An American Lion

This is where Norman Rogers practices the manly art of curation.

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The Frisky Mole Boy of Groton

Norman Rogers recounts the summer he spent hiding from the stern love of his father and living as the world-famous “frisky mole boy” in the Groton, Connecticut sewer system. The Frisky Mole Boy of Groton seduced the women of the town and solved crimes, all while subsisting on a steady diet of depravity and confusion.

Rampage of the Innocents is my unfinished but brilliant Historical Romance Novel (now, with more sex and violence for my teenaged readers)

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    An American Lion

    Entries in Conservative (63)

    Wednesday
    Sep012010

    When You Mock a Popular Movement, You Take the Devil by the Horns

    Let’s hear more of those “tea bagger” jokes:

    Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska conceded late Tuesday in her Republican primary race against Joe Miller, a lawyer from Fairbanks who was backed by Tea Party activists, Sarah Palin and other conservatives.

    Mr. Miller shocked the political establishment here and in Washington last week when he emerged with a narrow lead, 1,668 votes, after the primary vote, on Aug. 24. His victory makes him the presumed favorite to win the Senate seat from this heavily Republican state.

    Mr. Miller, who has proposed drastic cuts in federal spending, had trailed badly in local polls in the weeks before the election but benefited from a last-minute flood of advertisements, mailings and automated calls casting Ms. Murkowski as a Democrat in disguise. An abortion-related ballot measure also brought conservatives to the polls.

    Many people said Ms. Murkowski’s failure to respond aggressively to Mr. Miller’s attacks, including some that distorted her voting record, had played an important role in her defeat. But she suggested on Tuesday that she had no regrets.

    “I’m so proud of the campaign that we conducted,” she told reporters at her campaign headquarters here as dozens of friends and family members surrounded her and cheered. “It was honest. It was upright. It was energetic. It was what a campaign in Alaska should be.”

    A loyal sitting Republican Senator has been blown out of the water in her home state. Can the winner of that primary hold the seat for conservatives or will the state of Alaska be represented by two Democrats?

    Stranger things have happened. This is an object lesson in snark. The snark, as perpetrated by elitist liberals, doesn’t carry any weight with people who vote in primaries. You may be a joke to the Kos crowd and the kids who haunt liberal blogs, but if you can win with the voters, what does any of that matter?

    The only thing that matters is winning. If you can’t figure out how to win, even when all of the witty bloggers armed with snark and Photoshop pictures of you with a set of balls bouncing off your forehead are against you, then don’t worry about a thing. They are consumed by their immature hatred of everything that they have been told to look down the end of their nose at; so much for a world where liberals are the adults in charge, right?

    Sunday
    Aug292010

    Your Elitism Only Encourages Them to Gather Again

    You would think this was the annual gathering of the militant wing of the Hell’s Angels or something:

    If there were one piece of mail I would handle only with barbecue tongs and a plastic evidence bag, it would be an invitation to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington D.C. Yet Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols — men who have shown no other outward signs of mental imbalance — have accepted their invites. Going out of one’s way to align themselves with Glenn Beck surely is a mystery … especially for La Russa and Pujols, who don’t seem like Fox News types. But I could be wrong. Oh, this just in: Featured speaker at the rally … Sarah Palin. 

    In case you’re not aware, Beck’s rally is described by him as a way to “celebrate America by honoring our heroes, our heritage and our future.” But it’s being held on Aug. 28 — the same date as the Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 — and in the same location, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This has caused great wailing and gnashing of teeth among some civil rights leaders.

    Who is threatened by this sort of thing? These people can go stand on the National Mall and say or do whatever they wish to say or do. If they get out of line, they can have their skulls cracked open by the D.C. police. If they make a big noise and make a case for what they believe, who cares?

    If a bunch of liberals got together and said awful things about Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin, would there really be this level of outrage? Of course not. It’s bad form to comment on the hypocrisy of people who can’t back up what they believe and ignore the nonsense of others.

    I hate to break it to you this way, but Sarah Palin is the only thing that drives liberals crazy right now. Glenn Beck (did I spell it right?) is a failed, drug addicted radio morning host who resorted to shock jock tactics and still lost his gig when he was trying to figure out how to make it in the ass-end of the entertainment industry. So he’s no where near as qualified to be President as Miss Palin, and she’s never going to be the Republican nominee for anything ever again. She has no future in actual elected politics; she couldn’t get elected dog catcher anymore. Once you walk away from an executive position as a governor or a mayor or some other type of elected office before your term is up to go make money and make appearances, you’re done. Everyone knows it. But she’s catnip for elitists who have nothing better to do. 

    Now, I can step out and talk about sports; I’m a brilliant blogger. It goes with the territory that I will do such things. When one of these “national” bloggers tries it, hold on to your nose and try to let the stink pass before you comment. In other words, nice try when it comes to stoking outrage. Now, may we go back to living in that supposed free country where people can do whatever the hell they want? Thank you.

    Tuesday
    Aug102010

    Sarah Palin Strikes Out Against a Deranged Liberal

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    I would have expected Sarah Palin to tee this one up and hit it over the fence. Instead, she bunts and lets her daughter get caught in a squeeze play. This is disappointing. She needs to be more focused and direct when confronted with nonsense. She needs to be able to deal with everything that will be thrown at her. The primaries are coming up in, what? Two and a half years? Sheesh.

    Here's how you handle such a thing:

    You ignore it. This is a crazy liberal stretching a piece of paper up and she has to hold it herself because she's too disorganized to have the proper bungee cords with her to hold up the sign.

    Sunday
    Aug082010

    Megan McArdle is Blown Away by the Facts Again

    I'm not going to take sides in the dispute between Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Somewhere out there is a third answer to the solution as to what to do to bring our fiscal house in order, and I haven't found that third way as of yet.

    If I were to dedicate myself to finding the answer, here's what I would start with--no tax cuts and massive cuts in entitlement spending. I would cut defense spending by twenty percent and end the wars we are in. I would reduce the American footprint overseas. I would means test all spending programs, especially Social Security. Do you collect a government pension? I would cut your Social Security. Do you not need your Social Security? I would cut it. And everyone would pay Social Security on every penny of their income. I would remove the cap and never look back.

    I would be the most hated son of a bitch in America (I'm used to it, sir). But I wouldn't raise income taxes and I wouldn't spend a penny more than the government needs to spend. I would eliminate HUD, Education, and most of the Department of Agriculture. I would freeze spending at last year's level and lock this country into three years of consecutive budgets that draw down our deficits and leave us with a measure of austerity that we can tolerate. You cannot stop spending and you cannot keep spending well in excess of what we take in. You can find yourself in worse shape by doing nothing.

    What Ryan and Krugman advocate are extremes on an issue which no one will touch, because the answer is a series of politically tough choices that could kill someone's reelection. No one will admit this; no one will touch on the bitter pill that has to be swallowed, and soon. What you get is this nonsense from Megan McArdle:

    Though I've only met him once, everything I've heard about Ryan indicates that he genuinely loves this stuff--if he could have more time with the CBO and JCT staff, he'd be in heaven.  I think it's absolutely fair to point out that his Roadmap would be a heroic political sell, and would probably be watered down in ways that would seriously weaken it.  I also think it is absolutely fair to point out that the tax rates needed to raise the necessary revenue would probably--not definitely; the TPC is not omniscient--be considerably less popular than what is outlined in the Roadmap.

    But it is not correct to accuse Ryan of deliberate dishonesty; he asked the CBO to score it, and they turned him down.  Nor is it correct to imply that this is somehow out of the ordinary.  If you supported the health care plan, you supported the exact same process that Ryan is now proposing to use to tweak his proposal.  Were they all brazen liars because the tweakery turned out to be a lot harder than they'd hoped?

    Update:  I emailed Ryan's people around noon to ask whether my recollection was correct that he was unable to get staff time from the JCT.  Within 30 minutes on a Saturday morning, I had emails from two staffers, one of whom was on vacation.  They affirmed that he asked the JCT for an analysis, and was turned down.  Which tells us a few things:  first, that Paul Ryan's people are exceptionally hard-working and responsive.  Second, that Paul Ryan did his best to get the revenue side as well as the spending side scored. And third, that Paul Krugman could easily have gotten answers to his questions if he had wanted them.

    I don't care how "hard working" his people are--his proposal as presented is thus flawed. McArdle's fan-girl crush on Ryan glosses over the fact that Krugman is essentially correct--Ryan's proposal doesn't flesh out because he couldn't get the numbers and never disclosed up front that he couldn't get the numbers.

    The dishonesty of McArdle's position is laid bare by yet another commenter on her blog and is not answered:

    Dear Miss McArdle,
    According to an article written by Douglas Holtz-Eakin (that would be the former Director of the CBO) titled 'Dynamic scoring' on page 86 in 'Encyclopedia of taxation and tax policy' your claim that 'the JCT, not the CBO, typically handles the official scoring of tax legislation' only applies to tax bills 'reported out of committee' (i.e. it does not apply to Rep. Ryans proposal). Holtz-Eakin continues: 'Both CBO and JCT also provide numerous informal estimates of proposals earlier in the legislative process' (which applies to Rep. Ryans proposal). The reason that Krugman is not aware that the JCT, not the CBO, typically handles the scoring of tax proposals like the proposal by Rep. Ryan is probably that that is actually not the way it typically works.
    By the way, it took 3 minutes on Google to find this information.

    McArdle is punked again. And no one even bothered to call her names this time. There's nothing intellectually clever or sound when Paul Krugman can pick apart your economic proposal in minutes because it tries to use incomplete numbers. With such nonsense, the conservative movement is not advanced forward. This anti-intellectual bullshit hurts conservative ideology.

    You do not put up fudged numbers and hope no one notices. You propose completely sound ideas and ignore criticisms that aren't valid; you put your case to the American people and let them decide. In the end, conservative ideas will always triumph when soundly reasoned and applied. If you can't provide the heft, don't surround yourself with dazzled sycophants and pass that off as a movement. I'm a big believer in the ideas that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie are putting forward because he has the distinction of creating enemies on both sides.

    Let's put this into perspective. One of the great criticisms of President Barack Obama was that he had never held executive office prior to becoming President. I think that that criticism has borne fruit in that he certainly doesn't appear to be up to the job in a number of respects. Well, then why am I to believe that Congressman Ryan has the answers? The man was a speechwriter for Jack Kemp. He's never held executive office. Give me a Chris Christie who can and will wield executive power and the Veto pen. Enough said.

    A proposal to balance our budget carries a little more credibility with me when it comes from someone who has actually had to balance a budget and work with a recalcitrant legislature. No sane proposal should ever come without "enemies" on both sides. With sanity comes the hurt, and, brother, we are in for a world of hurt in order to fix what ails us. It's just the repackaging and selling of old snake oil when we pretend there is no hurt due to an out of this world and over the top spending nation of credit card users who have long since maxed out what they can consume and spend. The first politician who says we can fix things without suffering is the last person you'd want to vote for.

    Until and unless people have that moment of clarity--we are spending ourselves into oblivion because the political class has promised us everything, delivered nothing, and is accountable only to themselves--and realize that we must cut entitlements, defense spending, and hold taxes at the level they're at, forget it. We will not restore the American dream.

    Thursday
    Jul292010

    Howard Dean Escalates the Identity Crisis in the Democrat Party

    Many wish Howard Dean had retired to a farm in VermontThings like this tend to make political operatives throw telephones out of the window:

    I admire Nancy Pelosi because she is tough, gets things done, and doesn't take crap from the right wing or any one else. After the year and a half this country has just been through, it is pretty obvious that the right-wing has no intention of cooperating with anyone, and that they will do anything to regain power, just as they were willing to do anything to hold on to it. The only reasonable approach is to stand up to them as you would any group of bullies. Call them out for what they do- or don't do as the case may be. If the Tea Party can call out some of their own members, surely we can call out a group of people who have put their party ahead of their country.

    I have often said the biggest problem with the Democrats is that we are not tough enough. Now is the time to be tough. The fact is that the stimulus package has reduced unemployment from where it would have otherwise been in this Bush-induced recession (based on policies most of the Republicans now in Congress voted for). The fact is, as 60 members of the House and the CBO showed last week, the Public Option, or Medicare Buy-in, as it should more correctly be called, would have reduced the deficit over ten years by an additional $68 million dollars. The fact is that President Obama -- despite Republicans killing the climate change bill -- has done more in 18 months to change America's approach to the environment and green jobs than any president in memory.

    The fact is that if we are going to tackle the deficit, it makes no sense to cut taxes for people with plenty of money while we tell people who depend on Social Security and Medicare that they have to do with less, or to play games with unemployment insurance for those who need it most.

    Let me point out that:

    1. The Democrat Party won a major, major landslide in 2008 and immediately began governing as if it had barely won the election.

    2. The Democrat Party had few options available to it in January 2009, but drawing down our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, reforming the financial and banking sectors, bringing competent leaders to the Executive Branch, getting Americans back to work in real jobs not phony, temporary ones, and reducing the number of government contractors were options that weren't even on the table, but they should have been. The best way out of a bad economy is to find a way to create and sustain job growth while reducing unemployment. Tell me how a lobbyist-driven health care bill accomplished any of that.

    3. The Democrat Party has always been a bullied party of cowards, physical or moral and sometimes both.

    4. The Government shouldn't create jobs on a temporary basis because the results and the benefits don't sustain economic growth over the long term.

    5. Raising taxes is a sure sign that you don't want people to vote for you.

    Poor Howard Dean. He was the most effective voice of the Democrat Party when his part took control of the Congress and then the White House and all he has to show for it was the loss of his job, the damage to his professional reputation, and the cold shoulder of the man who wouldn't be President had it not been for the radical shift in strategy and organization that Dean put into place when the Democrat Party was on its ass.

    Sounds like American Politics 101 to me.

    Tuesday
    Jul272010

    David Brooks Reveals His Hippie Past, and No One Cares

    David Brooks is a fellow I have never bothered with. A lightweight and a fool when fools are plentiful. A man with a significant perch atop nothing. A hippie? That's a new one on me:

    I was a liberal Democrat when I was young. I used to wear a green Army jacket with political buttons on it — for Hubert Humphrey, Birch Bayh, John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. I even wore that jacket in my high school yearbook photo.

    It’s a magic green jacket. I can put it on today and, suddenly, my mind shifts back to the left. I start thinking like a Democrat, feeling a strange accompanying hunger for brown rice.

    When I put on that magic jacket today, I feel beleaguered but kind of satisfied. I feel beleaguered because the political winds are blowing so ferociously against “my” party. But I feel satisfied because the Democrats have overseen a bunch of programs that, while unappreciated now, are probably going to do a lot of good in the long run.

    For example, everybody now hates the bank bailouts and the stress tests. But, the fact is, these are some of the most successful programs in recent memory. They stabilized the financial system without costing much money. The auto bailout was criticized at the time, but it’s looking pretty good now that General Motors is recovering.

    But the magic jacket-wearing me is nervous about the next few years. I’m afraid my party is going to get stuck in the same old debates that we always lose. First, we’re going to have the same old tax debate. We’re going to not extend the Bush tax cuts on the rich. The Republicans will blast us for killing growth and raising taxes as they did in 2000 and 2004.

    What a jackass. No one--and I mean, no one--was ever hip to Hubert Humphrey. Even I can't buy that pantload of crap.

    What leaves me so suspect of Brooks is that he started out a liberal and became a conservative. This follows the standard arc of people who are intellectually deranged or simply damaged by life. If someone starts out a conservative and ends up a liberal, it means they are a guilt-ridden sex addict. If someone starts out as a conservative and stays a conservative, it means they are a saintly apparition from heaven. If someone starts out a liberal and stays a liberal, it means they are a tree-hugging hippie too damaged by drug abuse to understand basic human history.

    If you're like me, and if you started out a conservative, stayed a conservative, and then became an independent when John McCain destroyed the Republican Party in a fit of incompetent self-loathing, then you're someone I would like to know.

    David Brooks and his magic jacket should have been introduced to an editor who could shake his head no.

    Wednesday
    Jul142010

    Never Expose Congress to Reality

    The White House, July 2009, as photographed by Norman RogersThe role of the White House is to be the partner of the Congress when your party is in charge of the House and the Senate, not the sniping teller of truths:

    This week, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs learned this important -- and unfortunate -- lesson: In politics, telling the truth can get you in trouble.

    On "Meet the Press" this past Sunday, Gibbs acknowledged what nearly every political analyst has concluded: that the U.S. House is in play come November.

    “I think there's no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control," Gibbs said. "This will depend on strong campaigns by Democrats. And again, I think we've got to take the issues to them.”

    That comment from Gibbs -- plus all the attention it received -- made House SpeakerNancy Pelosi furious. "How could [Gibbs] know what is going on in our districts?" Pelosi told her members Tuesday, per Politico. "Some may weigh his words more than others. We have made our disagreement known to the White House."

    In other words, pointing out that Nancy Pelosi is doomed really won't move the agenda forward, unless that's what the White House actually wants.

    If it does, then get ready for the impeachment hearings. Abuse of power, anyone? Ginned up outrage, yes? Oh, and would you like some Chairman Issa to go with that?

    And, by the way, doesn't my photo still look fabulous? I remember that day. It was as hot as anything you've ever experienced, and I couldn't understand why I was standing outside the White House in the middle of summer. It must have been a very silly day for me. I think we were all mugged that night. I know we rode out of town on three good wheels and a donut tire, lucky to have our shirts.

    Tuesday
    Jun222010

    Jon Voight Has Clearly Lost his Mind

    Jon Voight has seen better daysActor Jon Voight has lost his mind or he's lost his mud. I can't tell which:

    An open letter from actor Jon Voight to President Obama:

    June 22, 2010

    Dear President Obama:

    You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well, when you said that you would defend Israel, the only Democratic state in the Middle East, against all their enemies. You have done just the opposite. You have propagandized Israel, until they look like they are everyone's enemy - and it has resonated throughout the world. You are putting Israel in harm's way, and you have promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world.

    You have brought this to a people who have given the world the Ten Commandments and most laws we live by today. The Jewish people have given the world our greatest scientist and philosophers, and the cures for many diseases, and now you play a very dangerous game so you can look like a true martyr to what you see and say are the underdogs. But the underdogs you defend are murderers and criminals and want Israel eradicated.

    You have brought to Arizona a civil war, once again defending the criminals and illegals, creating a meltdown for good, loyal, law-abiding citizens. Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics.

    With heartfelt and deep concern for America and Israel,

    Jon Voight

    I'm sure President Obama will get right back to him when he gets a chance. And, not to quibble with Mr. Voight's remarkable political analysis here, but Iraq is a "democractic" state thanks to the blood shed by thousands and thousands of American troops, so I don't know what he's talking about here, other than the fact that he seems to have been infected with the same blind dementia that afflicts people who think Israel is in any kind of danger.

    Israel is in danger of being attacked, and that much is clear. But the existence of Israel is guaranteed by the United States, and it always will be. Oh, and it is guaranteed by the fact that if Israel is attacked by the Arab states or Iran in any significant manner, this Israeli government will use nuclear weapons in a proportionate manner to defend itself (say, if that phantom nuclear device that Iran might hand over to terrorists is used against Israel).

    Let's try to calm down and remember that Israel is not going anywhere. This notion that a nation/state is infallible in all that it does is one of the great dementias of our time. Reasonable people everywhere know that the bluster of the Arab world and Iran against Israel is used to stoke the hatred of people who might suddenly realize that their own government is the reason why they are poor and oppressed, not Israel. Israel is entitled to defend itself but it is not entitled to a free pass. No nation/state is entitled to one.

    Oh, and when did poor people become the problem? Poor people are never the problem. The problem is that there are too many employers who want to hire poor people at low wages in order to keep people from coming into their businesses to bitch and complain about a two dollar cheeseburger or a three dollar head of lettuce.

    Tuesday
    Jun152010

    Erick Erickson Declares War on the National Rifle Association

    One of the Czech machine guns that I ownI've kept my NRA membership up to date in the hopes that it will be the last sane organization left on the right side of the political aisle. Now that Erick Erickson is peeved at the NRA, I have to remind Peej to remind me to write them a nice, fat check:

    [...] The NRA legislative strategy in the past few years has been to hang everybody else so they can be the last man standing — more interested in maintaining the veneer of bipartisanship than actually standing up for the second amendment.

    The Democrats are trying to come up with a new law to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’sCitizens United decision on campaign finance rules. The NRA had objected to the Democrats’ proposal, but then secured a carve out for themselves from the legislation and have dropped their objection.

     The new agreement would exempt organizations that have over one million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states, and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations, from the disclosure requirements. The NRA, with four million members, would fall into the exempted category and will not oppose the DISCLOSE Act now, according to Democratic sources.

    So if you are a small organization that just started up to defend freedom, you are screwed. But if you’ve been collecting a large file of members for decades off the image of Charlton Heston while repeated screwing conservatives, you’ll be safe.

    This is just the NRA not wanting competition for itself. If they were really committed to freedom, let alone the second amendment, they should be encouraging more freedom loving, second amendment loving organizations to rise and fight. Instead, they are collaborating with the left to shut out competition.

    You could look at it that way, or you could look at it as establishing the legitimacy of a popular movement. The legislation would allow an established organization to avoid having to re-establish its own legitimacy, or, in effect, justify its existence all over again. When you have a few hundred members, you are hardly a "popular" movement, except perhaps in your own mind. When you already have four million members, you are the established voice of advocacy on that particular topic.

    What Erickson really wants is to sit at his own table and run things. He can't rise by any other means, so he'll carp about the fact that the powers that be already know he's an upstart punk who has a funny way of expressing himself. Erickson already knows that he's gone as far as he's going to go, probably, and that his dream of building a massive money-making machine that he, and he alone, can control extends as fare as the few thousand people he can get to pony up some of their dough. He may have readers, but does he have four million people giving him an annual stipend in the form of dues, rain or shine? 

    If he did, he'd show his true colors and defend this legislation to the death. The man has nary a principle, except cravenly advocating his own self-interest. I've said it before and I'll say it again--the man is no Republican and has never impressed me with his conflated sense of entitlement.

    This is the first mid-term election of President Obama's presidency, and I can guarantee you--guarantee you--the NRA will be instrumental in the efforts to defeat more members of the retreating Democrat party than Erick Erickson could ever dream of defeating. That's why they are the establishment; diluting their efforts merely sets back their agenda, which is the pragmatic representation of gun owners in the United States of America. Hate them or love them, the NRA does it as good as any organization out there. No wonder the liberals are scrambling to accommodate them.

    Wait a minute--who's this they? I am the NRA. I oppose Erick Erickson. And I am a proud gun owner, sir. If you can't stand the kick of your own Czech machine gun, get out of the kitchen, sir.

    Sunday
    Jun062010

    Don't Underestimate New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

    Maybe it's me, but when I see this man talk, I get the sense that he is a little bit more on the ball than anyone is ever going to give him credit. Every time this man takes on his critics, he goes through them like shit through a goose. He has a uniquely American style of leadership, so you can dismiss this nonsense out of hand. Governor Christie is not leading a nation in a fight for its very existence but he is leading a large American state through tough economic times.

    You can laugh at me when I tell you this, but I think Governor Christie is going to be the President of the United States one day.