Savage Republican

With bailout mania sweeping the nation, there is a small warning in an article in, of all places, the New York Times. The problem is that this is a warning that has been repeated and ignored many more times than it’s been stated. There is a concept in insurance and societal behavior called “Insuring the moral hazard“. The concept is that if someone or any entity is shielded from the full consequences of their behavior that that behavior becomes more likely to occur the further the behavior is separated from it’s consequences. This is explained in the greed/fear scenario. If there is a payoff to some behavior, that payoff is moderated by the fear of consequences arising out of that behavior. If fear of the consequences is reduced, the probability of that behavior occurring rises. A prime example of this is in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac disaster: As FM/FM “encouraged” lenders to make riskier and riskier loans, the banks and mortgage originators saw that as long as FM/FM was buying those risky mortgages. That and the implied belief that FM/FM were government entities and the Feds would back up any problem loans, the loan originators were “insured” against loss. Enter in Wall Street. They saw a way to create security backed assets with these mortgages. And again, as FM/FM were government created entities, Wall Street saw that these were fairly risk free assets (or at the minimum reduced risk) guaranteed by the federal gov’t (aka you and me). Well, AIG looked to insure those assets. When the bottom fell out of the mortgage bubble, it was a house of cards/line of dominoes that fell. Again, all thanks to government intervention, coercion, threat, duplicity and outright fraud.
So, here, in the New York Times we have this bit of wisdom:” But longer term, the new bailout could haunt regulators and taxpayers. The move ultimately may encourage banks to take more risks in the belief that the government will step in if they run into trouble. ” Geez! Do ya think?? What the crap do these people think started this whole bailout disaster to begin with? When the loan originators saw reduced risk as did all subsequent financial entities, well, disaster was in the offing.
So, we have more bitter fruit with the promise of another crop from the same tree firmly rooted in bad government policy.
Eat hearty fellow citizens!
BTW, ever hear of the green apple quick step?
We’ll yearn for the days when things were only that bad.

Yesterday I called a friend of mine to get him range qualified to get his firearm carry permit. As I am an AACFI certified firearms instructor ,he had taken the classroom instruction and we needed to schedule the range portion. So, I called and we talked politics. I related the story behind my previous post. And lo and behold, he told me that nearly the exact same thing had happened to him.
He signed up to be a recount volunteer for Coleman. he gave his bona fides: he was not just an election judge, he was a head election judge! He gave all pertinent contact information except his home phone number. Before volunteering the Coleman team had contacted him to make a sizable contribution to help pay for the legal team (my friend is a significant financial contributor to the party and campaigns). My friend said no, that a huge legal team wasn’t necessary if you have an adequate recount team. Well, after signing up the Coleman team called him at his home. His wife gave the caller my friend’s work and cell number. As of yesterday, my friend had not been contacted.
Here is a ballot that Team Franken challenged as not showing clear intent to vote for Coleman (thanks to Freedom Dogs ):

Yup. Again, Republicans either can’t or won’t fight.

I hope that my prediction is as far off as the prediction for Comet Khoutek.
Here is what I entered in comments at Hot Air:
I predict Coleman will lose. Franken won’t win, Coleman will lose.
My evidence: Last Wednesday I put up a notice on our blog about the recount and where to sign-up as a volunteer for Coleman. Ed even linked to it in an update. I signed up at the Coleman site to become a recount volunteer. I signed up for text message alerts and email notifications. I entered in additional information that I had been an election judge for 6 years, have been involved in Republican organizations for 10 years where I live. 2 days later I got a confirming email:”By receipt of this e-mail, you have indicated willingness to volunteer in the recount effort and will be contacted by a local field staff member to confirm availability. Individuals should expect to be contacted by a member of the recount team by Friday, November 14.”
I contacted the head of our Congressional District. She forwarded my email to the head of Coleman’s campaign in our CD with a note that this person does contact people. I also included a note that Franken had an overflow crowd of volunteers that came to be trained to be recount observers. That was Saturday.
The recount starts tomorrow.
I’ve yet to hear from Team Coleman.
I have better things to do with my time than wasting it working for a organization that doesn’t know how to fight.
I’m out.
Once again, as I scream into the wind: this is what Horowitz says in his book “The Art of Political War”- Republicans can’t and won’t fight. Coleman did a McCain (a political stunt that was ill advised) by pulling “negative” ads. How’d that work Norm?
I’m tired of charging the mountain while so many Republicans are either running down the mountain or are REMFs (NSFW BTW). Or are unconverted Captain Renault’s.

I just got off the phone with Ron Carey, Executive Chair of the Minnesota Republican Party on what I can do to stop the left wing’s theft of Norm Coleman’s Senate seat.
THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Money is needed to defray the cost of the attorneys that will need to be and are involved.
Volunteers are needed to monitor those who are counting the ballots in all the Minnesota precincts.
Ron said to go to the Coleman website (http://www.colemanforsenate.com/splash ).
Click on either “Contribute” or “Volunteer”. As a matter of fact: Click on both.
Assume that you will be vetted. I added extra information that could be verified that I am a conservative and a Republican.
I volunteered and also signed up for text alerts.

The NYT has outdone itself finally. With their credit rating at junk bond status, they expose, once again, national security secrets that benefit nothing but the terrorists. Then, to pile on, they are the recipient of one side of a private conversation between President Bush and the holder of the Office of the President Elect. And all of this within 24 hours. Well Done Yellow Dogs!
George, we watched as the NYT exposed, twice before in addition to this, top secret operations that compromised the WOT (here and here). With this addition of their expose extravaganza I have a suggestion:
Mr. President, finally, indict the New York Times. Indict their editorial staff for treason, sedition. They’ve compromised national security how many times? They have become bottom feeders. You and Department of Justice have enough evidence to have a couple of hundred indictments on them by lunch tomorrow. We’ve supported you for eight years. Throw us a bone here. Plus, when his Obamaness takes the office, he’ll drop the case anyhow, pardon the evil doers and then give us ammunition to save the nation from him.
After all, do you think for a moment that he and his new AG won’t do this against people like me?

If you’ve read my blog for nearly any time, you know how I feel about the military and especially veterans.
On the shelf behind me are six pictures of combat veterans-a B-24 pilot with 35 completed combat missions who once had an easy ticket home but said he couldn’t leave his crew and remained in harms way, a B-17 pilot with 35 completed combat missions that ferried gasoline to Titio’s rebels, one of the Band of Brothers who was severely wounded in Bastogne and still limps six decades later, a Marine Corsair pilot that flew close air ground support for the invasion of Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, a Korean War vet who was a demolitions expert and never really came home, and a Vietnam War vet who is known worldwide. I know all these men and they know me by my first name. One picture I don’t have, to my deep regret, is one of my Uncle Harold,a gentle man who was a combat infantry Captain in the Battle of the Bulge and went on to Vietnam twenty years later barely escaping a bombing of his Saigon office. I sit here, listening to Norah Jones sing “American Anthem”, typing these words, sipping my hot hazelnut coffee in relative peace because of them and those who serve today.
Let me share with you what I try to tell my WWII vet friends. The first vet I told this to (with a borrowed phrase I had heard) was Col. Harry Potter, who Jimmy Doolittle’s navigator on the Tokyo Raid in April 1942:
“I am your American son. Before I was born, you and you brothers in arms risked and many times gave up all your tomorrows so I could have today in the greatest country in the world. I owe you a debt that I can never repay. You let me have lunch with you. You let me join your group. You insist I call you by your first name. You mercilessly give me the needle and the barb. You tell me things that I believe you haven’t told your family. And at times you call me friend. And all of this is a high compliment for a man like.”
I recently wrote that the only acceptable currency for the purchase of liberty is blood. As a born again Christian my liberty from God’s rage and hell was the blood of Christ. The price for my living in freedom in America was the blood of all those who served and died before. That is one of the reasons that I am a radical with regards to liberty: to honor that beautiful surrender and express humble gratitutde. To be anything else or less is to spit on the shed blood of those who served and sacrificed.

Make it a point to find at least one veteran today and thank him or her.

I’m friends with Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air. I met Ed nearly three years ago. He’s a great guy and has a great gig at Hot Air. A much respected blogger who has access to sources I can only dream about. But, we have had a few differences over the years.
And now, I really need to take him to task.
In his blog entry “Notes From the Collapse” he makes this comment near the end regarding why the voter turnout was low for McCain and how McCain lost votes:
“John McCain and the GOP didn’t get their turnout in this race. They lost almost seven million voters from 2004, a rather stunning number. We’ll be chewing on this for a while, but that’s more than 10% of the Bush vote that got lost in this election…“
Ed then goes on to say:
“The GOP demoralized their base by acting like Democrats for too many years, and the winds of “change” proved too dispiriting this time around…The Republican Party lost its soul when it launched its K Street Project, and the spendfest of 2001-6 only made that more clear.” And I’d like to add “DO YA THINK???”
He ends this way:
“If the GOP wants to win 60 million votes in future national elections, it has to stand for something other than being Democrat Lite. The Republican Party needs clarity, purpose, and most importantly, an end to the hypocrisy of talking smaller government while porking up their districts. When given only a choice between real Democrats and fake Democrats, Americans will choose the former, which we found out in 2006.“
Here what I put into comments:
“Great advice…that I was giving over 6 years ago starting with Norm Coleman (no drilling in ANWR) and No Child Left Behind. I warned people that GWB was making a huge mistake by cuddling up to people that would never vote for him (lefties).
But, I was beat down time and time again by the BS mantra “We HAVE to elect Republicans!!!”
Well, how did THAT work for ya.
And I hear some of those same buttheads/bullheads now trying to convince me that they’re “on board” to clean the party up.
Don’t pee on my back and then tell me it’s raining.
You are the people I’ve been screaming at for over 6 years.
From the apropos quote from Samuel Adams:”…go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” “

I’ve worked with these people down here in the south metro area of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I’ve heard the “Elect Republicans” when I/we were trying to get conservatives elected. These people have sometimes actively and aggressively fought us who were trying to bring the party back to it’s roots. They have tried and sometimes succeeded in silencing conservative voices and then “high fived” themselves over their success.
As Rush said today the rage we feel is at “those” Republicans.
If you are one of “those” Republicans, we’re coming for you.

I was reading some of the comments posted at Prairie Pravda’s story on the Coleman/Franken race:
Republicans
go cry in your beer LOSERS!
posted by Monkeypaws on Nov 7, 08 at 8:55 am

waive his right to a recount??
So sleazy Norman is trying to convince people that he would waive his right to a recount if he were in Franken’s shoes. Anyone that, doesn’t know that history of Chameleon Norm Coleman.
posted by dylandon on Nov. 6, 08 at 11:39 AM

Red Star bias
Why is it “Franken’s Deficit”? Why not “Coleman’s lead”?
posted by jagebe on Nov 7, 08 at 8:55 am

And so, to “heal our souls” and to “unite us” in the spirit of bi-partisanship as demonstrated by the tolerant, inclusive left, as Harry Reid has shown to Joe Lieberman and Rahm Emmanuel has shown to all, I make this solemn pledge: I will show the same amount of respect, deference and temperament to President Obama as the left has shown to President Bush over his eight years in office.
I truly promise.

Came across this article about “unnamed” or “anonymous” sources making snarky comments about Sarah Palin. Great van Susteren and Karl Rove are spot on. Palin was the breath of fresh air that the McCain camp needed and needed badly. Palin was mishandled and mishandled badly (see my previous entries). As Susteren and Rove point out that these comments are worthy of a NYT hit piece on Palin or Cindy McCain. Why do the work of the left on your own? Reagans 11th Commandment:”Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Now, I can stand accused of breaking that commandment in my previous posts.
With the results of Tuesday, and 2006 still fresh in memory, Repubs such as this need to be spoken of and to.