A Shameful Episode

I was driving around one of the sleazier parts of Fort Worth yesterday, and saw a bunch of cop cars and a massive limo in my rearview mirror.  The vehicles were totally out of place in that neighborhood. 

I couldn't believe it!  It was Barack Obama in "The Beast" presidential limousine. 

That's something you don't see every day.  So I let them pass me and then I got in line behind all the cop cars. 

Next thing you know, I was surrounded by limousines.  It was a freakin' Congressional motorcade, driving down East Lancaster.  Where were they going?  What the hell were they doing?  Was this a fact-finding mission to investigate poverty?  A junket to research the lifestyles of crack whores?  Or maybe they wanted some really good BBQ? 

You're not gonna believe where they went. 

Barack's limo pulled up in front of the sleaziest Payday Loan facility I've ever seen.  The President Of The United States got out of his car, walked up to the storefront, and held open the door.  He looked downright giddy. 

(In case you don't know what a Payday Loan joint is, these are places where you can get a short-term loan by using your next paycheck as collateral.  The default rates are staggering.) 

Obama held the door open for at least 30 minutes while most of the Congress of the USA went inside.  (Jeff Flake, the senator from Arizona with formerly decent libertarian credentials, was hardest to recognize.  He was wearing a trenchcoat and dark glasses, and kept his arm over his face so he couldn't be photographed.)

I got out of my truck and asked one of the Secret Service guys what was going on.  "They're raising the debt ceiling again," he said.  They've been doing it for years." 

And then it got weird.....

More cops and military personnel showed up, and they had kids with them.  Cars and trucks loaded with them. 

"What the hell?" I couldn't believe it.  "What's up with all the children?"

My new Secret Service buddy grinned at me.  "Dude, you are such a Boy Scout!  You don't think this generation of swine is going to pay for anything, do you?  Nobody with any street smarts would loan these clowns a dime.  So Congress brings in all these kids to co-sign for their loans." 

"I don't get it," I said.

"Ok, take the stimulus package," said the officer.  "The economy was hurting, and your baby boom generation was slightly inconvenienced.  So these guys borrowed a bunch of money and spread it around.  These kids are the ones who will have to pay it all back." 

One of the kids made a break for it, and ran toward Canada.  The cops knocked the living shit out of him, and after that the other kids were much more sedate and well-behaved.

  
I was shocked, but the Secret Service agent was unfazed.  "That's the beauty of Keynesian economics," he said.  "It gives us a fig leaf for taking and spending what we want immediately.  Nobody even notices.  Every time a Bush or Obama or Pelosi talks about 'investing' in some boondoggle, these kids go further into debt."

And one by one, the children were taken into the loan facility, forced to sign away years of their lives, fingerprinted, and sent back out on the streets. 

 
"See you again in March!" said the business owner.  "We're pushing for another war, plus Social Security and Medicare are about to go broke." 

A few minutes later, and it was all done.  The adults were able to continue spending like drunk cowboys, the kids would have to pay for it, and business as usual was restored in Washington, D.C.

A couple of hours later, Barack Obama was on television.  "Hopefully next time, it won't be in the 11th hour," Obama said. "We've got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis....  I'm eager to work with anybody.. on any idea that will grow our economy, create new jobs, strengthen the middle class and get our fiscal house in order for the long term.  I've never believed that Democrats have a monopoly on good ideas.. I'm convinced that Democrats and Republicans can work together to make progress for America."

You heard what the man said.  That's how Democrats and Republicans work together to make progress for America. 
Don't thank returning veterans for their service. 
Thank your kids. 

 

If Barack Obama Were To Enter My Department Store

It looks like it's going to be "All Trayvon, All The Time" through the November 2014 elections.  We're going to be overlooking the tragedy, and the easily preventable causes, of thousands of black kids murdered by other black kids every year (see previous post) and concentrate on the one black kid who was murdered by a Hispanic guy who was also partly black and part white.  I think. 

I'm so sick and freakin' tired of political hacks dividing us into Hutu's and Tutsi's.  But if you had Obama's track record to defend, you'd talk Trayvon too. 

Therefore, it's time to start ridiculing every statement that the President Of The United States makes on the subject of race.  He gave a shameful speech the other day, in which he identified with the black kid who had the Hispanic guy on the ground, pounding his head into the curb.  There was no indication that this shooting was a "hate crime", but that's the direction that Obama, going off-teleprompter, chose to take it. 

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

Oh, sweet mantle of victimhood !! 

Barack, if you think people were following you around before you were president, wait until you see what happens afterwards.....

The actor James Woods recently tweeted that they only reason they've ever followed you was to make sure you wouldn't raise their taxes. 

I can top that.....  If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he wasn't going to break my windows.  The "broken windows" parable of Frederic Bastiat really does appear to be his dominant economic misunderstanding. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he didn't take what wasn't his.  I've never known a human who was so enthusiastic about taking money from Person A to give to Person B, but not before raking some off the top to give to his Washington flunkies in Group C. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, yeah, I'd have him followed.  "You Didn't Build That" isn't that much of a leap from "You Don't Deserve That", followed closely by "I Know Some People Who Could Use That And They All Voted For Me".

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, well, I gotta be honest.....  I'd ask him for a subsidy.  I'd point out my Green Energy Perpetual Motion Machines that are invisible to the naked eye, I'd show him the documentation that the entire store is heated and cooled by Compressed Green Fairy Flatulence, and I'd agree to change the name of my website to "The Greened Sepulchre".  And, like so many of his other green energy subsidy benefactors, I might get a buncha money that I could walk away with before letting the thing go bankrupt. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd ask him to simply buy it.  Then I'd watch him destroy it, the way we shamefully destroyed all those cars during the "Cash For Clunkers" debacle. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I wouldn't insist on a cash payment.  Hell, there's no telling how much more of the stuff was printed while his limo waited in the parking lot.  I wouldn't want a check.  All of his post-dated checks are going to be bouncing soon.  I would want his credit card.  Please dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, but let me get my hands on that damn fool's credit card.  Whatever he bought, I'd add $51,000.00 to the total charge.  That's the additional amount that he's put on mine. 

Guess who didn't get the dress code email

Councilman Michael Wolfensohn shuts down cupcake stand after discovering that his city isn't getting a percentage.

A politician in a New York suburb called police on two 13-year-old boys for selling cupcakes and other baked goods without a permit, according to a report Monday.

The Journal News in Westchester County said the boys, Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff, had a brisk business selling cupcakes, cookies, brownies and Rice Krispie treats for $1 each in a Chappaqua park.

However, New Castle Councilman Michael Wolfensohn called the police after discovering the sale was not for charity, the newspaper said.

Anyone wanting to contact the city of New Castle, or Councilman Wolfensohn, can go here, BTW. 
Kevin’s mother, Laura Graff, said the teens were “good kids” who were scared by the police call.

“I am shocked and sad for the boys. It was such a great idea, and they worked hard at it,” Laura Graff, Kevin’s mother, told The Journal News. “But then some Town Board member decided to get on his high horse and wreck their dreams.”…

“All vendors selling on town property have to have a license, whether it’s boys selling baked goods or a hot dog vendor,” Wolfensohn said.

He said “in hindsight” he perhaps should have told the boys they needed a license rather than calling the cops. “The police are trained to deal with these sorts of issues,” he told The Journal News.

A permit to sell things in the park costs $150 to $350 for two hours and a $1 million insurance certificate is also required, the paper said…

Andrew DeMarchis told The Journal News of his disappointment.

“We were being entrepreneurs,” he said, “but now I feel a little defeated.”

Here's Radley Balko's take on the incident, which, as usual, is priceless.

I think I’ve changed my mind about these stories. If the point of having your kid start a lemonade stand, cupcake stand, or some other little venture is for him to learn what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, he might as well learn early on that part of being an entrepreneur is dealing with asshole politicians, petty bureaucrats, and rivals willing to use the law to shut you down rather than compete with you. It also means understanding that the costs of complying with all the bullshit hurdles the government puts in the way of starting up a business may mean you can never get your business off the ground, no matter how good your idea.


The cupcake kids will at least now grow up with a healthy distaste for politicians, and probably some newfound respect for the people who do actually manage to start a business in hostile environments that include requirements for million-dollar insurance policies and political slime like Michael Wolfensohn.

And that’s actually a pretty valuable lesson.

The picture of Michael Wolfensohn came from here. 

Do we need to inspire the village to shame Thomas Friedman?

This is an excerpt from an article by Thomas Friedman in today's New York Times, in some sort of failed effort to compare Fat Cat bankers to suicide bombers:

“When you want to foster more responsible behavior in people, you can’t just legislate more rules and regulations,” said Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book “How.” “You have to enlist and inspire people in a set of values....."
".....That is why shame is so important. When we call a banker ‘a fat cat’ for taking too big a bonus, we’re actually being inspirational leaders because we are telling them, ‘You are behaving beneath how a responsible human being should behave.’ We need to inspire the village to shame those who betray our common values.”

This is Thomas Friedman's house.

Three coats of Whitening (and decorative trim) to the Future Of Capitalism blog for the link. You can go here for my theory on why Friedman has gone from being a rational journalist to a P.C. sock puppet.