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