Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Does this sound like a man with Alzheimer’s?

President Ronald Reagan – June 12, 1987

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Moe Lane raises the question because,

It is my first instinct to treat this report of Ronald Reagan Jr’s… commentary… by simply letting it pass by without a response.  For those not wishing to click through, the boy (use of term deliberate) is indulging elderly liberal fetishists everywhere by making the claim that his father was suffering from Alzheimer’s as far back as the 1984 debates*, as well as ‘details’ regarding a supposed operation in 1989 that had even the US News & World Report doing some fancy footwork in order to avoid having to declare it a lie.  It’s the Left; it’s pornography; it’s Left-porn.  Outside of that particular niche market, its utility is… low.

As Moe says, a man “doesn’t need to defecate on the memory of his father in order to feel less of a failure.”

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The end result of the welfare state

I was going to write about the French riots, the British spending cuts and layoffs, and the German budget but Monty at Ace’s did it better than anything I can come up with:

This is our future

This is our future if we don’t change our ways.

Exhibit A: England faces the largest budget cuts since World War II.

Exhibit B: France is tearing itself apart over a move to bring state pensions under control.

This is the end result of the welfare-state. The Europeans (and Democrats here at home) want a utopia where all needs are met, all the hungry are fed, all the children warm and safe, all the sick made whole, all the evil punished and the innocent made free, a land where all is peace and all live in harmony. Instead, the welfare-state is waste and weakness and impoverishment and upheaval and ennui. It is generational warfare, class warfare, enormous debts, squalor, meanness, shortages, selfishness. It is, at base, the end of civil society. Communist economies fall faster because they take the poison pure; it takes the merely socialist ones more time to sicken and die.

Go read the whole thing.

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Germany: Obama, before and after

Before: They loved him, they really loved him, back in July 2008,
Berlin, 2008:

Berlin police estimated more than 200,000 people attended the speech. That is almost three times the size of the largest crowd Obama has yet drawn in the United States, an outdoor rally in Oregon that drew an estimated 75,000.

After: Those fickle Germans, two years later, asking,
Will Obama Be the ‘Jimmy Carter of the 21st Century’?
My estimation is that things are going to get a lot worse, and by the time Obama’s out of office, they’ll be wishing Obama was the ‘Jimmy Carter of the 21st Century’.

Instapundit: “ACTUALLY, THAT’S A BEST-CASE SCENARIO”

Update,
Obama’s first lost the Germans, and now lost David Brooks, too:

He [Brooks] is so indignant about this, in fact, that if this was the only thing that David Brooks had ever wrote you would be forgiven for concluding that David Brooks did not spend the last election cycle helping to get elected President the man who is now busily mucking up coordinating the cleanup.  Which is, indeed, so mucked up that local governments are preemptively announcing that they’re not going to wait for the Feds to do to them what the Feds have done to Louisiana.

When it rains,
Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur
The president is well-intentioned but can’t walk the walk on the world stage

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Over in East Columbus, Hundreds of Construction Workers Forced Into Unpaid Leave to Accommodate Obama Photo Op

Will those workers remember this when it’s time to vote?

Patterico:

Note to TV newscaster who wants Obama to hand out money to the workers who won’t be able to work:

Despite recent history, President Obama doesn’t get to hand out money to anyone he wants. I’m a bit hazy on this after the past 18 months, but my recollection is the Constitution vests Congress with the power to authorize spending and prohibits money being drawn from the Treasury “but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law.”

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How to aggravate the Germans

…and make things worse:
Geithner Plans to Press Germany on European Rescue
Parliament in Berlin Approves Country’s Share of Massive Bailout Fund; U.S. Treasury Secretary to Meet With Schäuble

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is bringing two messages to officials in Berlin next week: be more sensitive to potential market reactions to policy moves, and work faster on the massive European rescue program that German lawmakers blessed Friday, approving the country’s €147.6 billion ($182.93 billion) contribution.

Since the bailout here worked so well, let’s go tell the Germans to speed up their bailout of Greece.

What could go wrong?

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Citroen pokes more fun at Sarko’s height

Being a head of state while you’re only 5’5″ must be tough, even when your wife is 5’10”:

People joke about your stoop:

And use your height in car ads:
German ad pokes fun at Sarkozy’s height:

Car rental company Sixt makes fun of Nicolas Sarkozy in a poster advertising campaign. Will the French president see the funny side?
There could be trouble ahead for the car rental company Sixt following its latest advertising campaign.
A German poster for the company carries a picture of the French hatchback the Citroën C3 with the slogan encouraging customers to “Do the same as Madame Bruni, choose a small French model” ((“Machen Sie es wie Madame Bruni. Nehmen Sie sich einen kleinen Franzosen”).

Here’s the ad:

Obviously they didn’t realize what it means when a short man is with a tall woman…

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Damning evidence: The Pope and the sex scandal

Abuse Scandal in Germany Edges Closer to Pope

— A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.

The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.
…
The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.

Here’s a graphic on the history of the abuse case.

And, as the article shows,

In Munich case, a priest from Essen, “despite allegations of sexual abuse, and in spite of a conviction — was repeatedly assigned work in the sphere of pastoral care by the then-Vicar General Gerhard Gruber,” who worked under Benedict when he was the archbishop.

The priest, identified only with the initial “H,” was moved to Munich in January 1980, where he was supposed to undergo therapy, a decision that was taken “with the approval of the archbishop,” according to the archdiocese’s statement. Benedict was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

In June 1986, the priest was convicted of sexually abusing minors and given an 18-month suspended sentence with five years of probation, fined 4,000 marks and ordered to undergo therapy.

the sex abuser is now free, and his identity is still concealed.

There is no justice. None at all.

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Robin Hood Bankerin

It’s not enough that the government imposes confiscatory taxes and funds all sorts of entitlement programs, in Germany a bank manager was taking money from the “rich” clients to give to the “poor”:
German banker admits transferring money from rich to help poorer clients

The 62-year-old branch head of one German bank was hailed as a hero after she confessed to transferring money from rich customers to help her poorer clients. Already, she has been dubbed “Die Robin Hood Bankerin”.

She was given a 22-month suspended sentence after moving more than €7.6m (£6.9m) in 117 transfers between 2003 and 2005. The court in Bonn was told that the employee, who has not been named, took no money for herself.

The judge referred to her stealing as “altruistic behavior”.

Here in the US we get the government to take our money and bailout the banks and financial firms because they are “too big to fail”.

That German judge would be impressed.

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The fall of the Berlin Wall: And now to the videotape

BerlinWall20th

As we all know, Obama had a busy, busy Monday and didn’t attend the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead he sent a videotaped speech which you can listen to here (please note it’s instant-play).

Of course, not a word about Ronald Reagan.

Via Ace, did Obama not show up because it wasn’t all about him?

Compare Obama’s words with Ronald Reagan’s:

Why shold we care about the fall of the Berlin Wall?

Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus discusses the events of 1989.

When you have a chance, read The Anchoress’ review of The Lives of Others. I haven’t watched the movie yet but will later this week. (Correction – I did see it in a cinema when it first came out but clearly need to see it again)

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