Who Could Have Seen This Coming?

Over at Instapundit there is this...

Related: Walter Russell Mead: Obama’s Failing Foreign Policy, Groping For A Reset. “You don’t demonstrate your mastery of world events by making smart speeches about how intelligent your foreign policy is; you demonstrate your mastery of world events by having things go your way.” Well, that goes beyond the core competency. Plus, from the comments: “Some of us saw this coming a mile away. But we’re racists and bitter clingers.”

Saw this coming?  You mean like this...

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2010
 American Weakness Begets Chaos
Thailand is in flames. North Korea is sinking South Korean naval vessels. Iran is hurtling fast toward nuclear capability (and is on the brink of a confrontation with Israel). Piracy is rampant in a major world shipping lane. Mexico is in a civil war with drug cartels on our border. Russia is flat out usurping power in Kyrgyzstan. Pakistani army officers are supporting terrorism operations on American soil. Al Qaeda is resurgent in Iraq. The Taliban are hitting the heart of the US's base of operations Afghanistan after years of our presence there.
Historians of a certain ilk understand and have made the case that American weakness begets chaos around the world. A strong America, girded with allies, focusing on commerce around the world dampens the desire for bad actors to violently usurp power and encourages peoples to support governments that allow for participation in global commercial activity. Nations and peoples follow and emulate a strong and prosperous America. Yet today, America has trashed two cherished, geo-politically important relationships - with Great Britain and with Israel. We are mute on North Korea and Chavez and solicitous of Ahmadinejad, Assad and Putin. Our President is spending precious political capital trashing our own states (and by extension, our federalist structure) while spouting mushy inanities like "We are not defined by our borders." On the economic front, we are sliding into protectionism, systematically dismantling dynamic free market entrepreneurial capitalism in favor of a statist/crony capitalist hybrid.

Elite pundits say America is on the decline and they are likely right, but we are not in an irreparable decline. We are in a decline of choice. We have chosen (or more accurately, been asleep and let certain factions of us choose) declinist policies. We have chosen weakness and opted for appeasement of usurpers and thugs. We have consciously built barriers to economic propserity. None of this was inevitable and a reversal is indeed possible, but we have to see things clearly for what they are and make the choices to reject weakness and stagnation. Britain failed to do it earlier this month. What will we do this November and in 2012? Will we emulate Britain and choose to muddle along? Our own fate hangs in the balance, but so does much much more. Chaos is on the march around the world. Eventually it will land here or force our invlovement in which we pay a heavy price. Which way will we go?

American Weakness Begets Chaos

Thailand is in flames. North Korea is sinking South Korean naval vessels. Iran is hurtling fast toward nuclear capability (and is on the brink of a confrontation with Israel). Piracy is rampant in a major world shipping lane. Mexico is in a civil war with drug cartels on our border. Russia is flat out usurping power in Kyrgyzstan. Pakistani army officers are supporting terrorism operations on American soil. Al Qaeda is resurgent in Iraq. The Taliban are hitting the heart of the US's base of operations Afghanistan after years of our presence there.

Historians of a certain ilk understand and have made the case that American weakness begets chaos around the world. A strong America, girded with allies, focusing on commerce around the world dampens the desire for bad actors to violently usurp power and encourages peoples to support governments that allow for participation in global commercial activity. Nations and peoples follow and emulate a strong and prosperous America. Yet today, America has trashed two cherished, geo-politically important relationships - with Great Britain and with Israel. We are mute on North Korea and Chavez and solicitous of Ahmadinejad, Assad and Putin. Our President is spending precious political capital trashing our own states (and by extension, our federalist structure) while spouting mushy inanities like "We are not defined by our borders." On the economic front, we are sliding into protectionism, systematically dismantling dynamic free market entrepreneurial capitalism in favor of a statist/crony capitalist hybrid.
Elite pundits say America is on the decline and they are likely right, but we are not in an irreparable decline. We are in a decline of choice. We have chosen (or more accurately, been asleep and let certain factions of us choose) declinist policies. We have chosen weakness and opted for appeasement of usurpers and thugs. We have consciously built barriers to economic propserity. None of this was inevitable and a reversal is indeed possible, but we have to see things clearly for what they are and make the choices to reject weakness and stagnation. Britain failed to do it earlier this month. What will we do this November and in 2012? Will we emulate Britain and choose to muddle along? Our own fate hangs in the balance, but so does much much more. Chaos is on the march around the world. Eventually it will land here or force our invlovement in which we pay a heavy price. Which way will we go?

As Predicted: Obama's Weakness Is Begetting Chaos Around the World

Here is registered Democrat and Obama voter Walter Russell Mead

Could the Obama administration in its second term be making a series of Middle East policy mistakes even more expensive and destructive than those the Bush administration made in its first?
...
the Obama administration seems to be locked into a sterile, short-term policy approach driven by domestic considerations; it is following the path of least resistance to a place that in the end will please no one and is increasingly likely to lead to strategic disaster.
...
The combination of grave and growing dangers in the Middle East with a lightweight policy response in Washington is genuinely frightening.
...
Its poor handling of an escalating series of regional problems is increasing the chance that those problems will cascade into a major global crisis.

I bolded that last one, 'cause that's the kicker.  I provide no further comment except to say RTWT and quickly harken back to what all seven readers of this blog got to read in 2010:

Historians of a certain ilk understand and have made the case that American weakness begets chaos around the world. A strong America, girded with allies, focusing on commerce around the world dampens the desire for bad actors to violently usurp power and encourages peoples to support governments that allow for participation in global commercial activity. Nations and peoples follow and emulate a strong and prosperous America.
...
Elite pundits say America is on the decline and they are likely right, but we are not in an irreparable decline. We are in a decline of choice. We have chosen (or more accurately, been asleep and let certain factions of us choose) declinist policies. We have chosen weakness and opted for appeasement of usurpers and thugs. We have consciously built barriers to economic prospserity.
...
Chaos is on the march around the world. Eventually it will land here or force our invlovement in which we pay a heavy price. Which way will we go?

Palin's Judo

The MSM/EJM still doesn't get it, even after I laid it all out for them...you DO NOT give a putatively weak opponent opportunities to rebut the charge of weakness and call into question your superior position. If they are weak, allow them to be weak and eventually demonstrate this weakness, but don't create chances for them to reverse perceptions. Basic Sun Tzu folks, but these media morons are still fumbling and, frankly, that ridiculously weak opponent is taking full advantage by looking, well, much stronger than advertised.

Unintentionally Funny Columnist: Obama Is Tough, Reagan Was Weak

There is alot of dumbass going around these days in the MSM as they frantically try to save Obama's hide in the wake of his entire mideast policy cratering into a smoldering heap.  My candidate for dumbest is by somebody named Steve Chapman, who attempts to exonerate the Lightworker for foreign policy weakness - not by saying that Dear Leader isn't weak, but by saying criticism over weakness is weak.  He doesn't address the substance of Obama's foreign policy, but rather compares it to a vignette of the Reagan era:

On Aug. 31, 1983, a South Korean airliner flying from New York to Seoul drifted off course and entered Soviet airspace. After tracking the civilian plane for more than two hours, Soviet fighter pilots were told to shoot it down. They did, killing 269 people, including 60 Americans. It was one of the most shocking atrocities of the Cold War. 

It occurred during the first term of perhaps the most staunchly anti-Communist president America has ever had, Ronald Reagan, an advocate of robust military power. And how did Reagan respond? He called it a "crime against humanity," and then, um, postponed some cultural exchanges with the Soviets.

Naturally, this is daft.   Yes, Reagan may have appeared to do nothing militarily in immediate response to the Soviet atrocity, but by 1983 Reagan had already declared that the Soviet Union would be relegated to "the ash heap of history", that Communism was "another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written", and rendered elite opinion verklempt with his characterization of the USSR as "an evil empire".   In response to the KAL bombing Reagan simply continued the economic war of attrition that was a central tactic of his anti-USSR strategy.  Furthermore, he was busy building up arms agreements and placing missiles in Europe, arming/helping the Mujahadeen fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, and was undermining Soviet satellite states in Africa, Latin America and Asia.  In 1983, Reagan was also busy invading Grenada and launching the Strategic Defense Initiative.  In other words, Reagan was busy implementing a long term strategy to defeat the Soviet Union, he didn't need to respond with a "fly swat" when his aim was to bring the whole house of cards down.  Within a few years, Reagan would be bombing Soviet-aligned Libya.  Chapman either never learned or conveniently forgot this history.  But now that we've setup the false narrative, Chapman delivers the howler:

Barack Obama has never done anything that could compare to Reagan's limp response to this wanton slaughter of innocents. But conservatives with short memories regard Obama as the most feeble, weak-kneed president since ... well, since Jimmy Carter.

How many times have we heard of Reagan the "war-monger" in the elite liberal telling?  Yet, magically, Steve Chapman has transformed Reagan into a veritable puppy dog on the world stage for the sake of making Obama look tough.

Five Years of Solid Correlation: Obama Down, Market Up

I have argued consistently, almost from the very beginning, that Barack Obama would be guaranteed to disappoint the cultists of Hopeandchange, become uniformly and increasingly unpopular and ineffective. I have further argued that, as a result, given Obama's ideological bent, his weakening would be good for the stock market.  I've highlighted this relationship many times throughout the last five years, including graphically.

The Lightworker's re-election notwithstanding, polling has shown a consistent slide in approval from the earliest days of this administration. The guys at Powerline highlight the relevant polling graphs - it's an unambiguous story, and, as they note, an enduring mystery. Recent data shows an accelerating of even this very clear trend, a massive dropoff in approval since re-election. So has the stock market functioned as my theory would have predicted? Definitively, yes. Here is the recent six month chart.

I thoroughly expect that this relationship will hold and extend itself. Expect further Obama weakness and, concomitantly, further market strength.

John Galt Yields Stage to Robert Half

Going John Galt has become Going Robert Half.

In the depths of a recession and financial crisis that was being exploited by radical progressive politicians who found themselves with unfettered power, our creators, innovators and productive citizens embraced the notion of rebuting this assault on free enterprise and personal liberty with an economic boycott of sorts - a deceleration of their risk-taking/spending and a self-imposed restriction on offering their talents into the economy - that went by the phrase "Going John Galt" after the famous Ayn Rand character. See here (my own term for John Galtism is Job Market Vigilantes).

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.

Temp America

Mark Perry notes the steady increase in temporary worker employment and posits that it bodes well for broader employment gains.

MP: Both the ASA Staffing Index and the BLS measure of temporary workers have been trending upward for the last three years and are now close to their pre-recession levels. As leading indicators of overall U.S. labor market demand, these ongoing positive trends in temporary hiring are signs that the labor market is gradually improving and may translate into an increased pace of broader-based hiring for workers going forward into 2013.

I think, however, that mainstream economists (although it would be a bit unfair to call Perry a "mainstream" economist, as that to me is a pejorative term and Perry deserves better) are perhaps missing a structural shift in the labor market towards more temporary employment away from full time employment.  I have labelled this the Robert Half Economy.

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.

4th Quarter and Team Obama Is a Bunch of Scrubs

I have blogged at length about one of Obama's core problems - he's only got B-Teamers (at best, really many of these people are C-Teamers or worse) surrounding him, doing the actual job of governing. 

 One of the structural flaws that he had coming in to his Presidency was a shallow political base. As a newby, he didn't have the deep networks and connections to draw the top talent to his side; he only had the ability to draw party loyalists who do what they do for the party, not for him. As he proves damaging to the party, these folks will not sign up to resurrect the great Obama experiment, which is a major problem for him. He is going to need top class talent to resurrect his presidency. Where is he going to find these people? Where are the All-stars going to come from? Answer: He's not gonna get them. Is he really going to turn things around dramatically in 20 months with a bunch of B-teamers? Doubtful.

Take this for example, this woman is a sure-fire D-Teamer.  Obama's biggest weakness is the economy and yet he can't find anybody who can come within miles of qualified to be Commerce Secretary while Bryson recuperates?

Wisdom of the Ages

Because America is so much mightier than Russia, the American presidency is a much stronger position than the Russian presidency. But a strong man in a position of weakness, if he is ruthless about taking advantage of his adversary’s vulnerabilities, can get the better of weak man in a position of strength. Saul Alinsky understood that, and so does Vladimir Putin. (link)

Saul Alinsky may have understood it, but it goes back a little further than him...

"I'd rather fight 100 lions led by sheep than 100 sheep led by a lion."  - Alexander the Great

"Let Obama Be Obama." Whose Strategy?

"Let Obama Be Obama."

Stop. Read it again. Soak it up. Think on it. Cogitate. More. More Still.

OK, now tell me was this written by a liberal/left or conservative/right pundit? Can't tell, can you? Me neither.

Truth is, it could have been written by either. The former would likely advance something akin to: 'Why are we seconding guessing the Lightworker just because he's run into some trouble spots? He remains the near god-like, practical, no drama, uniter, politics-as-usual hating genius that we always knew he was. Wanting him to adapt to a new political reality now based on temporary distress would risk ruining the precious gift that is Obama. Let Obama be Obama.' Here is a real example.

"His presidency hasn’t been perfect. But every day of it until now has been the fulfillment of the promise of the kind of president he always said he would be: a practical problem solver untethered to the legacy of petty fights and image-first tactics, which seemed to be hindering any resolution of our biggest challenges."

The latter kind of commentator might advance something like this: 'When you elect a man wholly unqualified - dangerously unqualified - to the highest office in the land, this is what you get. We should not be examining Obama for this state of affairs, he is an inexperienced mediocrity being mediocre and showing inexperience. For those of us wanting rid of him, the best chance we have is simply to let him continue to show the nation what a ridiculous character he is and how destructive his policies are and what a big mistake we all made. So, let Obama be Obama.' Again, here is a real example.

"That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind."

So which do you think it is? Who advocates the "Let Obama be Obama" strategy, the writer of the first captioned quote or the writer of the second?

I know, it is a stumper but if you guessed lefty/liberal you are correct. The article is here and it is written by a Yale "teacher" serving in the Obama administration and the first captioned quote is taken from it. The other captioned quote is from Norman Podhoretz from this past weekend's WSJ. And there is some previous NBfPB material thrown in there too.

So what is the point? Could be any number of things really - people see what they want to see, maybe - but I'll go with 'there are least still some people seriously drinking the Kool-Aid, Sean Smith being one.'

More and Again...Obama Down, Stocks Up

The market is up today and alot of focus is naturally on the first official utterances of Janet Yellen.  Ho Hum.

Readers know that I ascribe the robust stock market to the declining power of Obama, the most economically destructive political force that the nation has seen in decades.  (And have from the very beginning.) Note, this is what I said last July:

Expect further Obama weakness and, concomitantly, further market strength.

I think today we are seeing more of this phenomenon.  Make no mistake about it, the further delay of the ObamaCare employee mandate is a milepost on the continued decline and drive toward irrelevance of the Lightworker.  The law is in grave danger of collapsing and/or going away via corrective legislation.  And this is all good for stocks.

UPDATE:  Drudge with the merciless pounding of juxtaposition.

American Weakness Means War Is More Likely

Michael Barone says that Obama's weak policies increase the risk of war.  As great as Barone is, this was not a hard call to make.  In fact, I made it, quite a while ago too.

It's 1968. Or 1935. Take Your Pick.

I am agog.

I am aghast.

We are witnessing history unfold in disastrous form yet again, not fifty years removed from the lessons of past.  It's 1968 and the tanks are rolling into Prague.  OK, 2014 and Ukraine - same difference.  The US is dithering and dissembling.  Authoritarianism is on the march and democracy and liberty are cowering in the corner.  We are all but missing "peace in our time."

This never ends well.

The decision to elect a community organizer to the highest office of the land in the unipolar power country is not paying dividends.  OK, enough with the ironical.  It's coming back to haunt us and the world in frightening fashion.

Again, all predicted.  By myself and the likes of that idiot Sarah Palin and that out-of-touch rich guy Mitt Romney.  And about ten thousand others.  That's how obvious it was.  Yet we elected him anyway.

Shame on us.  Deep shame.

God help us as these things end up with decades of advancing tyranny or massive conflagration of war, sometimes both.

What makes it worse is we have this supreme dickhead in the oval office.  The unbelievably arrogant dickhead making cracks about the 80s calling wanting their foreign policy back.  Well, fuckface, the the 1930s are calling and they want their appeasement, weakness and fecklessness trophy back.  Neville Chamberlain wants his Weenie of the Century award back.  The French want their Maginot Line Greatest Farce Ever Back.

These "progressives" will plunge us into war again, these stupid, stupid motherfucking lefties with their  inability to see or identify evil and their goddam lust for the lack of power.

God help us all.

Shocker: Man Taking Advantage of Obama's Weakness Wants Four More Years of Obama

I have laid out the case before - Obama is about the best thing that bad actors around the globe could hope for.  Of course, four more years of the Lightworker prostrating America before penny-ante powers and systematically reducing American influence is great for penny-ante powers who want reduced American influence.  So it is no surprise that a major bad actor who wants four more years of absolutely feckless American give-a-shit bumbling is kind of stumping for Obama and against Romney.  The Russians don't have numerous chess grand masters for nothing, they are a nation of calculating, devious minds.

Yet Another "I Told Ya' So" on Economy

The employment report today is ripe for commentary - and I have commented on them - based on the details but they also merit commentary on what they say about the employment environment generally.  And what they say is not very good - that not only is the economy stagnating, but that the economy is switching away from full-time workers to part-time workers.  Charlie Martin at PJ Media has a quick parsing:

In fact, if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, it’s unlikely that anything has been manipulated — which would be hard to do without being caught anyway — because you can see exactly how the change happened.  Here’s the net-net:

• net 114,000 new full-time jobs
• net 456,000 people who left the unemployed list — discouraged or whatever
• net 600,000 people added to part-time workers.

What distinguishes part-time workers from full-time? In general, part-time workers don’t get benefits — like health insurance.
 
What these numbers seem to be telling us is that it’s too expensive to pay for benefits.

 Of course, as is usually the case, Donny Baseball was prescient, insightful and early to this call...I talked about the part-timing of America many moons ago.

Going John Galt has become Going Robert Half.

In the depths of a recession and financial crisis that was being exploited by radical progressive politicians who found themselves with unfettered power, our creators, innovators and productive citizens embraced the notion of rebuting this assault on free enterprise and personal liberty with an economic boycott of sorts - a deceleration of their risk-taking/spending and a self-imposed restriction on offering their talents into the economy - that went by the phrase "Going John Galt" after the famous Ayn Rand character. See here (my own term for John Galtism is Job Market Vigilantes).

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.

Dangerous World

Hey, remember when I said that Obama's weakness would bring about chaos on the global geo-political scene?  Remember, first in 2010 and again last July.  Yesterday the WSJ tallied up the disorder scorecard and Dan Henninger pleaded for an end to amateur hour.

Obama's fecklessness would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.  Plan accordingly.

Despite Awesome Obama Economy, We Still Need Unemployment Benefits...?

Extended unemployment benefits are a crisis policy response to extraordinary economic weakness (otherwise it's just the dole).  The Obama administration is quick to tout it's 7% unemployment rate, which wouldn't justify extraordinary unemployment benefits.  Either the economy is doing as swell as they say or it isn't, right?  Still, the administration and the media are lamenting the lack of unemployment benefits in the Ryan-Murray budget deal. 

They can't have it both ways, are we doing well or aren't we?

Get 'Em While They're Hot - 2012 Predictions !!!

Well, it's time to make my predictions for 2012. I've done pretty well on my predictions the last few years. In 2011, I nailed alot of them "directionally" if not a precise score. In making my predictions, note that I try to steer away from the obvious and make out-of-the-box prognostications that are at least plausible - they may be grounded in the obvious reality, but I try to take them further. No need to be conventional, you get that from the MSM. I'm not trying to be right as many times as I can, I'm trying to be right with a high degree of difficulty. I list them from most interesting/confident to least interesting/confident, so here goes.

- Romney/Tea Party, A Marriage Made in...Well, Just Made: Mitt Romney (who is FINE btw) chooses a VP nominee that solidifies his support with true conservatives just enough to complete his primary electoral strategy of 1) be the "non-scary" Republican that independents and moderate Dems can feel comfortable voting for and 2) be good enough for conservatives and libertarians to turn out like they need to turn out to defeat the constitutional democracy/individual liberty disaster that is Barack Obama. Likely choices are Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Jim DeMint, or Paul Ryan. I say it's Romney/Ryan because we need this one badly and Ryan adds tremendously to the ticket (Republican poo-bahs move Heaven and Earth to get Ryan to sign up).

- 2012 Election is Close Until Sep-Oct When Obama Blows It ala McCain in 2008: Obama's political skills are awesome, but his political instincts are terrible. He will do quite egregious things to please his base (wow! as if on cue). He will run neck and neck with Romney/Ryan until he blows it with a policy gaffe that conspicuously reminds voters what an amateur and/or liberal fascist he is. The gaffe could even be a Clintonite engineered self-destruction conspiracy. (Wow! I could be early on this one!)

- ClimateGate email hacker is caught and it turns out he/she/them works essentially for the Russian government.

- Something Deep, Deep Underground in Iran Blows Up: Above-ground things are blowing up left and right and we are constantly told that the Big Bad Nuke Stuff is way underground where we can't bomb it. Well, maybe not with airplanes. We/they/whoever scores a big one with a KABOOM underneath the feet of the mullahs.

- SCOTUS Shoots Down Individual Mandate, Keeps Rest of ObamaCare Intact: Chief Justice Roberts garners the five votes needed to shoot down the mandate as a bridge too far in restricting the liberties of Americans. Although never revealed, the decision is an attempt to re-establish the Court's credibility as a bastion of protection of the citizenry's liberties after the disastrous Kelo decision.

- Global Warming, Er Sorry, Climate Change Officially Dies: Canada got the ball rolling so now the flood gates are open, three more major countries opt out of the Kyoto Protocol and the global warming movement is officially laid to rest.

- The Hopes and Dreams of the "Arab Spring" Actually Take Root...in Syria: Assad is killed or leaves and Syrians actually setup the relatively liberal democracy that people thought would prevail in Egypt. The new Syrian regime makes peace with Israel and allies with the West. But not before alot of people get killed.

- Al Qaeda Makes a Big Comeback, Targets China Too: Plenty of new places to regroup - Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq. They get the band back together, and they add to the list of Great Satans.

- Vladimir Putin Escapes An Assassination Attempt: Grudge-harboring Chechen is emboldened by Putin's political weakness, but, alas, fails.

- In a Rematch of Super Bowl 35, the New York Giants Defeat the Ravens of Baltimore in Super Bowl 46 by a score of 27-17. MVP is Victor Cruz.