Is Obamanomics More Like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Evel Knievel?

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a children’s fantasy story written by Ian Fleming later made into a 1968 movie about a junked race car which was transformed by an eccentric inventor into a magical automobile which could sprout wings when it hurled off a cliff.

Evel Knievel

Evel Knievel was a Montana born daredevil who gained national attention from the mid  1960s through the  1970s for his attempts to jump over objects like the fountain at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve 1967, 13 buses at Wembley Stadium and the Snake River Canyon in Idaho.  While Kneival did have some successes in his stunt entertainment career, he also managed to break 433 bones during his career. 


Despite the near rocket power engine of the Skycycle X-2, the drouge parachute deployed early and the prevailing winds dragged it back south into the canyon short of the goal.  Having enough horsepower to make the leap  is not the only factor of success, as Knievel nearly managed to make the 1966 Caesar’s Palace jump and the 1975 Wembley jump but did landed hard and crashed. The problem with being a daredevil is once one engages in risky showmanship then that individual becomes practically uninsurable. 






Unfortunately, Obamanomics and petty partisan showmanship is threatening to thrown the American economy off the financial cliff.  President Obama has fully invested in class warfare by demanding that the rich pay their fair share and demands that Bush era tax rates expire for those making $250,000 or more a year.  The problem is that windfall from such a demogogic economic policy would only raise $40 Billion per annum, which would only fund the Federal government for eight days. Yet the Taxmaggedon  hikes would shrink the economy by 1.3% and cost 710,000.  This is foreseeable as small businesses would be walloped by these proposals.  It sounds compelling to stick it to millionaires (or those who make $250,000 per year), but many of those are S-Corporations, which are small businesses that combine personal and business income for tax reporting purposes.  Small businesses are the job generators in America.


Congressional Democrats has gotten into the high flying daredevil act on the economy.  To gain political leverage for Obama’s class envy policy of raising the rich’s taxes, Senate Democrats are willing to raise everyone’s taxes unless there is a tax hike for the rich.  Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) the prospective Chair of the Senate Banking committee in the 113th Congress, has declared that she will filibuster any lame duck session fix unless Democrats get their way.  This would mean that the Bush Tax rates would expire for everyone and taxes would go up across the board.


Of course, taxes for Obamacare will commence.  The .9% payroll tax on upper income tax payers and the 3.8% tax on “unearned income” will further erode any steam in America’s economic engine.

Super-Committee Protestors on Capitol Hill

Another impediment to economic growth from the District of Calamity is sequestration.  In order for President Obama to be given authority to raise the debt limit by $2.1 Trillion  in August 2011, Obama agreed to the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011. 

 Congress agreed to a $900 Billion spending cut and commissioned a Super-Committee to find another $1.5 Trillion in cuts.  Since the Super-Committee was stymied in reaching legislative agreements, a triggering mechanism will activate a series of automatic across the boards cuts split evenly between military and civilian spending.  A Chmura Economics and Analysis report indicates that a staggering 2.1 million jobs will be lost due to willy nilly sequestration. The reality of these cuts on the military side will mean that personnel rather than weapons in development will be slashed.  Lest this report be dismissed because the  Aerospaces Instustries Association sponsored report is looking after its own, the Economic Impact of the Budget Control Act of 2011 notes that 48,059 jobs in healthcare, 98,953 in construction, 473,250 in manufacturing and 617,449 federal jobs are at risk. That will affect the well-to-do economy of federal workers between the beltways, but the prospective layoff notices may not be issued until after election day in November.  How convenient.


Considering that the $837 Billion of Porkulus stimulus spending of 2011 has done nothing to increase jobs vis-a-vis doing nothing, the combination of prevailing winds should further ground prospective economic growth.  We may not have to wait until New Years Eve 2013 to discover that our economy will not soar to Vulgaria like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But without a parachute  and without significant economic propulsion, the American economy will likely crash after being pushed off the fiscal cliffs just like Evel Knievel on an unlucky jump.

Atheists' Umbrage at Obama’s Movie Massacre Prayer

Just hours after to the Midnight Movie Massacre in Aurora, Colorado, President Barack Obama recast his re-election campaign rally into a more somber public appearance. Mr. Obama encourage Americans to put aside politics as he called for a day of prayer and reflection.



 President Obama concluded his remarks in Fort Myers, Florida with a brief prayer: “May the Lord bring them comfort and healing in hard days to come.” These temperate remarks to the grieving American public trying to process the 12 people murdered along with 71 others shot seemed quite Presidential.

Unfortunately, atheists expressed at Mr. Obama’s attempts to offer spiritual succor to the nation. The Center for Secular Humanism Tom Flynn opined that Obama bent the rules against the establishment of religion with his remarks. To wit, Obama’s oration excluded Americans who do not worship the “Lord” or those are atheists.

It is no surprise that gun grabbers, like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D-R-I) to quickly jump on this Dark Knight Rises shooting as an excuse to further restrict Second Amendment rights. It took less than six hours for the Lamestream Media to seek to link the tragedy to targets of their ideological agenda. Brian Ross, the supposed chief investigator of ABC News, broke into Good Morning America to report the suspicion that the shooter had links to the Tea Party (which were absolutely off base but where does a wrongly identified person get his reputation back?).

Atheists have been striving to impose their secular creed which imposes freedom from religion in the public square. While it seems that such secularists have a fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment establishment clause, it is more unseemly that purveyors of the atheist agenda did not have the decency to wait a day to hang their hook on such a sad news story.

The Obama EPA Has Pulled the Plug on America

As Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency implements regulations which make it too complicated and economically untenable to operate Coal Generation plants. 

The EPA’s regulation (which was not approved by Congress) will shut off 10% of electricity generation in the US.This Congressional unapproved Obama Administrative mandate will hit the Midwest particularly hard. Michigan may have to deal with unreliable power deliver (read blackouts) if any additional co-generation plants are shuttered.  According to the Chicago Tribune, electricity rate-payers in Ohio should expect to pay $179 per household extra for these EPA regulations.   Of course, these coal power conversion “challenges” will complicate adding jobs during this “Summer of Recovery”.  Then again, that was Obama’s gimmick for the 2010 election cycle.

It is not as if this result was not unexpected. In 2008, then Senator Obama gave an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, where he predicted that his policies would cause electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. 




The only difference is that Obama thought that it would be Cap and Trade legislation which would prompt Americans to dig deep in their pockets to do the right thing.  The problem is that the Senate never approved Cap and Trade legislation, so EPA bureaucrats took the onus on their unelected shoulders to proffer the regulation.  But then again, following the Constitution would be a DREAM Act from My POTUS (sic).

If only we could treat this as a laugh-a-second farce like Johnny's antics in the original Airplane movie (1980).

Alas, it's no laughing matter.  The fog of economic uncertainty is getting thicker and Obama's Leviathan government is getting larger.

Pelosi's Bull on Authentic Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI (vested in white) greets then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (ironically dressed in purple), on the Papal pilgrimage to Washington, DC in 2008

House Minority Leader (and former Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th) prides herself on being an ardent Catholic but she seems quite confused about her faith, yet she continues to foist her heresy in the realm of politics.

A couple of years ago, at a Capitol Hill conference, Rep. Pelosi offered that her favorite word was “The Word” and stressed how it was crucial to give voice to that scriptural word when conducting public policy. However, when a reporter during the former Speaker’s weekly press gaggle followed up on when the Word became flesh, suddenly the concept was only fit for church. Perhaps Pelosi did not want to reconcile her beliefs with the inconvenient truth that her faith teaches about human life beginning at the moment of conception.

After then Senator Obama’s (D-IL) appearance at the Saddleback Civil Forum where the successful Presidential candidate deflected a question about abortion as being “above my pay grade”, Pelosi was pressed about abortion, she insisted that the doctors of the Church had been unable to make that definition.

Maybe Nancy was relying too much on Senator Augustine, uh Saint Augustine's, 4th Century notion of quickening instead of acknowleding Pope Paul VI's Encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968 which makes it quite clear that the Catholic Church believes that life begins at the moment of conception. It might give context as to why the American Catholic Sees are seething about the contraception mandate embedded in Obamacare.

Minority Leader Pelosi dismissed American Bishops objecting to the HHS mandate as imposing on religious freedom, noting that she respects her pastor not when these Shepherds of the Faith act as lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Instead of confining herself to be a hypocritical politico, Pelosi has annointed herself as a theologian. Pelosi pontificated that it was not entire Catholic Church was against the HHS mandate, just 43 Catholic organizations, such as the Archdiocese of Washington. Pelosi embellishes her bull by noting that they had not spoken ex cathedra. 

So by Pelosi's train of thought, the Cardinal Bishop in her Archdiocese between the beltways is not speaking authoritatively on matters of faith for Catholic Church or she bears false witness about respecting her pastor.

But to correct the record as either Pelosi's religious education at Trinity College was inadequate or it was an instance of invincible ignorance, ex cathedra statements are solemn and formal papal pronouncements on matters of faith and morals. Before the Congresswoman from California takes solace that the Humanae Vitae encyclical was only a papal teaching, she should consider what Pope Blessed John Paul II stated in a 1993 papal audience:

When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in exercising his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians he defines with his supreme apostolic authority that a doctrine on faith and morals is to be held by the whole Church, through the divine assistance promised him in the person of St. Peter, he enjoys that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished to endow his Church in defining a doctrine on faith and morals.

But the lawsuits from 43 Catholic institutions protesting forced participation in contraception, sterlizations and abortion are rooted in natural law hence it is part of the unaltered Magesterium (teaching) of the Catholic Church. The same is true for the Catholic Church's opposing same sex so called "marriage". The same is true of opposition to homosexual "marriage", which trumps Pelosi's puerile justification supporting same sex marriage as her Catholic faith (allegedly) teacher her that that she must oppose all forms of discrimination.

 Faithful critics both instead and out of the Catholic Church grumble that former Speaker Pelosi should be excommunicated for her beliefs. Excommunication should never be used in a punitive secular sense, as it is intended to save the soul from eternal damnation. However, excommunication proclamation need not be issued by an ecclesial court under canon law ( ferendae sententiae). A Catholic's very actions may ipso facto result in a latae sententiae excommunication, which can include an apostate, a heritic or a schismatic. Often a bishop will convey this warning in private. For all we know, this may have already happened.

When former Speaker Pelosi visited the Vatican in 2009, she was granted a fifteen minute meeting with the His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, with no press or photographers present. Pelosi issued a press release which complimented the Roman pontiff for standing for religious freedom and praised the Church's leadership for fighting poverty, hunger and global warming. The Vatican press office had a chillier characterization of the brief greeting. The papal statement indicated:

His Holiness took the opportunity [of the brief greeting with Mrs. Pelosi -ed] to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

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It sounds like the Supreme Pastor of the Catholic flock was pretty clear about when life begins. This comes on top of the 2002 doctrinal note "The Participation of Catholics in Political Life," which states rather succinctly that politicians who profess to be Catholic have a "grave and clear obligation" to oppose any law that attacks human life. The brief greeting might have sotto voce also been a word to the wise.

Well, Mrs. Pelosi persists in purusing a public policies that is anathamatic to Catholics. Worse, the House Minority Leader justifies her progressive political positions in faith while misrepresenting the Magesterium. In this environment, Canon 915 seems applicable to this layman which denies the Eucharist to someone who obstinantly persists in grave sin. Even though Washington's Archbishop Donald John Cardinal Wuerl has recently been appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Wuerl seems chary about keeping pro-abortion Catholic politicians from participating in Communion. Based on Monsignor Charles Pope's recent reflection, it is dubious that such action would be applied.

It is galling that a Cafeteria Catholic extols spiritual junk food for mass consumption instead of the Divine Feast under the illusion of obeying "The Word". In a pluralistic representative Republic, it is not uncommon for a politician to promote positions which an individual finds repugnant. What seems unjust is that leader lying about the moral underpinnings of these positions when it directly contradicts clear tenants of Catholic faith. If she wants to rationalize her positions on abortion, contraception and same sex "marriage" through a veneer of  religiosity, she would do well to swim the Tiber in reverse, as her secuclar humanist progressive political  positions would be welcomed with open arms among most Episcopalians or even Unitarians. But such a principled act would fail to pander to a large voting bloc of Catholics

Forcing Catholics Institutions Out of Charity Not Fine with US

The HHS final rule on qualified health plans imposes a Contraception Mandate that poses a poison pill for faithful Catholic and other institutions that believe that life begins at conception. Mark Rienzi, the Becket Fund For Religious Liberty attorney who represents Ave Maria University, Belmont Abbey College, Colorado Christian University and ETWN , is confident that the outcome in federal courts will come out the right way and protect religious liberty in America. However, if Rienzi’s optimism is misplaced, he believes that Catholics could end up engaging in civil disobedience against an unjust law.

  The civil disobedience with religious liberty protestors will not be like the sit-ins of the civil rights movement. Instead, Rienzi anticipates institutions not paying for the contraception, sterilizations and abortifacients. This would lead to crippling fines which eventually would put the charitable and educational missions out of existence. 

In a perverse way, such a shuttering of Catholic identity might be the aim of the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration budgetary proposal for FY2013 sought to limit the deductability of charitable contributions for those making over $250,000 a year, exactly the demographic which makes substantial gifts to non-profit causes. As for Catholic hospitals, they make up 15% of all bed-space in America and they are often the only provider in rural regions. If conscientious Christians cede the field due to the Contraception Mandate (or being fined out of existence), the federal government will dominate the health-care playing field and be a major step towards a single-payer system. 

It is not fine to force charitable institutions from living their faith by penalizing them for not acquiescing. It may be time to recall the Man of All Seasons, St. Thomas More who was a martyr for not submitting to an unjust law proffered from English King Henry VIII, the secular power that be.

Sharpton Draws Cross Comparisons

photo:/ David Shankbone

On Easter Thursday, the Reverend Al Sharpton made some cross comparisons between Jesus Christ and Trayvon Martin when he spoke before the National Action Network’s meeting in Washington, DC. Sharpton pontificated:

We believe in Jesus, they crucified him and never had a charge... They never charged, there wasn’t no crime on his indictment. So we’ve got to deal with the inequities of the criminal justice system. The fact that we (black people) are overly-incarcerated, the fact that we go to court and are treated differently, and the fact that when we’re victimized there is not the same response. That’s what Trayvon was about.

That’s extraordinary exegesis from the Reverend Sharpton. But Sharpton’s other pronouncements about Trayvon seem as provocative and pugnacious as the Lunacy in Luton. This tendency towards fusing intolerant theology with polemic politics is a trend that we should resist we much (sic).

Protesters in Sanford, Florida were disappointed that the Reverend Sharpton reneged on his promise to appear at a Pre-Easter Occupation for the slain teen. But Sharpton was not chanting with the Culture Club. Instead, the right Reverend was keeping it real as Sharpton spent Resurrection Sunday leaning forward on MSNBC panel.

No wonder Sharpton could make such cross comparisons.

Keeping Politically Curious on Public Broadcasting

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the ban on political advertising for public radio and television stations on a 2-1 vote.  But Judge Carlos Bea affirmed the ban on for profit companies advertizing goods and services.

The stated legal logic is:

Public issue and political advertisements pose no threat of ‘commercialization'..."Such advertisements do not encourage viewers to buy commercial goods and services. A ban on such advertising therefore cannot be narrowly tailored to serve the interest of preventing the 'commercialization' of broadcasting.

Be mindful that this is the Ninth Circuit, has a reputation of being the most overturned federal jurisdiction. But for this election cycle, prisoners of PBS might be praying for telethons rather than the onslaught of election ads.

In the abstract, this ruling may be a good thing for public broadcasters.  Conservatives have long felt that PBS and NPR slants markedly left in its coverage and sensibilities. It might be profitable for them to get paid for broadcasts.  But a close reading of the US Code indicates that public broadcast stations can not substantially relying on underwriting acknowledgments for funding their operations.

It might be interesting to learn how much underwriting spots cost, as it could be a cheap way for underdogs or even ideologically insurgent (read Republicans) to introduce their ideas to public broadcasting viewers. Of course, denial of political sponsors on public broadcasters could generate some earned media for campaigns as well as exposing the nearly translucent veil of impartiality by many public broadcasters.

While it is more of a political than an judicial issue, Minority Television Project v. FCC might spur a rethinking of the 1967 Public Broadcast Act in our information overload area and perhaps a retooling of the FCC itself by Congress. When there were only a few choices on the television dial, it made sense to have an alternative which supported niche programming.  Now cable, satellite, digital over-the-air multicasts and internet streaming offers an alluvia of choices for consumers.  In this changed media marketplace, it might make sense to rethink TV.

There are also some absurdities in Public Broadcasting.  It used to be that public broadcasters relied on the largess of wealthy individual underwriters (or their trusts) to sponsor favored programming like “Masterpiece Theater”.  Underwriting can now be done by corporations, but not to commercialize products.  So there tends to be warm fuzzy branding for the corporate sponsor, even with moving images-but no commercials (sic).  Really?

Public broadcasting is not a fledgling operation either.  Eighteen months ago, KCET in Los Angeles, one of the founding members of PBS in 1970, decided to become an independent public broadcaster because PBS wanted to charge $7 million a year for their West Coast flagship station’s broadcast rights, which was double the assessment of KOCE, This assessment comprised 5% of PBS overall budget.  The KCET executives may be ruing their decision to declare independence, as they had to sell their Hollywood Studios to the Church of Scientology for $45 million.  Alas, KCET’s new mixture of Al Jazeera English and BBC News has not helped, as contributions were down 41% in 2011.

When Juan Williams was unceremoniously fired by then NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, it was revealed that only 2% of National Public Radio’s budget came from federal earmarks.  If that's the case, then cutting Federal funding and allowing these public stations to establish alternate primary income streams should be simple.

Of course, this rosy budgetary situation for NPR greatly assisted from the $200 million endowment by the widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc in 2003.  But NPR does not rest on it’s laurels for funding, as it was happy to accept $1.8 million from George Soros Open Society Foundation to hire 100 political reporters.  Public broadcasters have programming staples like “All Things Considered”, “and Morning Edition” on the radio and shows like “Sesame Street” and NOVA on PBS which could enhance bottom lines with merchandising agreements .  As it stands, the underwriting ads now are all but commercials.  The Minority Television Project case may facilitate a restructuring which allows stations to better support themselves and networks to underwrite their costly programming.

This Is What Democracy (Really) Looks Like

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.  Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.”      (attributed to) Ben Franklin

While attributions to Franklin may not quite be on the money since the term lunch did not enter into common parlance until the 1820s, the meat of this food for thought is still quite fulfilling.   It aptly captures the tyranny of the majority and class warfare epitomized by the ineptocracy currently in power.  To borrow a phrase from the unmasked Occupy Movement "This is what democracy looks like".

The coda of this faux Franklin phrase alludes to the Second Amendment, which protects Americans from tyranny.  It is important to recognize why the Second and the Fourth Amendments were included in the Bill of Rights.  The British tried to enforce burdensome laws on their British American colonies without any input by the citizenry.  When Americans balked at things like the Stamp Act and the Tea Act (1773), the powers that be doubled down on their policies by sending in massive force and forcing the colonists to quarter the Red Coats. Taxation without Representation is more than a slogan that DC Statehood activists have ironically re-appropriated.   The right to keep and bear arms was not about helping hunting but as natural rights which  are backstops against anarchy and organized tyranny to protect property rights.

DC as the District of Calamity--It's a State of Mind

These are the surreal musings of a  political animal living between the beltways.  My favorite contact sport may be politics but by interests are not poll driven. I think outside of the box and beyond the next spin cycle. And I will caucus with a variety of special interest groups. 

Some consider the Nation’s Capital as “Fantasyland on the Potomac”. Other outsiders are “Fed Up” with the Federal City.  Personally, a better state of mind is thinking of D.C. as “the District of Calamity” (sic).

A tongue in cheek encapsulation of this political weltanschauung was made in the preface of P.J. O’Rourke’s book “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire US Government”(1991)—God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is an elderly, or at any rate, a middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations.  He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the dis-advantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world.  God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s country club. 

Santa Claus is another matter.  He’s cute. He’s non-threatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything that they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous for giving to the poor. 

Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: there is no such thing as Santa Claus.

Knowing the prevalence of Cocktail Party elected officials, I would qualify this quip by substituting the GOP with conservatives.

Stevie Wonder on Life