Foundation

For the longest time I thought Ron Paul was just the same old eccentric libertarian he always was, with his supporters being unasked for in their wide range of nuttiness. That is, he didn’t search out 9/11 Truthers, Stormfronters, International ANSWERers, and the like, but they found him.

Now I’m not so sure, and suspect he’s as much a fruitcake as they are.

Just read Ron Paul’s message to his supporters on Friday to see what I mean:

Holy smokes! I can’t keep track of our zooming fundraising total, but I am noting all those wonderful names!

Whenever I can, I go online to check the latest score. What a boost!

It means that this Revolution has legs–very strong, very fast moving legs, and that the establishment, from the Fed to the tax police to the military-industrial complex, is right to worry.

Was $1 million too conservative a figure? Make my day, impress the media, and set all our opponents back on their heels, by shooting past $1 million before Midnight on Sunday, September 30! How high can we go? $1.5 million?

Donate here. https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate/ And from the bottom of my heart: Thank you!

Sincerely,
Ron

(Emphasis added) Can you believe this guy? He actually seems to think that the whole establishment is worried about him. That’s scary stuff, because if you think they’re all worried about you, you’re not far off from thinking they’re all out to get you. And that’s when Paul will really go off the deep end.

Originally posted on TMR

No, it’s not too early for basketball, thank you very much. Even if I were a football fan, there is no football in LA, and besides, all those NL festivities today just don’t apply to the the boys in blue.

So let’s look at the rumored trade possibility of the disgruntled Shawn Marion for the inconsistent Lamar Odom. Is it possible? Is it smart? Should it happen?

Whether the trade is possible depends solely on the collective bargaining agreement. Two players can be traded straight up as long as the higher-salaried player makes no more than 125% of the other. And Marion is owed $16.44 million this year, as the Suns’ highest paid player. Odom, meanwhile, is due to get $13.524 million as the Lakers’ second highest. That leave a cool $0.5 million to spare under the CBA, making this a legal trade possibility according to the cap, because neither player is covered under other special rules such as Base Year Compensation or post-signing trade restriction.

But is it smart? Marion is listed as a 6’7″, 228lb forward, while Odom is 6’10”, 230lbs of triangle offense flexibility. Their positions and roles are similar enough superficially that we might just be able to look at stats, which I pull from 2006-2007:

Remarkably similar players, it seems. The two glaring differences (PPG and APG) can be accounted for partially by their team differences, I expect. Odom passes more within the triangle, while Marion receives passes from Nash, so Odom gets more assists. Meanwhile the Suns play more possessions, so that inflates Marion’s scoring vs. Odom. So in this respect it appears to be a fair trade, even if Marion’s a bit of a better shooter and Odom’s a better defender.

There are of course non-basketball concerns here. For the Suns, they’d like to get out from under the luxury tax, while also possibly ridding their locker room of a disgruntled complainer. Odom’s lesser salary could be all the difference they need for that. And the Lakers are under threat from Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant to improve, or else. Both teams would seem to benefit here.

So I think this trade should happen, and needs to happen as soon as possible. But, knowing Mitch Kupchak, that virtually guarantees it won’t happen…

It’s funny; I’d always thought that the far left bought and owned the Democratic party. They kept saying that anyway, and I guess I believed them.

But now I’m starting to have doubts. I mean, aren’t those guys opposed to sexual abstinence programs, of the kind that Speaker Nancy Pelosi just let through the House? The Washington Times is vague on the details, but I’m assuming that the abstinence funding (for the poor even!) was stuffed into the bill to renew and expand SCHIP, judging by the quotes from the ‘frustrated’ Rep. James Moran, Democrat from Virginia.

The Netroots worked their tails off getting Democrats these majorities, and what’s the payback? FISA, the surge, and now abstinence. That doesn’t sound like a very good bargain to me.

Apparently the Suns need to trade Shawn Marion Very, Very, Very Badly, and probably the best trade partners are available are the Lakers, who have Odom to give up.

Motivated seller? Excellent.

MSNBC reports that a Naval Construction Force barracks in Coronado is going to get a $60 million renovation. Not the interior though, oh no. We’re not going to try to make life better for the men who live in it. No, we’re going to divert that money from other uses because some people looking at satellite photos don’t like that the four buildings that make up the complex remind them of a swastika.

We’re spending it to make cosmetic changes to buildings, to make people feel better about looking at satellite photos. That’s not a problem, I guess, because it’s not like we have a war effort to spend that money on instead, or anything like that.

Frank J believes that MoveOn will “fade away when the crux of their universe – President Bush – is no longer in office.” However, as much as I wish it were so, I don’t think we can count on that. After all, let’s remember that MoveOn was founded to provide cover for President Clinton, and then was remade into a leading purveyor of Bush hatred.

So I expect George Soros to keep the money coming – at least if a Republican is in the White House after January 20, 2009 – and keep MoveOn working to make America worse for everyone but George Soros.

Just had a chat with Jeff Emanuel in the Red State Contributor IM, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to read his website.

I’ve been avoiding discussions of the state of things in Iraq for a couple of years now. And now I feel guilty.

It’s been brought to my attention that I made another error: I slipped up and shifted by one the years to which I credited each President. Ronald Reagan, to use the example given by the person who corrected me, took office in 1981, of course, so his first budget applied to the year 1982.

Combine this with other criticisms, and I’m just going to try it again soon with a new approach to the problem.

I tell you: never have I gotten a true appreciation for how easy it is to lie with statistics, than in making honest attempts to see where the Bush administration stands historically with respect to spending. There are just so many ways to chop and analyze the numbers, with every way telling a different story.

We all know the of story of the federal budget. While ‘mandatory’ entitlement spending is a runaway wreck, Presidents and Congresses have had differing success in controlling so-called discretionary spending. And the most ‘fiscally conservative’ President in that regard was President Clinton, thanks to ‘divided government’ forcing restraint. And of course the worst two were Presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush, who ran amok creating and growing programs thanks to one-party rule creating no opposition to waste.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but that story’s not quite right. Here’s why:

The traditional lament of the ‘fiscal conservative’ goes something like this: We look at how much ‘discretionary’ spending went up under various Presidents, and we do indeed find that discretionary spending went up most under Presidents Johnson and G.W. Bush, as this chart shows:

Allegedly, according to this simple calculation, the most fiscally disciplined Presidents were President GHW Bush, Nixon, and Clinton. Reagan and Carter are in the middle of the pack, and yes, Johnson and GW Bush stick out like Christmas Shoppers with black American Express cards.

What do President Johnson’s elected term and President G.W. Bush’s first term have in common though? War. Do conservatives consider defense spending in Vietnam or Afghanistan and Iraq to be wasteful, liberal growths in government that are to be discouraged? Of course not. We all know that if you’re an anti-war budget hawk your name is Ron Paul, and nobody likes Ron Paul. So let’s subtract defense spending and try this again:

Well lookee-here. Golden boy Clinton goes from the minus side all the way up above zero for both terms. It turns out that gee, he was spending after all, but used cuts in the military to pay for it. And the hero of the day should actually be Ronald Reagan, who held the line rather well both terms.

And what happened to our goats? Presidents Johnson and GW Bush dropped three places each, leaving Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter our worst spending Presidents since 1964! In fact, President GW Bush looks quite a lot like his father for his first term, and in his second term is shaping up to look like Clinton.

I conclude this: President Bush is no President Reagan, but to accuse him and the last few Congresses of runaway spending, is to neglect the whole story. Other than the war and Medicare Part D, President Bush is simply nothing special either way, and I do not believe that ‘fiscal conservatives’ should feel like they have been put out into the cold in recent years. Because on top of spending, we must remember the other half of the equation: taxes. Does anyone care to say that President Bush is not the second-best President on this list when it comes to taxes? Other than Ronald Reagan, who cut tax rates better? Nobody, that’s who.

It’s time to unify in the runup to 2008. No one faction has gotten everything it would want out of the Bush administration, but self-described fiscal conservatives should not be hanging their heads saying they’ve been put out into the cold. Ronald Reagan is not walking through that door, and we have to do the best we can without him. Now is not the time to fight and try to get even for an alleged grievance. We’ve all done well enough that we should be looking to build on success, not try to scramble to make up for some defeat.

It’s time to pull together and win.

Notes: I break the two-term Presidencies into separate terms to facilitate comparison with single-term Presidents, as well as President GW Bush whose second term is not yet done. This also allows us to mentally adjust for Congressional makeup as we see fit.

Source for all data used in the charts: Congressional Budget Office historical budget figures, which go back to 1962, which is why these charts begin with Lyndon Johnson’s budgets for 1965-68. Please contact me if you know of reliable budget data prior to 1962, particularly if it is Internet-accessible.

By the way I recommend reading Red State all the more, now that I’m an editor there.

People who registered right away for the National Do Not Call Registry are soon to have their five year registrations expire, but in a functioning program Democrats see opportunity for a rare accomplishment.

I can see the point Rep. Mike Doyle has when he says that “When someone takes the time and effort to say, ‘I don’t want these kinds of calls coming into my house,’ they shouldn’t have to keep a calendar to find out when they have to re-up to keep this nuisance from happening,” but on the other hand, if he wants to take concrete steps to remove nuisances, shouldn’t he write a bill that also adds political fund raisers and pollsters to the Do Not Call rules, rather than just make the registration permanent?

Or would that actually do too much to reduce people’s nuisance levels, and make the idea just too substantive for this Congress?