Why Puerto Rico Defaults? Because They Want To and Can

Just as I was thinking of blogging on the motivations of lefty politicians facing fiscal crises (and the oblivious bondholders who buy bonds, aka "lend money", to these deadbeats), the Good Professor asks a pertinent question.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN JURISDICTIONS SUCH HELLHOLES OF FINANCIAL INSOLVENCY?

Simple.  They don't care.  They don't care that they owe money, they really don't even consider it other people's money, and if they did - which they don't, they think it is theirs - they believe it ought to be redistributed anyway.

In short, screw you.

But there will always be some more idiot bondholders to come along and make the same mistake all over again, so the repercussions won't be that bad long term.

More Lefty Gun-Talk Backfire Cowbell

Here is a very easy prediction.  Gun sales in December and January (and probably February) will be robust, and might even set records.  Why?  Easy.

As his administration prepares an executive order tightening access to guns, President Barack Obama met Wednesday with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a proponent of new gun laws who has become the chief enemy of the National Rifle Association.

When lefties go after the guns, America buys more guns.  It's a pattern that you would think the deep thinkers on the left would understand.

Again...Think of Obama's Actions and Think Back to Those Credit Card Donations

Obviously, we didn't need a whistleblower to figure this out, but it helps when the Obamabots in the media scream "unhinged!", "right-wing conspiracy!" or "racist!".

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

At the risk of appearing "unhinged", I still think (and I am 65% confident that I will be proven right in time) that the flood of illegal, untraceable credit card donations to the Obama campaign that contributed to the unprecedented sums he raised (and that the Obama campaign failed to vet and welcomed fervently)...was tied to Islamist interests abroad.

Flourney Wouldn't Work for Obama?

Way back I posited that Obama was having trouble filling cabinet posts because of, well, who he is and how he operates.

Looks like I was on to something.  Clearly Flourney didn't have to grab the brass ring and be stifled under Obama, she's banking on Hillary and waiting in the wings at some think tank.

Funny That: Emissions Heavy Industry Oddly Exempted In Paris

We know that the Paris Global Warming Climate Change summit, known as COP21 isn't about anything other than wealth transfer from rich to poor nations and establishing a further excuse for governments to assert more power, but at least I thought they'd hide the fact better.

As evidence that this is not about emissions at all, please enter in the record Exhibit (insert high number here):

The shipping industry may have caught a break from climate negotiators after transportation emissions get dropped in the most recent updates on the talks.

In its latest draft of a worldwide agreement aimed at stemming climate change, United Nations conferees at COP21 in Paris issued a text Wednesday that omitted earlier references to “international transport emissions” as an area for regulation by agreement signers.

Transport emissions were a target of regulation in the previous draft issued 5 December. In particular, that earlier draft called on countries to limit emissions from “marine bunker fuels” with the help of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Bunker (ship) fuels are very dirty.  Ship engines are relatively inefficient.  Yet shipping is the backbone of global trade. Let's look closer...

Powerful shipping nations include:  USA, Japan, Germany, UK.

Oil-rich nations that rely on shipping to get their oil to their customers: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Norway, Russia, Venezuela.

Export dependent nations that rely on shipping:  China, Japan, China, Germany, China

Greenies irked...

Brussels-based environmental nongovernmental organisation Transport & Environment (T&E) said transport emissions have grown more rapidly, 80% over a twenty-year period, than the 40% growth in overall emissions.

“It’s pretty chaotic what happened,” said Andrew Murphy, policy director for T&E. He said dropping transport emissions from the most recent draft stems from the neglect of larger countries to push for such regulations in the most recent draft.

Too chaotic.  Neglect.  Yup, that's what's going on!

Dems Have Had Much Worse Ideas Than Trump's Bad Idea

So, Donald Trump has proposed a policy that violates nearly everyone's sense of fairness and values.

(Let us be clear though, not for the same reasons.  Conservatives are upset because the policy violates our dedication to due process as well as the idea of America as a bastion of religious liberty.  Lefties are upset because the policy trips their victimologist wires, where we can't adopt any policy even slightly prejudicial, no matter how justified, to brown people or "the other" as they term it.  Lefties have no problem banishing people, just not non-white people.  White NRA member and/or a "climate denier"?  Banish away.)

But I digress.  My main point is that not too long ago, a somewhat prominent Democrat (Governor of 9th largest state) proposed a policy that would repudiate one of our most cherished principles to deal with a pressing policy debate, namely to suspend voting until a solution to our fiscal issues was agreed upon.  In the annals of horrible, very bad, tyrannical and un-American ideas, that one took the cake.  Did we hear much about it?  No.  But Trump's bad idea will be played endlessly by the media.

Sigh.

Hey, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters...

You think this guy is a total pussy...really?

And Hillary Will Sell Another 30 Million...

I've talked about this lefty backfire before many times (here and here, for instance).

William La Jeunesse reported today on FOX News that 100 million guns have been sold in the US since Obama became president.

Guess what lefties?  If Hillary gets elected, and doesn't all but cease all talk of gun control, then she'll sell another 30-50 million guns by the time she's out of office.  That's what this rhetoric gets you, libtards, a massively more armed citizenry.

Since 2008 I Have Been Right...Pig In a Poke

Here is where we have come folks...after seven years...nothing more needs to be said...

Except that I predicted it all..."pig in a poke" I said in 2008.  And not off-handedly.  Quite deliberately and soaking up all I could about this unknown* man that we just swept to the Oval Office on a wave of unreality.  I observed and pondered and I determined that there was not one dimension, not one aspect where this man is qualified or predisposed to serve the nation well.  That's what I meant by "pig in a poke".

But as I say, the blame lies with us, we get the leaders we deserve.

* unknown only in the sense that the MSM and most of America chose not to know him, so they could vote for him.  Knowing him, with plenty of available information at the time, made him unelectable, which is why the MSM did their best not to delve into who this guy was and is.

Easy Prediction: MSM Will Ignore Le Pen the Younger

Back when the elegant and comely Segolene Royal was challenging Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency, the world media was tripping over themselves to report on her elegance and comeliness - and, indeed, this French "socialist" wore her Chanel better than most French aristocrats.  The world MSM was all aflutter with what a shining example of French womanhood Ms. Royal was.

He's a prediction, you will see no such fawning articles and hear no such sentiments in regards to Marion Marechal-Le Pen in the coming days, months and years, although she is every bit as elegant and attractive as the former wannabe President. The world MSM is uniform in its sneering disdain for the politics of the National Front, the party whose banner Ms. Marechal-Le Pin carries.

The Biggest Tragedy of Dalliance with Obama

Again, Dan Henninger and I are intellectual soul-mates.

Dan writes his effective denouement of the Obama years, because despite the damage yet to come the Obama experiment is largely over.  You should read the whole thing but Henninger gets at the nub of the tragedy (and corrects lefties while at it).

Liberals think the right is gloating at Mr. Obama’s end-of-term difficulties. No one is gloating. The nation is either furious (the right) or depressed (the left) at eight wasted, wheel-spinning years whose main achievement is ObamaCare—a morass.

Wasted time.  Don't get me wrong, Obama has done serious and tangible damage but the biggest sin of our dalliance with this putz has been wasted time.  Sorry Dan but I got here first...

At the official end of Obama's Presidency, I think we will look back and have a panoply of regrets, but the major regret will be that of lost time.  All the other things aside, we wasted too much precious time dealing with this joker.  

Urgent Priorities In Wake of San Bernardino Massacre

In response to the Muslim terror that has struck California, I suggest society immediately implement the following sensible actions with utmost urgency:

1) Take law-abiding citizens's guns away, especially white, Christians;
2) Aggressively frisk and detain elderly, white women at airports
3) Dub the San Bernardino massacre as what it clearly is - workplace violence
4) Hire some high-profile Muslim outreach consultants
5) Bring in tens of thousands of more Muslims to America
6) Dispense money to Saudi wahabbist fronts like CAIR
7) Infuse completely unrelated government agencies, NASA say, with a mandate for Muslim outreach
8) Insist that Muslims killing people over and over has nothing to do with being Muslim
9) Find some other issue to prioritize over addressing Muslim terror, say, the weather...

Post Script on Harvard Endowment

Harvard begins the task of revitalizing its endowment's investment performance...

Um...er...I called that one...

San Bernardino

One of two things is happening in San Bernardino:

1)  The Tea Party has finally come to the point where we are all know they'd eventually be...tooled up and killing innocents in the name of smaller government, like the right-wing nut jobs we always knew they were, or

2)  Some JV team with no religious affiliation or feeling whatsoever is engaging a little workplace violence because we made them do it because of Guantanamo or something...

Occam's Razor Anyone?

Hmmmm...

The big MSM lede for November was how, in his last year, Obama is going to be awesomely, lightworkeringly focused on...gun control.

And like night follows day...

More Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day on record, according to data released by the FBI this week.

I told you that one of Obama's true legacies (actual legacies as opposed to phony legacies that the MSM and Dem machine will try to tell us is His legacy) will be a MUCH, MUCH more armed American citizenry.

It also makes you question all the talk of the deep intellect that runs this administration...for seven years they've been talking gun control and for seven years Americans have ramped up gun purchases.  Hmmm, let's do it again in year eight!!

A Large Pie with Sausage, Peppers and Free Healthcare Please

Glad to see that businesses are taking my suggestion and putting the cost of the Left's utopian schemes right in peoples' faces.  Hey, free healthcare sounds so lovely, but nothing is ever free...and here's the proof, gimme an extra $2 for that pizza pie. 

And I love that this is happening in Brooklyn...Brooklyn is a Republican Free Zone, so let them choke on Obama's beneficence.

From the Finance Geniuses At Bloomberg

Here is the craziest/dumbest/worst headline I came across today...

Puerto Rico Makes Bond Payments But at What Cost to Residents?

That's the copy editors at Bloomberg (voice of the financial world, mind you) ruminating about the cost to debtors of repaying what they owe, presuming, of course, that not paying the debt would be, what, costless?

If you are scratching your head, you should be.  Yeah, sure there may be a cost to debtors if you twist your brain in enough knots, but generally when you get freed from debt, it is a gain and the "cost" is borne by the creditor, who has been stiffed.  Actually paying debt is not a cost because the money was never yours.  When Puerto Rico borrowed $70 billion, no one ever thought, much less wrote in a major publication, 'Puerto Rico Earns $70 billion."

So for shits and giggles let's write some headlines that are the functional equivalent to what Bloomberg's genius copy editors wrote.

"Puerto Rico Chooses Not to Borrow Billions, But At What Cost to Residents?"

"If People Don't Give Their Money to Puerto Ricans, They Will Suffer."

"People Who Lent Puerto Rico Money, Get Some of It Back, Puerto Ricans Hardest Hit"