Conservatives, fast food, and global strife...they will all kill you eventually

It was a matter of time.  Charles Krauthammer, Fox’s Favorite Fraggle Rock personality, suggested that George W. Bush’s pro-democracy push and subsequent invasion of Iraq is the root cause for this sudden democratic blossoming in the Arab world.  Really?  With all due respect (read: zero) to Chuckie K., the real architect of this democracy wave is Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26 year old Tunisian college graduate who set himself on fire on December 17^th after having his fruit cart confiscated by the authorities again and no longer being able to bear the humiliation.  That combined with some social media is what started the dominos of unrest. 

Greek debt, Libyan oil, Chilean miners, Gulf ruptured wells, Alaskan broken pipelines, Chinese consumption, Irish debt, Portuguese debt, Arizona illegal immigration, middle east uprisings, Indonesian religious persecutions, Mexican lawlessness, Sudanese succession, and Louisiana tornadoes…paging Billy Joel could you please put the fire out. 

Congressman Peter King (R-NY), a blowhard amongst blowhards, and the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security will be holding hearings this week to understand, uncover, and contain the threat of Islamic radicalism infesting the Muslim communities in the US which could lead to terrorist activities.  Mr. King argues against the claims that he is targeting a single religion with his infallible logic “When we were going after the Mafia, we looked at the Italian community; the Westies, the Irish community…”  What King fails to understand in his above justification was that over the course of American history there have been commissions investigating organized crime that covered many ethnicities and races; you investigate criminal activity, you don’t investigate a people looking for criminal activity.  During the late 19^th century right up through the 1920’s, the rise of the anarchists led to broad sweeping drastic enforcements by local authorities to crack down on these revolutionaries with various ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds.  Whether the anarchist was Jewish or gentile, it did not matter, the issue was the criminal activity.

What do Carl Mayer and Gregory Hollister have in common?  They were both rejected by the Supreme Court.  Mayer, a New York Jets season’s ticket holder, had filed a class-action suit claiming the Patriots-Jets games did not constitute a fair competition because of the Patriots videotaping antics aka spy gate,  and Hollister, a retired colonel was the latest Obama-denying birther denied by the court.  Birthers and Jets fans: losers to the bitter end.

When the Government Sponsored Entities (GSE) Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae exit the mortgage business over the next 5-10 years could we see the death of the 30 year mortgage?  Quite possibly as a mortgage industry solely in the hands of the private sector will likely command higher borrowing rates when there is no government backstop.  As reported in a New York Times article on March 3^rd, Alex J. Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute says “One of the reasons that American housing finance is in such bad shape right now is the 30-year mortgage,” he said, noting that such loans are not available in most countries. “For many people, it’s not at all clear that that’s the best product.” Spoken like a true Greenspan disciple.  Forgive me if I do not put a lot of stock in Mr. Pollock’s words, as an AEI fellow, he joins the ranks of John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Lynne Cheney, and Newt Gingrich.  That’s right the same crew that brought us the War in Iraq.

Texas Governor Rick Perry called Juarez, Mexico the most dangerous city in America.  Huh?  What was equally embarrassing were the Perry-ites who claimed Perry was correct because America is actually the USA, Mexico, and Canada, and ‘W’ 2.0 didn’t say ‘most dangerous city in the United States of America.’  Double huh? 

Worthless fact of the day: At the end of last year, Subway had 33,749 restaurants worldwide, compared to McDonald's 32,737.  Jared takes down Ronald.  Foot long beats Big Mac.