COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

God Help America


I pledge allegiance to the government
Of the United States of America
And to the bureaucracy for which it stands
One nation under lawyers and regulators
With more laws and more regulations for al
l



The Technocracy Boom
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: July 19, 2010
NY Times

When historians look back on the period between 2001 and 2011, they will be amazed that a nation that professed to hate bureaucracy produced so much of it.

During the first part of this period, the Republicans were in control. They expanded a vast national security bureaucracy. In their series in The Washington Post, Dana Priest and William M. Arkin detail the size of this apparatus. More than 1,200 government agencies and 1,900 private companies work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence programs at around 10,000 sites across the country. An estimated 854,000 people have top-secret security clearance. These analysts produce 50,000 reports a year — a flow of paper so great that many are completely ignored.

In the second part of the period, Democrats were in control. They augmented the national security bureaucracy but spent the bulk of their energies expanding bureaucracies in domestic spheres.

First, they passed a health care law. This law created 183 new agencies, commissions, panels and other bodies, according to an analysis by Robert E. Moffit of the Heritage Foundation. These include things like the Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement Program, an Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee and a Cures Acceleration Network Review Board.

The purpose of the new apparatus was simple: to give government experts the power to analyze and rationalize the nation’s health care system. A team of experts on the newly created Independent Medicare Advisory Council was ordered to review and streamline Medicare. A team of experts within the Office of Personnel Management was directed to help set standards for insurance companies in the health care exchanges. Teams of experts serving on comparative effectiveness boards were told to survey data and determine which medical treatments work best and most efficiently.

Democrats also passed a financial reform law. The law that originally created the Federal Reserve was a mere 31 pages. The Sarbanes-Oxley banking reform act, passed in 2002, was only 66 pages. But the 2010 financial reform law was 2,319 pages, an intricately engineered technocratic apparatus. As Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute noted, the financial reform law is seven times longer than the last five pieces of banking legislation combined.

Once again, government experts were told to take a complex, decentralized system — in this case the financial markets — and impose rules, rationality and order. The law creates one über-panel, the Financial Stability Oversight Council. It directs government experts to write rules in 243 separate areas.

The law also calls upon government experts to make some heroic judgments. For example, it calls upon regulators to break up banks that might be about to pose a risk to the country’s economy. That is to say, investors may believe a bank is stable. The executives of the bank may believe it is stable. But the regulators are called upon to exercise their superior vision and determine which banks are stable and which are not.

When historians look back on this period, they will see it as another progressive era. It is not a liberal era — when government intervenes to seize wealth and power and distribute it to the have-nots. It’s not a conservative era, when the governing class concedes that the world is too complicated to be managed from the center. It’s a progressive era, based on the faith in government experts and their ability to use social science analysis to manage complex systems.

This progressive era is being promulgated without much popular support. It’s being led by a large class of educated professionals, who have been trained to do technocratic analysis, who believe that more analysis and rule-writing is the solution to social breakdowns, and who have constructed ever-expanding networks of offices, schools and contracts.

Already this effort is generating a fierce, almost culture-war-style backlash. It is generating a backlash among people who do not have faith in Washington, who do not have faith that trained experts have superior abilities to organize society, who do not believe national rules can successfully contend with the intricacies of local contexts and cultures.

This progressive era amounts to a high-stakes test. If the country remains safe and the health care and financial reforms work, then we will have witnessed a life-altering event. We’ll have received powerful evidence that central regulations can successfully organize fast-moving information-age societies.

If the reforms fail — if they kick off devastating unintended consequences or saddle the country with a maze of sclerotic regulations — then the popular backlash will be ferocious. Large sectors of the population will feel as if they were subjected to a doomed experiment they did not consent to. They will feel as if their country has been hijacked by a self-serving professional class mostly interested in providing for themselves.

If that backlash gains strength, well, what’s the 21st-century version of the guillotine?




151 comments:

  1. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/forty_acres_a_mule_sherrod_sty.html

    The Pigford case and Ms. Sherrod. You ought to read this, it's very illuminating. I've followed the Pigford case, and I didn't know it had gotten this bad.

    Free money!
    God Help America

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  2. The entire incident gives a disturbing insight the Obama administration's handling of a crisis:

    They went into full panic mode and did not investigate. Certainly they had access to the entire tape. The NAACP certainly did as well since it was an NAACP event.

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  3. The video was selectively edited, and that's wrong, but this does send a shot across the bow of anything seriously thinking of a little reverse racism, they are being watched.

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  4. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday that he will reconsider the abrupt firing of Shirley Sherrod, a Georgia-based Agriculture Department official who was the victim of a media frenzy over comments that turned out to have been distorted by video editing.

    heh, what a circus

    But Here's some good news, hopefully.

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  5. "When historians look back on this period, they will see it as another progressive era."

    His defender though I've been, David Brooks should try telling actual progressives that it's a progressive era.

    They beg to differ.

    Actual progressives will go on and on - and on - about corporatism and moneyed interests and crony capitalism and the phony hope and change of the Obama administration.

    And don't even get them started on the continued militarism.

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  6. I was looking at some construction documents yesterday. It is for a restoration of a property owned by the state of New York, The document is a 945 page pdf.

    With no exaggeration no more than 150 of the pages deal with the mechanical and physical site conditions. The balance of the document is solely for regulations, lawyers, absurd and needless environmental and legislated work conditions.

    With no doubt the project will bear a 40% cost burden that will not buy one stainless steel fastener, a single brick or pay for one coffee break.

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  7. Kind of like this:

    define: squishy totalitarianism. alright. it's totalitarian in that the state permeates the lives of people to an ever-greater degree. so, for example, we need pre-k programs and assured retirement, cradle-to-grave healthcare, guaranteed employment and housing. sort of gently, it shapes consciousnesses: gently in comparison to a roomful of chinese children chanting maoist slogans or rallies of hitler youth (though of course our kids do inhabit rooms with patriotic symbols and chant slogans in unison). the state regulates media, and at the broad level helps keep it in the hands of large corporations. what is constantly emphasized is the dependence of people on the state. the bush administration jacked this up amazingly, and tried to make the only issue who could keep americans safe, as though the only human emotion was fear and we self-evidently live in a nation of cowards. the obama admin has taken this over seamlessly. so squishy totalitarianism has a militaristic edge and the domestic policing that goes with it.

    the major feature, however, is the erasure of distinction between state and economy: the merger of the state and corporation in a way that makes corporations providers of basic public services and the state a for-profit enterprise. privitization and government purchases/bailouts of, say the financial system in a way amount to the same thing: blackwater merges with the pentagon; the fed with citigroup etc. this is the seemingly (at the moment) inevitable condition being approached in one direction or another by the u.s., china, venezuela, the eu, india, and russia: it's communism. or it's state capitalism. there is no distinction.

    [...]

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  8. "With no exaggeration no more than 150 of the pages deal with the mechanical and physical site conditions. The balance of the document is solely for regulations, lawyers, absurd and needless environmental and legislated work conditions."

    We're very...Germanic.

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  9. And just so there's no confusion or perceived slight, dear Melody: When I remarked upon your absence I was referring to the couple of days since I got back.

    I do vividly recall your bold encouragement to (a) flee The Family out the bathroom window or (b) get drunk and stay that way. And some trouble finding a light switch.

    It's the same every year. Round about Wednesday we can't stand the sight of one another. Come Saturday morning we are sad to part.

    Were it a month instead of a week, there would be violent crimes.

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  10. We're very...Germanic.

    We're getting there.

    My daughter was showing me this Idaho Judicial, I think it was, site where you can look up a person, we looked up me, and every last record is there, even ticket for seat belt violation, civil cases, the whole shebang. I think this goes too far, a man's civil cases ought to be his own business, for instance, but there it was, my case against my relatives.

    God, if the Germans had had computers!

    I still say, if you want done with relatives, form a family corporation, it'll take some time, but will do trick, always does, according to my lawyer.

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  11. Mubarak in Egypt is fading fast too, reports say, but he isn't actually such a bad guy, given the circumstances.

    Now's the time for the Chinese to step in and make some sense out of N. Korea, if only they would.

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  12. This in the new health care bill:

    Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year.

    That is one hell of an incentive to relocate and manufacture anywhere but here.

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  13. Any business person that voted for Obama or votes for him again needs to see a therapist and probably , actually assuredly will have to 1099 him.

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  14. I pick up the morning paper and read about a filing by some biologists group to reintroduce the wolves all across their historic range in the United States. Having destroyed the elk herds here not being enough. I quess this means wolves in Pennslyvania, Maine, Kansas, you name it.

    I think we're having some odd kind of collective insanity in the United States at this time, we seem to have lost our minds on so many things.

    It's some kind of drive to return to the primitive, some kind of a sickness with industrial society. The complexity is getting to be too much, a desire arises for the teepee, and howling at the moon.


    the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year.

    Hell that means me even.

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  15. Frankly, I would welcome wolves to take out the Virginia white tail deer.

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  16. Washington Monthly:

    BEN STEIN AND 'POOR PERSONALITIES'.... Republican criticisms of the unemployed have been in abundance lately. Those who've lost their jobs in the brutal recession have, just recently, been labeled "spoiled" and "hobos." Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) thinks if you don't have a job, you might very well be a drug addict. A common Republican talking point is that the unemployed are just lazy folks who choose not to work, preferring government aid.

    But Ben Stein pushed the anti-jobless line to new depths this week:

    The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say "generally" because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day's work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative.

    [...]





    When did Ben Stein become such an asshole?

    When did it become acceptable to shit on the unemployed in the midst of protracted recession?

    And for crying out loud, why would you WANT to?

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  17. Um, we just run them over on the highway.

    More efficient.

    You oughta try it.

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  18. Frankly, I would welcome wolves to take out the Virginia white tail deer.

    :) They'd accomodate you.

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  19. But, they'll take out your cattle, and your sheep, too.

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  20. Deuce, that sounded pretty darn ridiculous to me, the 1099 so I googled it. It seems that form has been around for awhile so I'm not sure what it is that Obama has done particularly in this respect to make it any more onerous than it already was. That form certainly makes me glad I'm running my business in Canada.

    From wiki:

    "The ubiquity of the form has also led to use of the phrase "1099" to refer to contractors themselves. U.S. tax law requires businesses to submit a Form 1099 for every contractor paid at least $600 for services during a year. Although, this requirement usually does not apply to corporations receiving payments, amendments made by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would remove this exemption beginning in 2012.

    Many businesses and organizations must file thousands of 1099s per year. "

    Thousands- holy shit!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_tax_forms

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  21. Wolves: Biologists file petition seeking nationwide recovery

    Scientists say isolated pockets not enough, animals now occupy less than 5% of their historic range

    AP--Billings, Montana

    Tens of thousands of gray wolves would be returned to the woods of New England, the mountains of California, the wide open Great Plains and the desert West under a scientific petition filed Tuesday with the federal government.

    The predators were poisoned and trapped to near-extermination in the United States last century, but have since clawed (!) their way back to some of the most remote wilderness in the lower 48 states.

    That recovery was boosted in the 1990's by the reintroduction of 66 wolves in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Yet as those first packs have flourished, increased livestock killings and declining big game herds have drawn sharp backlash from ranchers, hunters and officials in the Northern Rockies.

    But biologists with the Arizona based Center for Biological Diversity want to expand that recovery across the country. A few isolated packs are not enough, they say.

    "if the gray wolf is listed as endangered, it should be recovered in all significant portions of it range, not just fragments,"said Michael Robinson, who authored the petition.

    The federal Administrative Procedures Act allows outside parties to petition the government to act when species are in peril. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris Tollefson, whose agency received the petition, said there was no deadline by which the agency must respond to the one filed Tuesday....




    Who speaks for the elk? Have they no 'animal rights'?

    I think these biologists just need something to do.

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  22. 9/11 "Living Memorial" in the Jerusalem Forest Hills Dedicated

    While the USA and the City of New York contemplate the construction of a mega-mosque near the site of the attack of 9-11, Israel does something fitting.

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  23. Re: Ben Stein

    ...very disappointing...

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  24. Um, we just run them over on the highway.



    Deer, that is. Not the jobless.

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  25. Trish, it did sound more like a couple of weeks. So it's nice, after a couple days, that someone notices I'm missing.

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  26. this is my dream car

    It's funny how my husband was always a Chevy man and ended up with a Mopar.

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  27. I'm not sure what year Mustang that is but my wife in her younger days had one nearly like that, convertible. She ended up driving it into a ditch or something and that was the end of that.

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  28. Here's my dream car, never had one but had a friend that did. Mechanically a piece of shit, transmission is worthless, and the engine always out of tune or something or other, impossible to keep running right.

    Good looker, though.

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  29. Re 1099:


    That is what happens when you have a glib horse's ass who has convinced everyone who voted for him that he knows what he is doing.

    Obama could not run any business. Wait till this becomes widely known. Any manufacturer simply will have to move off-shore and export his product to his customers and make all procurements off shore as well.

    Assholes, job destroying, wealth destroying assholes.

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  30. The ongoing investigation of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is no longer primarily about the dismissal of the voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. It’s about a much more important matter — namely, the sworn testimony that an Obama political appointee instructed Voting Section lawyers that no cases would be brought against any black or other minority defendants no matter how egregious their violations of the law.

    Moreover, that appointee, Julie Fernandes of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, is alleged to have instructed the lawyers not to enforce part of the National Voter Registration Act. So even if Paul Mirengoff’s conclusions about the merits of the case are correct, the Civil Rights Commission investigation is very important.



    Black Panther Case Should Not Have Been Dismissed

    Civil rights destroying assholes.

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  31. but, from what I can tell, the 1099 has been around a long time already and isn't something unique to Obama.

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  32. "It's funny how my husband was always a Chevy man and ended up with a Mopar."

    A what?

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  33. Did I spell it wrong?

    Chevy as in chevrolet. I'm from Philly what the fuck do you want?

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  34. A Chrysler muscle car, opposite of a Moped

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  35. And you know women they just like to stick the key in and go.

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  36. My new goal in life is to again live where all the basic necessities are within walking and/or cycling range.

    Someplace where I don't really need a car.

    Had we listened to friends who urged us to take a house in Capitol Hill, I'd have realized it already.

    And would be whining about something else.





    Damn you're grouchy.

    Some of us don't know what a Mopar is, mkay?

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  37. I've been told that several times today.

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  38. Trish you might be a good candidate for a Moped. When I was in Europe they had them all over Amsterdam. Pedal your guts out, and when you tire, kick the engine on. My wife wants one.

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  39. Would the petty enforcers require me to wear a helmet? Because Trish does not do helmets. It's a hair thing.




    That is one wicked looking car, Melody.

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  40. We got rid of it over ten years ago.

    now he has this

    Which I've only probably been in a hand full of times since he got it last April. It doesn't excite me unless I'm driving, anyway.

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  41. Not in Idaho, unless you're under 18. Your link doesn't work Melody.

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  42. It's getting too hot. The clouds are billowing high over the mountains, pure white against pure blue, really pretty. We're going to have a thunderstorm later today. Fructifying rain or maybe hail. Maybe both.

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  43. Had a colorectomy a couple of years ago, and they cut out a couple of polyps. Had another one this morning - NO polyps. Thank you, Jeesus.

    Damn, if I get any healthier I might have to go back to work.

    Po, po, me.

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  44. Now's about time someone needs to step in with a piece of political commentary.

    For appearances' sake.

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  45. Melody, I don't think your last link works. At least, it didn't for me.

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  46. Are you sure you had a colorectomy Rufus?

    In most cases, polyps are quickly removed during a colorectal exam.
    Barely merits the term "surgery."

    I'm assuming you did not leave out some important detail, such as their quest to remove your cranium.

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  47. MeLoDy said...
    "... women they just like to stick the key in and go."

    Wed Jul 21, 03:24:00 PM EDT



    Ahhh...NO...Men do that, I'm reliably told.

    link

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  48. Doug, they said there wasn't enough left in the Cranium to bother with. :)

    Colonoscopy.

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  49. The links to Bob's cite:
    (where did your article come from, Trish?)

    Saint Sherrod, cont.

    Forty Acres & a Mule -- Sherrod Style?

    Shirley Sherrod's quick dismissal from the Obama administration may have had less to do with her comments on race before the NAACP than her long involvement in the aptly named Pigford case, a class action against the US government on behalf of black farmers alleging that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had discriminated against black farmers during the period from 1983 through 1997.

    ---

    So where does Sherrod come into this picture? In a special to the Washington Examiner, Tom Blumer explains that Sherrod and the group she formed along with family members and others, New Communities. Inc. received the largest single settlement under Pigford.

    ... New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

    What makes this even more interesting to me is that Charles appears to be Charles Sherrod, who was a big player in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s. The SNCC was the political womb that nurtured the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers before it faded away.

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  50. Great car, Melody.

    All it needs is some ethanol. :)

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  51. We know it wasn't your folks, fault tho Rufus:
    One of them abortion activists had the vacuum at work before anyone managed to stop him.

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  52. For appearances' sake.

    Oh all right.

    Obama's economic policy has got it all wrong, unless he's trying to sabotage the country. (French, from saboter, to walk noisily, bungle, sabotage, from sabot, sabot; see sabot.])

    Further there is no 'racial healing'--the great unifier is making things worse, what with this crap from his Justice Department.

    I've counted one man of integrity there, the guy that resigned.

    He should lower taxes and lower the capital gains, and less regulation, and less non productive government workers, and more incentive to make stuff here, and get off this green kick and do some serious nuclear energy.

    Now back to the colon of Rufus.

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  53. My son has been in OC this past month, at a friends house. I thought maybe he would push it til the end of the summer, I was even willing to pay, but I guess I have to pick him up tomorrow night. Maybe he'll go back down in a couple of weeks. It was good for him though.

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  54. Under Pigford every black farmer in America was discriminated against which is total bullshit of course.

    As I recall things a farmer had to shown at least a plausibilty that things might, just might, work out if everything went swimmingly.

    I read somewhere the other day that there is one Ag Department employee for every farmer in America. There must be a word for such a situation but I can't think what it is.

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  55. Medved informs that Sherrod's dad was murdered by the Klan, so this story has it's share of outrages.

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  56. "where did your article come from, Trish?"

    Some blog called Eye of the Storm, via link down page at

    http://www.whoisioz.blogspot.com/

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  57. Here ya go Bob:

    "However, confronted with the skyrocketing federal deficit, more officials are taking a critical look at the billion dollars spent thus far and wondering when these discrimination cases will ever end. Already, the number of people who have been paid and are still seeking payment will likely exceed the 26,785 black farmers who were considered to even be operating back in 1997, according to USDA.

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Shirley-Sherrods-Disappearing-Act-Not-So-Fast-98846149.html#ixzz0uLy5qDyb
    "

    ReplyDelete
  58. more boring political commentary--

    NEWS
    Thousands attend rally against drilling moratorium
    LAYFAYETTE, La. (AP) -- The crowd, many wearing T-shirts with slogans like "Drill Baby Drill," and "No Moratorium," began streaming into the Lafayette Cajundome as soon as the doors opened, eager to show their support for ending the federal offshore drilling moratorium.

    Tuesday's gathering, billed as the "Rally for Economic Survival," was set in the heart of Louisiana's oil patch.

    Thousands stood in silence as the names of the victims of the Deepwater Horizon explosion appeared on the stadium's big screens. But they were rarely silent after that - cheering every statement against the moratorium.

    Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle set the tone early by saying people in Louisiana weren't going down without a fight.


    The fool has sent our very best rigs seeking other places to drill off other foreign shores, and we'll be paying more out for oil as a result. They can't afford to just let them sit around.

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  59. Ms. Sherrod's previous background, the circumstances surrounding her hiring, and the USDA's agenda may all play a part in explaining her sudden departure from the agency. These matters have not received much scrutiny to this point.

    An announcement of Ms. Sherrod's July 2009 appointment to her USDA position at ruraldevelopment.org gives off quite a few clues:

    RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.

    What?

    The news that follows at the link, which appears to pre-date the announcement of Ms. Sherrod's appointment, provides further details:

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Shirley-Sherrods-Disappearing-Act-Not-So-Fast-98846149.html#ixzz0uLyaT2Eb

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  60. The people of Louisiana are wishing he spread the payback around like he does wealth.

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  61. They won't let them purge the rolls of dead people, either, Bob, so that vote should make up for the excluded servicemembers.

    Who knows, some dead servicemembers may even participate.

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  62. "more boring political commentary"

    Well, let me offer some exciting news.

    Husband testifies Friday.

    That's right. Goes before the jackals.

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  63. USDA - 109,823 Employees

    Remember, the USDA includes food stamp programs, school lunch programs, some foreign aid programs, etc.

    Anyways, since there are probably 5 Million, or so, farmers (I guess I have to look that up, next) the ratio is probably somewhere around 50 farmers to 1 USDA employee.

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  64. Subsequent to the initial posting, Breitbart posted the ENTIRE video of Mrs. Sherrod's speech. At no time were her comments taken out of context. Apparently the NAACP had the entire contents of the video too.

    Too many parties, with the exception of Breitbart, jumped the shark and were eschewed by their reactions. They were "Acting Stupidly."

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Shirley-Sherrods-Disappearing-Act-Not-So-Fast-98846149.html#ixzz0uM3QXGb5

    ReplyDelete
  65. Suggest that he wear thongs, Trish.

    ...not A thong.

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  66. Andrew Breibart's a douchebag.

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  67. "Popsicle toes"

    Popsicle toes are always froze.
    Popsicle toes.
    You're so brave to expose all those popsicle toes.

    You must have been Miss Pennsylvania
    With all this pulchritude.
    How come you always load your Pentax
    When I'm in the nude?

    We oughta have a birthday party,
    And you can wear you birthday clothes
    We can hit the floor
    And go explore those
    Popsicle toes.

    You got the nicest North America
    This sailor ever saw.
    I'd like to feel your warm Brazil
    And touch your Panama

    But Your Tierra del Fuegos
    Are nearly always froze.
    We gotta see saw
    until we unthaw those
    Popsicle toes.

    Popsicle toes.
    Popsicle toes are always froze.
    Popsicle toes.
    You're so brave to expose all those popsicle toes

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  68. Oh, and Deuce, thank you for keeping our Honor Clean with the speedy "Retraction, and Apology" on the Sherrod affair.

    ReplyDelete
  69. I thought of body armor but I don't expect they'd let anyone through security with it.

    Anyway, he blithely assures me he's pretty bullet proof.



    Can I have him get Nancy and Harry's autographs for you on a nice t-shirt from the gift shop?

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  70. "Oh, and Deuce, thank you for keeping our Honor Clean with the speedy Retraction, and Apology' on the Sherrod affair."

    I was waiting for that, thinking the same thing.

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  71. Terry Anderson - RIP

    America's debate about illegal immigration is mainly about gaining more allies for what I call the nation's "whitey-bashing" contingent. In their eyes, Latinos are ready, willing and able allies.

    But some Latinos apparently never got the memo that they're supposed to be brothers with America's blacks. And that, mainly, is what Anderson's problem was with illegal immigration.

    "They won't tell you of how skilled black workers in Los Angeles can no longer ply their trade," Anderson testified before Congress about America's open borders bunch. "Body and fenders, roofers, framers, drywallers, gardeners and now even truck drivers.
    They don't dare tell you about all of the race riots in our schools where the blacks are told to take their black a****s back to Africa. Even the news media [have] refused to tell of this while we know they are aware of it.

    ... The illegals won't hire us and won't buy from us. And still our black elected officials won't help us."

    That's because those black elected officials, for the most part, belong to that "whitey-bashing" contingent I referred to above. Many of them can't even say the word "black" these days without sticking an almost-obligatory "and Latino" behind it.

    They ignore warnings like the one Anderson gave before Congress, and like the one a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation official told http://cbs13.com after a riot at Chino penitentiary last year:

    "It appears we had some southern Hispanic gang members targeting African Americans."

    Anderson's mission was to expose such racism; his is a voice that will be desperately missed. +

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Being-black-and-against-illegal-immigration-1000358-98420044.html#ixzz0uM8Z3gvH

    ReplyDelete
  72. Latinos, of course, need not apologize.

    Some are more equal than others in our PC Stalag.

    ReplyDelete
  73. I would like to see the entire video at Breitbart but I can't find it.

    ReplyDelete
  74. "Now back to the colon of Rufus."

    Colorectomy?
    Colonoscopy?

    What he really needs is a Colonoptomy.

    That where they sever the optic nerve leading to the rectum in order to remove your shitty outlook on life.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  75. Unless he's changing the color of his shitty outlook on life he may need the colorectomy.

    ReplyDelete
  76. 149. Josh
    2×4@148: My theory–WH did not fire Sherrod because she was hesitant to help a whitey, but because she did later help him. It runs contrary to everything the WH stands for.

    Other possibilities:
    * She spoke honestly
    * She didn’t hold her chin high enough
    * She got caught
    * She wasn’t seen bowing to anyone
    * She forgot to blame it on Bush

    ---

    Comment 150. twobyfour,

    Dunno, if a member of armed wing of Democrat party (KKK) killed my father, would I ever want to have anything with them?

    Some sort of the Stockholm syndrome, I reckon.

    ***********

    Josh/149. I go with the “blame Bush” oversight. That she did not is inexcusable.

    ReplyDelete
  77. It is so damn hot in NYC. I was hoping to get out of here early and enjoy a relaxing cool afternoon and evening. No such luck.

    ReplyDelete
  78. I have one of my employees driving. Has anyone ever live blogged from the New Jersey Turnpike? At this stage my big decision is do we go for the Holland or Lincoln tunnel?

    Holland it is.

    ReplyDelete
  79. I thought this profile pic would be more appropriate considering the day I had.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Did you know that Ellis Island was created from the refuse from the drilling of the Holland Tunnel?

    ReplyDelete
  81. Did you know NYC was once the Capitol of the USA?

    ReplyDelete
  82. I guess those Macs are really worth having, eh? I'll only be impressed if you vlog while driving.

    ReplyDelete
  83. The Empire State Building was actually completed ahead of schedule, taking only fourteen months?

    The legal bills were $500.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Medved informs that Sherrod's dad was murdered by the Klan, so this story has it's share of outrages.

    Medved speculates, according to Lars Larson. The grand jury declined to indict, so no one knows who the killer was, though it's obvious Ms. Sherrod thinks it was a white, hence the chip on her shoulder. The bigger story is how the NAACP folks cheered and whooped when she went after whitey.

    It's hotter than hell here.

    ReplyDelete
  85. I don't know what's worse talking to some foreigner who can't speak English worth shit or some dumb hick who can't understand English worth shit.

    I called Sirius radio today and told the girl that on June 23rd, I ordered a vehicle power adapter for my radio in my car and I paid for three day shipping. I called twice and they told me it was on its way. I just received it today. I would like my shipping refunded and I would like my yearly subscription prorated for the month I could not listen to my radio.

    The bitch had the nerve to say, "So you bought a radio...."

    ReplyDelete
  86. Did you know my grandfather on dad's side came through Ellis Island, while the folks on mom's side just washed ashore in Virginia nearly a couple hundred years earlier?

    ReplyDelete
  87. Video: Entire Sherrod Speech

    Comment at Newsbusters:

    For those who can't watch the entire video, there are four segments that bear mentioning:

    1. Her story of how racism was invented by rich people at 21:30 is amazing.

    2. Her inference that anyone who opposed healthcare is racist because they didn't get behind Obama, (at 24:20), is insightful.

    3. She talks about what a shame it is that she can't dole out more aid money to black people and ends up giving it to white businesses at 29:45.

    4 At 34:00 she goes into a long diatribe about how it's such a shame that black farms get sold to white buyers.

    ReplyDelete
  88. I don't know what's worse talking to some foreigner who can't speak English worth shit or some dumb hick who can't understand English worth shit.

    heh! A true dilemma.

    ReplyDelete
  89. What's the worst portion
    In this mortal hike?
    A stammering foreigner
    Or an uncomprehending hick?

    ReplyDelete
  90. I couldn't quite make that rhyme but I tried. It's too hot today.

    ReplyDelete
  91. "I don't know what's worse talking to some foreigner who can't speak English worth shit or some dumb hick who can't understand English worth shit."

    Egad.

    I've been that foreigner in other countries. I'm quite sympathetic.

    Horrified daughter in an art shop in Mons: "Mom, it doesn't really help to get the point across when you repeat it in English with a bad French accent."

    Eventually she and her brother just refused to go anywhere with me that interaction beyond simple greetings might be required.

    As for "dumb hick"? Palin made it sexy, so there.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Anyways, since there are probably 5 Million, or so, farmers (I guess I have to look that up, next) the ratio is probably somewhere around 50 farmers to 1 USDA employee.

    I didn't think that 1 to 1 ratio could have been right. Can't remember where I read that. Sounded kinda phoney.

    ReplyDelete
  93. As for "dumb hick"? Palin made it sexy, so there.

    You.....grrr

    ReplyDelete
  94. The thunderstorm I predicted hasn't materialized those billowy clouds were beautiful though.

    ReplyDelete
  95. I had a woman in a toll booth outside of Paris look at me like some kind of loathsome cretin after a single sentence in her native language - which was developed precisely never to be mastered by outsiders.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Did you know today is the 85th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial?

    ReplyDelete
  97. Let 'em all learn proper American English, the savages, is what I say.

    ReplyDelete
  98. At least she enunciates her words.

    I said to my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter this morning, "Let me see your new outfit. You look soooo puurty." She said, "It's pretty, granny, not puurty."

    ReplyDelete
  99. heh :) smart ass kid with an attitude

    it's puurty, and if it's really puurty it's really pretty puurty

    ReplyDelete
  100. A supercilious French bitch?

    Aww, say it ain't so.

    ReplyDelete
  101. I have an aunt who says purty.

    I'd like to scream when she does it but she's the only aunt that I really get on with. Don't want to ruin it.

    ReplyDelete
  102. That's just as bad as walking into a place just three hours north of here, without saying a word, and getting the same look because you have a 2009 hair style and the hair under your arms isn't over an inch long.

    ReplyDelete
  103. You and I have just become eyewitnesses to the practical side of Sarah Palin.

    With a simple Facebook posting nine days ago, and a 30-second message sent to telephones in 400,000 Republican households, Palin served as both sword and shield for Karen Handel — boosting the former secretary of state to the top rung in a GOP runoff for governor.

    It may have been the most efficient and impressive use of political celebrity this state has ever seen, made on behalf of a woman whose views sometimes mirror those of the former Alaskan governor – but not always.

    Which is where Palin’s practical side asserted itself.

    Some people would rather be right than be president. Tuesday’s vote in Georgia proved that Sarah Palin isn’t one of them.

    We are excessively familiar with the slightly ditzy, I-can-see-Russia-from-my-house caricature of Palin on network TV. And Fox News makes sure we never miss the wise-cracking, line-in-the-sand ideologue.

    So the concept of a calculating, distant Palin tipping the balance in Georgia politics will take some getting used to. Chances are good that we’ll have that opportunity over the next three weeks.


    Damn Alaskan hick.

    ReplyDelete
  104. I was made fun of last week for the way I said water. He said, "I like the way you put an r in there."

    Back off buddy there are other ways to come to a woman. Please...

    ReplyDelete
  105. And aunt is pronounced ant in proper American English.

    ReplyDelete
  106. And creek is crick, as in Lick Crick, down by McCall.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Or going to a shopping mall in western PA and getting looks of wonder and amazement because you are the sole human being without a bright orange tan.

    Or any tan, for that matter.

    ReplyDelete
  108. "Damn Alaskan hick."

    Idiot with tits.

    I've known a few.

    ReplyDelete
  109. 'Course I've had my share of moments - days, weeks, months - as an idiot with tits.

    But that's why I decided to spare everyone and not hold elected office.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Hatred and envy are so unbecoming.

    ReplyDelete
  111. Ah, Sarah's all right, she walked right out there and held her own with the great Joe Biden.

    ReplyDelete
  112. "Hatred and envy are so unbecoming."

    Oh, b.s., bob.

    I've heard no end of this line from staunch Palin defenders. And it is stale.

    I have an affinity for thinkers and for the females who manage it especially.

    I'm surprised you don't.

    ReplyDelete
  113. At least when it comes to your political heroes.

    ReplyDelete
  114. And apparently Bill O'Reilly made his apology to Sharrod, too.

    Isn't that nice?

    ReplyDelete
  115. What's the worst portion
    In this mortal hike?
    A stammering foreigner
    Or an uncomprehending hick?


    In twenty twelve
    The choice is mine
    A Kenyan Elf
    Or lipstick porcine.

    ReplyDelete
  116. There's different kinds of smarts. Fact is, though she may not be exactly a bookworm, she is being successful, so far, out there in a tough political environment. She was criticized for quitting as Govenor of Alaska, but I remember Willie Brown, that perpetual politician from Oakland saying, that's exactly what she should have done to keep herself from fading away. And she does have puurty tits.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Widescreen doesn't do it for me, I'll try cropping Trinity.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Lipstick porcine
    If the choice is mine
    And not some Kenyan Elf
    Full of Himself

    ReplyDelete
  119. "There's different kinds of smarts."

    [Gritting teeth.}

    Uh huh.

    Change the subject, bob.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Billary's gonna bail after November's disaster, the dems will turn their longing eyes to her, as to salvation, so we might have two women fighting it out in twenty twelve.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Well, the Matrix wasn't doing it for me, I'll go with Strangers in Paradise. Welcome to my new avatar.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Change the subject, bob.

    ok, I'm agreeable.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Quick, it's almost bedtime. And I don't want to end on a sour note.

    ReplyDelete
  124. http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/07/video-matalin-says-tea-bag-people-carville-cracks-up-mary-stomps-off/

    : )

    Ah, the joys of the mixed marriage.

    ReplyDelete
  125. Thanks for the link, Doug. I watched the entire video. I learned some interesting things from Ms Sherrod.

    1. USDA is making 100%, no PMI loans at low interest rates to low and moderate income rural residents.

    2. Country folk can get a $7500 "health and safety" grant. (That's free money, folks)

    3. Country folk can also get up to a $20k loan to be used for home repairs at 1% interest with monthly payments as low as $25.00

    4. Rural businesses have(had) a gazillion dollar pool of stimulus money (SBA type) loans to draw from.
    **************************
    I want to become a low to moderate income retiree,
    move to the country, get that money while the getting is good and let someone else worry about the debt.

    ****************************
    I have a good idea for a small rural business. Establish the rural version of Acorn and help others get their share of the pie. I wonder if the Feds will get me $millions each year for the cause. ???

    ReplyDelete
  126. More on the new 1099 laws:
    Gold Coin Sellers Angered by New Tax Law
    Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion

    The bottom line:
    The tax code tweak is expected to raise $17 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

    Remember the old days of "Tax and Spend" Democrats. They're baaaaaaack!

    ReplyDelete
  127. That's actually a good idea, Whit.

    Ruralcorn Ruralorganizers protects your interests for a small fee.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Where in hell do they come up with nauseating arsholes like Carville?

    ReplyDelete
  129. Or nasalating drones like his wife, for that matter.

    Together they can be oddly endearing.

    Separately, never.

    ReplyDelete
  130. A marriage made in hell, which to them may seem like heaven, for all I know.

    ReplyDelete