Trashing the Euro

"Friends" or no, we've been in a trade war with Europe for over a decade. They've been leveraging the Euro to curry power in all corners of world commerce. Looks like our A-Team has finally decided to fight back:

The single currency has been under enormous pressure because of Greece's debt crisis, plus financial worries in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

But, it has also struggled because hedge funds have been placing huge bets on the currency's decline, which could make the speculators hundreds of millions of pounds.

The euro traded at $1.51 in December, but has since fallen to $1.34. Details of the secretive dinner emerged days after Mr Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, warned in a newspaper article that the euro could 'fall apart' even if the European Union can agree a deal to shore up support for stricken Greece.

Debating a Brick Wall

Chait at TNR characterizes the GOP side of Health Care debate perfectly:

The thing is, that kind of debunked objection is the deepest and most detailed reply I've seen from the GOP all day. The best ones have specific but misinformed views. The worst ones are like Boehner. Now, I'm sure a great many Democrats in Congress also have a pretty sketchy understanding of the issue. But this summit is showing the sheer impossibility of trying to find intellectual common ground. John Podhoretz calls Obama "startlingly condescending at moments." How can that be avoided when you're trying to have a high-level discussion with people who reply either on debunked claims at best and talk radio-level slogans at worst?

Actually, this pretty much describes the current level of GOP participation in most other debates, too. And remember, the party of "no government" always wins a stalemate.

WTF?!

John McCain on MTP again? Does he really have anything to add to Sunday Morning?

Paging Captain Obvious

Finally ... somebody (other than comedians and your diligent political observers here at Post-Boomer) has noticed the truth about the Tea Baggers:

Look closely at the tea partyer and what you see is a familiar American genus: a solidly middle-class, college-educated boomer, endowed by his creator with possessions, opinions and certain inalienable rights, the most important of which is the right to make sure you hear what he has to say.

The tea party is a harbinger of midlife crisis, not political crisis. For men of a certain age, it offers a counterculture experience familiar from adolescence -- underground radio, esoteric tracts, consciousness-raising teach-ins and rallies replete with extroverted behavior to shock the squares -- all paid for with ample cash.

The partyers are essentially replaying the '60s protest paradigm. (We're aging boomers ourselves, so we know it when we see it.) They fancy themselves the vanguard of a revolution, when in fact they are typical self-absorbed, privileged children used to having their way -- now -- and uninhibited about complaining loudly when they don't. It's the same demographic Spiro Agnew called "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

Yeah, those guys. Fuck the Boomers.

Quote of the Day

Christian Finnegan on Olbermann:

For a minute there I treated the Tea Party as a genuine expression of Populism,and not a bunch of spoiled Baby Boomers who are fightened because History is moving on without them.

Indeed. You can see the real demographics of the movement in the latest CNN poll. Here's the "money" stat.

<$50K TP: 26% All: 47%

>$50K TP: 67% All: 43%

They're not populists. Also, they're 80% white.

Indiana Can Have Him Back

What's the real reason for Bayh's departure? John Fund puts it on "liberal overreach":

Before Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh suddenly announced he will not seek re-election in November he had issued several warnings to fellow Democrats. Last month, for example, he told Gerald Seib of this newspaper that his party's liberals were "tone deaf" to the fact that they'd "overreached" in their agenda. "For those people," he said, "it may take a political catastrophe of biblical proportions before they get it."

I can certainly see how a third generation career politician would flee the foul stench of Tea Bag in the shifting political winds ... but seriously, dude, grow a pair. What a douche!

The guys at FiveThirtyEight apparently agreee:

I never much cared for Sen. Evan Bayh, and care even less for his lame explanation of why he is retiring. It’s not that he’s one of an increasingly extinct number of centrist legislators who presume to be better than partisans from either side of the aisle, or that he expects to exercise power beyond his lone vote. And, to be fair, the laments Bayh expressed upon departure are hardly comparable to the steady diet of hang-wringing sanctimony we get from self-styled saviors, like Bayh’s colleagues Joe Lieberman and John McCain.

It’s just that complaints about America’s polarized politics are especially hypocritical coming from Bayh’s mouth. [...]

It's worse, though. This is the exact opposite of the instict that will save the party this fall. Government is there to govern. If the Democratic caucus can't figure out how to get legislation through the Senate, an American public with 10%+ unemployment will replace it.

Tea Party Hysteria

Think the Tea Party movement isn't dangerous? Think again:

Politicians courting the Tea Party movement are also alluding to Patriot dogma. At a Tea Party protest in Las Vegas, Joe Heck, a Republican running for Congress, blamed both the Democratic and Republican Parties for moving the country toward “socialistic tyranny.” In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican seeking re-election, threw his support behind the state sovereignty movement. And in Indiana, Richard Behney, a Republican Senate candidate, told Tea Party supporters what he would do if the 2010 elections did not produce results to his liking: “I’m cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I’m serious about that, and I bet you are, too.”

Update: Seriously, a "Ruby Ridge II" would be tame compared to how this shit'll blow up. These people want to Tea Bag you ... open wide!

Climate Change

This winter's weather is why "global warming" is a bad term--certainly no one would argue that 3 feet of snow in DC isn't "climate change". At any rate, if you run around saying, "it's snowing a lot, so obviously there's no global warming" then you're either an idiot or an asshole. There's no third option.

Give the PC Police a Rest

What's next, "lame"? Better get while the gettin's good: this is fucking lame.