The Associated Press is reporting that the budget deficit for this year is projected to be 1.47 trillion dollars. That’s TRILLION. Back in the 1950s, Senator Everett Dirksen, (R-IL), was an eloquent speaker for fiscal restraint. A most effective speaker, a true old-fashioned, crowd pleasing orator, he inveighed against any and all spending by the government he thought unnecessary, which was most of it. He remarked sadly, one time, that “a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” That in a day when a billion dollars was indeed real money. It is amusing to speculate what Senator Dirksen would say of the Obama administration and the Congress spending such unthinkable sums on handouts to unions and Wall Street and other favored Democrat constituencies. Will the Chinese continue to buy our bonds? How long before we go the way of Greece and Portugal?

 

Senator Dirksen was known to declare

In a voice fairly dripping with honey

That a mere billion here and a mere billion there

And soon we are talking real money

Ike then was prez though his syntax did irk us

He balanced the budget for sure

But now we spend money for things like this circus

And smiling they come back for more

Where will it go and where will it end

Obama is digging a hole

The bigger it gets then the more they will spend

And soon we’ll all be on the dole

Trillions in debt for as far as may be

Our grandkids will work for no pay

For taxes will rise like the incoming sea

 And rue that far gone ‘lection day

 

 

Reuters examines the increasing racial divisions brought about by the election of the first black president, and the increasing hollowness of Obama’s claim to be a post racial president.  Young women and independents voted for Obama in large part because of his claim that he would salve the wounds of racial divide that some saw as pervasive in American society.  Instead, those wounds have gotten worse, and Obama is largely to blame, with the result that Obama’s poll numbers among his most ardent white supporters in 2008 have dropped alarmingly, alarmingly if you are a Democrat.  At the Belmont Club, Richard Fernandez has already called Obama a relic from the past.

 

 

A likely spot, the digger said

Some pottery, some tools

Museum stuff, now long time dead

New lessons from the fools

Who thought that it would never end

That good times rolled along

That they would have all they could spend

And never play the song

That ends with sorrow and with tears

And anger and no jobs

And life gets bitter with the years

Replacing Marx with Hobbes

These relics show how much they thought

Of those who paid the bills

They counted only votes they’ve bought

And now we have these hills

Of relics from the golden age

Mold filled and piled up high

Obama’s prints on every page

Passed always sine die

The diggers sweep away the dust

From bills no one could lift

And monuments turned red with rust

When end came it was swift

 

 

The Belmont Club has an interesting piece on the Sherrod case, the black woman fired and then rehired as the White House panicked and thought Fox News was going to bash them for her seemingly racist comments and wanted to get out ahead of the story, and then found out she hadn’t made any racist comments and had to backtrack.  Richard Fernandez, at the Belmont Club, likens the whole thing to an opera, possibly the Marx Brothers A Night At The Opera, and couples it with the revelation that 400 journalists conspired to keep the public from hearing about the reverend Wright during the 2008 presidential campaign.  I liken it to Der Rosenkavalier, in which, in our opera, Der Risen Kavalier, Obama, risen above his capabilities, has driven the country over a cliff, and sings about it with the help of the journochorus.       

 

 

DER RISEN KAVALIER

 

Enter stage left, the Journochorus

To the tune Love Is Here To Stay

 

It’s very clear, our love is here to stay

Not just this year, but ever and a day

They say our papers may crumble

Our ratings may tumble

When people have their say

But our love is here to stay

 

To the sound of only left hands clapping, Harry Reid sings, to the tune I’ve Got Rhythm

 

I’ve got sixty, I’ve got sixty

I’ve got sixty, who could ask for anything more

Don’t like health care, what do I care

I’ve got sixty, and we’ve got more like it in store

 

The orchestra swells, the lights go dim, as the risen knight, Der Risen Kavalier, strides to center stage, and sings that enchanting aria, Chicago, joined by Harry and the Journochorus

 

Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin’ town

The country, the country, I’ve turned it around

Every little piece of the pie I have given

To my many friends who are livin’

In Chicago, Chicago, my home town

 

The curtain comes down to riotous applause, and the audience files out into the night, as darkness closes in.

 

 

It has been said that time is nature’s way of seeing that everything doesn’t happen all at once. But what if everything did happen all at once, and time is just a perception, what if the universe runs on different rules than we, and Julius Caesar is alive and well, at least until the Ides.

 

 

Julie, kid, why did you cross

That river on that day?

To change the world, to change your luck?

Collect your owed back pay?

But did you know, as you got wet

Another man set sail

In tiny ships and headed west

While elsewhere one more nail

Went through the wrist and it was done

They crowned a man who tried

To teach us all what honor means

And for that crucified

At Valley Forge they froze and starved

While elsewhere brave men flew

The bombers that brought freedom home

The brave, the proud, the few

And while these things are going on

Concurrently it seems

A million billion more are busy

Living out their dreams

An instant to the universe

When all that happened did

Look heavenward, the stars are us

Step lightly, Julie kid

 

 

We all remember the president of CNN in 2002 confessing the nightly news from Baghdad was written for CNN by the Iraqis, and how CNN justified this by saying that without them being a willing tool for Iraqi propaganda they could not have stayed in Baghdad. Well, the same thing is happening in Lebanon, where US and western reporters hang around with their pals in Hezbollah, serving up radical Islamic propaganda as unbiased news. Actually, I suppose it is unbiased, in a way, because the western journalists in the Middle East hate the Israelis every bit as much as the Arabs do, so to the journalists, spreading radical Islamic propaganda is in a good cause.

 

 

I’m in Beirut to see the wars

Just one of many journo whores

I kiss some ass but that’s my job

To be in front of every mob

That’s lined up when the pants come down

That’s how it’s done in Beirut town

Of course I have to slant the news

That’s how we whores all pay our dues

But look around you, if you will

A Jewish house on every hill

In Gaza children have no food

No wonder there’s an ugly mood

Among the peaceful Arab street

Who see their lives are incomplete

The Hizbullah folk that I know

Are real good guys who want to show

The world that all they want’s a chance

To join the economic dance

And live where ever they may choose

And incidentally kill some Jews

 

 

The Belmont Club has a very interesting discussion of an article in the American Spectator by Angelo de Codavilla of Boston University, and a similar article in the UK Daily Telegraph by Janet Daley, in which both argue that the class struggle has come to America, not in the traditional sense of poor against rich, but of the self-anointed intellectual elites against the middle class. The object is what it has always been, power. Power to run the lives of people the elite deem unwashed and ignorant, and therefore in need of guidance and rule from people like them. Our new elites scoff at the Constitution and scoff at the notion that people have natural rights given by God. Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominee to be the next Supreme Court justice, was asked, at her confirmation hearing, if she believed men had natural rights independent of the Constitution, and she replied, in her non-reply, that the only rights men had were rights granted by government, and by government she meant intelligent, sophisticated people like herself. The self-anointed intellectual elites have resumed the power taken from them by the Declaration of Independence, and mean not to relinguish it again. When asked what sort of nation had the founders created, Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”  Obama and his Marxist friends are determined to destroy the middle class, change the United States to a European style socialist state, and remain in power forever with the votes of the people who owe their lives and livelihood to the government, and to them.     

 

 

I find this crying, mewling crowd

Distasteful in extreme

Their cries of liberty are loud

But they don’t see the dream

The middle class has had its day

They’ve set the country’s tone

But now it’s us that has the say

We’ve taken back the loan

We gave to you so many years

Ago on 4 July

And now we have, I and my peers

Reclaimed the right to buy

Your vote and rule you as we please

The right to set the laws

To make you work while we at ease

Change everything, because

We are your betters, born to be

We know what’s best for you

We look about and scorn to see

Your middle classist view

That every man is equal ‘fore

The law and free to make

What of his life he can and more

With rights no one can take

But that is gone, gone with the wind

You’ll do what now we say

We’ll punish you, for you have sinned

That Independence Day

 

 

There was a time people listened when the President of the United States spoke. That time has past. President Obama has misread President Teddy Roosevelt’s insistence that the United States walk softly but carry a big stick. No one fears or pays attention to President Obama, who walks softly and carries a big smile. North Korea detonates a nuke, knowing we will do nothing. The Iranians continue to build nukes, knowing we will do nothing. It is truly said, you can get more with a gun and a kind word than you can with just a kind word.

 

 

The mullahs say, you wish we’d stop?

Whatever do you mean?

You used to be the biggest cop

But now you’re truly seen

For what you are, a toothless boy

Come begging for to please

Your cringing manner brings us joy

And puts us at our ease

We’ve told you many times before

Our nukes are not for hold

We’ll go ahead and build our store

If we may be so bold

We know you try to do your best

To look so rough and tough

But we know you won’t pass the test

Big smiles just aint enough

But Bibi now’s, a different guy

He’s told you where to go

He’s knows what’s up, he isn’t shy

He’s gonna strike a blow

But we think we are ready for

Whatever Bibi does

We think that we can win this war

We think so just becuz

We know whose side that you are on

We know just where you stand

We know Barack is no Sharon

We know he’ll lend no hand

To either side, that’s who he is

He’s just above all that

Where once US made soda fizz

Today the soda’s flat

 

 

Journalists and TV talking heads bemoan the seemingly bleak future of newspapers and the MSM in general, and increasingly worry that they might not live even in a shrunken state. Much thought is given to the idea that journalists should return to prior times, when journalism was a part time occupation. I don’t see this happening, but I do think newspapers and news magazines will return to a prior time when they were an unabashed mouthpiece of a political organization. Everyone knew where they stood, and their readers agreed with them or they didn’t read it. People who don’t agree with Fox News don’t watch it, and people who don’t agree with Keith Olbermann don’t watch him. Newspapers were not named the Whosis Democrat and the Whatsis Republican for nothing. In this transitional period most of the MSM has already achieved this prior status, and is the mouthpiece of the Democratic party and the liberal point of view. We have not yet seen the rise of an alternate and competitive MSM, but we will.    

 

 

Ed Murrow sat in smoke filled booth

While Cronkite filled his pipe

They gave us what we thought was truth

Which we now know was tripe

We had forgotten that these guys

Were not the chosen few

But closet liberals in disguise

But then, what else is new

The New York Times was proud to claim

Their news was bias free

The DC Post’s one claim to fame

Is that they’re from DC

Between them both we got the word

They wanted us to hear

And once we heard we were a herd

And went where they would steer

But we’re a whole lot smarter now

We’ve seen through the charade

We’ve seen them work and we know how

They manage the parade

They’re going now, they’re leaving town

Good riddance to the lot

I only hope that while they’re down

We kick out all their snot

They’ve led us now to where we are

At liberal’s heaven’s door

The constitution no more bar

To things they hunger for

Like socialism for us all

And state run enterprise

But shortly we’ll hear freedom’s call

And much to their surprise

The people of the USA

Will say enough’s enough

You’ve had your run, you’ve made us pay

And now we call your bluff

We’re taking back our country now

The people we have spoken

We’ll put the pieces back somehow

And restore the land you’ve broken   

 

 

The Belmont Club has an interesting discussion of a Meghan McArdle article in the Atlantic Monthly about why some men are good at picking up women and other men not. There seems to be an assumption that men who strike out a lot in the pickup game are drowning in the River of Despair. I confess that in my early youth I was one of these, and my river of despair was the Pickup Styx.

 

 

I’ve always envied men who could

Get women with a smile

A word, a look, and off they’d go

As I sat there the while

And watched the byplay in despair

And wondered why ‘twas that

I could not ever do the same

Was I just born a flat?

I have my hair, my teeth are fine

My clothes are cleaned and pressed

I meet someone for dinner and

I try my very best

To set the tone right from the start

But she thinks I’m a bore

I take her home, a peck on cheek

But can’t get past the door

Young ladies just won’t look my way

No matter hard I try

My wife says it’s because I’m old

Though grandkids think I’m spry

 

 

The fat police are pressing for an confiscatory tax on sugary drinks, arguing that people are getting too fat and costing the rest of us money for the ills fat people encounter. I don’t believe the fat police are concerned with the welfare of others, especially overweight people, whom they obviously despise. No what the fat police want, like the tobacco police and all the other busybodies who think they have a moral claim to rule our lives, is power. Power to tell others what to do, power to rule the lives of others. When I read that I went right out and bought a case of Coke.

 

 

Please tell me sir, you surely joke

They’re gonna tax my can of Coke?

They’re gonna tax it ‘cause they think I’m fat?

But when I step on bathroom scale

It says I’m skinny as a rail

What do these loonies have to say to that?

Suppose I join the ranks of those

Who cannot fit into their clothes

And lose the weight the whackos say I’ll lose

What if I slowly waist away

And die of hunger one fine day

With homicide detectives without clues

You think the tale a bit absurd

But sugar’s now a dirty word

And calories once lost are not regained

And so I post this little verse

In case I go from bad to worse

And hope my sad demise is thus explained