Pat Caddell Was Right

Carter-era pollster Pat Caddell put his finger on the mood of the citizenry several years ago...he called it "pre-revolutionary." 

As in ripe and ready for revolt.

We tend not to do things like storm the Bastille or break out the guillotine here in the good ole USofA.  We've developed and taking a liking to a more civilized ways to chop heads of our leaders (for which many of our leaders should be thankful), via the ballot box.

I'd say Caddell was spot on.

Note to Bev Perdue & Friends, Actually Elections Are Your Best Escape Route

As the great battle of the Future of Government has raged, the Democrats have constantly and repeatedly told us, with unfailing message discipline, that even the most modest cuts to the federal government's budget would result in a litany of inhumanities - starving children, dying elderly, crumbling schools, falling bridges and everything right up to the destruction of the nation. Yet, it is now being revealed that the same crowd is stuffing the pockets of their donors, friends, family, and themselves to a grotesque degree. The nation's vaults have been opened to an array of Democratic Party cronies to extract multitudes of billions - billions, which we have been incessantly told are the difference between illiterate or educated children, the difference between granny enjoying her golden years or her early, painful death.

The vomit-inducing extent of the self-serving lies, hypocrisy and abuse of power is starting to emerge, and it is frightful. Crony after crony and donor after donor, coincidentally linked to politician after politician, is daily exposed with ungodly sums flowing into their insanely speculative ventures. This is why we've had to endure the sickeningly ponderous rally-cries such as "fierce moral urgency of change" and other banners dripping with phoniness. Not for any urgency or moral calling, but for a clique's designs on the Treasury.

Pollster Pat Caddell, through his polling work, has determined that America is in a "pre-revolutionary" mood. I should say so. Incompetent politicians run wasteful program after wasteful program, rack up trillions of dollars in debt and have the audacity to hector and lecture us about doing our fair share and giving back. All the while they are raiding the Treasury for themselves and their cronies. Then as one last anti-grace note in this string of abuses, they have temerity to suggest we give up our voting franchise so that they can escape accountability and sort things out. Pre-revolutionary indeed.

Actually - take note Bev Perdue & Co. - elections are the best thing you have going for you right now. With any luck you'll be voted out, allowed to return to society to live out your days peacefully, and then fade into obscurity. Suspend elections and, on current course, you'll probably be hunted down by mobs and strung up in the town square like the elitist pillagers of old. If I were you I'd take that safe retirement via the ballot box over doors one, two or three.

Democrats Open the Vaults for Rich Venture Capitalists

I have been warning (to all 15 of my readers) that we ought to beware of slick venture capitalists with Democratic ties. Well, we've shoveled billions down various rat holes, Solyndra being only one that has happened to have made some headlines. Furthermore, we continue to shovel billions down more rat holes. Looks like the latest one has that never-saw-that-coming quality to it.

But that’s not the best part. As both Gateway Pundit and American Glob discover, one of SolarReserve’s “investment partners” is Pacific Corporate Group, through its Clean Energy and Technology Fund. And PCG’s executive director is Ron Pelosi — brother of Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

I said it - "grease their bets with taxpayer cash" - and man are they ever. They are cleaning up at our expense as Democrats open the country's vaults to them. Just the other day I heard Democratic pollster Pat Caddell talk about America's two party system - the corrupt party and the stupid party. I can take issue with the stupid party despite grains of truth, but the corrupt party - that one is an unassailable truth.

Why Again Are We "Pre-Revolutionary"?

Remember how I noted that prominent Democratic pollster Pat Caddell said Americans are "pre-revolutionary" in their mood as it relates to how they are governed.  Gee, I wonder why that could be...?

LAWS, LIKE TAXES, ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Deval Patrick: Herald ‘not entitled’ to parking records.

Gov. Deval Patrick — adamant that taxpayers have no business knowing what hours top state officials keep — again refused to release electronic State House parking lot records, daring the Herald to conduct its own surveillance.
“First of all, you’re not entitled to them,” Patrick said about the parking records yesterday when asked why he was denying the Herald’s public records request.
Asked to explain, a petulant Patrick said: “Because you’re not.”

That’s the caliber of legal analysis we’ve come to expect from our lawyer-in-chief. Apparently, it’s spreading. This seems to be the actual reason: “The logs could show not only when state officials are at the State House, but whether lawmakers are honestly reporting their per diem travel reimbursements for trips into Boston — which range from $10 to $100 a day. The log lockdown triggered a firestorm from Herald readers yesterday.”

Secessionist Idea Spreading

First, some Coloradans want to split from the liberal urban nexus.  Now, some Marylanders have the same idea.  The recall elections happening tomorrow are of a piece with this.

The notable point here is not the likelihood of success but the proliferation of the idea.  This is the result of driving Americans into, as Democrat pollster Pat Caddell terms it, a "pre-revolutionary mood."  Petty-tyrant progressives have awakened the beast of popular democracy.

I suspect New York will see such a movement in short order.  Remember this map?

Tell Me Why Americans Are "Pre-Revolutionary" Again?

It is no secret that the federal government is not popular.  All manner of recent polls confirm this and suggest an even bleaker view - Americans go beyond merely not liking, they actively fear their government.  I discussed this sentiment in the context of the 2012 presidential race, citing Pat Caddell's view that Americans are "pre-revolutionary" in mood. There are literary thousands of examples of government run amok to explain why Americans feel this way, but you only have to look at the rhetoric of a President who claims the desire and intention to "go around" Congress to advance his agenda, or a (thankfully former) Governor who suggested we suspend elections, to see the genesis of Americans' fears.

The worsening of this mood has baleful consequences (very baleful if you are a leftist).  People who distrust government wish, at the very least, that it not get bigger and more intrusive. Thus, since 2010 Americans have voted for de facto gridlock.  People who distrust government greatly make contingency plans from reining in economic risk taking to bracing for a break down in law and order (gun sales, ammo shortage, anyone?).

If you were an elected official and this fear and distrust was counter-productive to your goals, you'd seek to allay these fears, no?  At the least, you wouldn't make half-baked decisions that would continue to fuel these fears, right?  Not really.

President Obama’s pick to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency once said that a “majority of white voters” would never vote for a black candidate and that they should be excluded from “the democratic process.”

The Voting Rights Act should be expanded to “adjust districts to take [racially motivated voting] into account,” Watts said.

Such voters “need to be factored out of the equation,” Watt said, because “I’ve got no use for them in the democratic process.”

According to a contemporaneous report of the hearing published by the Cybercast News Service, Watt said that black voters — unlike whites — don’t have “an absolute commitment” to voting for a candidate based on race.

“Black people have not had the luxury of being able to say, ‘Under no circumstances will I vote for a white candidate,’” Watt said in his remarks.

Watt is, indisputably in my view, an abomination by virtue of holding these views.  He also happens to be a buffoon, whites have amply demonstrated an ability to vote across racial lines, while, it must be said, blacks have not.  So, we've got a doubly whammy of repulsiveness here, idiocy combined with a racialist, fascistic worldview.  Triple whammy actually, as we now add into the equation a position of substantial authority. A mentally deficient, racialist fascist in a position of substantial authority in the federal government with sway over a large sector of the economy...?  Was there no other person around who do the job at the FHFA?  Of course there was.  So the decision to appoint Watt was either an out-to-lunch decision or a deliberately antagonistic one.

And people wonder why the government is unpopular and its citizens are angry and wary.

UPDATE:  And today comes this poll. While armed revolt is a consideration, thankfully, only among 29%, what is more interesting, and indicative, is that only 47% don't see it as necessary.  So less than half have taken it off the table.  "Pre-revolutionary" indeed.

Why Are We "Pre-Revolutionary" Again?

Let's tick off a few things:
- An official of the Department of Justice, the cabinet-level agency charged with unearthing wrongdoing and enforcing our laws, is pleading the fifth so as to be able to not reveal truths to Congressional investigators;
- ObamaCare is now forcing you and I to pay for free contraception for our fellow citizens;
- more idiocy and taxpayer funded waste at bankrupt Solyndra;
- Feds shut down file-sharing website with no apparent due process
- Coast Guard indefinitely detains seafarers over suspected pollution
- Some in Congress are proposing a "Reasonable Profits Board"
- The national debt - at least the official, understated, national debt - was, at last count, over $15 trillion;
- Our President has just shut down a major infrastructure project that would provide tens of thousands of jobs and increase our energy supplies from a friendly neighbor rather than from extremist, America-hating dictatorships;

That's just today and after just five minutes of perusing. No wonder Pat Caddell has found Americans to be in a "pre-revolutionary" mood.

Jesse Jackson Jr. Shows Why We Are "Pre-Revolutionary"

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate “states in rebellion.”

Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should “declare a national emergency” and take “extra-constitutional” action “administratively” — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.

“I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past,” Jackson said. “He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.”

Here's the link with bonus video. Again, let me point out that pollster Pat Caddell (a Democrat) has determined that Americans are in a "pre-revolutionary" mood, fast becoming "revolutionary". Gee, I wonder why that is...

Let me also reiterate to any of these dodoheads who care to listen, which is likely precisely none of them...

"...elections are the best thing you have going for you right now. With any luck you'll be voted out, allowed to return to society to live out your days peacefully, and then fade into obscurity. Suspend elections and, on current course, you'll probably be hunted down by mobs and strung up in the town square like the elitist pillagers of old. If I were you I'd take that safe retirement via the ballot box over doors one, two or three."

When you don't have the people's consent, they're gonna let you know one way or the other, and, like in all things, there is an easy way and a hard way...

We're "Pre-Revolutionary"? Why Is That?

Democratic pollster Pat Caddell says that Americans are in a "pre-revolutionary" mood, fast moving to "revolutionary". Hmmm, let's see...for starters: three years of trillion dollar deficits, 9% unemployment, 18% underemployment, loss of our AAA credit rating, a looming healthcare insurance "individual mandate". That is the core of the source of the anger. So what has been the response to the anger by our representatives: 1) Suspend elections, 2) restrict free speech.

Hmmm, tell me again why we are "pre-revolutionary"....??

Well, at least our churches are safe...

Morning Miscellany

Wow. Maybe the lawyers defending this suit don't talk to the higher ups, but it appears the Obama administration is not walking back this disastrous drilling moratorium, as I had suspected. This is terrible economic policy, as noted by me (and a panel of experts), but it is also bad politics. Obama pleases a fringe slice of his base while putting thousands out of work when his administration and his party need every last job that they can find going into midterm elections and beyond. Secondarily, the last thing he needs is higher oil prices. He is playing with the white hot type of political fire here, unemployment and gas prices, and on present course he's gonna get badly burned.

Jim Chanos is shorting Ford because the UAW is both inside Ford and in the Board Room at GM and Chrysler. Where did I hear before that this might be a problem?

Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell, Democrats both, take to the pages of the WSJ to analyze the anti-incumbent political landscape and their opening line is this: "The most important story from last week's primary elections is that, for the first time in recent memory, inexperience has become a badge of honor, as opposed to an impediment to winning office." I have never heard such a piece of news that makes me more optimistic about the health of our nation as this!!

Put aside for a minute our thuggish, mafia-like Presidential administration (not to say that it is not a BIG issue, but put it aside anyway), I am beginning to see the potential brilliance in BP's acquiescence to the $20 billion escrow account. They may owe more eventually, but it'll be years before the final number is known. In the meantime the $20 billion is teed up, and when there is an outcry over how it is dispensed (and there will be inevitably, but especially when you throw the government's famed efficiency at it), BP can safely (and happily) say "Hey man, talk to the government, they are in charge." BP has thus bought immunity from voluminous bad press and outrageous outrage for years to come over who gets money, how much money and when they get it. Once again the government is brimming with the false bravado of having won a battle when the war is looking quite bleak for them.

You've heard of the "Five Biggest Lies", the first of which is "the check is in the mail"? Well, we have a sixth. Coming from the Obama administration, it is "We're open to good ideas from all sources, and will be working with Senators on a comprehensive proposal." This is utter bullsit that no one believes this any more, if they were stupid enough to believe it ever.

The jobs numbers out today let the rightosphere (and libertarianoshere) continue to indulge in their favorite running joke..."Unexpectedly!" For those who don't get the joke, the media keeps pointing to negative news about jobs and the economy as if it all was somehow inexplicable, anomalously incongruent with Obama's genius, wizardry, and deep understanding of our economy. But there are those of us who actually know what the disastrous policies coming out of Washington DC are doing and will do to our economy...and the bad news is far from "Unexpected." Case in point, I said the gratuitous attack on the credit card industry would reduce consumer credit, limiting consumer spending. Check. Today's shocking cause and effect item...the free checking account is disappearing, because of new regulatory costs imposed on banks. Go figure. Will the MSM be using this "Unexpectedly" meme when they all go the way of the dodo like Newsweek? I can just see the headline now "New York Times Unexpectedly Goes into Chapter 11?"

Finally, in honor of the circus being conducted in Washington DC today with politicians berating BP, we have another gem from Ramirez.

Hey, Reject the Voices That Say Government Is Creeping Towards Tyranny

OK, so the IRS is targeting you for special scrutiny based on your political beliefs, the DOJ is illegally tapping the phone lines of the press (and these are their friends?!?!?!), the White House is lying to us about the existence of Islamic terrorism that is targeting us abroad and home, and cabinet officials are shaking down private businesses to fund an already lavishing funded entitlement.

But,naturally, us idiots have apparently a third thing that we inexplicably and irrationally cling to, and that is Rush Limbaugh.

This, of course, on top of what I have talked about that average Americans see every day:

Now, stop and think of what Americans are seeing and hearing every day.  First, their government just concluded a massive and contentious, but ultimately successful, effort to demand that they buy a product which many do not want and/or cannot afford.  This is on top of thousands of smaller petty tyrannies, such what lightbulbs one can use, how much water a toilet or washing machine may use, or what processing must be done to the milk you buy.  Then Americans look to some of the policy ideas that get put forth here and there, such as forcing the installation of tracking devices in all automobiles ostensibly so that government can tax you by the mile (good heavens, no, never to track your movements) or taking your retirement nest egg in return for a government provided annuity.  These are serious proposals put forth by credentialed people with access to those in power.

Finally, we see our elected representatives passing laws that no one has read let alone analyzed carefully.  Sometimes they do this in contravention of the rules and sometimes even with a sickening pride in bypassing the rules.  We have other officials suggesting the suspension of elections and there are countless examples were those in power don't seem to want or tolerate the rules applying to them, so we are increasingly living under a set of rules that the elites have exempted themselves from.  And I haven't even mentioned what to many is an obviously bloody-minded statist President who no one would ever accuse of valuing modesty in the exercise of power.

So, if Pat Caddell is right and Americans were "pre-revolutionary" prior to the IRS/AP/Benghazi/Sebelius crap, what are they now?