2011 was not a good year for Rick Perry. At the top of his political career, he entered a race many thought would pluck him from Texas and set him gently down again as the GOP nominee. Mostly he just got sat down with a thud.

And, yes, he names his boots

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I think we NQ writers have had our say about the Republican field. That field has narrowed since summer, narrowed a little more in the fall, and now it’s about to get much narrower when Iowa get its licks in. When this night is over, it will probably be the end of at least two campaigns, and maybe three.

Traditionally, that’s what the Iowa caucuses do, they signal to the also-rans that they can quit running now and go home.  There will probably be an endorsement or two by morning, or at least by the end of the week, as the fallen bestow their followers on their favorite former opponent.  There are no delegates at stake tonight, so they can’t give those away.  But for those who choose to bow out, who have a group of core followers, they can add a little heft to one candidate or another. Read the rest

What is a conservative Republican? I do not believe there really is such an ideological class. For example, take Rick Santorum. What makes him “conservative?” He is a strong opponent of homosexuals and abortion. He believes that the U.S. Government has the right to lock you up and hold you indefinitely if someone accuses you of being a terrorist. What about Federal spending? He favors continued bloated DOD budgets but is very fuzzy about what to cut from the rest of the Federal budget. So, is that your type of conservative?

How about Rick Perry? He loves Jesus, yes he does. Like Jesus he goes easy on the children of illegal migrants. But that position does not resonate with most self-proclaimed conservatives. He does favor foreign adventurism and war in the name of fighting terrorism. He is basically in line with all of the Republican candidates except for Ron Paul. He wants to close down some Federal bureaus and agencies, except he has trouble remembering which ones.

Romney is not a conservative, at least if you read what is written about him by the folks at Hot Air or listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh. The fact that he is an accomplished, successful businessman is dismissed by “conservatives” as irrelevant. His support for a state-based health care program makes him a liberal socialist in the eyes of these so-called “conservatives.”

Well boys and girls, I have a news flash for you. Read the rest

Seem like only a month ago we were all saying, “Gee whillickers!  The Iowa Caucuses are only a month away!”  Well, guess what?  We were right!

Today, for reasons that are mostly tradition and totally illogical, groups of Republican folks in this mostly white, mostly rural state will gather in school gymnasiums, church basements, and warehouses to listen to speeches and cast their straw ballots for the candidate of their choice.  I don’t mean that it’s a straw poll, I mean the ballots are actually made of straw, some of it chewed on one end.

Looking around at other news sources, I see that Rick Santorum has come up out of nowhere, cobbling together votes from the several fallen candidates of the more conservative bent.  Bachmann’s campaign is limping over the line amid desertions of staff and voters already taking place.  Huntsman isn’t even competing in Iowa, perhaps showing superior intelligence.  Gingrich has already peaked, it seems, with his support falling rapidly.  So the Not-Romney and Not-Paul votes are migrating to Santorum, who is already in the process of shooting himself in the foot.  I mean, really, did we expect any less from him?

“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”

– Rick Santorum, January 1, 2012

With Team Obama using the Race Card as a trump card – no, Donald, I wasn’t talking about you – Santorum just gave them a standing target.  Why did he single out blacks at all?  They aren’t the only people on government assistance, not by a long shot!  He just put a “Kick me!” sign on his ass. Read the rest

Surprisingly fresh-faced and prideful Jim Messina, the Obama re-elect manager in Chicago, leads the faithful through the Electoral College scenarios for the November 2012 election.

In 2008, POTUS achieved 365 Electoral College votes. The thinking in Chicago is that they can give up a lot of territory and win the bare minimum 270 plus a handful. The West scenario, winning CO, NM, NV and IA, is surprising to me, as it gives up OH, NC and VA. The Florida scenario gives up everything including OH. The New South scenario wins VA and NC while giving up OH and the West.

Oddest of all is the Midwest scenario, where they win with just OH and IA. The planning is routinely defeatist, defensive, cautious — more resembling a worst-elect briefing. Read the rest

Welcome to 2012, the last year for life on Earth (as we know it).

Over the last couple of years, I’ve become quite the expert on the End of the World — it’s coming up fast! Only about 350 days left, according to the ancient Mayan Calendar. And who would know better than the ancient Mayans? After all, if you can’t trust a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican calendar, what can you trust? The Gregorian calendar? (Snort!) Don’t make me laugh!

Yes, I’ve watched just about every show on the History Channel and all its relatives – A&E, Discovery, Biography, and the FRDSS channel.   Oh, you haven’t heard of that last one?  It’s the Fat Rednecks Doing Stupid Shit channel.  It’s really entertaining stuff, and it’s producing a lot of filler material for all those “educational” and highbrow channels we used to watch.  A&E, you know, means Arts and Entertainment.  I think it was intended to be a commercial version of PBS type programs.  You know, symphonies, British dramas, documentaries, and other programs ideal for falling asleep to.  But I digress, as usual.  I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t digress.  My articles would be about two paragraphs long.

OK, so I’ve watched all these programs that prophesize the end of the world.  You see, almost every major religion in the world, including the ancient Mayans and the present-day Hopis in Arizona, have predicted the end of the world.  From the Book of Revelations in the New testament, to Nostradamus, to Edgar Cayce, and even Islam, there are “end of the world” or end of mankind prophecies.  And somehow, it seems, historians have tied all of these into the ancient Mayan calendar!  They are now all convinced that 2012 will, in fact, be the year of end of days.  I’m pretty sure it will be the end of nights, too, but hardly anybody mentions it. Read the rest

A follow-up to Larry’s Greetings.

May your year be filled with excitement, lots of fun, and excellent health.

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Wanted to extend a heartfelt wish to all regulars and visitors of No Quarter to enjoy the goyim New Year (if you are Jewish you already celebrated a New Year but hey, why not double dip). 2012 is going to be a rough ride. I expect Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. So far he is wisely focused on the economy to the exclusion of everything else. That will be the game for 2012.

The Super Pacs will fall largely in favor of the Republicans. Expect the Dems to scream like stuck pigs. Too bad. The Super Pacs will beat the hell out of Obama and they will only need to tell the truth about the real record of Barack Obama. He and the Dems will try to smear lipstick on the ugly pig that is the economy but events overseas will probably drive the US and the world economy into the toliet.

Any of you have any bold predictions? Read the rest

Me?  Agree with Karl Rove?  Ick! Ick! Ick!

Karl Rove, architect of the Dubya administration’s policies?  Karl Rove, who along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, helped sell the American public on the need to invade Iraq in a war of choice?  Karl Rove, the man most often cited as the person who leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame? Karl Rove, whom Dubya affectionately called “Turd Blossom?”

Me?  Agree with Karl Rove?  Oh God, please forgive me!

The thing is, I just read Rove’s predictions for the national elections of 2012.  And I can’t help it if we both have similar predictions, can I?  It’s not like I think the man has superior intelligence like me!

But, in this case, I think he’s pretty much nailed it.  I dunno, maybe the outcomes are so obvious to everybody that we are all seeing it the same way.  It might be that if you just walked up to some drooling guy in rags drinking Everclear straight from the bottle as he lay slumped against a building in an alley in any city of the USA, he’d make the same predictions as Karl Rove.   And me, unfortunately.

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The following is part of an email I sent to a friend in the intel community (now retired) who is alarmed by the growing drum beat to go to war with Iran.

Here’s what I wrote:

Look, the problem is totally political. What do I mean by that? When the Democrats in the Senate refused to back the Obama Administration’s effort to water down the sanctions on Iran, what is Obama to do? I think it is pretty well known that I am a pretty outspoken opponent of Obama. However, on this one the Administration was right. There is no way in an election year, as long as Obama remains a candidate, that he can take a public stance offering anything perceived as accommodation of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The bottom-line is this–despite Iran’s own heated rhetoric, they have consistently (at least over the last 20 years) been very cautious about using terrorism or military adventurism. They have always acted in their perceived national interest. If the current push to impose sanctions that cut off Iran’s ability to export or sell its oil go into effect then it is almost certain that Iran will take actions to disrupt oil exports by other countries in the Persian Gulf.

So, from an assessment standpoint, if sanctions are imposed on Iran that hurt its oil income then is the prospect of a war is greatly increased? Absolutely.

The National Security bureaucracy, at least some components–DIA in particular–are pushing back hard against the red herrings being offered up as justification for engaging Iran in a battle. Is Iran trying to weaponize uranium? Probably. But has their research advanced to the point that they have a viable weapon that can be reliably delivered? Absolutely not. Read the rest

John Batchelor, writing below about Lawrence Lessig’s new book, “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress–and a Plan to Stop It,” reflects: “POTUS Obama pulled textbook bait and switch with his ‘change’ campaign that delivered him to Washington as just another one of the gang.”

If it is to be Mitt Romney who outlasts the GOP circus acts in Iowa, NH, SC and FL, then with the victory comes the long-anticipated match-up with POTUS Obama.

An honest concern is that with these two leading the tickets, how can you sustain the dinner party conversation on the election? You may not. You may change the subject to dessert, or to baseball season, or to the unusual weather (if it can be found anywhere).

The Election could quickly become the topic no one will speak. The table killer. This will alarm the cables that depend upon alienation and desperation. The two men are harmless as personalities. The two men can present themselves as leaders for the Brave New Normal, but no one over 40 is going to believe it for long.

Suppose they held an Election and no one listened? I will have to dig to find something credible to say about either man, because at this time they have labored for decades in order to appear pleasant blanks. Read the rest

Five days. I can’t wait for Iowa to be over. So over. Every four years, I get angry that such a vanilla state, so atypical of many states in the nation, demands, and gets, the right to first choice. Then there’s the astonishing amount of money that gets poured into a state where only — get this — about 150,000 people trudge into uncomfortable rooms for a caucus that lasts a minimum of two hours.

Oh, I have more beefs with this system. How about the fact that at least one-third of the states have to wait to vote until, by the time it’s their turn, their votes don’t much matter anymore. The entire West Coast and their neighboring states never get a real shot at influencing the choice of the nominees. Imagine if states like Oregon, Washington, Idaho, or Utah got a real chance to influence the race.

Then there’s the caucus system. Caucuses are flat-out unfair. Try being a parent with limited discretionary money having to hire a babysitter. Try being disabled and being unable to get out or, if you can get out, having to navigate to rooms far from the entrance, and find an uncomfortable chair, look for the nearest bathroom (hopefully on the same floor). And what if you end up in the hospital, as happened to me four years ago? I couldn’t cast a vote, not even through a proxy.

With that off my chest, here are some news items I discovered in the past day, some serious and some just interesting (like the birth of a baby — the parents are disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, SoS Hillary Clinton’s trusted aide): Read the rest

DISCLAIMER:  Sarcasm and satire ahead!

Sometimes simple math can play tricks on your mind.  For example, in the United States Senate there are 100 seats.  If they are split by one seat (or one vote), there’s a difference of 2.  50/50 becomes 49/51.  A split of two votes makes a difference of four: 48/52.  It’s like magic!

The same principle holds for percentages.  If a candidate wins 52% of the vote and the opponent wins 48% of the vote, did the winner win by 2% or 4%?  If one end of the seesaw rises one inch, the other falls one inch, so the resulting change is the ends are now two inches apart.  It just boggles the mind!

I just finished reading about the announced retirement of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska.  And it made me sad, while at the same time it made me happy.  How can this be?  It’s not that I’m emotionally unbalanced — all right, stop the snickering! — or that I can’t make up my mind.  It’s complicated, all right?

The Republicans only need to gain four seats to win control of the Senate, and so far seven Democratic senators have announced their retirements, giving the Republicans a strong chance of winning the Senate.  If they do that and hang onto the House, they control Congress.  If they do that and Obama wins re-election (permission to vomit?), then Obama will not only be a lame-duck, he’ll be castrated.  He’ll also be at the mercy of an oppositional Congress who can probe his background, investigate his documents, and maybe even impeach him!  (permission to squeal with delight?!) Read the rest

The insanity of trying to start a war with Iran continues. The latest appears in the Daily Beast with the headline, U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure:

The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively.

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret,” the Israelis went ballistic behind the scenes. Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, lodged a formal diplomatic protest known as a demarche. And the White House was thrust into action, reassuring the Israelis that the administration had its own “red lines” that would trigger military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem to act unilaterally.

The only country not eager to go to war is Iran. Ignore the bombastic harangues by Ahmadinejad. The Iranian mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard understand very well that they will be destroyed if they start a war. But that’s not their strategy. Read the rest

Speaking Ali Soufan, author, “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda,” re the fail of the CIA and FBI from the WTC 1993 onward, and especially af the Cole attack, October 2000.

The warrants support the general finding of the 9-11 Commission that the failure to share specific logical information permitted the ops al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar to enter the US and prepare from July 2001. Soufan also documents how he was denied an opportunity to knot together the clues that would have led the the so-called courier Abu Ahmed who was the final connection to Bin Laden’s hiding hole in Abbottabad.

It is a stunning tale of paper chasing fools and bullies who withheld information without common sense. Read the rest