Archive for the “Media” Category
Mark Steyn
Another masterful piece from Mark Steyn.
There is something surreal and unnerving about the so-called “debt ceiling” negotiations staggering on in Washington. In the real world, negotiations on an increase in one’s debt limit are conducted between the borrower and the lender. Only in Washington is a debt increase negotiated between two groups of borrowers.
Actually, it’s more accurate to call them two groups of spenders. On the one side are Obama and the Democrats, who in a negotiation supposedly intended to reduce American indebtedness are (surprise!) proposing massive increasing in spending (an extra $33 billion for Pell Grants, for example). The Democrat position is: You guys always complain that we spend spend spend like there’s (what’s the phrase again?) no tomorrow, so be grateful that we’re now proposing to spend spend spend spend like there’s no this evening.
On the other side are the Republicans, who are the closest anybody gets to representing, albeit somewhat tentatively and less than fullthroatedly, the actual borrowers – that’s to say, you and your children and grandchildren. But in essence the spenders are negotiating among themselves how much debt they’re going to burden you with. It’s like you and your missus announcing you’ve set your new credit limit at $1.3 million, and then telling the bank to send demands for repayment to Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s kindergartner next door.
Nothing good is going to come from these ludicrously protracted negotiations over laughably meaningless accounting sleights-of-hand scheduled to kick in circa 2020. All the charade does is confirm to prudent analysts around the world that the depraved ruling class of the United States cannot self-correct, and, indeed, has no desire to.
Read all of the piece.
The charade had better self-correct or we will be no more.
The time is NOW.
Tags: American Debt Limit, Mark Steyn
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Posted by Flap in Mark Steyn
The American Dream, 2011: You pay four bucks a gallon to commute between your McJob and your underwater housing to prop up a spendaholic, grabafeelic, paramilitarized bureaucracy-without-end bankrupting your future at the rate of a fifth of a billion dollars every hour.
In a sane world, Americans would be outraged at the government waste that confronts them everywhere you turn: The abolition of the federal Education Department and the TSA is the very least they should be demanding. Instead, our elites worry about sea levels.
The oceans will do just fine. It’s America that’s drowning.
What a great piece, as always from Mark Steyn – read it all.
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Mark Steyn
This is hilarious – so read it all.
After the tumult of the First World War, noted Winston Churchill, only the intractability of the Irish Question had emerged unscathed:
“Great Empires have been overturned. The whole map of Europe has been changed,” he told the House of Commons. “But as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again.”
And so it goes after another tumultuous week in American politics. Nearly a third of homeowners are “underwater” – that’s to say, they owe more on their mortgages than the property is worth. Private-sector job growth has all but vanished. The House of Representatives voted not to raise the debt ceiling.
But as the debt ceiling subsides – or, at any rate, stays put – we see the dreary steeple of Anthony Weiner emerging from his Twitpic crotch shot.
For the benefit of the few remaining American coeds Rep. Weiner isn’t following on Twitter, the congressman’s initial position when his groin Tweet went viral was that his Twitter had been hacked. Could happen to anyone. From last Thursday’s edition of The Daily Telegraph:
“British intelligence has hacked into an al-Qaida online magazine and replaced bomb making instructions with a recipe for cupcakes.”
Tags: Anthony Weiner, Mark Stein, Michael Ramirez
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Mark Steyn
Vegas is no longer the world’s biggest gambling resort; America is.
After the revelations that the $38.5 billion 2011 budget cut will in reality either cut a mere $352 million from the 2011 budget or, in fact, increase it by $3 billion, it might be easier just to build a replica White House, Capitol, and Congressional Budget Office at the new Beltway Casino next to Caesar’s Palace. Vegas is no longer the world’s biggest gambling resort; America is. Barack Obama says we need to “win the future,” and one more roll of the dice should do it: a trillion dollars of chips on the stimulus came up empty but let’s pile another couple trillion on Obamacare, and “high-speed rail,” and “green jobs,” and “broadband access” . . . And all the while Wayne Newton is singing “Danke Schoen” in Chinese. But don’t worry, we’re not just throwing our money away. We’re playing to a system! The president calls it “investing in the future.”
How do you “invest in the future”? By borrowing $188 million every hour. That’s what the government of the United States is doing. It’s spending one-fifth of a billion dollars it doesn’t have every hour of every day of every week — all for your future!
Read all of Mark Steyn’s excellent piece.
We have come to the breaking point, fellow Americans, and it is time to take back American from the Obama Democrats.
Tags: Barack Obama, Mark Steyn
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This is what the LA Times Headline screams: “Protesters out in force nationwide to oppose Wisconsin’s anti-union bill.”
Say what?
Promoters, such as David Dayen at Firedoglake, were predicting a million-person turnout nationwide. But reports as of 7:00 E.S.T. today make clear that other than in Madison, Wisconsin, the crowds were sparse.
The turnout in Madison was sizable, with estimates ranging over from 50-70,000, which included protesters bused in from other states. (Dayen is trying to pump the crowd estimate to over 100,000.) But elsewhere, the crowds numbered only in the hundreds or low thousands.
In Washington, D.C., only about 500 people showed up (go to link for good photos of crazy signs). (Note, WaPo says 1000.)
In Columbus, OH, where you would expect a big crowd given a similar controversy, only “several thousand” people protested.
Other head counts, based on news reports, include: Boston (1000), Portsmouth, N.H. (few hundred), Augusta, ME (small crowd), New York City (“several thousand“), Chicago (1000), Miami (100), Austin (several hundred), Chicago (1000); Lansing, MI (2000), Nashville (hundreds), Los Angeles (2000), Richmond, VA (300), Denver (1000); Frankfurt, KY (several hundred), Jefferson City, MO (several hundred), Harrisburg, PA (several hundred).
While I don’t have a complete count, based on these numbers from some major cities and labor states, total protesters nationwide (excluding Madison) likely totaled under 100,000 combined.
Outside of Madison, there were no reports of sizable crowds. And if you read the news reports, almost all the protesters were other union members. Despite the efforts, the organizers failed to motivate significant numbers of non-union members to come out for protests.
The 50-state protest was a failure, plain and simple, although the images from Madison may create the false impression of massive nationwide protests.
The subhead at the LA Times reads more accurately: “Up to 100,000 rally in Madison while hundreds show up in dozens of other cities to combat the Republican-backed measure that would limit collective bargaining rights for most public workers in Wisconsin.” But, the subheadline contradicts the headline because the protesters were not out in force NATIONWIDE.
This is NOT true.
But, there is MORE:
Nearly two weeks into a political standoff, tens of thousands rallied in Madison and in dozens of cities around the nation to oppose a bill that would severely limit collective bargaining rights for most Wisconsin public employees.
Joel DeSpain, spokesman for the Madison Police Department, said the rally — in steadily falling snow — drew between 70,000 and 100,000 and may have been the largest protest in Madison since the Vietnam War
Again, NOT true and implying that the protest crowds outside of Madison, Wisconsin were on the massive scale.
Later on in the piece they admit the protest crowd in Los Angeles was not so much:
Elsewhere, hundreds of boisterous pro-union demonstrators gathered on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, loudly voicing their support for the Wisconsin workers while speaking of concerns that the perennially forceful labor movement in California could one day face a similar crisis.
“If it can happen in Wisconsin, it can happen anywhere,” said Pasquale Gazillo, a merchant marine, referring to Wisconsin’s long history as a union stronghold.
“States like that, they’re the ones that started the eight-hour workday and made sure workers got paid if they got sick. The Republicans are pushing, and if that state falls, the rest of the country is going to be in trouble,” he said.
Nice try at spin LA Times. Gotcha…..
Tags: Los_Angeles_Times, Scott Walker
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Posted by Flap in Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn on yesterday’s Rush Limbaugh Show – note the photo of Steyn
I was running through the blogs and this piece caught my eye.
If you were paying attention during the Super Bowl halftime show last night, you would have heard the Black Eyed Peas deviate from their lyrics to send a political message: “Obama, let’s get these kids educated, create jobs so the country stays stimulated.”
That message struck a nerve with Mark Steyn, the fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh on Monday. Steyn expressed his disapproval by mocking the Black Eyed Peas for inserting that not-so-subtle message.
If you were paying attention during the Super Bowl halftime show last night, you would have heard the Black Eyed Peas deviate from their lyrics to send a political message: “Obama, let’s get these kids educated, create jobs so the country stays stimulated.”
That message struck a nerve with Mark Steyn, the fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh on Monday. Steyn expressed his disapproval by mocking the Black Eyed Peas for inserting that not-so-subtle message.
“The Black Eyed Peas were there last night and they amended their song to insert the words, ‘Obama,’ to insert a little bit of a political message, a searing political insight you get from the Black Eyed Peas, ‘Obama let’s get these kids educated to create jobs so the country stays stimulated.’ I’m Mr. Squaresville, so I don’t know what the Black Eyed Peas – how that tune normally goes. I think that’s their song, ‘Where is the Love.’”
Why?
The photo of Mark Steyn on the YouTube audio above is one I snapped about five years ago. Here is the piece, I wrote in October 2006: Mark Steyn Watch: America Alone – A FLAP Surprise.
After all of these years Mark Steyn has not slowed down – one bit.
Enjoy the audio/YouTube.
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Mark Steyn @ The Claremont Institute Dinner: The Bear Flag League
Mark Steyn @ The Claremont Institute Dinner: The Dinner
Mark Steyn @ The Claremont Institute Dinner: The Reception
Mark Steyn @ The Claremont Institute Dinner: The Departure
Mark Steyn Honored at The Claremont Institute’s Sir Winston Churchill Dinner
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Day By Day by Chris Muir
Yes, Chris, isn’t the emergency internet take-over bill in line with Obama’s game plan to neutralize any dissent to his “Hope and Change?”
I mean Obama already has NBC and ABC in his hip pocket – one example being their refusal to accept anti-Obamacare television ads.
This kind of government power grab of the internet is just plain scary.
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The Day By Day Archive
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Internet, Day By Day
Tags: Barack Obama, Day By Day, Internet
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