George Rebane
The surface calm during our cool summer is beguiling and more than misleading. Over the years RR readers have had an early heads up on a number of national and international issues affecting us that are now coming home to roost, and several of them are already here. All of them were pooh-poohed by the local Left, taking the cue from their national leadership. Here’s a short list.
Greece is still in the tank and sinking deeper. Now the IMF is trying to quietly muscle in ahead of other creditors as it sees Greece hitting the bottom next year despite the Eurozone bailouts which have had no impact on Greece’s GDP growth. There simply is no there there; Greece is a country that could economically disappear from the world scene with no impact save a haircut to those who lent it money. Some time ago RR readers received a formula with which compute the probability of default; it worked in spades. Other countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even Belgium are standing in the EU’s default line.
Incipient financial ruin of America’s cities and states is acknowledged worldwide. Again our light thinking Left denied for years the role of public service unions and their pension planning with sleazebag politicians. Now we have witnessed a quiet pivot by progressives who are quietly trying to fix the unfixable without ever uttering things like SEIU. For a snoot full of how obvious the problem is to all but the national liberal chorus and, of course, the oblivians, read ‘The Unsteady States of America – Why the pensions nightmare is only just beginning’ in the 27jul13 Economist. Again, RR reported on this inevitability almost seven years ago when the SESF report presented to the local Board of Supervisors was risibly ignored.
The current poster child of municipal malfeasance and corruption is Detroit whose 700K citizens have been characterized by Michigan’s governor as innocent “good people” on whom this financial disaster has come like an unpreventable act of nature. Never mind that it is these same people who have continued to vote for the most corrupt collection of politicians decade after decade. Now they all are looking with expectant faces toward Washington for what could become the first of a national avalanche of bailouts and bondholder haircuts as at least 100 more cities are stewing in their own versions of such Chapter 9 fiscal fiascoes.
Obama is an authoritarian rogue president
in the best traditions of FDR and Lincoln (you can add Lyndon if you
wish) as was pointed out here five years ago, and regularly since then.
Now even some prominent national journalists are beginning to take
note with what facility and aplomb this president has advanced the
Executive über alles. The balance of power envisioned by an abandoned
Constitution is now history. Better late than never. (more here)
In a rogue administration populated by rogue agencies
(e.g. DoJ, IRS, NSA, EPA, …), a leading handmaiden is the Dept of
Homeland Security which to this day has yet to acknowledge the
demonstrated and longstanding terrorist offensive carried out against
the West by radical Islam. Today DHS still identifies tea party members and
America’s veterans as the most credible and likely terrorist danger to
the country. It has armed itself, FEMA, and local constabularies to
deal with this onshore threat. In the meantime the Dept of State
continues to shutter more embassies in Islamic countries, and is finally
advising Americans of a worldwide travel threat posed by Al Qaeda. RR has been one of the few voices that agrees with Muslim leaders worldwide that we are in a one-sided war between civilizations.
And we can’t let this list end without reviewing the president’s “phony scandals” that were supposed be forgotten bygones by now according to our prescient progressive pundits, some even advising us so on these pages. It appears that exactly the opposite has been going on in each of the imbroglios – IRS (expanding here), Benghazi (multiple), NSA monitoring denials. And keep your eyes peeled for new ones from the implementation of the mandated sequestering of funds and exempting favorites from Obamacare coming to a front page near you.
Meanwhile our congressmen Tom McClintock and Doug Lamalfa are doing their jobs in trying to keep public lands open to the public. You’ve all heard what envirowacos are proposing to do toward shutting down Yosemite, and the roping off of more of our local Tahoe National Forest because of some hokey danger to a yellow-bellied, splay-footed, double-beaked something or other. Read Tom’s floor speech on Yosemite here. Also plan to attend Lamalfa’s 4sep13 Congressional Hearing on the Proposed Critical Habitat Designation for these Agenda21 critters. It will be held at the Nevada County’s Rood Center on 4 September 2013 at 11am. McClintock will hold a forum on the same issue this Tuesday, 6 August, 2pm at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds, Sierra Building, 220 Southgate Drive, Sonora.
Finally, former Washington Post editor Henry Allen captures the country’s milieu in this short essay ‘The Disquiet of Ziggy Zeitgeist’. “I don’t know what’s going on. I doubt that anyone does. Is our democracy turning into a power vacuum? What will fill it? … Will organized religion die? I got talking to a girl from an Episcopal youth group in Missouri. ‘Episcopalianism is great,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to believe anything.’”
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