Archive for the ‘Election 2014’ Category

2016: What’s the Point?

Thursday, October 2nd, 2014

I hear and read endless speculation about this one and that one, and who’s in and who’s out, always superseded by the next day’s news, and always bereft of any measurable facts.  All of this can be both entertaining and frustrating.  All of it may be altogether pointless.  You see, the country is dying now.  By the time a new president is inaugurated in January of 2017, on our present course, it may not make any difference.  The country may be closing in on that tipping point, if we haven’t passed it already, at which nothing will be done to save us, irrespective of party, principles, or propaganda.  Our nation is deathly ill, if not terminal, and yet the politicians continue to chatter on as though there’s no end in sight.  Ignoring the stock market, which is many thousands of points over-valued due to cheap money practices at the Federal Reserve, this economy is a wreck.  As always, I urge my readers exercise care in what they believe or are willing to consider plausible.  In this post, I intend to revisit a topic I haven’t covered in a long while, because I think you ought to consider it.  The subject is the very real possibility of a hyperinflationary great depression that will make the 1930s look like a day at the beach.

As a reference to what hyperinflation looks like, here’s a graph of the infamous hyperinflation in the German Weimar Republic:

German Hyperinflation 1918-1924 (Wikipedia)

Long-time readers will remember I have used John Williams’ ShadowStats website as a reference in the past.  The nature of Mr. Williams’ warning hasn’t change, except to become substantially more strident inasmuch as such a calamity now seems to be possible at any moment.  For those of you who don’t remember, here was his Hyperinflation forecast of 2012:

2012 Hyperinflation Special Report(pdf format)

In 2014, Mr. Williams has updated his report, once in January, with a second installment in April. Here are links to these two in PDF format as well:

Hyperinflation 2014 – The End Game Begins

2014 Hyperinflation Special Report, Second Installment

 In these reports, Mr. Williams goes to extraordinary lengths to describe to you what I’ve told you right along, since the birth of this website:  Any alleged “economic recovery” was a fraud, and the nation is in deepening financial and economic trouble. Naturally, it’s not as though you hadn’t suspected it on your own, the obvious signs being what they are, but with the drumbeat of media, many people are soothed into complacency over a long enough time such that they begin to doubt what their own eyes and wallets are telling them.  In these most recent installments, Williams goes into great detail, putting numbers to the assumptions, providing actual data to support his conclusions.  In this sense, it is time for another reality check, because while the bulk of the people you know may well be ignoring hard reporting, in favor of popular media garbage, somebody ought to be warning them.   Chances are that being the good citizens most readers here tend to be, and being the sort of people who are trying to save their nation from disaster, you’ve been warning them right along.  Now, when they dismiss your warnings, you can dare them to read these reports.

If you’re among that number of people who are desirous of dismissing all of this as “Chicken Little” talk, I’d dare you directly.  Read these reports and if you aren’t at least a bit concerned, concerned enough to learn more, there’s no reaching you anyway.  In 2011, Sarah Palin and others were sounding the alarm.  She was ridiculed and mocked,  but the hard data supported her warnings.  All along, I’ve been warning you of the dangers of the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, and the grotesque expenditures of the Federal Government.  In the years since 2008, when this latest crisis began, the Fed has borrowed into existence a sum approaching(if not exceeding) fifty trillion dollars.

All of this money-printing or “digitizing” will necessarily lead to a calamity of unprecedented scale.  There can be no escape from the laws of economics, any more than there can be an escape from the law of gravity.  The only question is: When? As Mr. Williams points out in his report, the conditions are already in place.  It’s simply a matter of triggers.  With that in mind, I’d ask my readers to prepare to the extent they are able.

Some will argue that all of this is tantamount to alarmist fear-mongering.  but Williams does offer this, in his second installment for 2014:

“Conceivably, immediate massive and fiscally painful action by the federal government to restore and maintain long-range U.S. government solvency still could avoid the looming dollar collapse, but the related political issues appear now to have been pushed off until after the 2014 midterm election, again, as those controlling the government continue to push politically-difficult choices and actions as far into the future as possible. That has been explicitly demonstrated in actions by both the White House and Congress in the last several years. Nonetheless, despite political efforts to dodge the issues, the U.S. dollar and the deficit do matter, and the looming financial storm likely will break before the election.”

In other words, getting our financial and fiscal house in order could still serve to avoid this calamity, but as he notes, and as we are all too aware, the probability of that being done is low. The question isn’t “Will there be pain?” The real question is whether it will be pain we choose while we maintain the ability to moderate it, or an uncontrolled and apocalyptic pain from which there will be no recovery.  We’re very much like a stage four cancer patient in that only the most radical treatments have any chance of saving us, and the chemotherapy and radiation will be so severe and thorough as to inflict more pain than we might want to endure, but failing to choose this, the results are known and unavoidable.

I have significant doubts as to whether there exists the political will to induce pain via the radical treatments necessary.  The politicians in Washington DC are hoping to stave-off this calamity through the current election cycle.  I believe this is folly, but I also know they’re banking on the notion that they will be able to deal with this after the election, but you and I know the truth: There’s always another election.  The dust will still be settling from the 2014 election when the first real moves for 2016 begin.  They will already begin to make the political calculi about how to survive through the next election, or how to save the next election for their respective parties, but none of them will be thinking about any of this. The truth is that saving the nation will be furthest from their minds.

We have a president who is a functional economic illiterate, driven by dogma of a failed ideology.  We have a Congress driven by short-run notions of self-preservation of their power.  We have a people who possess a low tolerance for bad news in good times, and a complete intolerance for self-imposed discipline particularly where it implies any sort of pain.  It’s time to consider what all of this will combine to create in the coming years, if you haven’t done the math already. People are talking about 2016 like that represents some sort of panacea, but ladies and gentlemen, our nation may not make it until 2016.

 Editor’s note: I realize that the linked reports from John Williams’ site constitute a fair bit of reading, but like most issues, the devils lie in the details. Understanding the roots of our impending calamity, and the historical precedents as well as the actual manipulations of statistics by the current regime are critical in understanding what is afoot. While it’s a lot of reading, it’s entirely worthwhile.

Note 2: There was an error in the links to the two 2014 reports. These have been fixed.

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Posted in Economics, Election 2014, Election 2016, Featured, Federal Budget, Federal Reserve, News, Politics | 27 Comments »

Governor Palin: “Stop Electing Republicans who Act Like Democrats”

Wednesday, June 25th, 2014

We must break up the GOP establishment

Governor Palin is right, and I’m inclined to act on the principle that there is nothing to be gained by compromise with the GOP establishment.  I am to the point where I’d rather have an open leftist elected to office than to see one more of these despicable, snake-in-the-grass RINOs who act like Democrats when they get to Washington DC anyway.  Here’s Governor Palin from Hannity on FNC last night:

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Posted in Activism, Election 2014, GOP Establishment, Media, News, Politics, Sarah Palin | 3 Comments »

Obama’s SOTU: Blah Blah Blah – Here’s the Truth

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

Do Any Believe?

There’s nothing more annoying than the dishonest spectacle that has become of our traditional State of the Union address.  President Obama will address Congress, and with it, the nation, and he will lie unconditionally and remorselessly.  He will tell us how we’re creating jobs, but that we can do more.  He will talk about the gap increasing between the rich and the poor, never telling you that it is his policies that are expanding the gap, while adding many more people to the poverty category. He will almost certainly discuss green energy, but he will not mention how he has used crony capitalism in that field to rob the American people.  What he probably will not mention is “Obama-care,” at least by that name. He may reference the Affordable Care Act and promise that things will get better for the disastrous program.  Whatever he says, it is likely to be a lie, in part or in whole, because he can’t very well go before the Congress and the American people and speak the truth about either his aims or the true State of the Union. Let us speak the truth.

As we have witnessed, there are now fewer Americans working than at any time since the Carter administration, and there are more people receiving government subsidies than ever before.  To the degree Wall Street has been doing well, it is only because the Federal Reserve has been pumping funny-money into the economy through Wall Street.  Government debt is growing at a phenomenal rate, unsustainable by any rational measure, and none of his so-called “stimulus” has born any fruit for the general economy, no matter how much his cronies on Wall Street and K Street may have benefited.

Our defenses haven’t been in such sorry shape since Carter, and our foreign policy is a mess.  Iran will have nuclear weapons, because Obama won’t do a thing to intervene.  At virtually every opportunity, this president can be seen to support the enemies of the United States while often snubbing long-time allies.  On the home-front, he continues to use the intelligence apparatus of the US against the American people.  Indeed, he is turning the entirety of the Federal Government into his own political police force even as his purge of senior military officers continues unabated.

He is stripping us of our defenses in a violent world, while advancing the cause of despotism at home. If you happen to publish anything even vaguely disagreeable, you can expect some arm of the Federal Government to pay you a visit, or otherwise persecute and prosecute you on any trumped-up charge.  Obama is converting the United States into a police-state, in which government has unlimited discretion but individuals have none.

“Vengeance is mine!” sayeth Obama.  He is pursuing revenge against the free market, political enemies, the rights of citizens and anybody else he believes must be punished.  Most of all, this means America as we have known it is under constant attack; the virtues that had begotten its prosperity are being stripped away.  The larger body of the American people feel set-upon, and they are under the gun.  Every virtue they had practiced in pursuit of their happiness is being punished.

Expect the President to tell us again that if Congress will not act, he has a phone and a pen, with which he will bring down further terror against the American people.  Will you have health insurance within the span of another year?  Wonder. Worry.  Watch and see.  Will you be able to keep any of your earnings by the time he is through?  What will they be worth once he finishes inflating the money supply?  Will you be permitted to speak your mind?  Will you be permitted to keep (never mind ‘bear’) arms in your own defense?  Will you be secure in your person against unreasonable searches and seizures?  Will you be immune from indefinite imprisonment? What measure of your liberties will he leave unmolested?

Now we prepare to listen to the dictator lay down the law, as if that had been his constitutional function all along. His stooges and henchmen go out into the press and broadcast that now is the time for “action” and “direct action” and “real action.”  When you hear or read this, what you’re really witnessing is leftist code for mob violence. Obama is losing his grip on the hearts of Americans charitable enough to have given him a chance.  He has capitalized on this tendency of Americans, but their patience has worn thin in most quarters.  His enchanting sing-song of 2008 no longer “plays in Peoria.”  As things stand, he certainly won’t gain control of the House and could still lose the Senate in November, but he does not wish to be obstructed.  Obama is carrying out a coup d’etat and the media won’t tell you much about it, because they’re largely complicit, if not directly assisting in bringing it to fruition.

Now is the time when the left will act to consolidate its power, and to cement the “fundamental transformation” of America they had promised, and this means making certain it can never be undone.  Prepare yourselves, Americans, for the tyrant-king has set the stage, but up until now it’s been a warm-up act.  He knew he couldn’t complete his mission in four years, but with a second term and three years remaining, now he can afford to take more dramatic steps.  Do not be astonished by what you hear tonight, if watch this spectacle you must, but instead watch for the unspoken words behind the sentiments that will herald the beginning of the end of the republic.

 

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Posted in Barack Obama, Demagogues, Election 2014, Featured, News, Obama, Politics, War | 7 Comments »

Heartfelt Note to Fellow Texans

Friday, September 27th, 2013

Betraying Texans

I’ve lived in Texas almost precisely one-half of my life.  In that time, I think I’ve done a fair job of becoming a Texan, instead of trying to turn Texas into that which I had escaped.  I’d like to thank Texans for their hospitality and patience as I’ve tried my best to assimilate.  I like to say that I am an American by birth, and a Texan by choice, but the truth is that I couldn’t have become a Texan without the forbearance of natives. I’ve noticed a tendency over my years here in Texas among many immigrants to the state to immediately set about turning it into the sort of liberal bastions from which they had fled, making them little different from Mark Levin’s description: Locusts.  Worse than the rank-and-file locusts are the carpetbaggers who come to Texas telling us how it ought to be more like their native states.  What I’ve learned along the way to becoming a Texan(or the most reasonable facsimile a non-native can be) is that Texans don’t like to be poked and prodded with a good deal of politically-correct claptrap.  “Say what’s on your mind, and move along, son.”  That’s an important lesson, but I’d like to tell Texans about another class of people who may not hold their best interests at heart. These are the expatriated Texans who go to Washington DC forgetting what Texas is or what Texans hold dear.  Today, I want to address one of these, who has spent a decade in Washington DC, and who is no longer a Texan, having been absorbed into the elitists’ ranks.  Once upon a time, John Cornyn may have been a decent politician, but now it is clear that he isn’t really a Texan any longer, however he may have begun.

On Friday, he joined with Harry Reid,Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrats as well as several Republican sell-outs in voting for cloture(the procedure by which debate is ended in the Senate and a vote is held) on the continuing resolution to fund government while blocking Obama-care.  John Cornyn, after enabling the vote, then made a phony, impassioned speech against stripping the language from the bill that would have de-funded Obama-care. His vote for cloture enabled Harry Reid to carry out the modifications to the bill.  So you see, John Cornyn will now tell Texans truthfully that he voted against funding Obamacare, but it’s only a half-truth. While being able to claim this with a straight face, the fact is that Obama-care could not have been funded had he merely remained resolute and stood with our “junior” senator Ted Cruz in opposing cloture on the bill.  Whatever John Cornyn tells you from this day forward, you must know that on any and all issues, he will try to play both sides of the street, being for something before he’s against it, or being against something before he was for it.  If I’ve learned anything about Texans in my twenty-four years here, it is that this is not the temperament or practice of a real Texan.

Real Texans stand for what they believe.  Real Texans do not try to occupy both sides of a serious argument.  Real Texans do not try to carry out a complete and utter fraud against the people in whose service they are sworn, or otherwise sully the oaths they have taken.  John Cornyn has abandoned any claim to being a Texan, and since he is up for re-election in 2014, I am asking my fellow Texans, in just recognition of John Cornyn’s betrayals on this and other issues, to seek out an select an opponent worthy of replacing Mr. Cornyn as one of our two US Senators.  While Ted Cruz has been busy doing us proud, John Cornyn has been busy undermining him.  While Ted Cruz was fighting to defeat and defund Obama-care, John Cornyn has been back-stabbing and whipping other Republicans into supporting an affirmative vote on cloture.

This is a shameful situation.  As our nation’s economy hobbles along, its latest burden in the form of Obama-care’s mandate is going to destroy what remains of the healthier segments of the economy.  It is going to reduce the standard and availability of care for all Americans.  It is going to result in the denial of care, not as a “bug” but as a “feature” of the program.  It’s going to increase our national debt to knew heights.  It’s already causing employers to cut hours for workers, and while many think that they’re somehow immune, it’s clear that many of these will soon learn otherwise.  This law is so bad that they’ve exempted themselves.  It’s so bad that the unions who supported it, like the Teamsters, are now in favor of repealing it, saying that they can “remain silent no longer.”  All of this, John Cornyn and the other Republican sell-outs in the Senate have enabled.  When you lose your health insurance or your job; your hours are cut or your treatment (or the treatment of a loved-one) is denied by Obama-care, you can blame John Cornyn as one of the conspirators in your undoing. You should know this. You must not let him get away with his duplicity.

I wanted my fellow Texans to know this, so that when in 2014, any opponent rises to challenge John Cornyn, I will get behind that candidate, and if he survives the primary process, I will vote for a Democrat.  It is my long-considered conclusion that we are better off with lying Democrats who we know will be hard-core leftists than with lying Republicans who we cannot trust to abstain from betraying us.  John Cornyn will hereafter be known on this site as the Un-Texan, because his behavior and maneuvering in this [and other] issues has earned him the highest contempt real Texans can muster.  He will claim that it had been about a difference of opinion over tactics, but the truth is that he’s been following the lead and the advice of the DC consultancy, and he is doing now the bidding of political elements who care not for Texas or Texans.  He is beyond redemption.  This had been his last chance.  God may forgive him, but I, for one, will not.  Others may forget his betrayal, but I will not.  John Cornyn must go, and I will not be satisfied until he no longer sits in high office defrauding the people of the Great State of Texas.

I am now actively seeking a prospective challenger or challengers to Mr. Cornyn, because the simple fact remains that we Texans cannot tolerate – we must not tolerate –  this sort of duplicity from those who would claim to represent us.  John Cornyn betrayed Texas and Texans on Friday, and then sought to cover that up with a wholly symbolic gesture.  We Texans must remain people who will not prefer symbolism over substance, and we must not reward those who do.  It’s time we bring John Cornyn home, so that he might re-learn what it is to be a Texan, but I fear that if we unseat him, he will remain in Washington DC in perpetuity, working for or establishing his own lobbying firm.  More, I want him to live under Obama-care if the rest of us must.  The fight is not over, and it’s moving to the House of Representatives, but John Cornyn has just made our fight so much harder.  To Hell with John Cornyn.  I will fight for Texas with real Texans!

 

 

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Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Election 2014, Featured, GOP Establishment, News, Obamacare, Politics, Texas Politics | 10 Comments »

The Vichy Republicans: Cornyn, McConnell Undermining Cruz

Tuesday, September 24th, 2013

Surrender: What they do best

A report came to light on Tuesday morning from Breitbart.com detailing the maneuvers being used by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to fully fund Obama-care.  John Cornyn(R-TX) serves as minority whip, and in that capacity, he is helping McConnell in an effort to undermine the efforts of Ted Cruz(R-TX).  This instance demonstrates perfectly the sort of back-stabbing that goes on in Republican leadership in Washington DC.  While Cruz fights to stop the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obama-care, his colleague and fellow Republican from Texas is working against him.  In 2014, when Cornyn comes up for re-election in the Lone Star state, I will support nearly any primary challenger.  Texans can’t afford six more years of fake conservatism.  Cornyn also supports the immigration reform bill, and on other issues important to conservatives, he’s been either invisible or in opposition.  Cornyn is no conservative, and it’s time we Texans brought him home.  We mustn’t let the Vichy Republicans run the GOP any longer, because they undermine the work of real conservatives, who are actively working to forestall the disaster that is Obama-care.

When one observes such behavior from a self-proclaimed conservative like Cornyn, it’s easy to understand why conservatism continues to take a beating.  We permit people like Cornyn to represent us, but the truth is that he’s another Washington elitist who has no regard for his fellow Texans.  In fact, during his tenure in the Senate, Cornyn has worked against conservatives on a number of issues, and his attitude has reflected a certain contempt for grass-roots conservatives.  Meanwhile, Cruz is fighting.   We conservatives like those who will fight for our principles, and in this case, while McConnell and Cornyn follow the advice of Karl Rove, Cruz is out front along with Mike Lee(R-UT) fighting to stop a national catastrophe.

At stake is the future of the country.  If Obama-care is permitted to be fully implemented, we will have in place one more massive entitlement program that will bankrupt the country.  It’s already driving businesses to curtail hours, and to avoid hiring full-time employees.  It will have tax consequences that are far outside the bounds of what most Americans had expected, and it will crush economic activity in general.  It’s already happening, even before the program has been fully implemented.  If we don’t find a way to slay this dragon, we will lose the country.

I would urge my readers, particularly my fellow Texans, to call their senators and demand that Obama-care be de-funded.  At this late date, it is the last thing that can be done short of full repeal.  Disclosed yesterday, a Pew Research poll shows that the “blame” for any government shutdown will go equally to Republicans and Democrats, so there’s no need to fear any of this.  If anything, this should buttress arguments of conservatives who assert that fighting this law is a winning issue for Republicans.  In 1995, during that infamous shutdown, Republicans were overwhelmingly blamed, however it should also be noted that they gained two seats in the Senate in 1996., losing two in the House, but hanging onto their majority for the first time in more than one-half century.

As Sarah Palin explained in an op-ed on Sunday, Cruz is “over the target” on Obama-care, and it should be a matter of “bombs-away.” The American people don’t want this law, and Democrat talking points aside, it is as weak a proposition as ever.  People are seeing their insurance premiums skyrocket, they’re watching their physicians retire out of exasperation, and they’re losing their jobs, or seeing their hours cut.  Even the unions aren’t very happy, because Obama-care is a job-destroyer.

The tricksters of the GOP establishment are trying to sabotage the efforts of Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.  Mitch McConnell is the sorriest example of a Republican leader we’ve had in the Senate for some time, and now he’s playing parliamentary games in order to prevent Cruz from succeeding while still giving Republicans a chance to make a symbolic vote against Obama-care.  It’s time we put an end to this nonsense.  McConnell and his sidekick Cornyn are attempting to pull the wool over our eyes.  These “Vichy Republicans” are the bane of conservatism, and given what Obama-care will do to the country, surely of all Americans.  Call your senators.  Call every Senator.  De-funding Obama-care isn’t a game.  It’s life or death for millions of Americans, their jobs, and the country at large.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

If you are a Texan, you can call this rattlesnake and let him know we’ve got his number: John Cornyn (202) 224-2934  If you want to take a crack at Vichy Republican Leader McConnell, here’s his number: (202) 224-2541

 

 

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Posted in Election 2014, Featured, GOP Establishment, News, Obamacare, Politics, Sarah Palin | 4 Comments »