Who’s To Blame?

So, Obamacare passed and it passed without any Republican votes. So who’s to blame for the miasmic mess that resulted from last night’s vote?

Republicans.

Every Republican that is sick about the time wasted on this ridiculous health care bill; who is sick about the process and dirty deals it took to get this bill passed need look no further than their mirror when looking for someone to blame. I know that everyone is saying that since the Dems passed this without any Republican votes that they own it. That is certainly true and it doesn’t take a political pro to know that there will be some Democratic heads rolling come November. But Republicans need to remember one thing when lamenting this new health care mess:

Elections have CONSEQUENCES!

Every Republican congressman and senator that went spend-crazy between 2000 and 2008 needs to look in the mirror and realize that this is their fault. They are the reason (not Bush alone) for the losses in the House and Senate in 2006 and 2008 that gave Democrats these majorities and this opportunity. Every Republican primary voter who decided that nominating a geriatric, ideologically fuzzy curmudgeon for a presidential candidate would be a good idea, needs to wake up this morning and say, “This is my fault.”

Like I said before, elections have consequences. Let’s hope this coming November that the consequences play out in our favor. If they do, and Republicans can gain a majority in the House and/or the Senate (extremely unlikely) let’s make sure that we do everything we can to get the bulk of this nonsense repealed.

Paul Krugman – Dishonest Jerk

Paul Krugman is one of the most maddening columnists alive today. He’s an unabashed liberal, which is fine. Except that he constantly denigrates Republicans and conservatives for being deceitful, dishonest and hypocritical. The problem with his criticism is that it is a major case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The following is from a post on The Corner at NRO quoting from a James Taranto piece in the Wall Street Journal which illustrates his most recent utterance of hypocritical blather.

James Taranto has a great take-down of Dr. Krugman today. Apparently the conscience of a liberal is schizophrenic:

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what he calls “the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties”:

Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.”What Democrats believe,” he says “is what textbook economics says”:

But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” Krugman scoffs: “To me, that’s a bizarre point of view—but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.”

What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called “Macroeconomics“:

Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.

So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl’s “bizarre point of view” is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.

As John Hinderaker points out in this post at Power Line, “…only the existence of Frank Rich prevents Krugman from being the world’s worst columnist”. My only modification would be that Thomas Friedman would also prevent Krugman from holding the title.

The Things That People Say – NPR Edition

I was listening to NPR this morning on the way in to work.

Now your first question is probably, “Why are you, an upstanding, conservative, Texan listening to NPR?” The answer is that I have grown so used to listening to talk radio during my commutes that I find it hard listening to anything else. On a normal day I would listen to the local sports talk radio station but on the weekends they usually pipe in a Sporting News Radio feed that I have little interest in. So NPR is my fall back and I usually find it’s smug snobbery amusing.

Anyway, I’ve always been fasinated by the dumb things that people say, especially when said on TV or Radio – where you would think that people would be on their A game since they know they’re being recorded. There were two episodes that made me do an audio version of a double take.

The first was on the program “HumanKind” which is a very touchy-feely new-agey show. The guest was Rob Warden who has been an investigative journalist and now works for the Center On Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University. He dedicates his time to exonerating wrongfully convicted felons (a worthy cause, no doubt). He described all of the different cases he’s worked on in the last thirty years and then the interviewer asked what percentage of prisoners are actually innocent of the charges that put them there. Rob said that it was generally believed about 5%, but that a new study posits that it could be as high as 10%, and that he believed that 10% was probably close to the correct number. Later on in the interview he said that in all of his years covering police investigations he had never seen a competent police investigation. That’s when I did the double take. So let me get this straight Rob. In your opinion there are no police investigations in the past 20 to 30 years that have been handled compentently and yet you agree that there only 10% of the prison population that are innocent? The cognitive dissonence in those two statements is astounding. Can you really believe that there are no competent police investigations and that only 10% of the prison population is innocent at the same time…I guess if you work for Northwestern.

The second was during an NPR news segment. They had a guy on from an Information Technology think tank and he was commenting on Obama’s SOTU statements about China’s, Germany’s and India’s economic and technological growth and how those countries weren’t playing for second place. Then the president said that he would not accept second place for America (cue applause)! Well this guys says, “…I think the president is right, we should not accept being second to none and right now we are second to none…” The funniest part about it to me was that the interviewer let this guy go on saying “second to none” (he said it four or five times) without correcting him – she just left him out there flapping in the wind. I guess think tanks are scraping from the bottom of the barrell these days.

Bears Join The War On Terror

This is why I love Jonah Goldberg!

An excerpt from his comments on the militant-killing bear story:

…President Obama said, “Bears are still our valued allies, but we can no longer pursue the arrogant policy of unilaterally supporting one member of the animal kingdom over another.”

Genius!

Happy Halloween!

Since it’s Halloween I thought I would post some of the things that scare me the most…

These people are running our country…oooohhhh…it gives me chills just thinking about it.

Be safe and have a happy Halloween!

September 14, 2001 – One Of The Greatest Presidential Speeches In History

Why Texas Is Better

The Wall Street Journal has a good article/interview with Rick Perry. In it he talks about how Texas has been able to sustain higher economic growth rates and employment amidst the sagging national economy and how fiscal conservatism is the GOP’s ticket back to the game.

Who’s Sorry Now?

Well. For those of you experiencing buyer’s remorse, here is the “Official I’m Sorry I Voted For Obama Website” where you can register your regret and, I assume, offer up your apology to the rest of us more level-headed, thoughtful voters.

It’s Funny Because He’s Fat

I recently saw the movie The Hangover. The funniest bit of the movie, for me, was how the Chinese mobster kept laughing at injuries that befell the fat bearded character and exclaiming “It’s funny because he’s fat”. Being a person of considerable heft myself, I enjoy a good fat joke now and again. And as you know if you read this blog with any regularity, politics is a bit of a hobby of mine. Therefore, I happily submit the following combined political and fat joke for your enjoyment.

Obama Vs Obama

I love it when politicians get caught in the stupid s— they say

And as an extra added bonus, here’s some Star Wars/Obama humor for you today: