that the effect of a Tea Party (or Libertarian) split in the U.S. would be to hand a victory to Obama and the Democrats. But the similarities end there.

Basically, Sarkozy was trying to walk the double yellow line in the middle of a very busy road.  One in four in France works for the government.  Despite the end of the 35 hour work week - which effectively outlawed working more than 35 hours in a week, or the limited efforts to try to promote the private sector - the French system far closer to full statism than the US.  They embrace entitlements and centralized economic planning and control far more than we do - and as noted in the above quote, France today is very similar to the model advocated by the US progressives as a stepping stage to full statism.

We already are not learning anything from the Eurozone crisis - and the policies of President Obama are accelerating our dash to catch-up to the failing Eurozone nations.  But we will be given a new opportunity to learn of what not to do as we watch Hollande execute his leftist / Keynesian agenda.  He will not stimulate growth and will only exacerbate and accelerate France's slide into being similar to Greece, Spain, and Italy.

The Greek voters also appeared to have delivered a stinging and complete rebuke to the two major incumbent parties, the Socialists (Pasok) and New Democracy.    Included in their rebuke - a rejection of the austerity program the incumbent parties enacted in order for Greece to receive their EU bailout earlier this year.

The financial blog, Zerohedge, has been watching the Greek results - and reports the following:

As we expected, the previous unofficial poll forecasts were total rubbish, and according to exit polls from NET TV, the results are as follows:


• New Democracy: 17-20%
• Pasok: 14-17%
• In a stunner, Syrizia, or the coalition of the radical left - a vehement anti-Bailout party - gets more votes than the ruling PASOK party: 15.5%-18.5%
• Independent Greeks: 10-12%
• Finally, and not surprisingly in the aftermath of the French results, the ultra right Golden Dawn gets 6-8% of the vote and will make it into Parliament


Tallied across, up to 60% of the new parliament will be anti-bailout (at least according to exit polls), and hence "Domino toppling." Good luck with that pro-bailout coalition government. Needless to say these results are very ugly and make any prospect of a pro-bailout coalition cabinet virtually impossible. Suddenly the fate of the European experiment is in the hands of the ultra right and the far left - yup, Neo-Nazis will determine the future of Europe.

So, what we have in Greece is basically a combination of the far left and the far right - who've agreed on their anti-bailout positions - defining how and where the country goes.  The far left opposes the austerity measures - and will seek to return to the previous levels of government spending and entitlements despite the fact that they are untenable and unviable.  The far right, the nationalists, are angry at the EU, Germany in particular, for their positions on what Greece had to do regarding receipt of the bailout - and see these actions as taking away Greek sovereignty.

What we could see in the short term is a combination of both directions in a new coalition government - a return to the massive statism and entitlements and telling the EU, ECB, and in particular Germany, to 'stuff it' when it comes to austerity, payback, and being in the Eurozone in any manner not on Greek terms.

I also suspect that these results are going to roil the stock markets in Europe and the US over the next several days - if not longer.

The 'official launch' of President Obama's reelection campaign has been, for all practical purposes, fodder for bloggers and journalists because of it's absurdity.  A case can be made that President Obama started his reelection campaign on January 21, 2009.  There is no doubt, based on the President's fund raising activities starting the spring of 2011 where he has held more fundraisers than the previous 5 President's combined, that his campaign has been active.  The fact that the campaign has cycled through an easy half-dozen slogans prior to 'Forward' - also provides evidence that the President is on the campaign.  Add also in the campaign / reelection speeches over the last year that were masquerading as policy speeches....like the OBL Spike the Football campaign speech from Afghanistan last week.

Given all of that, let's give the President the benefit of the doubt - and say he's now officially kicked off his reelection.  Did he kick it off to an half-empty stadium at Ohio State University?

One of the key policy directions for President Obama is to push the development and increased use of renewable energy over energy that is generated by fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil) or even nuclear.  This is also a major policy direction for the progressive agenda - and one that progressives in a number of states are actively pushing by mandating via legislation that require local utilities to acquire larger and larger amounts of their electrical power from renewable sources.

That policy is having consequences - mainly in higher electricity prices.

Politicians keep promising to reduce energy prices, but they keep ignoring one easy step: repeal renewal energy standards. Twenty-nine states have these rules requiring local utilities to purchase between 20% and 33% of their electric power from renewable sources. They were enacted over the past decade when lawmakers bought into the fad about cheap "clean energy." Their real effect has been to force utilities to pay above-market prices for electricity, which means higher electric bills for consumers.


No state has learned that lesson the hard way more than Minnesota. In 2007 the legislature mandated that utilities ramp up their renewables to 12% this year and 25% by 2025.

…

Utilities absorb some of the cost, but Mr. Glaess estimates that annual residential utility bills are between $50 and $100 higher per household due to the renewable mandate. That may be nothing to a $10,000 donor to the Sierra Club, but tell that to family of four living on $25,000 a year in Fergus Falls.

The costs will rise as the mandates tighten. An analysis by the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota found that Green River Energy utility had $22 million in losses in 2010, $35 million in 2011, and this year it is projecting another $35 million loss. A 2011 study by the Beacon Hill Institute, a think tank focusing on state polices, found that from 2016-25 the Minnesota mandate will raise electric costs for businesses and households by $15 billion. By 2025 the average family will pay $265 a year in higher utility bills.


And what are consumers getting in return? The environmental benefit is almost zero since no state can do much to alter the global volume of carbon emissions. The renewable mandate was also sold as a way to gain "green jobs" and, as the Environmental Protection Agency puts it, "stimulate market and technology development" in states. But the mandate fails that test too, because Minnesota imports much of its wind power from North Dakota.


A 2012 study by the Manhattan Institute compares states with renewable mandates to those that allow utilities to purchase the cheapest electricity available. The states with mandates paid 31.9% more for electricity than states without them. Residents of North Dakota, a state without a mandate, pay $7.63 per kilowatt hour for electricity. Neighboring Minnesota pays $10.76.

While renewable energy should remain a goal - at the present time it remains economically unviable.  This is reinforced by the fact that its use has to be mandated via legislation as opposed to its ability to offer a price competitive alternative to traditional fossil fuel or nuclear sources.  It doesn't need to be at or below the prices of fossil fuel, but the 'surcharge' for green cannot be 50% higher.

Let's also consider that when it comes to electricity - this is one of those basic services that all regardless of class need to use.  If we think about the poor - they are also the one's in the least financial position to be able to afford the $265 / year higher electrical bills.  How do they pay them?  Under the progressives, they don't.  The government will - as it redistributes wealth. 

There's a program that exists today that's gives us a model of how well this will work out. 

Years ago, the Federal government started a program, funded by a tax on one's telephone bill, to ensure that every person had a land telephone line.  Over time, this program has expanded to also provide cell phones and mobile service to designated people...

It's now a government program that has run amuck - with individuals getting multiple cellphones and service from the government.  Costs have also skyrocketed.  to the point where a GOP Congressman is trying to bring sanity and controls back to the program...

Remember that 'gutsy call' by the President a year ago last week?

Former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General Jack Keane, told Mike Huckabee on the later's FNC program that Barack Obama had intel that Osama Bin Laden was in that Abbottabad compound in May of 2010 - a full year before the raid was launched.  The President had initially refused to launch a raid for a number of months - wanting far more absolute proof that the al-Qaeda founder and leader was there...

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey also has reported that the Obama Administration had drafted a memo designed to protect the President from any responsibility or blame if the mission launched in May 2011 to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden failed - where the military leadership would have to take responsibility for the failure.

“That was a highly lawyered memo (designed to protect the president politically)… I think there’s going to be more that’s going to be tumbling out about that escapade but so far that memo is enough.“

Gutsy call, Mr. President.

Saturday Night Live used to be a relevant program.  There were the early years - the years of the 'Not Ready for Primetime Players' - the ensemble cast that featured Belushi, Ackroyd, Curtain, Murray, Morris, etc.  Then it went through a cycle of times when it was boring, unfunny, and irrelevant interspaced with a few times when it was funny and relevant - bringing Eddie Murphy, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Phil Hartmann, Billy Crystal, and Dennis Miller to entertain us. 

But now it remains trapped in one of those down cycles - boring, unfunny, and irrelevant....to all but committed progressives who look for an alternative to getting their 'news' on the Comedy Channel or Bill Maher.

While bashing Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum remains a key focus - it's clearly not on their agenda to poke fun at President Obama in a manner like how Dan Ackroyd tweeked President Carter.

Last night's SNL episode was supposed to kick off with a sketch that was poking a little fun at President Obama and his spiking the football tour.

In the skit, President Obama addresses Americans soon after the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden — and he makes sure to remind viewers that all credit for the raid on the terrorist leader’s compound belongs to him.


“I hope you had a safe and joyous first anniversary of his killing,” the president, portrayed by Fred Armisen, begins.


“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be at home this year, as I had to fly to Afghanistan, to remind President Karzai that, exactly one year ago, we killed Osama bin Laden, and that the decision to do so was a gutsy one,” the president continues. “And was mine.”


The president then outlines what gifts are appropriate on the anniversaries of “Killing Osama bin Laden Day,” and reminds his audience that “heavy drinking, and Killing Osama bin Laden Day, are never a good combination.”

Instead it was scrapped in favor of a [lame] sketch to bash FNC's Fox and Friends morning program.

The script for the original opening sketch is at the link above.

Gutsy call NBC.

This Day in History

1864 - Both Union and Confederate forces continue their desperate struggle in the Wilderness forest of Virginia.  In very bloody, confused, and close ranged fighting in the dense forest area - both armies lost nearly 1/5th of their total strength in 2 days of fighting.  But neither army was broken...

1937 - The German airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built, explodes as it arrives for landing / docking in Lakehurst, New Jersey.  The airship carried 36 passengers and a crew of 61.  36 died in the fireball that resulted.  The accident marked the end of the focus on rigid airships / lighter than air passenger travel.

1942 - US Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright unconditionally surrenders all US troops in the Philippines to the Japanese as the last major bastion, the island fortress of Corregidor, falls.

1994 - The rail tunnel connecting Britain and continental Europe under the English Channel, aka 'The Chunnel' officially opened.  This was the first direct connection between Britain and continental Europe since the Ice Age.

OccupyWallStreet and May Day

Zombie of PJ Media has a superb photo essay of the OccupyOakland May Day demonstration...

Part One here...
and
Part Two is here...

Highlighting the essay...

Back on the main stage, a member of “Modesto Anarcho,” a notoriously militant and violent anarchist group, gave a rousing speech that was so extreme it even started making some of the girls in the audience a little nervous. The video of his speech is four minutes long, but well worth a listen. In it, he savagely attacks the Occupy movement as being too moderate, too passive, and too open to being co-opted by lily-livered liberals and totalitarian communists. In his mind, Occupy is already contaminated by acquiescence to the status quo, and needs to be discarded. We need to skip any intervening steps and rush straight to the end of civilization right now: smash it all, tear everything down, eliminate all existing rules, laws and customs of society and start again.


If this was the ’60s, then Occupy would be the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), and this guy would be Bill Ayers, trying to transform it into a terrorist army like the Weather Underground. Amazing how history repeats and repeats and repeats.

Indeed.

Fox News Sean Hannity battled an OccupyWallStreet organizer on his prime time program earlier this week...

As Hot Air's Allahpundit notes -

He seems almost eager to confirm people’s worst suspicions about the attitudes of a young entitled socialist d-bag, which makes me wonder if any part of this is a goof. Then again, maybe I feel that way because it’s the only way I can rationalize the attitude seen here. Normally when someone from a “controversial” group shows up on cable news, they’re keen to shoot down the host’s worst assumptions about them. Not this guy. Points for honesty, I guess.

The OWS organizer also appeared on Sean Hannity's radio program for almost an hour - demanding that he be given a job - but when the host offered to do all he could using the reach of his program to get him a job, based on the skills that the organizer could offer an employer - the nimrod not only demonstrated a complete lack of basic skills, but an obnoxious demeanor as well as a preference to only take a certain job (high paying with little or no accountability or responsibility to actually produce something).

Bottom line - he just wants to suckle at the teet of the Government as long and as hard as he can. So, no, this is not a goof. He really is a young entitled socialist d-bag.

I wonder if he will vote for Obama - or avoid casting a ballot because Obama didn't push the hard left agenda sufficiently enough to 'fundamentally change' the United States.

To close - here's Dennis Miller on OWS....(and Elizabeth Warren - a doubleheader..)

Obama's Weekly Address

A new chapter in Afghanistan leads to the same old failed policies domestically.

The President is making his case for taking the Afghanistan 'peace dividend' and spending the funds domestically in a new effort of economic stimulus.  There is no real difference in the stimulus he is now proposing than the failed $800 billion + stimulus that was done in 2009 to launch the economic recovery that we are now wallowing in.

Just as in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 when the President delivered $1.2 trillion or larger annual deficits, increased the national debt by over $5 trillion in just 39 months, and kicked off the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression, he is looking to quadruple down on this record by using the funds for the war in Afghanistan towards more pro-union, anti-fossil fuel, and government entitlement programs.

And he's doing it with money that wouldn't be spent on Afghanistan as he's already committed to pulling the US out of Afghanistan by 2014....

These are the actions of an ideologue...

Fauxcahontas

Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat candidate for Senate in Massachusetts and opposing Republican incumbent Scott Brown, is ignoring the first rule of hole digging over the kerfuffle around her use and claim of minority status by the basis of an unproven 3% link and possessing high cheekbones to being a Native American.

She's still digging at the hole trying to both justify the claim and obfuscate it as it looks to derail her campaign to unseat Scott Brown.

She has listed herself as a 'Native American' apparently in an effort to not, in her words, advance her career leveraging affirmative action and minority hiring, but to 'meet people like me'.  But there is a lot of speculation and evidence that her self-description as a Native American on the basis of her high cheekbones and family stories that a great-great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee (which hasn't been officially substantiated) was a case of using the claimed ethnic heritage as a tool to move herself to the front of the line.

The Boston Herald asked a very simple question to Elizabeth Warren, her campaign, and Harvard Law School - which has promoted the fact that they have a single Native American faculty member on staff in their diversity census reports....

This question has gone unanswered by all parties...but like many non-answers, it speaks volumes...

Harvard Law School lists one lone Native American faculty member on its latest diversity census report — but school officials and campaign aides for Elizabeth Warren refused to say yesterday whether it refers to the Democratic Senate candidate … The 2011 report indicates that “Race/Ethnicity designations are from self-report data,” meaning whoever is listed as a Native American told the school of their tribal lineage.


Robert C. Clark, a professor and former Harvard Law School dean, is listed as part Choctaw in a 1999 Harvard Magazine article. Clark has worked for the law school since 1989 but wasn’t named in a 1996 Harvard Crimson article when law school officials sought to defend their minority hires. Clark did not return requests for comment. Former law school spokesman Mike Chmura said in the 1996 article that out of 71 professors, only one was Native American and that was Warren.


The effect?


Elizabeth Warren’s stumbling efforts to douse the firestorm surrounding her claims of being a Native American minority have raised concerns among local and national Democrats who are questioning her campaign’s competence. “There’s nobody watching this that doesn’t think she’s in big trouble,” one well-known Massachusetts Democrat said. Joe Trippi, a prominent national Democratic consultant, told the Herald that while Warren has time to recover, the campaign should have anticipated this issue would surface. “The problem is they weren’t ready for something they should have been ahead of,” Trippi said.


“This takes her biography into a bizarre dimension,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It has derailed the effort to define Warren in a voter-friendly way.” Sabato also said that Warren’s claim that she didn’t list herself as a minority to gain an employment advantage is not believable. “This is what happens when candidates don’t tell the truth,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious she was using (the minority listing) for career advancement.”

Hot Air picks up on this meme - and the trouble coming from the hole that Warren placed herself in...

This embarrassment comes courtesy of the curious American identity fetish. It wouldn’t exist at all if we hadn’t set up perverse incentives to make baseless (or at least undocumented) claims about heritage in order to gain financial advantages. This fetish started as a means to assist the truly underprivileged overcome economic disadvantages imposed by government discrimination, but became yet another means to exploit employment and educational placement systems for unfair advantage.


Can anyone objectively looking at Elizabeth Warren’s life make a case that a 1/32nd Native American background, even if it’s true, disadvantaged her in any way at all? Of course not; not even Warren can make that case, which is why Warren now says she used that identity claim for social purposes rather than economic advantage. Harvard’s actions speak louder than those words, however.


In the short run, Warren should be thoroughly discredited as a political candidate. In the long run, it’s far past the time to reconsider the incentives placed on ethnic heritage claims in education and employment, and to put a stop to affirmative action. Instead, we should be focused on improving schools through competition so that we produce equitable outcomes up front rather than treat people differently later.

Mark Steyn takes a clue by four to the arrogant and entitled Elizabeth Warren in his column for this week....calling her the Composite Woman:

Hallelujah! In the old racist America, we had quadroons and octoroons. But in the new post-racial America, we have — hang on, let me get out my calculator — duoettrigintaroons! Martin Luther King dreamed of a day when men would be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their great-great-great-grandmother’s wedding-license application. And now it’s here! You can read all about it in Elizabeth Warren’s memoir of her struggles to come to terms with her racial identity, Dreams from My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother.


Alas, the actual original marriage license does not list Great-Great-Great-Gran’ma as Cherokee, but let’s cut Elizabeth Fauxcahontas Crockagawea Warren some slack here. She couldn’t be black. She would if she could, but she couldn’t. But she could be 1/32nd Cherokee, and maybe get invited to a luncheon with others of her kind — “people who are like I am,” 31/32nds white, and they can all sit around celebrating their diversity together. She is a testament to America’s melting pot, composite pot, composting pot, whatever.

Need we also think about the obvious double standard at work - what would be the response to this if Elizabeth Warren was a Republican?