The JakeStation

Reaction to the election

by Jacob S. Kuntzman on Nov.03, 2010, under Elections

Whew, where to begin… I won’t go much into detail on who won what and all, you can get that elsewhere and I’m sure most of you already have. I’m not going to tell you about how Republicans took the House but failed to take the Senate, you probably already know that. The losses of O’Donnell and Angle were big disappointments to me, and while the message was not as strong as I wanted it to be, the message did get sent. We’ll find out later today if it’s understood. (Obama has a press conference later this morning, and though I’ll be at work, I’ll try to make a bit of an update around that time.)

The House is now balanced as follows: 233 Republicans, 180 Democrats. Dems will need to gain 53 seats in the next election if they want to regain that majority. What’s important here, of course, is what it all means to the average person. The real-world results of what’s going to happen in the country as a result of these elections can be summed up in one word: gridlock. While that may sound like a bad thing (and it is, to statists who are trying to advance their agenda in record time), this is actually great for the economy. I’m expecting a rally on Wall Street today. Gridlock is good for the markets, and for the economy in general, because it means companies can spend and invest freely, knowing that the rules of the game (the law) aren’t going to change next week and cost them an arm and a leg. This has been one of the major reasons that companies have refused to hire and spend much, even if they have the extra cash on hand… They haven’t been sure whether they would need that money to pay fines and new taxes that could be suddenly imposed upon them at a moment’s notice (for things of that nature, see “health care mandate”).

As soon as companies realize the government now has less power to enact new taxes, fines, and other ways of changing the rules of the game on them, I expect to see a hiring surge and a slight drop in the unemployment rate. I also expect to see Republicans making moves to repeal the national health care law, intending to push the repeal through Congress and forcing Obama to veto it, making him go on record to defend his agenda.

However, in that process I’m foreseeing a snag in the Senate… “Well no kidding, Jake,” right? No, you’re probably thinking of the Democrats… I’m talking about the Republicans. In starting the process of pushing out the repeal of the health care law, I expect it would start in the House, then move to the Senate. We obviously don’t have the majority to get it through the Senate with ease, so there will be some political maneuvering to be done. Long-time establishment Republicans, I think, will be reluctant to devote significant effort to getting such a bill through the Senate when it will just be vetoed as soon as it gets through. If it was an easy task to get it through the Senate, they might do it just as a sign of where we plan to take the country. But if they drag their feet as I suspect they will, it will be to their detriment come 2012, which may cause another upsurge in Tea Party challengers in the primaries, and that’s just fine by me. The Tea Party candidates, while they didn’t win every election in which they were fielded, certainly proved that ignoring them is dangerous. We may find in two years that Christine O’Donnell and others who lost last night aren’t losers; they may just be ahead of their time.

More later as we learn what these results will mean for the House and Senate business going forward.

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“Know-Nothingism” On The Rise

by Jacob S. Kuntzman on Oct.29, 2010, under Accusing Us Of What They Do, John Kerry, Katie Couric, TARP

According to the Associated Press, Massachussetts Senator John Kerry attacked the Republicans for creating “a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in” (source). The report may arguably be as biased as the laughable senator himself, as it gives a mere two paragraphs of Republican rebuttal to Kerry’s outrageous accusations. So tonight, I’d like to set the record straight since the AP doesn’t seem to know how. (Yes, I know they know how… They just don’t want to.)

They accuse us of what they do: creating a period of “know-nothingism,” as he so eloquently put it. Really, senator? You are lying through your slimy teeth. You damn well know that the Obama administration promised unparalleled transparency and has since become one of the most secretive presidents in recent (perhaps all) history. Your side laughs at, impugns, mocks, and attempts to discredit any and all who dare to think differently than your own, or who attempt to delve any deeper than the spoonfed crap your pet media feeds us. It is you and your party, Senator Kerry, that wants to create a period of “know-nothingism.”

Later in the AP’s story, they also present without comment or rebuttal a claim by Kerry that Republicans had blocked Senate proceedings with filibusters more during the last 18 months than in the entire period from the end of World War I to the Apollo moon landing in 1969. First of all, how do you even verify something like that? Senator, are you taking cues from David Axelrod, who claimed that there may be foreign money funding the US Chamber of Commerce simply because we couldn’t prove there isn’t? A negative can’t be proven. I don’t even know where to begin to look up information to verify Kerry’s wild idea, but I do know this: the “last 18 months” he refers to falls entirely within the Obama administration’s period, entirely within the time where Democrats have had supermajorities. So here he is moaning and whining about our so-called “obstructionism” and “filibuster tactics” when we don’t even have the votes to stop a damn thing they do! Did Obamacare pass? It sure as hell did, so why is he whining about our obstructionism and filibustering? If we could do either of those, Obamacare would not be the law of the land today.

The reason they can’t get anything done in Congress isn’t because of Republican filibusters and obstructionist tactics, but because the Democrat congressmen are scared of losing their freaking jobs! They won’t even give Obama their votes for the far-left, proven-stupidity agenda that they’re being asked to shove down our throats. Remember, we the voters hold the ultimate power here. The president and the Dems who are in the most liberal (and therefore the most safe) parts of the country are asking the other Democrats to shove a bunch of crap down their own bosses’ throats! So can you blame them for being hesitant?

Instead of acknowledging truth, though, Kerry insults our intelligence and assumes we don’t have a memory. He even dredged up the $700 billion TARP and reminds us that Bush signed it. He conveniently fails to mention (and the galactically incompetent AP fails to point out) that not only did Bush only sign the bill under pressure from Democrats and at the request of President-elect Obama, but that Kerry himself voted for it (source).

Or would Kerry tell us again that “I voted for it before I voted against it“?

Finally, Kerry also tries to convince us, as have many on the left, that 700 billion is too large a number for government spending (and it is) but that 18 trillion (the number of our national debt after Obama has more than doubled it) is not.

Look, senator, we may be from the “great unwashed middle of the country” according to the infallible and perfect Katie Couric, but we’re not idiots. I’m tempted to say I don’t think you’re an idiot either — just a liar — but you have to be an idiot to think we’ll actually swallow your garbage.

And if you think we’re obstructionist now, just wait until the new guys and gals are sworn in. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

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We’re Back!

by Jacob S. Kuntzman on Oct.28, 2010, under JakeStation News

It’s been awhile since the JakeStation last saw some action. It’s been an interesting year — personally, professionally, and yes, politically — and I just didn’t feel the need to keep anyone apprised of it…especially not when the website broke for no apparent reason, and when I finally did get around to fixing it, I eventually needed to wipe out my previous posts. It’s nothing too horrible, though, as I do still recall some of the biggest things I had predicted in early 2009… They’re easy to remember because Rush Limbaugh is predicting them now.

First wasn’t so much a prediction as an analysis: liberals accuse us (conservatives) of the things they do. Allegations of foreign money funding the US Chamber of Commerce when the Democrats’ biggest donations come from foreigners like George Soros, et al. This “foreign money” thing was what finally brought Rush’s attention to what I’ve been saying for a year and a half: “When the left accuses you of something, it’s generally something they are doing.”

Second was my prediction for 2012: Sarah Palin versus not Obama, but Hillary. My prediction was that Hillary will challenge Obama and defeat him in the primaries, facing Palin in the general election. A lot has happened, and although neither one has announced their candidacy (and Palin, of course, she has been unsurprisingly coy about her intentions, saying nothing very different from the day after the 2008 election: that 2012 is still a long way away and that she is leaving all doors open), the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee has positioned herself correctly for a campaign run if she chooses to: she was in Iowa at the right time and was able to gauge interest, she left her office in Alaska to free her up for a campaign if one developed… And while no pollster is currently picking her as the most likely winner of the Republican nomination, I’m trusting my gut on this and sticking with my prediction of Palin as the Republican nominee. On the other side, Hillary is positioning herself correctly and sending all the right signals to run…and hell, let’s just be honest here… We know she still wants it. Rush is even attempting to help her now with his “Reverse Operation Chaos,” aimed at giving Obama the most painful defeat possible in the looming 2010 midterm elections so as to give Hillary more momentum to start her 2012 campaign with…a campaign that I think will do quite well.

Call me self-centered, but it’s a point of pride with me. I admire Rush. So when he claims to be on the cutting edge of societal evolution, I smile to myself knowing that he is now saying things I have been saying for more than a year. Hillary running in 2012, the left accusing the right of the very schemes they themselves are committing… So I came home today determined to get this site fixed and back on its feet. I have more time to focus more of my mind on the political scene now, so it’s time to get serious about all this news analysis. I’ll be putting out a lot of opinions, and behind the scenes I will keep a record of them. Every 3 to 6 months or so, I’ll make a recap post and we’ll see how right or wrong I was, at least as far as what we can tell. We won’t know if my 2012 predictions are right in 3-6 months, obviously, so those will be held off.

So stick with me, this will be a fun ride!

Quick news blurb: a San Francisco pot shop has been offering free joints for every home run the Giants score… I think after the slaughtering the Rangers just endured at the Giants’ hands, all of southern California is probably high tonight…

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