Rick Santelli
March 7, 2009
I was recently baffled by the outbreak of support for a Santelli rant. You can find it on Thoughts Aloud, or The Intellectual Redneck. In this case, Santelli got a bunch of Wall Street investors to boo people with an extra bathroom for being the cause and recipient of government bailouts. He suggested we all go have Chicago tea party in July in protest. And do what? Should we all go to Chicago and not pay our mortgage? It seems all you have to do to impress conservatives these days is get so worked up with mock outrage that the cameraman needs a spittle guard. The biggest problem I have with Republicans of late is their willingness to start running with torches and pitchforks without deciding first what their goals are. Going along with them is like hunting with Dick Cheney.
I was ready to let the matter drop until I saw this response by Jon Stewart over at The Osterley Times, as well as politickybitch. I would have loved to see Santelli on the show, but he apparently didn’t have as much to talk about as he thought he did. Stewart goes on at length to show how CNBC analysts are almost as bad as FOX News analysts. Please, if you care about your money, don’t listen to these analysts; they clearly have a conflict of interest.
A Great Predictor
January 25, 2009
If you want to know what is coming, one of the best predictors out there is FOX News. Look for the guy they are all ganging up on and laughing at, telling him he is crazy; that man is right. The question is, why are FOX News reporters always wrong? If they were just dumb, they ought to be right nearly half the time, right? Who stood to profit by getting the gullible to buy into these institutions?
Unbelieveable! Pat Buchanan steps over the line in the sand!
January 17, 2009
Today, the post on the official Pat Buchanan website is entitled “Has Israel Become A Neo-Nazi Germany?”
Pat has done the unthinkable for a major political commentator, he has invoked Godwin’s law at the highest level, comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany.
James Carville once said about Hillary and Obama, “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.”
I would say of Pat Buchanan that if he gave Bush one of his cajones, the man wouldn’t be able to lift it.
How Does Inflation Work?
December 27, 2008
This motion picture from the depression era explains nearly everything. Well, this is a cow…
Pat Buchanan
December 21, 2008
Pat is my favorite political commentator. I get a lot of flak for this. I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but he has a solid perspective based an a mountain of knowledge. He often comes across as bigoted, which can be puzzling, since it seems to be mostly counter to the way he sees current reality. He is a paleoconservative and nationalist in the extreme. What is often mistaken for racism is a strong conviction that if you are in America, you should be an American first, including subscribing to what he sees as the socially conservative heritage and giving up other affiliations. Reality occasionally clashes with his faith-based convictions making it seem as if the man has two worldviews, each of which he argues with extreme conviction, but which are mutually exclusive. Maybe I’m just used to this because my dad seems to think the same way.
He is one of the core members of the McLaughlin Group, where every Friday he can be seen trying desperately to get a word in edgewise while enunciating all of his points with his signature chop (pictured). In the past he has been mostly in contention with Eleanor Clift, but recently the two seem to agree with each other more than they agree with the more centrist members of the group (I can identify with this). In a recent episode he coined the term Toyota Republicans to refer to the demographic of mostly southern workers at foreign car plants here in the U.S.
He is a very sharp 70 years young, and has a resume including a masters in Journalism from Columbia University, opposition speech writer and advisor to Nixon, white house communications advisor (85-87), and three time presidential candidate.
He coined the term ‘silent majority’
What impresses me most about him is that while he has a strong desire to turn the country towards Christianity, which he sees as its roots, he has an iron grip on the current reality and is able to predict how a complex political or social issue will play out with as great an accuracy if it is going against his goals as if it is moving towards them. He has biased opinions, but near impartial predictions.
Quotes:
“Whose moral code says we may interfere with a man’s right to be a practicing bigot, but must respect and protect his right to be a practicing sodomite?”
“There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in The Middle East – the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.”
“We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy. We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called ‘isolationism.’”
“The village atheist has the right to be heard; he has no right to be heeded. While he has a right not to have his own children indoctrinated in what he believes are false and foolish teachings, he has no right to dictate what other children may be taught.”
“Neither Beltway party is going to drain this swamp, because to them it is not a swamp at all, but a projected wetland and their natural habitat”
Books:
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart