The Economist has finally noticed how different the past few months would have been had there been a Romney presidency rather than the continuation of the low grade Obama disaster zone. Here is what is no doubt only a partial list of what would have been taking place right now instead of the scandal-ridden vast under-performance of the present administration:

Team Romney’s 200-day plans included immediate, 5% cuts to public spending excluding security and social payments (though more money for defence), a weakening of the rules that Republicans say favour trade unions, a squeeze on public-sector jobs and pay, and a global push for free trade. Mr Romney would also have proposed lower income- and corporate-tax rates, offset by closing loopholes. Abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, a conservative dream, was not on the cards. But “personnel is policy”, notes Glenn Hubbard, Mr Romney’s chief economic adviser. Those chosen to regulate energy and tackle climate change would have weighed costs against benefits minutely. A long-term squeeze on welfare and health spending was a priority: wholesale immigration reform was not.

Noted by Instapundit since the article begins with the Glenn Reynolds “the told me if I voted for Obama” meme without giving the credit where credit is due.

From the interview:

SARAH PALIN: We show what happened, back in 2008, I believe that’s when it started, when the media decided to just go along to get along with Obama, ingratiating themselves with him and vice versa. What we saw was these attempts to destroy these whistleblowers, those who were telling the truth, even in the campaign. Those who were bringing up the name Jeremiah Wright and the racist church he leads that Obama was a member of for over 20 years.

Though I was during the campaign running for VP, I was banned from talking about Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s friend, Bill Ayers, the character that he befriended and kicked off his political campaign in the guy’s living room. Couldn’t talk about that. Couldn’t talk about Obama’s lack of knowledge and job experience and the things that he said like America had 57 states, things like that.

In the campaign, Greta, this is important for Americans to understand. I was not allowed to talk about things like that because those elitists, those who are the brainiacs in the GOP machine running John McCain’s campaign at the time said that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things. So what did that get us? That got us this kind of complacency and self-censoring of a campaign where we weren’t allowed to tell the truth about who this kind candidate was, Barack Obama. What it got us was a list of these scandals. This is kind of a redneck version of one of those elitist tactics of Karl Rove, how he uses his white board. This a redneck version of a whiteboard. And on this list, the scandals that are destroying America, Greta.

Also reported here.

Last night, in a fit of jet lag, I posted on the IRS issue focusing on the much noted article by Peggy Noonan which she titled, “A Bombshell in the IRS Scandal”. Some bombshell. This morning the distractor-in-chief has set the hares running in an entirely different direction. These were the stories at Drudge, with the main story titled, “TIME TO ACT ON TRAYVON”, and it was no different at any of the other American sites I typically read. In case you can’t tell, it’s Zimmerman wall to wall.

‘COULD HAVE BEEN ME’…
President calls for ‘soul-searching’ and ‘national conversation’ — but warns politicians to butt out…
Recalls suffering racial profiling…
History of racism ‘doesn’t go away’…
Could Trayvon have ‘stood his ground on that sidewalk?’
FANNING THE FLAMES: If teen had been white, ‘outcome and aftermath might have been different’…
VIDEO…
100 cities set to rally…

A nothing issue of no importance beaten up to be the only story worth a comment. I can only conclude that every commentator on the right has received a notice from the IRS that it wants to review their tax returns for the past ten years.

This is the evolution of the IRS scandal, the latest issue the media are running dead on to protect the most dangerous president in American history. From The Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan in a story with with the heading, “A Bombshell in the IRS Scandal”:

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, finally woke the proceedings up with what he called “the evolution of the defense” since the scandal began. First, Ms. Lerner planted a question at a conference. Then she said the Cincinnati office did it—a narrative that was advanced by the president’s spokesman, Jay Carney. Then came the suggestion the IRS was too badly managed to pull off a sophisticated conspiracy. Then the charge that liberal groups were targeted too—”we did it against both ends of the political spectrum.” When the inspector general of the IRS said no, it was conservative groups that were targeted, he came under attack. Now the defense is that the White House wasn’t involved, so case closed.

And now the White House is involved with the line of descent coming from one of the two Obama political appointees at the IRS, its Chief Counsel. But I’ve just been to the US and the idea that this story will gather momentum in the American media has as close to a zero probability as it is possible to have. It will not happen but the dangers to us all are there all the same.

I was living here back in 1973 when the UK entered the Common Market. It was a free trade agreement at the time but what a horror it has become since. Yesterday the House of Commons voted to hold a referendum on the UK continuing in the European Union, a very different kind of animal in which decisions of the most local kind are made by a bureaucracy of European technocrats in which no one locally often has much of a say. According to a story in The Telegraph there a number of reasons this has come to a head at this particular time. The “he” below is David Cameron:

For now, he has achieved something distinctly unusual in the modern Tory party – unity on Europe. Partly, this has been brought about by a fear of Ukip and the real prospect that Nigel Farage’s party will top the poll in next year’s elections to the European Parliament. But it is also a recognition that this matter cannot be left unresolved – not least when the ramifications of the euro crisis (which loomed again this week in Portugal) will fundamentally alter the shape of the EU.

Ah yes, UKIP, the UK Independence Party. If they had our form of preferential balloting over here, it would be a formidable force even now.

From Catallaxy 6 July 2013.

[Via Bloomberg and Drudge]

The number one conservative rule of governments is never trust them. They love the power and they love the status and they know what’s best and to them you are a cypher, a nuisance at best but most of the time a problem to be dealt with. What I worry about with the web most of all is that because we can discuss what is happening and are allowed to laugh at it, then it’s not so bad and we will be able to continue as we once did.

Watching all this you have to wonder whether the American presidential election was stolen. This is not about hanging chads and Supreme Court decisions. This is about actual criminal behaviours. Romney lost because his natural constituency did not come out to vote while Obama’s did. What do you suppose the effect on those who were trying to rally support against Obama was when they found themselves in the middle of an IRS inquiry? If “Tea Party”, “Patriot”, “Citizens” were the kind of trigger words in a name that would bring the full weight of the American government down on your head – and it was more than just the IRS – you can be sure it would have stopped such groups from organising, from raising money and from bringing their own voters out to vote.

Here are the swing states, each Democrat in 2012. :

• Florida (Democratic in 2008, Republican in 2000 and 2004) – 29
• Iowa (Democratic in 2000 and 2008, Republican in 2004) – 6
• Nevada (Democratic in 2008, Republican in 2000 and 2004) – 6
• Ohio (Democratic in 2008, Republican in 2000 and 2004) – 18

That’s a total of 59 electoral votes. Turn any one other state and Romney is president.

Seems to be a bit of Sarah Palin nostalgia going round having caught up with these two articles today which I don’t think is entirely a coincidence. First there is this, The Gladiator: Sarah Palin, We Need You Back in the Arena. Not a great article but his point is clear, found in his last para:

Sarah Palin, please come back. Run for office.

And then there’s this, a bit of alternative history:

Suppose Sarah Palin had been President:

• Palin would not have dismissed the Black Panther intimidation lawsuit that the government had already won.
• Palin would not have seized two auto companies and give them to her cronies in and out of the UAW.
• Palin and her supporters would not be claiming that her opponents were racists for disagreeing with her policies.
• Palin would not have tried to block Boeing from building a factory in South Carolina as a gift to her union buddies in Washington state.
• Palin would not have toured the world apologizing for America.
• Palin’s Homeland Security Department would not have classified patriots as security threats.
• Palin would have expanded oil and gas exploration on federal lands instead of reducing it, make the US even less dependent on foreign oil.
• Palin would not have allowed the Pigford suit to be settled that gives billions of dollars to “farmers” that never farmed.
• Palin would not have shipped thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels so that they could be found next to the bodies of murdered Mexicans and American agents.
• Palin would not have encouraged the IRS to harass Tea Party groups.
• Palin would not have encouraged the IRS to illegally reveal the names of contributors to conservative groups to Liberal organizations so that contributors could be harassed.
• Palin’s IRS would not ask groups seeking 501(c)4 status about their prayer life.
• Palin would not have passed a national health care bill that is a 2000 page “train wreck” and that threatens to destroy America’s health care system.
• Palin would have focused on reducing unemployment as it skyrocketed instead of wasting a trillion dollars on green boondoggles.
• Palin would have known that in today’s regulatory state there is not such thing as a “shovel ready jobs” program.
• Palin would not have spent a trillion dollars to prop up state and local government employees when private sector employees were losing millions of jobs.
• Palin would not have handed out “Palin phones” to welfare recipients.
• Palin would not have attacked Libya, without congressional approval, turning it into a rogue state.
• Palin would not have allowed her ambassador to Libya to be slaughtered, along with three US service members, and told would-be rescuers to stand down.
• Palin would not have blamed a demonstration that did not occur caused by a video that no one saw for the attack by terrorist in Benghazi.
• Palin’s UN ambassador would not have gone on national TV to lie about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi because she would not have broken Libya in the first place.
• Palin would not have been stupid enough – or naive enough – to support the Islamist take-over of the Egyptian government.
• Palin would have given encouragement to demonstrators in Iran when they went to the streets to protest a fraudulent election.
• Palin would not be giving the Islamist regime in Egypt billions of dollars to keep it in power.
• Palin would not have told Putin to wait till after she was re-elected because then she would have more flexibility.
• Palin’s appointed officials would not be lying to congress and the American people when they are not invoking the Fifth Amendment against incrimination.
• Palin would not be sending Secret Service agent to her critics’ homes demanding to do a search, go through his medical records, his computer, his cell phone and pretty much anything else, and then threaten to come back and confiscate his guns if he “stepped over the line.”
• Finally, Palin would have taken responsibility for the things that happened while she was President instead of telling us that she only read about it in this morning’s newspaper.

The toughest question that never got answered is, “Just what are these ‘extreme policies’ of Sarah Palin?” Her critics, be they Obama fans or be they something else, can’t field that one.

But more important than that, I see a lot of people are missing the point: Many potential presidents right about now, would not have done these things. Much of the problem is partisan, in that it is in the nature of democrats to obsess much about what’s being said when it’s all over, how loud each voice is, and who has the last word.

It’s worked well for them, so why should they stop. But the real issue is this “transparency” thing. We can’t really have any with a democrat in charge. Implicit in all of these bullets is the unstated extra, “If President Palin ever made any movement in any of these directions, the media would light her up like a fucking Christmas tree.”

But, Obama gets to do what Obama wants to do. For now…

The left control the media and therefore bias elections away from common sense and good governance. They will do it here if we let them but there is the absence of Sarah Palin to think about while we have that low grade narcissistic incompetent Obama as president instead.