I'll make this brief, because I have to get to WORK:
It occurs to me that cities across the country have been 'occupied' in exactly the same sense that a restroom is occupied. It is high time for someone to find the special key, open the door and evict the occupants. Bring lots of Lysol and remember to flush about 50 times. We, the 53%, say ENOUGH!
No more 'negotiations', no more meaningless deadlines. Mayors, stand up for those who pay the taxes you spend so willingly. Police chiefs, enforce the law. Public spaces are for the use of everyone, not just a band of malcontents in tents. Rape is a CRIME. Any public sex act, for that matter, even if it is between 'consenting adults' or if only one person need consent, is likewise a CRIME. Willful destruction of private property is a CRIME. Arrest the criminals and restore order. In other words, do your duty.
Be safe out there,
CC
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Right Now
A periodic look at the current landscape...
Well, Cain didn't get the memo that he was 'finished'. The accusers crawled back to their respective rocks when the expected 'me too' flood failed to materialize. Even high profile attorneys have been uncharacteristically quiet. The Libya flap fizzled -- Cain acquitted himself quite well in a recent post on his website (www.hermancain.com/news/americas_role_in_the_world_peace_through_strength_and_clarity), which will be widely quoted in the press about the same time the chairman of Occupy the White House reveals his real birth certificate.
In what may prove to be the least surprising 'news' story of 2011, the 'Super Committee' totally failed to find a way to trim a lousy $120 Billion per year from the federal budget over ten years. Anyone more than a few hours old when this committee was announced knew the purpose was not to save money, but to link Republicans to unpopular budget cuts in an election year. Mission Accomplished, guys!
Admittedly, the task was daunting: reduce the federal budget by a tiny fraction of a percent (starting after the next election, of course) by cutting as much from defense as from fraud-wracked, wasteful and often-redundant or unnecessary domestic programs while carefully ignoring bloated 'entitlements' altogether. And now the process becomes yet another playground scuffle generating additional tremors of uncertainty in both domestic and worldwide markets -- the very situation the 'committee' was supposed to avoid. Of course, generally speaking, the failure of a committee to accomplish anything useful is hardly the stuff of banner headlines in its own right...
Meanwhile, in a formerly-public park near you: The Occupiers are losing cachet (fewer people care about them), so they are going to have to ramp up their tantrum in the remaining days before their encampments get buried under all the snow we're not supposed to be having. The occupiers having failed to accomplish even the nebulous goals they managed to articulate, even the MSM has lost interest and moved on to more interesting stories, such as the National Paint-Drying Championships. Which raises an interesting philosophical question: if someone stages a protest (with 'stages' being the operative term) and there is no audience, has anything been accomplished?
Did Soros seriously imagine that most working people would walk off their scarce jobs and camp out in city parks? Did any of the Occupiers' fellow travelers really expect that people would smile and wave while sitting in their cars, waiting to be allowed to get to work -- that they would enjoy having the parks and streets their tax dollars pay to maintain blockaded by people who can't even make a coherent case for such an action? Did anyone -- even in the MSM -- believe that potential employers would be moved to hang the 'help wanted' sign once again by the spectacle of people who say they want jobs monopolizing public spaces and defecating on police cars?
One of the more hilarious -- and non-surprising -- aspects of all of this is that it now comes out that one of the 'leaders' of OWS fancies himself too good to share a tent with the people on the front lines -- he has chosen instead to occupy a rather nice hotel room to the tune of several hundred clams a day. Follow the money...
There is plenty more where today's sampling came from, never fear. The political landscape is like a vast field of material for analysis, always ready for harvest. A never-ending supply of sinister occurrences...
Miriam-Webster defines 'sinister' thus: "Of, relating to or situated on the left..." yet the common definition is 'having evil intent'. Coincidence?
CC
Well, Cain didn't get the memo that he was 'finished'. The accusers crawled back to their respective rocks when the expected 'me too' flood failed to materialize. Even high profile attorneys have been uncharacteristically quiet. The Libya flap fizzled -- Cain acquitted himself quite well in a recent post on his website (www.hermancain.com/news/americas_role_in_the_world_peace_through_strength_and_clarity), which will be widely quoted in the press about the same time the chairman of Occupy the White House reveals his real birth certificate.
In what may prove to be the least surprising 'news' story of 2011, the 'Super Committee' totally failed to find a way to trim a lousy $120 Billion per year from the federal budget over ten years. Anyone more than a few hours old when this committee was announced knew the purpose was not to save money, but to link Republicans to unpopular budget cuts in an election year. Mission Accomplished, guys!
Admittedly, the task was daunting: reduce the federal budget by a tiny fraction of a percent (starting after the next election, of course) by cutting as much from defense as from fraud-wracked, wasteful and often-redundant or unnecessary domestic programs while carefully ignoring bloated 'entitlements' altogether. And now the process becomes yet another playground scuffle generating additional tremors of uncertainty in both domestic and worldwide markets -- the very situation the 'committee' was supposed to avoid. Of course, generally speaking, the failure of a committee to accomplish anything useful is hardly the stuff of banner headlines in its own right...
Meanwhile, in a formerly-public park near you: The Occupiers are losing cachet (fewer people care about them), so they are going to have to ramp up their tantrum in the remaining days before their encampments get buried under all the snow we're not supposed to be having. The occupiers having failed to accomplish even the nebulous goals they managed to articulate, even the MSM has lost interest and moved on to more interesting stories, such as the National Paint-Drying Championships. Which raises an interesting philosophical question: if someone stages a protest (with 'stages' being the operative term) and there is no audience, has anything been accomplished?
Did Soros seriously imagine that most working people would walk off their scarce jobs and camp out in city parks? Did any of the Occupiers' fellow travelers really expect that people would smile and wave while sitting in their cars, waiting to be allowed to get to work -- that they would enjoy having the parks and streets their tax dollars pay to maintain blockaded by people who can't even make a coherent case for such an action? Did anyone -- even in the MSM -- believe that potential employers would be moved to hang the 'help wanted' sign once again by the spectacle of people who say they want jobs monopolizing public spaces and defecating on police cars?
One of the more hilarious -- and non-surprising -- aspects of all of this is that it now comes out that one of the 'leaders' of OWS fancies himself too good to share a tent with the people on the front lines -- he has chosen instead to occupy a rather nice hotel room to the tune of several hundred clams a day. Follow the money...
There is plenty more where today's sampling came from, never fear. The political landscape is like a vast field of material for analysis, always ready for harvest. A never-ending supply of sinister occurrences...
Miriam-Webster defines 'sinister' thus: "Of, relating to or situated on the left..." yet the common definition is 'having evil intent'. Coincidence?
CC
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Great Cain Robbery
I had wanted to 'get my feet wet' by talking about other pressing issues before dealing with presidential campaign politics. But 'life is what happens while you are busy making other plans,' it is said, and so I have to jump in at the deep end.
Just to avoid later confusion, I hold that the treatment Herman Cain has received in the press in recent days is a new low. Once you think the MSM has sunk as low as it can go, someone finds a basement door. The court of public opinion has been a kangaroo court on past character assassination attempts targeting conservatives, but there is a refreshing change this time around; people aren't buying the charges. Cain remains well within the 'frontrunner zone' in polls (though few will acknowledge this) and the Cain campaign is exceeding its own funding goals, enabling it to ramp up a presence in Iowa that had recently been lampooned as 'hopelessly weak'. One endlessly-cited Reuters / IPSOS poll, in reality an unscientific online survey, showed minor dips in Cain's 'favorability' with Republicans (still well above 50% even if you believe the survey) and with voters in general (in the 30's, which ain't bad for an 'unknown' candidate two months before the first primary and who wasn't supposed to make it even this far).
The way to overcome gossip, slander and libel (from the law firm of the same name) is to "live so that no one will believe your detractors." Cain does this, and it explains why his support remains firm despite the sewage-slinging attacks that have been aimed at him. If there were any truth to these allegations, Cain would have been dogged lo these many years by a whisper campaign that would drown out anything he might have to say. If he had a 'past' anything like these women are alleging, any associate who cares anything about Cain at all would practically have forbidden him from running. Instead: no whispers, no negative counsel, no doubt on the part of his Democrat wife that the charges are false (thank you, Lord, for keeping his family out of this and keeping this from harming his family life). In short, no proof = no story, or how journalism used to be practiced in days gone by.
The way this 'story' went down is the politics of personal destruction at its sleazy worst: Anonymous accusers, uncorroborated claims, no evidence. Demands for Cain to 'come clean' and 'tell all'. The problem with telling 'all' in a case like this: suppose there isn't anything to tell. Suppose all you can tell is that the accusations are false. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, many people are too cynical to believe in the possibility of straightforward, unalloyed innocence. Therefore, Cain's detractors are looking for an abject admission / 'apology' a la Clinton, while a vocal minority of nominal Cain supporters seem to be waiting for a rueful press conference where Cain looks suitably chastened and offers details that do not totally exonerate him but do not fully corroborate the accuser's stories, either ("there were some things said and some things done that I wish I hadn't done, but it wasn't as bad as she's saying it was,"). That way, everyone receives their pound of flesh and we can finally rejoin the campaign, already in progress.
Someone who maybe had crossed a line here and there (like 'we all' do at times) could offer up a meaningless mea culpa, reasoning that 'giving the people what they want' is the fastest way out of this quagmire. He could even borrow a page from the Democrat playbook and say, "I did nothing wrong and I won't do it again." But an innocent man of character would rightly see such tactics as both a sellout and an open invitation for more of the same.
It is worth noting that as of the time of posting, the dreaded five-way press conference is now down to two (presuming that additional accusers can't be found beforehand). Obviously the others said to whomever is driving this (cough David Axelrod cough), "Look, this isn't gaining traction the way you said it would. I'm not letting myself be dragged through a minefield for this. Get someone else." But Judas would still have been Judas even without the inducement of thirty pieces of silver; one wonders what the going rate is, these days. Perhaps Jezebel is a more apt analogy.
The possible Axelrod angle is not due as much to the overt threat posed to "Obama" (see my future post on the many names of 'The One') by Cain at this pre-Iowa juncture as it is to the desire of a Democrat in deep trouble in national polls to run an easy, uncomplicated campaign against an 'opponent' who agrees with him on virtually everything, thus limiting real debate and making life easier for the teleprompter operator. Thus, "Obama" wishes to run against Father of Obamacare Mitt Romney. The advantages for "Obama" are many, but the principal one is that it allows him to basically re-run the '08 campaign so that he can focus on keeping his past under wraps (and/or improving his golf game).
An Obama / Romney 'contest' (apart from being like the counter person at the ice cream store asking which flavor of vanilla you would like) lets "Obama" be the 'underdog' to Romney's white RINO. The (s)crappy community organizer from Kenya / Indonesia / Hawaii / Connecticut / maybe not Connecticut / Illinois (yeah, that's the ticket!), vs the guy from Utah via Massachusetts. The guy in the contest with the most experience being president vs the guy with the most experience running for president. The guy from the mean streets of Chicago (so he would have us believe) vs the quintessential country club establishment Republican.
Whereas Obama vs Cain gets rid of the race angle right away (how can someone vote for Cain only because "Obama" is black?). Obama vs Cain means lots of questions about Obamacare, and about fundamental differences in economic theory (Socialist vs free market conservative). Obama vs Cain could even raise the issue of eligibility (gasp!), though Cain has not commented extensively on this to date. Cain vs Obama could, in short, produce the sharpest difference seen between candidates in a presidential campaign since Reagan vs Carter. Not bad for a former 'pizza guy' who had no experience and wasn't running a 'serious' campaign.
The seriousness of Cain's campaign is no longer in question, thanks in part, oddly, to five accusers who likely won't receive their full fifteen minutes of fame but who hopefully have learned to beware Democrats bearing gifts. I don't know that it is true that 'everyone has a price' -- I can't be bought -- but clearly there are at least five people in this fallen world who need to take a close look at how easily they and their services can be purchased.
Until next time, remember that being right there is better than being left there.
CC
Just to avoid later confusion, I hold that the treatment Herman Cain has received in the press in recent days is a new low. Once you think the MSM has sunk as low as it can go, someone finds a basement door. The court of public opinion has been a kangaroo court on past character assassination attempts targeting conservatives, but there is a refreshing change this time around; people aren't buying the charges. Cain remains well within the 'frontrunner zone' in polls (though few will acknowledge this) and the Cain campaign is exceeding its own funding goals, enabling it to ramp up a presence in Iowa that had recently been lampooned as 'hopelessly weak'. One endlessly-cited Reuters / IPSOS poll, in reality an unscientific online survey, showed minor dips in Cain's 'favorability' with Republicans (still well above 50% even if you believe the survey) and with voters in general (in the 30's, which ain't bad for an 'unknown' candidate two months before the first primary and who wasn't supposed to make it even this far).
The way to overcome gossip, slander and libel (from the law firm of the same name) is to "live so that no one will believe your detractors." Cain does this, and it explains why his support remains firm despite the sewage-slinging attacks that have been aimed at him. If there were any truth to these allegations, Cain would have been dogged lo these many years by a whisper campaign that would drown out anything he might have to say. If he had a 'past' anything like these women are alleging, any associate who cares anything about Cain at all would practically have forbidden him from running. Instead: no whispers, no negative counsel, no doubt on the part of his Democrat wife that the charges are false (thank you, Lord, for keeping his family out of this and keeping this from harming his family life). In short, no proof = no story, or how journalism used to be practiced in days gone by.
The way this 'story' went down is the politics of personal destruction at its sleazy worst: Anonymous accusers, uncorroborated claims, no evidence. Demands for Cain to 'come clean' and 'tell all'. The problem with telling 'all' in a case like this: suppose there isn't anything to tell. Suppose all you can tell is that the accusations are false. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, many people are too cynical to believe in the possibility of straightforward, unalloyed innocence. Therefore, Cain's detractors are looking for an abject admission / 'apology' a la Clinton, while a vocal minority of nominal Cain supporters seem to be waiting for a rueful press conference where Cain looks suitably chastened and offers details that do not totally exonerate him but do not fully corroborate the accuser's stories, either ("there were some things said and some things done that I wish I hadn't done, but it wasn't as bad as she's saying it was,"). That way, everyone receives their pound of flesh and we can finally rejoin the campaign, already in progress.
Someone who maybe had crossed a line here and there (like 'we all' do at times) could offer up a meaningless mea culpa, reasoning that 'giving the people what they want' is the fastest way out of this quagmire. He could even borrow a page from the Democrat playbook and say, "I did nothing wrong and I won't do it again." But an innocent man of character would rightly see such tactics as both a sellout and an open invitation for more of the same.
It is worth noting that as of the time of posting, the dreaded five-way press conference is now down to two (presuming that additional accusers can't be found beforehand). Obviously the others said to whomever is driving this (cough David Axelrod cough), "Look, this isn't gaining traction the way you said it would. I'm not letting myself be dragged through a minefield for this. Get someone else." But Judas would still have been Judas even without the inducement of thirty pieces of silver; one wonders what the going rate is, these days. Perhaps Jezebel is a more apt analogy.
The possible Axelrod angle is not due as much to the overt threat posed to "Obama" (see my future post on the many names of 'The One') by Cain at this pre-Iowa juncture as it is to the desire of a Democrat in deep trouble in national polls to run an easy, uncomplicated campaign against an 'opponent' who agrees with him on virtually everything, thus limiting real debate and making life easier for the teleprompter operator. Thus, "Obama" wishes to run against Father of Obamacare Mitt Romney. The advantages for "Obama" are many, but the principal one is that it allows him to basically re-run the '08 campaign so that he can focus on keeping his past under wraps (and/or improving his golf game).
An Obama / Romney 'contest' (apart from being like the counter person at the ice cream store asking which flavor of vanilla you would like) lets "Obama" be the 'underdog' to Romney's white RINO. The (s)crappy community organizer from Kenya / Indonesia / Hawaii / Connecticut / maybe not Connecticut / Illinois (yeah, that's the ticket!), vs the guy from Utah via Massachusetts. The guy in the contest with the most experience being president vs the guy with the most experience running for president. The guy from the mean streets of Chicago (so he would have us believe) vs the quintessential country club establishment Republican.
Whereas Obama vs Cain gets rid of the race angle right away (how can someone vote for Cain only because "Obama" is black?). Obama vs Cain means lots of questions about Obamacare, and about fundamental differences in economic theory (Socialist vs free market conservative). Obama vs Cain could even raise the issue of eligibility (gasp!), though Cain has not commented extensively on this to date. Cain vs Obama could, in short, produce the sharpest difference seen between candidates in a presidential campaign since Reagan vs Carter. Not bad for a former 'pizza guy' who had no experience and wasn't running a 'serious' campaign.
The seriousness of Cain's campaign is no longer in question, thanks in part, oddly, to five accusers who likely won't receive their full fifteen minutes of fame but who hopefully have learned to beware Democrats bearing gifts. I don't know that it is true that 'everyone has a price' -- I can't be bought -- but clearly there are at least five people in this fallen world who need to take a close look at how easily they and their services can be purchased.
Until next time, remember that being right there is better than being left there.
CC
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Inaugural Post
Welcome to Conservative Craig. I am your humble host.
This blog began out of a desire to Right wrongs, set things Right and generally see America turned Right-side up again. I may make mistakes now and then, but I'll learn from them and turn this blog into a place where people of every political stripe are welcome tothink my thoughts after me discuss current (and historical) events in a civilized manner.
How often I will post and moderate comments is a function of free time. Unless / until this becomes the next Cake Wrecks and enables me to blog full-time, I must work a 'day job'.
This is an experiment. If people like what I do and there is a healthy (but not overwhelming) supply of comments that meet the reasonable moderation guidelines I have devised, it will grow. If not... But I prefer to think positively.
I'll leave you to ponder the implications of today's quiz:
The opposite of Right is: a.) Left b.) Wrong c.) Both
Keep Right,
CC
This blog began out of a desire to Right wrongs, set things Right and generally see America turned Right-side up again. I may make mistakes now and then, but I'll learn from them and turn this blog into a place where people of every political stripe are welcome to
How often I will post and moderate comments is a function of free time. Unless / until this becomes the next Cake Wrecks and enables me to blog full-time, I must work a 'day job'.
This is an experiment. If people like what I do and there is a healthy (but not overwhelming) supply of comments that meet the reasonable moderation guidelines I have devised, it will grow. If not... But I prefer to think positively.
I'll leave you to ponder the implications of today's quiz:
The opposite of Right is: a.) Left b.) Wrong c.) Both
Keep Right,
CC
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