The Mad, Lame, Duck

About ten years ago, Barack Hussein Obama was looking like a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president. For those who were interested, there was a wealth of information available about him, if one were to look carefully.

His hometown newspaper ran a series on him in 2007 which were very revealing, yet kept the data of his prior years concealed, as Obama had continually fought to do ever since.

We have not seen his real birth certificate, though he released a fake one. We know very little about his schooling since he has religiously kept those records secret as well

There was, however, plenty of information available to anyone who really looked that told enough about him to raise grave questions about his suitability. Most of what he did as president could have been predicted. For reference, see the series in the Chicago Tribune here. Unlike in 2007, most of it is now behind a paywall, but it is there.

In addition, there were his books, rumored to have been ghostwritten by Weather Underground's Bill Ayers. What was there has been pretty predictive as well.

Then there was his membership in the church of Black liberation preacher and America hater Jeremiah Wright. Any person that heard or saw Wright's "God Damn America" sermon should have seen what Obama was part of, and where he would go.

Most voters didn't read about him, or did not care, so we ended up with him as our president for eight years.

Now, looking back on those eight years, we can see how his past has predicted his presidency. He was born to a black Muslim communist African from Kenya and a white mother who was the daughter and granddaughter of communists. He spent his early years in Indonesia with his mother and an Indonesian Muslim named Soetero. He attended Muslim schools where he prayed to Allah four times a day. Approaching his teens, he went back to Hawaii to be cared for by his communist grandparents, and be mentored by a known communist. He went to college first in California, then to Columbia and on to Harvard Law School. Records from those years have been scrupulously hidden.

His presidency has been about a fundamental transformation of America, and he has pulled out all of the stops to get it done.

The America we have all known and loved had learned through long years that a strong America was necessary to peace. Obama apologized to the world for the strong America, and set out to make it weak. And he has succeeded. He has turned our military into a hollow shell, and has them engaging in social experimentation to the detriment of readiness.

He has offended our friends, and bowed and apologized to our enemies.

He left a political and military vacuum when his red line in Syria meant nothing, and paved the way for Russian and Iran to fill the vacuum.

He has enabled Iran to get nuclear weapons, and provided them the money to finance that, and terrorism, around the world. He has allowed Iran to become a regional power and a formidable enemy.

Essentially, he is leaving the United States a much weaker nation than it was when he took office. There cn be no argument that this was deliberate.

Since the election of Donald Trump, Obama has engaged in multiple acts to try to make certain that American remains weakened.

Probably the worst thing he has done is stab America's friend Israel in the back. For decades, the United States had a commitment to veto UN resolutions affecting Israel. Jimmy Carter made a commitment as part of the Oslo Accords that Israel relied upon in making concessions to the Palestinians. Every president since has honored that until December, when Obama not only failed to veto the resolution that made Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem "occupied" (and therefore Palestinian) territory, his administration actually orchestrated it all.

The worst part is there will likely be more to come. There is strong evidence that another resolution will be rushed through before Trump takes office that would recognize the Palestinian state and give them a seat in the UN.

This is shameful to the extreme. It is also something that one would expect from a man that was raised a Muslim, who in his book said he would side with the Muslims, and who was mentored by communists.

Anybody who wanted to do the research could have seen all of this coming. What will his last fifteen days reveal? We will see him continue to do as much damage as he can.

Bits and Pieces for January 12, 2012

Haley Barbour? Tell me it is not true! Apparently the conservative, law and order  Republican governor of Mississippi has pardoned a bunch of criminals, including 14 murderers. Even the Democrats are appalled. Ths story can be found here.

Marin County, California is going to outlaw smoking tobacco, but the county supervisors are going out of their way to make sure marijuana is not included in the ban. I suppose it shows a lot about the culture out there.

Marin’s war on smoking was blunted Tuesday as a measure cracking down on tobacco and other “weed” was sent back for revision to make clear the crackdown does not include marijuana.

Although supervisors were in agreement with the policy when county staff last month asserted an ordinance outlawing smoking in unincorporated-area apartments included marijuana and other herbs as well as tobacco, the county board Tuesday abruptly called for revisions making clear tobacco was the only weed at issue.

 This is not a joke. Coverage from the Marin Independent Journal is here.

Law and Order. Steven Hayward over at Power Line Blog has a good short story on the Obama recess appointments. It is a discussion with Tom Campbell. Read it here. Obama is pretty clearly making new precendent with them. What will be the end result?

Defense spending is shovel ready. So says Victor Davis Hanson. Pointing out that defense spending is not the real problem he concludes:

The decline of civilizations of the past -- fourth-century-B.C. Athens, fifth-century-A.D. Rome, 15th-century Byzantium, or 1930s Western Europe -- was not caused by their spending too much money on defense or not spending enough on public entitlements. Rather, their expanding governments redistributed more borrowed money, while a dependent citizenry wanted even fewer soldiers to guarantee ever more handouts.

History's bleak lesson is that those societies with self-reliant citizens who protect themselves and their interests prosper; those who grow dependent cut back their defenses -- and waste away.

Some people never learn.

Orangutans using iPads at zoos - soon to use Skype. For all of you iPad owners that think you are smart, just read this article from Gizmag.com.

"They like many of the free apps that I think children would like - they like the free apps where you can fingerpaint, they like the apps where you can use the drums," says Trish Khan, Milwaukee County Zoo's orangutan keeper.

Maybe we humans aren't as much smarter than the apes as we thought. lol

Climate change from CO2 may not be as bad as predicted. Also from Gizmag is a story about the new report from the National Science Foundation's Paleoclimate Program that says that climate change may be far less sensitive to CO2 than previously thought.

"Many previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate date, especially on a global scale," said Schmittner. "When you reconstruct sea and land surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago - which is referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum - and compare it with climate model simulations of that period, you get a much different picture.

"If these paleoclimatic constraints apply to the future, as predicted by our model, the results imply less probability of extreme climatic change than previously thought," Schmittner added.

The sciece of anthropogenic global warming is still not settled, in spite of what the scaremongers who wish to profit from government programs would have you believe.

Masters of the World. That is what the Muslims Brotherhood's goal is. And good old Jimmy Carter says about their election in Egypt:

"I don't have any problem with that,and the U.S. government doesn't have any problem with that either. We want the will of the Egyptian people to be expressed."

I knew Carter when he was President, personally. He became the reason why I left the Democratic Party, along with the policies he and they espoused.

Like Obama, he has no use for the national interest of the United States. He would turn the whole world over to the radicals.

Bits and Pieces for January 11, 2012

New Hampshire. Romney and Obama both win, as expected. For a lot of stories, go to Memeorandum, which has a lot of links. Good site.

Pay particular attention to Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. Although he is a liberal and it is a New York Times blog, he is probably the best analyst out there these days. Pretty positive outlook for Romney, as one might expect.

Obama's War on Energy. John Hinderaker has a blurb over at PowerLine about this, with a good chart. He concludes, correctly:

The real question, of course, is how much petroleum is being recovered from public lands. Because of three years of Obama anti-energy policies, energy development is down substantially:

Oil production on federal lands is down 13 percent in 2011: 97,721,813 barrels in 2011 versus 112,124,812 barrels in 2010.

This is what happens when we have an administration that thinks Americans consume too many resources, which is to say, live too well.

 Mr. Obama’s 99% — Are We Poor or Just Unequal or Both or Neither?

Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent essay up exploring the differences between the 99% and the 1% that has been in all the news lately. I highly recommend it. He concludes:

Keep all that in mind as we enter the most divisive, class-warfare campaign in recent memory. We are living in the upside-down world Orwell wrote about. A president who likes upscale golf a lot, and Martha’s Vineyard even more, who has hired three “fat cat” bankers as his chiefs of staff (how odd that Emanuel and Lew probably both made a lot out of the Freddie/Fannie bubble), and who is the largest recipient of Wall Street cash in history now argues that half of America suffers from the hands of “them.”

Being unequal is not poor. And not having what the “rich” have hardly means having it bad. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

FuturePundit reports that full genome sequencing costs are dropping to close to $1,000 per genome. The way things are going it won't be long before it is affordable for anyone that wants it.

These low prices are going to drive up the rate of full genome sequencing. Therefore expect to see an explosion of discoveries on what the many genetic variants mean. What I'm especially looking forward to: genetically derived personal advice on ideal diet, exercise, sleep, and other lifestyle choices.

I have had a small bit of mine sequenced, and the information derived is quite interesting. I got my testing at Family Tree DNA and tranferred it and had additional testing at 23andMe as well. It is all pretty interesting.

A Future History. Came across this wandering around some science blogs. Kind of wild speculation, but interesting. Much seems impossible, but I remember my Dad telling me in the 1950s (I was reading science fiction of the day) that men would never go to the moon. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon less that three years after he passed away. For those who may be interested in space, this is an interesting read.

Here are the writer's prediction for 2015:

By 2015:
By now, Virgin Galactic will have flown dozens of tourists into space, and anticipation will be growing for the next step – Bigelow’s orbiting hotels. It should come as no surprise that many couples are already making advanced bookings with a wink toward zero-gravity sex. The Google Lunar X-Prize will have been won and a few companies vying to dominate the resulting private space probe market. Exoplanets continue to be discovered, with a few Earth-sized planets plus many more large planets in habitable zones, but as yet no confirmed Earth-like planet.

With commercial launch capabilities now obvious even to Congress, plus growing space programs in other nations, the ambivalence toward NASA is finally subsiding. Human spaceflight, beyond the recreational commercial near-Earth activities is now being pursued in the form of multinational programs and the negative stigma of nuclear space propulsion and power is waning. NASA has a large role in making that happen, along with a resumption of the research to bring the more-difficult space technologies to fruition.

There are a lot more predictions. Go to the site and see what they are.

Twinkies. Has filed for bankruptcy according to the WSJ. It owes the union nearly $1 billion, and can't pay. It has tried to sell out, but there are no buyers. Too bad.

Paying College Athletes is a Terrible Idea. So says Mark Emmert in today's Wall Street Journal.

There are fundamental flaws in the pay-for-play mantra. Proponents naively think that paying players will solve all the problems involving agents, team boosters and others who are willing to break rules. They are wrong. The stakes will simply be raised to bribe athletes to attend a school, support them financially for the agent's future gain, or help them cheat in school. No, paying players a salary would make the situation worse.

Can't say I disagree  but what he proposes may do the trick. The problem is that the NCAA doesn't have the guts to really enforce the rules, and larger schools get away with a lot of violations, and aren't really punished when they are caught. It is a lot easier for an Oklahoma or Ohio State or an Oregon or a USC to get away with it because the NCAA is dependent on schools like that for their money. They don't make any off of Arkansas State, or similar schools.

We have to be willing to take hard stands based on our principles. Rather than push college athletics further and further from academics, we need to bring it closer. The values of our colleges and universities need to be consistent across the campus, classroom and playing fields. Coaches, administrators and student-athletes need to be held to the same standards and expectations as all members of the community.


That's what we started in the fall: clearing the way for student-athletes to get a $2,000 miscellaneous expense allowance, awarding multiyear scholarships, raising academic standards, simplifying the rule book, and toughening the penalties for egregious rule breakers.

I will have to see it to believe it.

Is Romney the only Republican candidate that has not alienated more than one half of the Republican Party? Jay Cost over at the Weekly Standard suggests that it is atleast so in New Hampshire.

We have heard a lot over the last couple months about the anti-Romney sentiment in the Republican party. However, this statistic suggests that, in New Hampshire at any rate, Romney is the only candidate with whom a majority of the party is satisfied. The rest of the candidates seem to have alienated more than half of the GOP.

There is more analysis in the story. Read the whole thing at the site.

Did Ron Paul win the liberal crossover vote in New Hampshire? So say Jim Hoft, who has the exit polls here. Go read it all at the site.

Bits and Pieces for January 10, 2012

Politics. Is anybody getting pretty sick at the inanity of our politics and the press coverage thereof? I am.  Is contraception or the ability of someone in the private sector to fire people all that important?

This may be the most important election in our lifetime, and nobody is really doing much talking about what the real issues are, or the press is not covering it.

We need to get serious about this. Now.

Is it just me. Or is it just a dull day all over while we wait for New Hampshire to vote?

I guess it is not dull in the world of medicine. Brigham and Women's Hospital, via E! Science News, has announced:

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have successfully tested a controllable endoscopic capsule, inspired by science fiction, that has the ability to "swim" through the body and could provide clinicians with unprecedented control when photographing the inside of the human body. The capsule is designed to be swallowed like a pill and can be equipped with a camera. Once inside the patient's digestive track, a doctor can "steer" the capsule through the body using an MRI machine, photograph specific areas of interest, and view those pictures wirelessly.

Wow! Anyone that has ever had endoscopy or colonoscopy will appreciate this research. Let's hope the FDA won't screw this up.

The Congressional Budget Office has released a brief on suggested changes to Medicare and Social Security eligibility. They have a chart on their blog. The blog concludes:

CBO estimates that by 2035, the set of increases just described would cause outlays for Social Security and Medicare to fall by 0.4 percent of GDP and federal revenues to rise by around a half percent of GDP—leading to a reduction in the budget deficit of nearly 1 percent of GDP, not including the effects of lower interest outlays. Altogether, by 2060, the federal budget deficit would be reduced by about 1¾ percent of GDP.

 In a 15+ trillion dollar economy, those can be big numbers. Enough to save the system? Who knows?

Maybe something will come out of the MF Global scandal. Seems one of the perps wants to make a deal:

While prosecutors and regulators have jointly conducted dozens of depositions with former and current employees, a senior official in the Chicago office of MF Global recently declined to meet with the federal authorities, people briefed on the investigation said.

That official, Edith O’Brien, a treasurer at MF Global, is considered a “person of interest” in the investigation, the people said. Federal authorities suspect that she transferred about $200 million to JPMorgan Chase in London on the eve of the bankruptcy of MF Global, money that turned out to be customer cash.

If they can get some of the rats to rat on the others, maybe at long last we will see a big banker do the perp walk. There have been far too few prosecutions of the bankers who have perpetrated huge frauds against the public. Of course, the reason for that is they are being protected by politicians including the one at the very top.

The top perp in this case is Jon Corzine, one of Obama's big pals.

 

Bits and Pieces for the Day

Speaking of Goldman Sachs, Timothy Haight, writing in The Orange County Register, says that the Dodd-Frank legislation did not solve the problem of the Too Big to Fail financial institutions.

Unfortunately, legislation enacted does not solve the fundamental problem. It simply provides cover for those who were asleep at the wheel, while ignoring the underlying cause of the crisis.

Some, of course, knew this. Including most in Congress. But many in the public were fooled. Our ignorance is going to come back and bite us. He recommends that we go back to Glass-Steagall and increase bank capital requirements. He would also cap the FDIC insurance on bank deposits per institution. That is leave the coverage where it is for smaller banks, but cap the exposure in the very big ones.

My thought is that the FDIC should charge premiums to the large banks according to the real risk they have. But that would require that they be honest with their risks, and right now the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are permitting them all to pretend they aren't already broke. I call it The Golden Rule: those with the gold, make the rules. In spite of their anger at Obama, they have had it real good the last few years. And they have pretty much had their way with the Congress and the President.

Uh Oh. Charles Gasparino says in the New York Post that Goldman Sachs is supporting Romney this year after having been Obama's big supporter in 2008.

What makes Goldman’s move to the right so striking is just how far to the left it was in 2008. The Goldman community gave more than a $1 million to the 2008 Obama campaign, bested only by donors tied to the ultraliberal University of California. But the latest contribution records (through the end of September) show that Goldman-linked givers barely crack the top 20 of Obama donors, with a little more than $50,000 toward his 2012 re-election effort.

Now they are the leading source of cash for Romney. They are good at picking winners. That has given them unprecedented power and influence in Congress and the executive for many years. How else could they have gotten the huge bailouts in 2008 and since?

Romney should not celebrate this. It gives many a sound reason to oppose him. Very sound. The crony capitalism we have had the last two decades is a huge part of the financial difficulties we have been experiencing. GS and a lot of the huge institutions have way too much influence.


Tim Tebow.  What more can one say? After all of the denigration and criticism, he put in a great performance to win the playoff game yesterday. Congratulations to him, and a big loud raspberry to those who have been on him for his overt Christianity. I am really getting tired of the people who belittle others for being Christian, particularly when many of them are apologists for Muslims, even the radical ones. You can guess who I am talking about.


The only known photos from the White House’s 2009 “Alice in Wonderland” party.

Why did the Obamas want to keep this secret? Why did the press go along? Goodness, Marie and Louis partied during a recession. Guess the Obamas wanted to avoid the same result. LOL

There are others. Go to the site for more.



Roger L. Simon takes on George Stephanoloupos and his question on contraceptives in Saturday night's debate here. He also is critical of the GOP for letting the leftwing media set the terms of the debates and would prefer having no moderators:

I am interested in the candidates and what they have to say to each other — mano-a-mano — in the style of Lincoln and Douglas.

They should be given a topic for the debate (entitlements, Iran, whatever) and be set free to examine it. Those issues can be discussed at length and in more depth without the interference of media personalities who, besides being biased one way or the other, are often more interested in the promotion of themselves or their companies.

Mark Steyn also has a post on the subject:

 This country is broke, and the unprecedented scale of its brokeness is an existential threat. Yet, with the exception of Newt’s occasional flashes of contempt for the questioners, everyone else plays along with this absurd game. It’s not merely that the GOP is letting the left frame the contest but that a party willing to dignify this pitiful charade is sending a broader message about the likelihood of its mustering the determination to stand up to a Democrat-media establishment once in office and effect meaningful course correction.

I think I have to agree with them both. Does anyone think Obama would do debates like this, particularly without a teleprompter?


Quote of the Day:

In a world inhabited by sincere sane leaders, willing to level with the citizens and disposed to allow financial institutions that took world crushing risks to fail through an orderly bankruptcy process, debt would have been written off and a sharp short contraction would have occurred. The stockholders, bondholders and executives of the Wall Street banks would have taken the losses they deserved. Instead Wall Street used their undue influence, wealth and power to force their politician puppets to funnel $5 trillion to the bankers that created the crisis while dumping the debt on taxpayers and unborn generations. The Wall Street controlled Federal Reserve provided risk free funding and took toxic mortgage assets off their balance sheets. The result is total credit market debt higher today than it was at the peak of the financial crisis in March 2009.

Read 2012 - The Year of Living Dangerously here. This is certainly not an endorsement of everything he says. He gets off the rails a bit, particularly towards the end when he gets partisan.

Lance Roberts at StreettalkLive.com has a good rundown on last week's employment report:

First, let's start by putting things into perspective. If you take a look at the  actual number of those "counted" as employed, that number has risen from the recessionary trough. However, in reality, employment is still far below the long term historical trend. Currently, the deviation from the long term trend is the widest on record and has made very little improvement.

 The unemployment number went down, but it was not all a happy thing.

If, and that is a big "IF", employment was truly improving, we would be seeing these numbers begin to reverse course. They aren't, and the reason is due to population growth. During the last month it is estimated that the number of individuals of working age, 16 years and over, rose by 143,000 with the working age population now residing at 240.6 million. The offset is that, while job gains are modest and primarily located in lower-paying temporary employment for the end-of-year seasonality, the population continues to grow at an unfettered clip. In simple terms, the economy is not creating jobs fast enough to keep up with population growth.

There are some very good charts that show the real situation. If the government were measuring unemployment like they did during the Great Depression, the unemployment rate would be much, much higher. Read the whole thing at the site.

At USA Today, Richard Wolf notes that the US national debt is now at 100% of the economy. This is the point where all analysis shows that we are in seriious trouble. And our politicians are whistling past the graveyard trying to avoid offending anyone by doing what is necessary. All of them are failing us because they are too busy playing politics. Its time for a change. They all need to be thrown out.


Gallup says that 40% of Americans prefer to be independent rather than identify with either of our political parties. 31% are Democrats and 27% are Republicans.

As dysfunctional as both parties are, I cannot really imagine anyone wanting to identify with either of them.

Is Egypt Iran Redux?

We are at the 32nd anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, sped along by Jimmy Carter when he abandoned the Shah to the Ayatollahs. That had a great result, putting one of the chokepoints for the world's oil supplies in the hands of radicals who hate the United States.

Now we see the same thing going on in Egypt. And sure enough, our bowing and scraping President is abandoning our long time ally Mubarak.

To be sure, both the Shah and Mubarak are/were SOBs. But they were OUR SOBs. Those that replace(d) them hate us. And they are still SOBs.

Carter had no plans for the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, and now, our government is apparently going to allow the Iranians to produce nuclear weapons, as well.

Obama? Where does he stand on Egypt? Unprepared, quite obviously. When the phone rings, there is nobody to answer it, not even Hillary.

Egypt has been the linchpin of our Mideast policy, helping to keep the shaky peace between the Israelis and the Arab nations. It also controls another major chokepoint for the worlds's oil supply, the Suez Canal.

And Obama........well, he opines that the Muslim Brotherhood would be fine in the new government. That is the grandfather of all Jihadis groups, and has just this week called for war between Egypt and Israel.

What could go wrong?

The State of the Union

It sure didn't take Obama long to solve the fiscal crisis here in the US.

He is going to freeze spending!

This occurs at the point where the Congressional Budget Office confirms that spending at current levels will result in a $1.5 TRILLION deficit this year.

That will certainly get the job done.

The state of our union is going to be desperate until we get better leadership.

Sigh.

The Ides of March

This year the Ides of March bring the new "final" push by the Democrats to impose Obamacare on a very reluctant nation.

Rasmussen says that the current bill (to the extent anyone knows what is in it) is supported by 43% of the country, while 53% are opposed.

They do not appear to have the votes to pass the bill by ordinary means, so we are seeing all kinds of manipulations in the House to try to force it through.

We will see how many House Democrats are willing to walk the plank for Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan, a Republican Congressman, has an excellent article up in the Washington Post today. Read the whole thing. Its good.

His analysis, in part, includes the following:

"...Through any analytical lens, the legislation will not address the central problem of skyrocketing health-care costs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that families' premiums could rise 10 to 13 percent; private-sector actuarial estimates top these already high numbers. The higher costs are driven by federalizing the regulation of insurance, narrowing consumers' options and reducing competition among providers. The health-care market would be dominated by government programs and the largest insurance companies, operating as de facto government utilities........"

"This legislation includes a range of job-killing tax hikes and controls on all Americans -- to fund this new entitlement and to penalize employers and individuals who don't play by Washington's new rules........"

The bill is a bad one that really does not address the real concerns that the public has about health care. Rising costs are not solved.

So what are the real purposes of the bill? Ryan explains:

"....If this debate had actually been about health care, we could have worked together to get a grip on costs, make quality care more accessible, address exclusions for preexisting conditions and realign the incentives of insurance companies with those of patients and doctors. Yet this process -- including its embarrassing conclusion -- demonstrates that the debate has never been about health-care policy but, instead, paternalistic ideology....."(emphasis mine)

His conclusion:

"...Should the Democrats' health-care train wreck make it to the president's desk, it will be a pyrrhic victory, and its devastating consequences will take their toll on our health-care system, our budget and our economy."

I emphatically agree. But a bright side of all of this is that the legislation, the way it has been forced on Congress by the Democratic leadership, and all of the shenanigans involved in its passage, will likely doom the Democratic Party to minority status for some time to come.

Now what we need to see is a Republican Party that will step up. So far, when given the chance, they have failed to do so.

Maybe some of the young leaders like Paul Ryan will be the Republican Party of the future.

The leaders of the past have largely failed.

The State of the United States

No, not the speech, although I will get to it later, perhaps.

The state of our country is not good. We are mired in a deep recession with high and growing unemployent, and only the huge institutions that were bailed out by the government are showing profits. Main Street still suffers.

We are in a situation caused by a huge expansion of credit wherein large financial institutions, both private and semi-public engaged in wild speculation, creating a bubble in real estate, and then the bubble popped.

This had the effect of destroying much of the capital of the financial institutions, but also the capital of the general public.

With the bubble gone, the US Government under George W. Bush stepped in to socialize the huge losses of the financial institutions, but not, of course, the huge losses that had been imposed upon the general public. (I call this the Golden Rule) In fact, the general public will end up paying for the financial institutions' losses as well as their own.

Hope and Change gets elected and promptly nationalizes General Motors and to some extent, Chrysler.

Relief for the general public? Hardly.

Next is a huge "stimulous" bill that goes primarily to large Democratic political constituencies, adds nearly a trillion to the deficit, and accomplishes nothing but add further burdens on the general public.

We then get a Cap and Trade Bill that is rushed through the House without being read. This bill would add hundreds of billions to the costs of energy....to be ultimately paid by whom? You got it. The general public.

With the first of these matters a movement began to form: The Tea Parties. The public was awakening. But the politicians ignored them or put them down as extremists. Who were the partiers? The general public.

After Cap and Trade passed the House, the Pelosi crowd began to attempt to socialize our country's medical care. Behind closed doors.

It was if the Iron Curtain was rebuilt right there in Washington, D.C. Everything was done behind closed doors. In secrecy. Few know what kind of deals were made to buy "support" for the bill, but what is known is that it was terribly unfair to.........the general public.

A similar bill is now pending in the Senate, where the majority party is still trying to push it through, in spite of the opposition of....the general public.

So here we are after one year of Hope and Change. We have no hope, and only a change for the worse.

Elections in Virginia and Massachusetts have given the general public a chance to be heard, but from the State of the Union speech last night, it is clear that the lessons have been lost by the politicians in our government.

Maybe they should all watch and listen to the ad that newly elected Senator Scott Brown ran during the campaign in Massachusetts. It is one of the very best I have heard in my over fifty years in politics.

You can find it here. If you do nothing else, go to this ad.

The public will get little, if any, relief from the policies spoken of by the President last night.

But we can get relief in November when we have the opportunity to throw all the rascals out. There is Hope, after all.

Who will lead the revolution?

Obama and the Schoolchildren

When I first heard that Obama was going to address the schoolchildren and the Department of Education has sent out a "lesson plan" to be followed, my immediate response was to object. This comes mainly from my feelings of distrust toward Obama.

After some thought, I changed my mind, at least about the Obama speech (I think the "lesson plan" was a bit over the top).

Obama has every right to address schoolchildren about appropriate subjects, and it turns out that the speech he made was fine (perhaps a bit too much "I" but that happens whenever he opens his mouth). I just hope that the kids listened and took it seriously.

One of the most serious problems in our society is the high rate of school dropouts, particularly from within the poor and minority communities. We are raising generation after generation of children from those communities without sufficient education to be much of a factor in the workplace.

Someone like Obama can make a difference there, if he will. But speeches will not be enough. More is needed, and the teacher's unions seemingly refuse to take the kinds of steps needed to improve the schools. But that is another story.

Why would Obama address the kids when there is so much on his plate? Well, for the same reason that George H. W. Bush did in 1991, and George W. Bush was doing much the same when the planes hit the towers on 9/11.....politics, purely and simply.

Folks like politicians that pay attention to the children, from kissing babies all the way to making speeches to them. So politicians do that. It makes them seem human to everyone.

Why do other politicians object? Politics again. They don't want someone on the other side to gain from such a display.

That is why the Democrats had Bush, Sr.'s speech investigated by the GAO (which found it to be perfectly legal).

The point is: its fine to address the kids if you say the right things, but it is not fine to turn it into a political show. The kids need to be left out of politics. They will have to deal with them too soon anyway.

About "Deconstructing the 'Whup Ass'"

Those are titles of two essays among several that I missed reading while I have been tied up the last few weeks. They are written by Victor Davis Hanson.

The good professor is a favorite of mine, as many of you may know.

He is Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and one of the best writers around about current affairs.

His writings can be found at "Works and Days" and at "Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers." The sites are also listed to the right of this blog.

In "Decontructing," he takes on the recent situation regarding Van Jones, an admitted communist on Obama's staff who just resigned and the inevitable cries of "racism" that have accompanied his departure.

He also mentions other of Obama's friends and associates:

"What we are now seeing with Obama’s coterie is a sort of Billy Carterism—after a while what seems at first outlandish gradually becomes repugnant. Half of the country is now furious at Obama because they are starting to see that Ayers, Khalidi, Meeks, Pfleger, and Wright were representational, rather than aberrational; that is, the associates that for 30 years were the natural friends and role models of Obama proved hard to shake and appear buffoonish 24/7. And stranger still, Obama himself seems surprised that they keep reappearing, as if one so easily can throw under the bus decades of choices, attitudes, and second natures."

About Jones, he points out after cataloging some of his statements:

"... But such are the times we live in, that a Jones feels he can abuse the public discourse and insult the intelligence of the public, confident that when called on it, the refuge of “racist”! is always there."

And, Hanson finally concludes:

"Barak Obama did not transcend race as promised. Nor was there a racial backlash against him as his supporters both feared and now charge.

Rather the mood is weariness. One major reason Obama’s polls have dropped is the public resentment of this spate of allegations of racism."

And:

"Nothing is so fatal to a con as boredom. Tragically, when a Rangel, Paterson, Jones, or Obama—all enjoying privileges and successes that 300 million Americans might only dream of—start in on the now accustomed trope, the public turns the channel and sighs “Been there, done that.” And I think they really mean it this time."

There are several fine essays at the two sites. I highly recommend that you bookmark them, and return to read all of them.

Labor Day

The unofficial end of Summer has arrived, and with it all sorts of things.

College football got under way last week, starting my favorite time of the year. My Texas Longhorns won, while our arch-rival Oklahoma lost at home to Brigham Young. OU's Heisman quarterback was injured, but its extent is yet unknown. I wish him a speedy recovery. He is an outstanding young man.

With it comes a breath of Fall, particularly in the mornings and evenings in West Texas. Temps at night are 10-12 degrees cooler than a month ago, and there is a freshness in the breeze. Even a few leaves are beginning to drift down in the back yard

New polls shown unions to be unpopular with the folks. That is not surprising, because now that their man is President, and they own the Congress, we are all able to see what jerks most of them are. See articles here and here.

Obama had the whistle blown on one of the several outright communists in his administration. There are more, but good riddance to Van Jones. An article here. Another is here.

Take note that the large media never covered the story until he left, and than tried to paper it over. No wonder they are all going broke. Most of them are simply an adjunct to Obama's propaganda machine. Something closely akin to Lenin's "useful idiots." One simply cannot trust anything most of them say.

This Labor Day finds us with a reported 9.7% unemployment rate, with the direction still headed down. If one were to use the same measure as was used during the Great Depression, it would be closer to 17%. Very sad.

All the liberal pundits like to talk about "green shoots" in the economy, and a "recovery" about to start. My view is that there is no recovery until jobs come back. Even Obama says that won't be until well into next year.

The use of the "stimulus" bill to pay off ACORN and other large Democratic constituencies is turning into a nightmare for unemployed Americans. Will there be any accountability for this? Probably not. Maybe November, 2010. We will see.

There are other things to cover that have arisen since I last posted. More later.

Throwing gasoline on a deficit fire

Sometime in the next week or so, the Obama Administration is going to deliver the delayed Mid Session Review, which is a budget document that updates the administration's economic and budget forecasts.

It was delayed because they wanted it to come out during the dog days of August when everyone was out of Washington. You can imagine why.

Keith Hennessy has an article over at Real Clear Politics entitled "Understanding the Upcoming Deficit Numbers" that gives a pretty good idea of what is coming.

Deficits are already estimated at huge numbers, but will have to be significantly increased because of actions already taken by Congress.

Growth is predicted at too high numbers already and will have to be reduced if they are honest. They probably won't be.

The deficits are so bad because they are 4 times the average the last 20 years. What does that do?

"Budget deficits crowd our private borrowing and raise interest rates. It costs more to get a mortgage, a car loan, or a student loan. Higher interest rates and their effect on the dollar cause the U.S. economy to grow more slowly, meaning fewer jobs are created and wage growth slows."

What will happen?

"The President has boxed himself in with different messages on fiscal policy and health policy. He argues we must slow the growth of long-term health spending, but has not offered policies that unbiased analysts say would achieve that goal. In health care reform, Congress is in no mood to make the painful choices needed to reduce future deficits, so the President has fallen back to a more modest goal of not increasing future deficits. If health care reform should actually become law this year, expect the long-run budget picture to get dramatically worse. Pending bills would create a rapidly-growing enormous new spending commitment that would quickly outstrip the proposed spending cuts and tax increases. In an effort to rescue health care reform the President has shifted away from a cost control message. Congress will read this signal and look for ways to avoid the pain of deficit reduction, knowing that the President will sign any bill that reaches his desk."

The President entered office with a bad situation. We all grant that. But he has determined to plow ahead and force through a liberal social program that will make a bad situation much worse.

"The President’s social policy agenda is throwing gasoline on a deficit fire."

Read the whole thing here.

The Real Problem With the Health Care Debate

The real problem with health care is that they have done it in a way that nobody can really be informed. Clearly the Congress is not, and clearly the folks on both sides are not.


This is the crux of the matter: the whole issue has been presented in such a poor way that nobody really knows or appreciates what is actually in the various bills, and the attempt to rush it through with no debate, like the stimulus and the cap and trade bill, leaves the public to assume that the health care bill is as bad as the others.

This is just real poor politics by Obama and the Congressional leaders. Camille Paglia had it right.

People fear the unknown. The bill's provisions are unknown....deliberately. The Democrats are losing the fight for that reason, and should.

What needs to be done is that Obama needs to lay out the bill he wants, and then the various committees in Congress should hold public hearings and hear everyone's views.

After hearings and a fair markup debate, what comes out should be freely debated on the House floor (or the Senate, as the case may be) and voted up or down after any amendments. In other words, they should follow their own procedures.

Instead, the Democrat leadership in the House tried to rush something through without debate and without really informing the public what was in it.

This is not how a Democratic Republic like ours is supposed to work. It is a violation of all the tenets of fairness.

For that reason all of the bills should be voted down, and a new start made.

We were promised bi-partisanship by Obama. Instead, we have gotten worse partisanship than even Tom DeLay caused.

Shame on them all.

Sheer Stupidity

The Washington Post today has a story that the Obama Administration is studying moving some of the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to a prison in the United States where thay could be tried by courts or military commissions.

Now we have a very secure facility down at Gitmo that is a virtual country club compared to prisons in the United States, but we are going to close it down and move the terrorists to the US?

Why?

Sheer stupidity, that is why.

Its the same reason why in the middle of a deep recession we are going to tax everyone's energy, and raise another $1 trillion to finance socialized medicine.

It makes one feel like Alice in Wonderland.

Nothing Obama does makes any sense, unless he is trying to destroy our country.

Birds of a Feather?

In the early hours of the morning on June 28 this year, soldiers of the Honduran Army, bearing an order from the Honduran Supreme Court, arrested and then exiled Honduran President Zelaya.

The order from the Supreme Court, with the approval of the duly elected Congress of Honduras, came after Zelaya had disobeyed a direct order from the Court and was proceeding with a referendum that had been found to be unconstitutional.

A member of Zelaya's own party was appointed by Congress and sworn in as temporary President until an election could be held on November 29.

The hue and cry from the Marxist/Communist/Socialist dictators from south of our border was instant and loud.

The esteemed Hugo Chavez vowed to reverse the situation. The socialist government of Ecuador announced they would not recognize the new government.

The Castros of Cuba were outraged and demanded sanctions.

The old Sandinista from Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, joined the other extreme leftists.

And then came Barack Obama. He stepped into it with both feet.

Eventually the Organization of American states demanded that Zelaya be restored, and called for sanctions.

The United States immediately suspended military aid, and has since revoked the visas of four diplomats representing the new government.

So let us get this straight.

We have a guy in Honduras, Zelaya, who is trying to establish a dictatorship, a la Chavez in Venezuela, who is legally removed for having violated the Constitution of Honduras, and the President of the United States is helping him, and trying to get him restored to power.

Somehow, that just seems un-American for some reason. There are thousands of reasons we might have to avoid having another Chavez, or Castro, or Ortega in Central America, but I cannot think of a single, solitary reason why the interests of the United States could be served by having another Marxist/Communist/Socialist dictator down there.

So why would Obama take that position? Could it be that he is birds of a feather with Castro, Chavez, Ortega and the others?

My Mom always told me that birds of a feather flock together.

Perhaps his associations with Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, Rev. Wright and the other radicals that hate the United States were not so benign after all.

Look out, a big one is coming

Heh. There is a story over on Politico by Andie Collier about Obama's favorite phrase: "Let me be clear...."

In the story, there is a dissection of what it really means. It is a pretty interesting story, with a number of ideas about what he is meaning to say.

My view: when I hear him say that, I think of the phrase "I'm not lying to you" that is heard just before a big one.

Mr. Obama is anything but clear on most things, mostly because he doesn't know anything about that of which he speaks.

This includes the contents of his health care initiative, or the cap and trade disaster, or his foreign policy.

Clear, indeed. That makes me laugh. Sadly.

Waste of Time

I see from U. S. News and World Report that Americans spent 9.9 billion hours doing government paperwork last years, a waste of $460 Billion of costs.

The time spent was a 25% increase from 2004.

Just think what Obama's programs are going to add.

A crushing blow to the economy.

Who really believes the government can do anything right? Or efficiently?

Anybody?

A hat tip to Hotair.

Blue Dogs Cave on Health Care Reform; Updated: No vote until late September or later: Obama

There are reports out this afternoon that the Blue Dog Democrats have compromised with the "yellow dog" Democrats, and have agreed on an outline of a bill that would radically change health care in the United States.

Given that the Congressional Budget Office has cited the huge costs of the bill...over one trillion dollars..... the Blue Dogs could be said to have caved in by agreeing to reduce the costs by only an estimated one hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but only a drop in the bucket.

So, what else did they get? Well, they didn't get the national insurance out of the provisions, but they did require that government insurance company negotiate fees with doctors rather than unilaterally set them like it does with Medicare. But that still gets the government's nose under the tent, and we all know where that will go.

They did get a increase in the ceiling for mandatory insurance, doubling it to payrolls of $500,000 or less. That is still too low by far.

There is no mention of Medicare.

It seems a lot of the savings will come from two places, as reported by the New York Times:

"¶ Medicaid would be expanded, as under the original bill, but states would have to pay a small share of the additional costs, perhaps 7 percent. The federal government would have paid the entire cost under the original bill.

"¶ Workers would have to pay slightly more of their income on premiums for employer-sponsored insurance — 12 percent, rather than 11 percent — before they could qualify for federal subsidies."

So savings would come from charging workers more money, and putting additional costs on the states. Isn't that nice? Guess who still pays?

What do we have at the end of the day? The best part of it is that they delayed the bill from coming up for a vote until after Labor Day.

That will at least mean that someone will have a chance to read the bill after it is marked up in committee, and before it is presented to the House for a vote.

That is a change. Celebrate the small things.

They won't be able to change that sow's ear into a silk purse during the recess. But they will try to sell it as one.

And the so-called "conservative" Democrats, the Blue Dogs, showed their true colors once again.

The term "conservative" Democrat is an oxymoron, by the way. If they were conservative, they would not be Democrats. It has been thirty years since there was a real live conservative in the Democratic Party. We all left back then.

UPDATE: Obama is quoted this evening as saying there will not be a vote on the Health Care Reform Bill until late September or mid-October.

This is a major defeat for Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.

Memo to the President and Congress re: Health Care

Mr. President and Congress, you are presently trying to pass a health care reform bill. You have exempted yourselves and all Federal employees from the provisions thereof.

You need to pardon me for shouting, but:

I WILL ACCEPT ANY REFORM OF MEDICAL CARE THAT YOU AND ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES WILL BE SUBJECT TO, AND NONE OTHER.

PERIOD.

I do not know why you believe that you have some kind of superior rights to the rest of us, but rest assured, you do not.

The South Plainsman