Saturday, January 19, 2013

I see that the true perp in the Katrina fiasco in New Orleans is finally getting his comeuppance. The media blamed Bush, but Mayor Ray Nagin was the one responsible for not evacuating folks or otherwise preparing for the disaster. Remember all of the underwater school busses?

Now Mayor Ray has been indicted....21 counts of conspiracy, money laundering and bribery. Who would have thought it?

More at the New York Times. A "sweeping corruption case" they say.

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An interesting post over at Monty Pelerin's World that I came across. A good quote:

"Elections are when the political class pretends to care for its constituents. This concern is motivated by a desire to stay in office. The two parties, much like the Bloods and Crips, battle for territory at election time. Meaningless promises are made by both in an effort to win the votes of citizens. Citizens have value to these predators much like milk cows do for farmers. They are important only to the extent that they can be milked (bilked) to further the lifestyles of this new American criminal class."

Don't know if it could be said any better. There is more there.

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In 2011, more people were murdered with knives, "hands or feet" or "clubs and hammers" than with any type of rifle.

Of course, handguns topped the list. But the concentration on "assault" rifles is completely overdone by the anti-gun nuts.
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This is a real hoot. Some intrepid reporters went around to "gun free" homes of reporters and others to expose theie hypocrisy. Of course, it worked. James O'Keefe at his best. A fun watch.

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Chris Cillizza over at the Washington Post Has a piece up on how the NRA is winning. Whhich is true. I have a lot of liberal friends that just cannot understand why guns are such a gut issue for so many of our citizens. But it is.

My view is that the gun issue is designed more to take the public's mind away from the really important issues, such as runaway Federal spending and the like. The politicians, and particularly the Democrats, just do not want to make the hard choices necessary to avoid the approaching financial Abyss, so they will go after guns. And continue to fiddle while Rome burns.

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Investor's Business daily does a good job keeping up with the financial situation. Today Andrew Malcolm has a statement by Rep. Lanford of the GOP on the ongoing budget situation. The title says it all: GOP: $16 trillion in debt but still no Democrat budget for 1,361 days
This is pure politics, of course. If the Republicans were pulling this kind of stunt, the media and the democrats would be justifiably outraged. Where is the outrage at Reid and the Democrats?

The reasonable conclusion is that the Democrats are interested only in spending, and not in budgeting. And the Abyss is coming nigh. It is kind of like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

Our civilization will not last if the spending is not addressed.

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Money in Bad Faith This is a new one by  Judy Shelton in the Weekly Standard. It is about the federal reserve, and how its policies are corrupting the economy.

The conclusion: "If we continue to allow the Fed to underwrite deficit spending and inflict the resulting monetary distortions on the people who actually contribute real value to the economy, who live and work in the belief that saving is a virtue, we will witness the steady demoralization of democratic capitalism."

The only people benefitting from the Fed policies are the big banks and the politicians. Seems to me to be time to ablish or drastically reform the Fed.
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I see that the Republicans are going to agree to lift the debt ceiling for three months to give Congress time to  do its duty of producing a budget. The Democrats, of course, don't want to budget, they just want to spend, and a budget would set a new baseline, and they certainly do not want that. The story is in the New York Times.

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Walter Russell Meade, who is almost always good, has a short piece about how the blue model in Illinois is stealing from the young.

"Sticking it to either group, the young or the old, isn’t appealing, but the boomers are politically organized and better positioned to fight for their interests, particularly because powerful unions are on their side."

Like almost all of our politicians these days, they are too weak to make the hard decisions and so follow the line of least resistance. Sad. But typical.