on the edge and over it

On this May 10, 2011, these things are being discussed: According to Jewish News Feeds, a writer on Twitter, the FBI released documents Monday that indicate the late George Steinbrenner was an FBI informant.  I'm guessing that since it is released by the Obama administration it is supposed to be a bit of bad news about a life-long Republican. But Mr. Steinbrenner was not involved in foreign affairs or international intrigue.  For the life of me, I cannot see the downside to a respected national leader talking with law enforcement officials if there was something he could add to their police duties.  No one has suggested – to my knowledge – that there was any coercion involved. I don't see how this looks bad for Mr. Steinbrenner or his surviving family.

The Senate, by a vote of 56-42, has confirmed leftwing Judge Edward Chen, a former staff attorney at the ACLU, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California...the fine folk like Colin Powell and the son of William F. Buckley, who followed their souls and voted for obama fail to realize that this is, in fact, what they are voting for. This, even as obama has requested that the GOP support his immigration policy.  I can't wait to see how many in the GOP will follow their soul down that alley...in Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad has opined that no international intervention is needed to quell the violence in Syria.  I bet he does;  Damascus today and Tehran tomorrow, in his view.  But really, while we're on the subject, how is Syria any different than Libya? 

In Washington, Colorado Springs Rep. Doug Lamborn, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said today that it was time for obama to put the Gulf of Mexico back to work and do whatever is necessary to increase American production of petroleum...well said, but who's fooling who?  obama has stated that he is in favor of high gasoline prices, so long as the prices don't go up all that fast.  Even when (if) the Gulf is reopened for drilling, production will be a fraction of what it was before the BP disaster because the oil companies - losing money hand over fist with rigs laying dormant - have packed up many of those rigs and sailed them to places like Brazil (where obama sends billions to increase their oil production) and Africa, where oil wells are being drilled daily.  I'd like to ask one of obama's minions this question: when considering the overall environmental effect on the Earth, wouldn't it be far better if more drilling were done here - where environmental laws are the strictest on Earth - rather than South America and Africa, which have far more lax pollution standards and a third world need to produce products needed in the international economy at break-neck speed.  I understand that uber leftists like obama think the big picture is better served with the United States a less ominous force on the international scene.  But of the people who support him, don't at least a sizable portion see what is going on?  With policies that allow for investment and grants to developing countries to do the same things he won't allow his own countrymen to do, how can you think otherwise?  Now, I know that obama and his regime operatives say they have opened thousands of places for drilling.  Real nincompoops buy into this without bothering to notice that nobody is interested in drilling in almost all of the places obama has opened because there is no oil there.  There is an old saying that is very applicable to the upcoming 2012 elections:  swindle me the first time, shame on you! Swindle me the second time, shame on me!  The United States is the "me."  The 2012 elections are the second time.

Playing Chicken with Scewed Facts

The budget "battle" currently playing out in Congress is really the most simple of affairs to analyze.  It is, that is, unless you are completely ignorant of the overall goals of the two parties waging this "battle." 

For the GOP, the goal is simple: significantly reduce federal spending.  The catch for them is the word "significant."  Tea Party folk not only want big cuts, they want them carried out in certain areas. These 'targets' for curtailed funding include NPR, Public Television, Planned Parenthood, certain 'Global Cooling" initiatives, and, especially, Obamacare.  If the GOP leadership doesn't hold out for real cuts in some or all of these areas and at least $50 billion overall, elements within the Tea Party are said to be ready to bolt the party and form their own conservative party.

The Democrats have their own problems.  The eternal problem for leftists is convincing enough people that they aren't really leftists but just middle-of-the-road centrists.  To this end, the Squirrel himself, Harry Reid (Millions know him as "Dingy Harry")  actually said this within the last 24 hours: republicans are forcing a government shutdown so they can prevent old ladies from getting cancer screenings.  He also said that Tea Party Folk are out-of-the-mainstream hardliners.  Now, forget the fact that the Dingy one (most famous quote, made before the Bush "surge" that wrapped up the winning of the Iraq war: "this war is lost!") doesn't even believe the economy is all that bad, Harry and other uber leftists believe it is their holy mission in life to give away our money until the "poor" are getting enough federal money to make their incomes equal to those who work. but even that isn't really true; the uber left's raison de etre is giving federal money (i.e., your money) away.  They believe that when they can no longer give money away the poor will abandon them and their raison de etre will be no more.).  What all of this means to the now uber-left led Dems is that the only place to cut spending is in the defense budget.  those on the uber left are largely pacifistic and really see no need to buy all those silly guns.

Besides the long-term goals of the GOP and uber left, other things are in play. Several weeks ago Chuck Schumer was on NBC being thrown softballs by host Matt Lauer.  According to Schumer, the GOP wants to make deep cuts in such cash cows as NPR and PBS and global warming programs.  Imagine that!  With the country teetering on the brink of economic disaster, the far left leadership of the democratic party - Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Durbin and the like, are trying to protect things like NPR and Global Warming programs from budget cuts. Factories employing the heads of families and single parents are closing everywhere, the unemployment rate is at levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the uber left is trying to fully fund Planned Parenthood and NPR.   The nation's military is deployed, by Obama, in three war zones and yet Obama is seeking to save a propaganda arm of his administration (that would be NPR and Public Television).  In a timely reminder of the truth of the propaganda arm allegation, a top NPR exec was outed by the same folk who did ACORN in.  Posing as "Muslim Investors," they engaged this executive in conversation and listened in awe as the exec forcefully berated conservatives and vowed NPR would never go down that road. 

But the GOP has also come close to fracturing along the fissure between the Tea Party and the old line cocktail brand of republicans.  This later group's poster child is House Majority Leader John Baener.  With talk of a third party to the right of the GOP being formed by disgruntled tea party folk, Baener has refused to get aggressive in the budget fight.  Most people believe that cuts on the order of $50 to $75 billion are necessary to turn the ship of state around, but Baener and company are apparently satisfied with quite a bit less.  Worse yet for those trying to reconcile the two sides, Baener has already publicly disdained the GOP trump card by saying he wanted to avoid a shut down at all costs.

It's the "all costs" comment that has those trying to keep the party together crying in their beer.