politicsmeoff

Vacationer-in-Chief

2010-08-13T15:27:00.002-06:00

Unemployment is still high. Our country is literally being invaded by illegal immigrants. GDP growth is still falling. Iran is about to build a nuke. The oil spill is still not permanently capped. And this year's deficit ALONE is $1.4 trillion.

So what's Obama doing to fix it all? He'll be taking his fifth vacation since July (remember: it's only the beginning of August!) :

There they go again. For the fifth time since July, the first family has set plans to board Air Force One for a frilly vacation, a 10-day return trip to exclusive Martha's Vineyard where they are expected to stay at the 28-acre oceanfront Blue Heron Farm that rents for up to $50,000 a week.

Nuance!

This from the same guy who once said (referring to Americans cutting back during the recession) "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times."

President Obama is a tool.

Tu Quoque

2010-07-22T11:04:00.004-06:00

I swear to you, if MSNBC makes reference to racism in the "all white" Tea Party movement one more time, the universe may very well just implode on itself.

They would be wise to recall that the $100,000 bounty that Andrew Breitbart offered for un-doctored proof of accused racism at tea parties has still not been claimed by anyone. Why? Because no such un-doctored evidence exists.

Look, I don't support everything the Tea Party does. But I'm tired of the media dictating that anyone who supports limited, effective government and opposes high taxes and wasteful government spending is a racist. Conservatives have been against spending since the 1970s... if it wasn't racist then, why is it now?

By the way, MSNBC, next time take a look at your own television lineup before spouting out references about the Tea Party movement being "all white"

(click to enlarge the image)

The Ultimate Power Grab

2010-06-18T14:17:00.009-06:00

In the last 2 years the government (who has YET to successfully manage any endeavor of its own) has taken over virtually every business enterprise in the United States. First it was the banking industry. Then mortgages. Then insurance companies. Then the auto companies. Then the health care industry. And right now they are in the process of attempting to take over the energy industry.

...so what's next on their plate? The internet:

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to take another step toward reclassifying the way it regulates Internet service providers, releasing a plan for public comment that would give the federal agency vast new powers over companies that distribute Web access...

The FCC currently classifies Internet service providers — namely AT&T, Comcast and Verizon — as information services, leaving them largely exempt from regulation. The vote today is the first step toward re-classifying the companies to a new and more restrictive category within the FCC code.

They've hinted at doing this since Obama took office, but knew that the Supreme Court would overrule any such legislation.

Obama's solution to that pesky obstacle called the Supreme Court? Just go around them. By declaring the internet as a public utility, the FCC would then already have the authority to regulate the internet - the last headquarters of free speech left on earth.

Look at the list of business sectors listed in the first paragraph... notice something they all have in common? They are all industries that were either a) failing, or b) experiencing some major problems. But what's wrong with the internet? Nothing. There's no fire. Broadband access has increased exponentially over the last 10 years, consumers have a wide variety of providers at all levels of pricing, and the internet's wide-open access allows for competition without the pre-emption of other competitors (i.e. one website doesn’t preclude another from operating).

So why in the world does the government want to control the internet? It's simple: They want to control the message you are receiving. China does the very same thing when controversial or politically unpopular events occur. When such events arise, they just use their kill switch to shut the entire internet down so that their citizens can't get information.

Obama and his Mao-loving cronies hate the new media (the internet, conservative talk-radio, and FoxNews). He has singled-out and verbally slandered people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, while saying nothing about the likes of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow (on the contrary - he continuously invites them to private meetings and dinners at his home). The government told people not to visit the Drudge Report website on the totally bogus grounds that there was a virus on the site (there wasn't). He actually declared war on FoxNews and even hired (with your tax dollars) Anita Dunn to sit in her office and listen to talk-radio all day in order to combat it (until she was forced out of the White House for saying her favorite political philosopher was uber-communist Chairman Mao - a man who killed 5x more people than Hitler). And just a few weeks ago he told people on the right to read Huffingtonpost, but notice he never asked leftists to read Drudge, Michelle Malkin, Ace, or HotAir.

But none of these methods have worked. So Obama is going all in with every chip he has left on the table. If he can't persuade people to stop reading the conservative perspective, he'll just force them to stop reading it instead.

I used to think that Obama was just an inexperienced leftist who was making dumb decisions based on his naïveté. But now I know that this is all calculated.

Upon hearing about this news yesterday, a colleague remarked that Obama is just like Jimmy Carter. But I disagree: Jimmy Carter was stupid, but Obama is evil - there's a big difference.

As far back as the 1960s Ezra Taft Benson, who was serving as the Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower, recalled an experience he had with communist leader Nikita Khrushchev who remarked that his (Benson's) American grandchildren would one day live under communism. When Secretary Benson challenged him, Khrushchev replied, "You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright. But we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find you already have communism."

Taking over the internet; this is how freedom dies.

Obama: Nikita Khrushchev's hero...

US Constitution Now Shipping with a Disclaimer

2010-06-10T09:21:00.009-06:00

...cuz, you know, it's just some old document that has no meaning today, or something.

Wilder Publishing is now adding the following disclaimer to copies of the United States Constitution on Amazon.com:

This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.

Here's a screenie if you need to see it with your own eyes to believe it. Question: According to this work's publisher, what could be better than placing a disclaimer on the Constitution? Answer: Adding the same disclaimer to the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Payne's Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and several other historical documents and works.

I've long believed that political correctness will be the downfall of this nation, I just didn't think it would happen so quickly. Although at the same time, I cant say I'm surprised. After all, we DID elect as president a man who was voted as THE most liberal in the entire United States Senate; a progressive free-thinker so obsessed with political correctness that, instead of honoring D-Day this past Sunday, he chose instead to throw his second party in the past week at Ford Theatre to honor anti-Semitic pro-Arab Muslim terrorist Desmond Tutu, who once had this fun Hitler-esque ethnic cleansing quote to say about the Jews:

Territorial ambition is equally illegal [when] it occurs in slow motion, as with the Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories...

The United States has a distinct responsibility to intervene in atrocities committed by its client states, and since Israel is the single largest recipient of U.S. arms and foreign aid, an end to the occupation [of the Jews in the Middle East -ed.] should be a top concern.

With disclaimers now shipping on copies of the Constitution, and with our Commander-in-Chief skipping D-Day to instead honor a terrorist who consistently trashes America, I'd say this nation is now officially completely backwards. And who can say they're surprised? After all, didn't Obama promise his entire campaign that he was going to "change" America?

Final thoughts: President Obama, trying to quell accusations that he's emotionally UNinvolved in the recent oil spill in the gulf, had this rather childish, immature, and non-presidential attack on a singled-out private entity the other day in an interview on NBC's Today show:

I was down there a month ago, before most of these talkin’ heads were even paying attention to the gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standin’ in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be. and I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.

If President Obama is looking for someone's "ass to kick", he should start with his own.

Obama's Priorities

2010-06-04T15:17:00.015-06:00

President Obama promised Americans that the gulf oil spill was his "singular" priority and that it's "what [he] wakes up to in the morning" and "what [he] goes to bed at night thinking about".

But Kevin Kristy over at PolitiPage doesn't agree - and has the pictures to prove it:

In case you weren't able to tally all that up, here is the unofficial count of Obama's activities since the oil spill began:

7 days of golf

6 sports events

6 days of campaigning

6 days of vacation

4 commemorations (graduations, Cinco de Mayo, et al.)

3 days of fundraising for his Democrat pals

2 days of media events (White House Correspondents Dinner and meets with Bono for some reason - and that doesn't include the VIP dinner with Paul McCartney he had the other night)

Could you imagine the seizure the left would have had if, during Katrina, Bush went golfing 7 times, went to half a dozen sporting events, and hosted several parties - all while squeezing multiple vacations into the mix?? Had Bush done what Obama has done, the left would have wet straight through its pants and there would not be enough voltage on planet earth to electroshock them back into coherence. Clearly a double-standard is being showcased here.

Now, in all fairness, perhaps Obama spent a few hours during some of those days discussing the oil spill with his staff before heading off to a BBQ... But that list of recreational activities above isn't going to convince the American voters that the oil spill has been his "singular" priority meme. After all, it took him 36 days before answering any questions from the press about the matter, and only did so because he thought the "top kill" method had worked and wanted to claim the victory for himself. But only after it was revealed that the "top kill" method had actually been halted the night before he claimed its victory did he begin to distance himself from the relief efforts again (which begs another question: How is it, Mr. President, that you claimed that BP didn't act unless it got approval from your administration first, yet you went on TV and didn't even know that "top kill" had been stopped roughly 12 hours earlier?)

Quite frankly, I don't think the right would be hounding him on this so hard if he (and the rest of the left) hadn't been pulverizing Bush into a fine paste over Katrina for the past 5 years. But let this be a lesson to the left: You can't set the bar at 9 feet for President Bush, and then expect to lower it back to 3 feet once your party gets elected to the helm. If your argument over the past 5 years was that Bush was at fault for the mishandling of Katrina, then you reap the fruits of your labors when Obama gets to face the music while today the oil spill is just as bad as it was 45 days ago.

I Win

2010-03-02T13:36:00.016-07:00

I have taken a lot of flak over the years for not believing in anthropogenic global warming. But after the series of devastating blows to Al Gore's religion over the last few months, I can't help but enjoy the schadenfreude as I watch crazy ol' uncle Al still try to espouse the validity of his global warming Bible after the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were just tossed out.

Here's a recap of the last few months in case you missed it:

• A series of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia revealed that the scientists at the Climate Research Unit intentionally manipulated data and used "tricks" to "hide the decline" and even threw out their data so that they couldn't be fact-checked (a direct violation of England's Freedom of Information Act 2000). The East Anglia CRU was also caught using sub-par computer modeling methods to further skew their findings (terms like 'fudge factor' were explicitly written right into their BASIC code)

• NOAA “homogenization” data falsified climate facts by turning the declines into increases

• According to the University of Bristol, there has been no rise in atmospheric carbon fraction over the last 150 years. They also make the point that most of the CO2 we emit does not reach the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems

• The IPCC withdraws its claim that global warming will wipe out Himalayan glaciers by 2035. Furthermore, IPCC frontman Rajendra Pachauri later admitted that he knew that the Himalayan claim was a lie for months, yet intentioanlly failed to mention it in the weeks leading up to the international Copenhagen climate summit

• Data showing that mountain glaciers were melting was actually based on unsubstantiated college student theses that were not peer-reviewed, as well as anecdotes from a mountain climber magazine (hardly what one would call "scientific sources"). Once this was discovered, researchers looked into the IPCC's footnotes more carefully and found that close to a dozen more college student dissertations were cited as authoritative scientific research

• Reports that 40% of the Amazonian rainforests were going to become extinct due to climate change were actually falsified by the WWF (a climate advocacy group), and came from a magazine instead of an authoritative scientific source. The original scientific data stated that 40% of Amazonian rainforests could become extinct because of loggers, before the WWF replaced the word "loggers" with the words "climate change"

• The disgraced head researcher at East Anglia's CRU was forced to admit on record that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. Furthermore, scientists believe that the medieval warming period temperatures may have been global, thereby undermining entire anthropogenic global warming argument

• The Siberian dendroclimatology tree ring study which, according to global warming advocates, quantified their belief in the hockey-stick graph, actually came from only one single cherry-picked tree (dubbed YADO61) because it supported their claim. And if that's not enough, there is also mounting evidence that the practice of hand-picking only the data that supports global warming has been occuring for years now.

• The report claiming that African crops were going to wither has since been exposed as a completely false claim

• IPCC scientists purposely excluded Southern Hemisphere data in order to exaggerate the effects of global warming on hurricanes. Peer-reviewed research has since cast even further doubt on global warming and its relationship with hurricanes

Al Gore and his fraudulent accomplices have desperately tried to discount this devastating series of blows by arguing that "well, while some human errors have been made, it still doesn't disprove global warming, right? Right??"

To this rather asinine retort, I counter: How can that hold true if EVERY SINGLE CLAIM that was intended to quantify anthropogenic global warming over the past 10 years has being debunked one by one? More glaciers are growing than are melting. The polar bears are still around. The sea level hasn't risen. Crops aren't burning up. And countries all across the globe are experiencing their coldest, snowiest winters on record.

Face it, Al. If it walks like a Winter, talks like a Winter, and feels like a Winter - it ain't Summer. And there's nothing you or your Nobel Prize can do to change that fact.

Heh

2009-11-01T23:30:00.001-07:00

Barack Obama, November 2008: "Change We Can Believe In"

Barack Obama, November 2009: "Change is Hard"

Underpromise, Overdeliver

2009-10-29T10:39:00.012-06:00

...at least that's what my father always taught me. Yet it seems that this administration has consistently done just the opposite. They promised to be the most transparent administration ever. They promised to post each bill on a website for several days before allowing Congress to vote on it so that the pubic would have the chance to properly vet it first. They promised to be decisive in Afghanistan. They promised to not raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.

And yet now, a full 9 months after that sweet quesadilla-flavored "hope and change" reached the White House, we have yet to see the president keep a single one of those promises. This White House has been more secretive than any in modern history, with Congress going as far as to not even allow Repubicans into the room when bills are being drafted. They have not yet posted any major legislation online, nor allowed the public sufficient time to read it (in fact, even Congress themselves haven't been reading the bills before signing them). It's been over a month since General McCrystal begged Obama to send additional troops to Afghanistan "lest we lose", but Obama has yet to act (I guess he's been too busy spending more time on the golf course in 9 months than Bush did in 3 years and making commercials for George Lopez's new show on TBS). And as for taxes, the cap and trade (global warming) legislation that passed this past summer is expected to increase the average American's taxes by $1,800 a year - including everybody making less than $250,000 a year. And don't forget to carry the one into the next column when adding into that figure the fact that Obama is going to intentionally allow the Bush tax cuts to expire...

...and now we have the economy. Obama and crew promised that, if we passed his crappy $1 trillion stimulus (yes, that's trillion with a 'T'), unemployment would not exceed 8% and that millions of jobs would be saved. Yet unemployment is now expected to be at 10% before year's end with the possibility to go even higher. And according to the White House's own estimate, the stimulus only saved a measly 30,000 jobs - a figure that even the AP admits is actually an overestimate to the tune of about 5,000 jobs.

But if all you did today was watch MSNBC or follow any other sycophantic Obama-loving media outlet, you'd think that today's news that the GDP grew by 3.5% last quarter signals that Obama has healed all.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Home sales fell (again) last month and home inventories are not growing. Reconcile that with the fact that the housing tax credits expire in a few weeks, and you've got a recipe for disaster in the housing market for the next few quarters. And according to the Reuters column linked above, business investment fell 2.5% while investment nonresidential structures dropped 9%. Jobless claims are still holding steady as well.

"But Mike, why you gotta so pessimistic, man? This president has done some good things for the economy. Like Cash for Clunkers, man. That was a success. LOL"

You mean the Cash for Clunkers program that took billions of taxpayer dollars and sent them to Japan and Korea? Read what Edmunds has to say today about Cash for Clunkers:

A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com...

The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.

Read the whole article if you wish to know how they calculated which cars "would have sold anyway". But basically Edmunds sums up to the fact that we spent almost as much as the cost of an average new car to incentivize each legitimate new sale. How in the world is that smart economics? And now that those who were in the car market have purchased, new car inventories will sit stale on the showroom floors this next year. And instead of allowing lower income families to purchase the old clunkers, the government just destroyed them instead to keep Al Gore happy, meaning that 700,000 less cars are available on the market right now for families struggling through the recession. Brilliant, Washington.

So to those who voted for hopenchange last year I ask: Is this the kind of change you can believe in?

Shankopotamus-in-Chief

2009-10-27T14:53:00.012-06:00

Remember when the left seethed at Bush for daring to spend time on the golf course? Our favorite hypocrite, Keith Olbermann, even delivered an entire 10-minute "special comment" devited solely to harping on Bush for daring to play golf while American troops were dying in Iraq.

And then today, in a complete stroke of irony, after getting word that this month is offically the deadliest month on record for American troops in Afghanistan post 9/11, we also have this:

President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

Actually it was 2 years 10 months to be exact, so it would be more fair for the article to have stated "in almost 3 years". But why do I even waste time in pointing that out? I mean, after all, I'm sure the media will point that out for me in their ongoing effort to be just as harsh on Obama's golf addiction during a war as they were on Bush's.

Right?

Health Care Reform 101: The Facts

2009-09-10T15:35:00.012-06:00

Unless you've been floating on a raft in the middle of the Pacific for the last several months, you probably know that health care reform is being pushed quite heavily by Obama and his minions on the left. While health care reform has been tried in several United States presidencies, none have has as much momentum as this... which leads me to conclude that if it doesn't pass this time, it never will.

But with both sides of the argument screaming at each other over whether or not this health bill will raise taxes, add "death panels", and provide free medical coverage to illegal immigrants, the question begs to be asked: What is true and what is not?

For starters, both sides are guilty of distorting the facts to a certain degree, albeit the Democrats take the cake on Pinocchio-esque rhetoric concerning the health care bill currently under debate. Among the largest of these falsehoods from the left are the notions that this will not add to the nation's deficit and that you can keep your current health plan if you like it. Below are a series of facts to help you debunk the lies that Obama is trying desperately to sell you.

LIE #1: Barack Obama - “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.”

Are you really going to believe a statement like that from a guy whose own deficit this year is $1.6 TRILLION in the hole after promising "change" in the way government is spending? According to the Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare will increase the deficit by over a trillion dollars, pushing Obama's tab on the American taxpayer up to $2.3 trillion - and that's just within the first decade.

LIE #2: If you like your current health care plan, you can keep it

Impossible. The director of the Congressional Budget Office has officially stated that, while this health care bill will extend coverage to roughly 39 million new people, it will almost immediately force 23 million off their current plan, bringing the net total of newly insured people from this health care bill to a measly 16 million at a huge cost. Add that to the fact that at least 4 predominant Democratic politicians and White House aides, including Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, are on tape admitting that this health care bill is just a means to an end - the end being full-blown government run single-payer health care... the very same kind of health care that dictates when and to which doctors you are allowed visit. Besides, think about it for a moment, how can a private insurance company compete financially against a government run program backed by the Treasury Department's printing presses?

LIE #3: Your tax dollars will not be used to fund abortions

Brace yourselves, Catholics. Even the Obama-loving Associated Press couldn't swallow this one. In a "fact-checking" article a few weeks ago, they found that under Obama's proposed health care plan, your tax dollars will be used in the form of premiums to pay for abortions - a direct violation of the Hyde Amendment.

LIE #4: The American health care system is broken

Really? According to the CIA world factbook, the death rate in America is 20% better than that of the UK's health system that Obama keeps praising. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have just released figures confirming that the U.S. just reached record high life expectancy levels for both males and females in 2007. Also, mortality rates in the U.S. reached an all-time low after a continuous 8-year trend of falling. The American Cancer Society also noted earlier this year that cancer death rates dropped 19.2% and 11.4% in men and women respectively between 1990 and 2005. No wonder Canada (the other country with a government run health care system that Obama lavishly praises) is currently sending their citizens to the U.S. for better treatment. It should also be noted that Canada is also currently revamping their health care system to one they think is better - ours. Couple that with the fact that 83% of the insured public is satisfied with the care they receive from their doctors and are 81% satisfied with their current insurance company, and you have all the evidence you need to debunk this myth with ease.

LIE #5: Health Care reform will not extend insurance benefits to illegal immigrants

Technically, it already does. Having worked in an emergency room during college, I can safely say that illegal immigrants are taking advantage of the system that obligates ERs to treat illegal immigrants with your tax dollars under a "no questions asked" doctrine. Now, there are two schools of thought regarding this statement from Obama: Either he's not lying because a) he's planning on granting amnesty to all illegal immigrants anyway, thereby making it impossible to provide coverage to illegals since there is no such thing anymore, or he IS lying because b) the Congressional Research Service notes that HR3200 (the House version of the health care bill) goes out of its way to ensure that people won't be required to establish proof of citizenship or legal residency before applying to exchanges for health insurance, including the public option. The same bill also includes text granting that illegal immigrants "would be eligible for emergency Medicaid" and that some families of illegal immigrants would qualify for subsidies if other members of the household are eligible for those benefits.

LIE #6: There are 47 million uninsured Americans in this country

This fabrication is an incredibly shameless distortion of actual figures. Here is a breakdown of who is included in that number according to the U.S. census (the figures below add up to more than 47 million because some categories overlap):

Illegal immigrants: 9.4 million

People who make between $50,000 and $75,000/yr and choose not to buy insurance even though they can afford it: 8.3 million

People who make over $75,000/yr and choose not to buy insurance even though they can afford it: 8.7 million

"Indestructible" 18-25 year olds who choose not to buy it for themselves: 8.4 million

People in-between jobs who are only without insurance for a temporary period as small as one day: 9.4 million

Children actually covered, but whose parents simply haven't signed them up yet: 8 million

People eligible for a government health care aid who have simply not signed up for it: 3.5 million

In actuality, there are only between 8.9 and 14 million Americans that make less than $50,000/yr who are not eligible for government aid and are truly "uninsured". That's a far less number than the 47 million figure Obama keeps strapped to his belt at all times. Even if it was the highest figure of 14 million, that's only 4.6% of the American population, meaning that 95% of the American public is either already insured or has access to and/or the means to provide insurance for themselves and is choosing not to.

LIE #7: If you choose not to be insured, that's your decision and we support it

According to the bills currently being circulated in Congress right now, if you decide to forgo insurance coverage, you will be fined $3,800 by the government.

Even the most basic analysis of Obama's health care plan reveals that the plan is a total boondoggle, a waste of money that is likely to cause more problems than it relieves. Remember when Obama demanded with fear-mongering that his stimulus be passed immediately lest the economy die that week? Congress, being the tools they are, passed it in two days leaving the public no time to investigate and question it. But once the "emergency" bill was passed and safe from critique, Obama left it on his desk for 3 days and went on vacation before signing it. And here he is trying to do it again. Why else do you think he tried to pass the health care bill in mere hours before Congress took their August recess? Answer: He didn't want to give you the time to find all of the above information out. I also find it interesting that this "emergency" health care bill that needed to be passed before Congress recessed in August won't even go into effect until 2013. If it's such an "emergency", Mr. President, why avoid congressional hearings on the pros and cons and pass it in such a hurry? And why not implement it before 2013?... Hmm... 2013, why is that number so significant? Oh yea, it's because that's right AFTER the next presidential election and the public won't be able to see the horrible effects of his health care bill until he is safely re-seated in the oval office for a second term. Well played, sir.

Yes, our health care system has its flaws, but why are we willing to hand the keys to 1/6th of the entire economy over to a government that has yet to successfully manage the finances of JUST ONE government program? I think Michael Ramirez sums it up nicely in this comic from IBD:

Private Health Care: RIP

2009-08-03T14:25:00.004-06:00

A little slow on the blogging lately. Between summer, finals, and being sort of a beta tester for the newest version of Windows Mobile on my phone, there's been little time for this.

But don't think that I've stopped following politics regularly... So in the interest of keeping things fresh on the front page, here's a video of our fearless president admitting on video that his health care plan will kill private insurance, thereby ultimately turning our health care system more like into the ones in Canada and the UK:

Politician. President. Pontiff?

2009-07-12T13:58:00.004-06:00

Newsweek asks: Is a guy who's only been to church once in the last 16 months a better spiritual leader than the Pope?

In truth, though, Obama’s pragmatic approach to divisive policy (his notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints) and his social-justice agenda reflect the views of American Catholic laity much more closely than those vocal bishops and pro-life activists. When Obama meets the pope tomorrow, they’ll politely disagree about reproductive freedoms and homosexuality, but Catholics back home won’t care, because they know Obama’s on their side. In fact, Obama’s agenda is closer to their views than even the pope’s...

Notre Dame awarded the president an honorary degree because it saw the need to highlight the best of Catholic teaching as applied to politics: the ability to open the eyes of those who would prefer to keep them closed, and to open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause. The pope has a lot to learn about Catholic politics in America. Barack Obama can teach him.

This takes media swooning to an entirely different level. I seriously have no further comment on this ludicrous and offensive story. Am I'm not even a Catholic...

Schadenfreude

2009-06-23T11:11:00.006-06:00

In a delicious follow-up to my last post on the media's love-fest with President Obama, the news comes out that ABC and NBC have both hit rock-bottom in viewership.

TVNewser has learned the CBS Evening News has once again set an all-time low last week with 4.89 million Total Viewers and 1.42 million A25-54 viewers. But it was also the lowest (since records began in the 1991-'92 season) for ABC's World News with Charles Gibson. The Gibson program drew 6.42 million Total Viewers and 1.77 million A25-54 viewers.

To watch ABC, CBS, and NBC scramble for a reason is both amusing and heart-wrenching at the same time:

Update: Insiders tell us at least one network is looking into the continued impact of the digital TV transition which occurred June 12.

Update (2): NBC averaged 7.75m Total Viewers Mon-Wed but on Thursday and Friday gave their program a different Nielsen code -- "Nitely News." (The correct spelling is "Nightly News"). This is despite the fact that the network had regular coverage on those days. We're trying to determine if the U.S. Open Golf Championship had something to do with the coding change. Had Thursday and Friday been included, the average would have been lower. On Friday "Nightly" averaged 6.29m Total Viewers.

Update (3): An NBC insider tells us, even though the broadcast had full national coverage, the U.S. Open tends to affect viewership so the Thursday and Friday shows were not in the average. NBC says this is normal procedure.

"It was the US Open. No wait, it was the different spelling of the program's name. No, I got it, it was the digital transition. Yea that's it!"

...or it's the fact that 46% of us voted for the other guy last November and are sick of watching you sycophants grovel over every little thing the president does. You finally jumped the shark last week when you guys virtually interrupted normal programming with a special report on how President Obama just killed a fly (gasp) with his bare hands. You showed us your true colors when you decided to give a prime-time slot to Obama to run an infomercial on health care - and then refused to run opposing Republican ads before, during, and after said infomercial. And weren't you the ones who just finished running reports on how cool Obama is for playing golf, even though you chided the former president for doing the exact same? You guys are so biased that even Obama, the venerable anti-Bush himself, had to call you out on your excessive Bush bashing.

Look, you morons can continue to stretch excuses as to why your viewership is down. But as long as you continue your quest to be an unwavering squad of myrmidons in Obama's army, don't whine or be surprised when we stop watching.

Brian Williams Hearts Obama

2009-06-03T11:03:00.005-06:00

I don't think we need any more evidence of the fact that the media is in the tank for The One, but here's a little extra fodder to toss onto the fire for when the nights get cold...

Last night NBC's Brian Williams aired a "job shadow" of the POTUS to see what a day is like for him in the White House (why wasn't he ever interested to do that when Bush was in office?). I originally wanted to turn it off when the sycophantic swooning began, but then my wife convinced me to watch arguing that it might be interesting just to see what goes on behind the scenes at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. She was right, it was fairly interesting. Among the highlights of the show: (1) Obama taking his media team and half the motorcade to 5 Guys for burgers just to impress NBC by showing them that he can, (2) NBC spotlighting how cool Rahm Emanuel is even though he constantly chided the camera crews and even told them to "F off" at one point (I wonder if they would've thought Josh Bolten or Karl Rove was cool had they told NBC to "F off"), and my personal favorite (3) Brian Williams actually bowing to President Obama at the end of the day (see vid below). Here's to the unbiased reporting at NBC:

More of Obama's Change

2009-05-19T15:10:00.004-06:00

Are you a financially responsible adult with good credit? Congratulations! Now you get to be penalized for it:

Credit cards have long been a very good deal for people who pay their bills on time and in full. Even as card companies imposed punitive fees and penalties on those late with their payments, the best customers racked up cash-back rewards, frequent-flier miles and other perks in recent years.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

In Obama's ideal world, those of us who did things right with our financial investments the first time are labeled as "selfish" and asked (or forced) to pay the tab for those who wanted the 6-bedroom house and new Audi on their $50K a year salary. And since we're already paying for the loser's mortgages anyway, why not take on all their credit card debt too. 3 cheers for financial responsibility!

Confirmed: Pelosi Is, Indeed, A Shameless Liar

2009-05-12T14:24:00.012-06:00

Nancy Pelosi, April 23, 2009 -

"We were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used."

And to any doubters who may think that I've skewed her words or taken them out of context, I present you with the damning evidence from the mouth of the Madame herself as she tries to play dumb in a failed attempt to appease the nutroots:

Fail.

Nice try Pelosi, but you forgot about one little thing: Internet archives, wherein we find this -

Washington Post, December 9, 2007 -

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

...And this:

New York Times, April 21, 2009 -

“We were briefed, and we certainly understood what C.I.A. was doing,” Mr. Goss said in an interview. “Not only was there no objection, there was actually concern about whether the agency was doing enough.”

...And this:

Washington Post, April 25, 2009 -

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four (which included Pelosi -ed.), were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

-- We understood what the CIA was doing.

-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding.

*Sigh* ...And this:

2002 DNI Report via ABC News, May 7, 2009 -

The report details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.

The meeting is described as a “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.”

EITs stand for “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a classification of special interrogation tactics that includes waterboarding...

“The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used,” Daly said.

...And even this:

Washington Post, May 9, 2009 -

A top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday...

A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy. Pelosi herself acknowledged in a December 2007 statement that she was aware that Harman had learned of the waterboarding and had objected in a letter to the CIA’s top counsel.

...And finally this:

Politico, May 11, 2009 -

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn’t protest directly out of respect for “appropriate” legislative channels, a confidant of the San Francisco Democrat said Monday...

[T]here’s no dispute that on Feb. 4, 2003 — five months after Pelosi’s September meeting — CIA officials briefed Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, on the specific techniques that had been used on Zubaydah — including waterboarding.

But other than the fact that both she and her staffers were briefed on all of the techniques used - including waterboarding - and besides the fact that she was even given a personal tour of the waterboarding facility, she insists that she wasn't told about any waterboarding...

I'm just curious, California, why do you keep electing this woman?

Confirmed: Sky Is Not Falling

2009-05-07T19:00:00.000-06:00

For all the rhetoric Obama has been throwing around about this crisis being, in many ways, as bad as the Great Depression, CNN Money corraborates what I was saying several months ago. That is to say, this crisis is nowhere near the Great Depression. (if needed, click the image to open a larger view)

Optional Donations?

2009-05-07T16:00:00.001-06:00

Remember that little box on your tax return that asks if you would like to donate a few bucks to the campaign of your choice?

Well, Nancy Pelosi and cronies have decided to go ahead and check that box for you anyway:

The House wants to increase Members’ office budgets next fiscal year by almost 15 percent, partly because 2010 is an election year and lawmakers anticipate a surge in franked mail.

In a recently released budget request, the House Chief Administrative Officer asked appropriators to raise the Members’ Representational Allowances — which fund everything needed to run offices, including salaries, travel and supplies — by $90 million, citing increases “due to the election year cycle.”

Bear in mind that, even though it is illegal for members of Congress to use tax dollars to get re-elected, Pelosi decided she was gonna go ahead and do it anyway.

Most ethical Congress evah!

Obama Has "Pork" Flu

2009-05-07T12:58:00.003-06:00

Be ye warned: Pork Flu is infinitely more dangerous than Swine Flu because of its ultra-high degrees of contagiousness. In fact, it's so contagious that even my unborn grandchildren will be suffering the effects of Obama's horrifying disease. After promising to never pass a bill with any pork in it, he passed the Omnibus bill without even reading it - a bill that contained close to 9,000 earmarks. After which he proposed the largest one-year budget in American history laden with even more of that smoked-pork flavor than the Omnibus had.

Ah, but fear not. For our fearless leader has, once again, promised to make everything ok by vowing to remove a lousy 0.5% of the crap in his crap sandwich, leaving you and your kids with 99.5% of the sweet, wholesome goodness that is Obama's $3.5 trillion budget.

U.S. President Barack Obama's budget suggests $17 billion in spending cuts for fiscal year 2010, but Congress already has rejected some of those proposals and the savings do little to dent a projected $1.17 trillion deficit.

Obama on Thursday released details of the spending cuts, most of which were announced during or after the initial roll-out of his $3.5 trillion budget in February. Fiscal year 2010 begins on October 1.

Also take note that, instead of cutting money out of wasteful projects like remodeling government offices and giving free money to the radical fraud group ACORN, Obama decided to cut almost all of the money from defense.

You know, because the world is safe now or something.

Aww, The Media's In Love

2009-05-06T12:27:00.004-06:00

How else could you explain such sycophantic hypocrisy?

Behold the purest form of true love as the White House press stands for one president and not the other:

Add this vid to last week's Pew Research panel confirming that the fawning media has given Obama almost double the favorable coverage than they did to Bush 43 and Clinton combined, and you have a delicious double-dose of the media's love potion that has so enchanted them.

Ah, what the heck, let's go for the trifecta: While campaigning, the Huffington Post, and eventually CNN, dedicated entire segments on how evil and hypocritical John McCain was for spending $520 on his shoes.

Read it and weep, you morons. Barry and Michelle just dropped a cool $540 on a pair of kicks for the First Lady. Will the Huffington Post and CNN carry stories on the Obamas' hypocrisy and lavish spending like they did to McCain?

Happy Atheist Day

2009-05-06T11:52:00.002-06:00

Not too long ago I speculated that our president just might be an atheist...

Dude. I was right...

President Obama is distancing himself from the National Day of Prayer by nixing a formal early morning service and not attending a large Catholic prayer breakfast the next morning.

The article later mentions that "the president prays every night". Yea right. If he refuses to pray on the National Day of Prayer, why should I believe he prays every other day? And let's not forget that our fearlessly "Christian" president still hasn't picked a church 14 months after leaving his last one.

God help us.

What I Get For Voting...

2009-05-04T13:35:00.001-06:00

You are reading this instead of a new post today because of jury duty. Thanks, America

Pinocchio Would Be Proud

2009-04-30T11:02:00.005-06:00

After 100 days in office the President still hasn't figured out that Americans can fact check his lies:

"That wasn't me," President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.

It actually was him - and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years - who shaped a budget so out of balance...

His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating.

Remember this handy graphic from the Washington Post?

We're not as dumb as you want us to be, Barry. When even an uneducated person takes a 5 second look at your plans to implement Great Society 2, it's easy to see that you're the worst thing to ever happen to the deficit. What with your spending packages on bank bailouts. And the auto industry. And energy. And education. And increased social programs. And college tuition. And health care...

Well, maybe I'm being too harsh on Obama's apparent lack of finance knowledge. After all, he did ask his staff to cut that $100 million out of the budget, no?

Just A Thought...

2009-04-22T13:05:00.004-06:00

By now everybody has heard about Miss California's response to a question about gay marriage at the Miss USA pageant. All she said was the following:

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Whether or not you agree with gay marriage, my question is this: Perez Hilton has an opinion on gay marriage and nobody has a problem. But Miss California has an opinion and she's ripped to shreds over it. Why is it that one person is allowed to have an opinion on a political issue and the other person isn't?

Waterboarding Works

2009-04-21T17:25:00.002-06:00

I know, I know... there's still the whole argument about us stooping to their level when we employ such tactics. But dude, when a guy who masterminded an attack that killed 3,000 people gets waterboarded a few hundred times, I don't call it torture. I call it karma.

From the CIA:

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”

According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the “Second Wave”-- planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles."

Anti-waterboarders seem to be more worried about some murderer's feelings getting hurt than they are about their own countrymen getting hurt. You guys are so backwards it just blows my mind.

By the way, if I ever get captured by these guys on their side of the fence, I can only hope that waterboarding is the worst thing I get. Just ask Daniel Pearl.

President Atheist

2009-04-16T18:00:00.000-06:00

Alright, maybe 'atheist' is too strong of a word, but certainly our fearless president isn't as devoted to the Christian religion as he led us to believe during the campaign.

First he goes to Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and doesn't seem to have a problem with what is preached there. That is, until what is preached there finds its way to YouTube and everybody sees the hate speech emanating from the pulpit that Obama chose to attend. So he tosses Wright under the boss and vows to find a new church in D.C.

Then almost 13 months later, our incredibly religious Christian president finally finds the spare time to pick a place to worship his god. But only for Easter - he doesn't plan on continuing his attendance to church.

Obama shills might argue that his refusal to attend church services is due to the fact that the president doesn't have a lot of spare time on Sundays or that the decision about which church to attend is a deeply personal one which requires extra time to decide...

Ah, but what say ye of this:

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week -- Jesus.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

The gold "IHS" monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported.

Maybe I was wrong earlier. Maybe the man is atheist.

Malpractice (UPDATED)

2009-04-16T14:46:00.000-06:00

It just keeps getting better. My post yesterday on Susan Roesgen's shamefully biased CNN coverage of yesterday's tea-parties showcased Roesgen criticizing a man with an Obama/Hitler sign and vehemently checked him by saying that the sign was "offensive" and that the president deserves more respect.

Ah, but apparently President X/Hitler signs are only "offensive" if they make fun of the messianic Obama:

In video posted by Paul Chesser from yesterday's CNN broadcast, Roesgen harassed a man who had a sign in which Obama was portrayed as a fascist with a Hitler mustache. "Why be so hard on the President of the United States though with such an offensive message?" an indignant Roesgen hollered.

Yet back in 2006, when she was covering protests against the Bush administration's response to Katrina, she jokingly referred to this photo of a man wearing a mask with devil horns and a Hitler mustache as a Bush "look-alike."

It's almost like they aren't even trying to hide their bias anymore. Meanwhile the executives at CNN are wondering why they're last place in the ratings.

UPDATE: My brother writes to add another example of the media's hypocritical special treatment of The Leader from butt-boy himself, Keith Olbermann.

In 2006 Olbermann made a special comment on how Bush had killed Habeas Corpus in America, adding that Bush had evily "succeeded where no one has before".

Yet Obama himself plans to violate Habeas Corpus in his dealing with the Somali pirates.

When Bush did it, Olbermann devoted an entire 15-minute special comment on how horrible of a man Bush was for doing so. Who here thinks Olby will do the same for Obama?

Be Afraid of Republicans

2009-04-15T15:04:00.012-06:00

A few days ago the Department of Homeland Security released a report warning the public of the dangers of "right-wing extremists". Pay no attention to the fact that the report fails to list any specific reasons as to why we should be afraid of right-wingers. On the contrary, the report even specifially states "The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence..." Also pay no attention to the fact that this report came from one Janet Napolitano, a woman with a personal vendetta for Republicans. So if you see no bias in a report submitted by a republican-hater which contains no specific evidence about why you need to be afraid of us, then by all means be afraid. Be very afraid.

Meh. I assume that part of that report was making referrence to instances like these tea-parties, for example, currently happening across the fruited plain. Look, if Republicans want to peacefully protest taxes while their government spends themselves into oblivion, that is well within their constitutional rights. In fact, I have yet to see any reports of any damage to personal property caused by a single one of these tea-parties. Nevertheless, this whole thing has been shamefully slanted by the mainstream media. For example, when leftist group ALF released flocks of herds not beloning to them, the media has no problem with it. When leftist group PETA vandalized fur coat stores, the media looked the other way. When leftist group ELF burned down an entire new home development becuase they used wood to build houses, the media barely covered it.

...But when Republicans gather to protest Barack Obama's wasteful spending, and all while he asks for more of the public's money so he can waste it even further, well:

When this country's founders threw the first tea party to protest taxes, it was hailed for years and years as one of the greatest moments in American history. But now when people throw a tea party to protest taxes, media nitwits come out to bash them and label them as unpatriotic. My, how far we've come...

Obama: America Only Gets Mad When I Tell It To

2009-04-06T14:00:00.001-06:00

A Tale of Two Obamas:

Tale #1 - AIG: AIG has contracts to pay $160 million in bonuses. AIG gets stimulus money. Stimulus bill contains text forcing them to pay $160 million in bonuses. AIG pays $160 million in bonuses. Obama call press conference to tell Americans to be outraged over said bonuses. Americans express presidentially mandated outrage.

Tale #2 - Fannie and Freddie: Fannie and Freddie virtually cause the downward spiral of the entire economy. Like AIG, Fannie and Freddie get stimulus money. Fannie and Freddie pay (or are scheduled to pay) $210 million in bonuses - $50 million more than AIG. Obama suspiciously says nothing. Americans express no outrage.

Power Grab

2009-04-06T10:30:00.007-06:00

As if anyone ever needed any more proof that Obama is just using this financial crisis as a means to expand government power, we now have word that Obama is refusing repayment of any TARP money that banks received as part of the stimulus so that he can maintain his power over them. This WSJ editorial sums it up nicely, I think:

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future.

My brother works for Wells Fargo, one of the few banks that specifically told the gov't that they didn't want or need any bailout money as they were doing just fine. What was the government's response to WF? They locked up Wells Fargo's executives in a room and told them they weren't leaving until they agreed to take the money. And now Obama is refusing them the chance to give it back so he can maintain his power over them.

Could it be any more clear how Obama is playing this? After all, Tim Geithner has declared himself Chairman of the Board of every single financial company in America and thinks he now has the power to fire any executive or seize any company he wants to. And as the article notes, surely the auto and health care industries are next. Soon, any doctor or car salesman making over $150,000 a year is going to have their income over that amount taxed at 90%. Don't believe me? Well they already did it to AIG, so what's going to stop them from repeating it in every other industry they're forcing themselves into?

Regift

2009-04-02T15:52:00.008-06:00

Obama already screwed up royally with the Brits once when he decided to gift the PM with a bunch of DVDs that were in the wrong regional format.

Well ol' Barry is back in Britain again for the G20 party, but it looks like he didn't learn his lesson the first time:

President Obama has given the Queen an Ipod during their private meeting at Buckingham Palace. It contains footage of her state visit to the US in May 2007. The Queen has given the president a silver framed photograph of herself and her husband. The official picture is what she gives all visiting dignitaries.

It should also be noted that the ipod was preloaded with a bunch of crappy Obama speeches... Cuz you never know when the Queen of England might get that 2 A.M. hankering to listen to Obama's 2004 speech at the DNC.

P.S. - She already has an ipod.

Fascism

2009-03-31T15:54:00.011-06:00

Too many CodePink hippies toss the word around from time to time. But do you know what the word actually means?

From Webster's:

Fascism - A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation ... above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

But can this term be applied to Obama's America? Lets see:

Centralized autocratic government? Check.

Dictatorial leader? Check.

Severe economic and social regimentation? Checkity check check.

With Obama forcing CEOs to resign, Timothy Geithner wanting the power to seize any company in America, and with Congress now mulling the option of controlling how much each and every employee in America is paid (yes really), we are steamrolling head-on into a socialist/fascist government faster than anyone would have dreamed just 5 short years ago. At this rate, Obama will be declaring himself king and tyrant in 6 months.

Be afraid, people. Be very afraid.

Hillary Clinton is a Retard

2009-03-27T13:52:00.002-06:00

...and yes, thanks to the 1st amendment, I can, in fact, say that.

Anyway, the illegal drug war in Mexico has reached its breaking point. So who does Hillary think is to blame for Mexico's drug problem? Why, America, of course:

The Obama administration wants to crack down on the sale of assault weapons that are arming Mexican drug cartels, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with NBC television.

Clinton late on Wednesday called letting a previous US ban on the sale of assault weapons expire "a mistake."

"I think these assault weapons, these military style weapons, don't belong on anyone's street," said Clinton who pushed for the ban as a New York senator.

Hillary's brain: "I know how to fix the drug problem! Let's make assault weapons illegal. Sure, drug lords have no shame in creating drugs illegally, and then shipping them to America illegally, and some drug lords have no moral objection to even living in America illegally... but I bet that if we make assault weapons illegal, they'll respect that law. Besides, even though they sell contraband on the black market, I bet they don't know how to buy an AK47 on the black market."

FREEEEEDOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

2009-03-27T10:41:00.006-06:00

Great news! Thanks to Obama's rather apparent lack of common sense, terrorists at Club Gitmo could be coming to a neighborhood near you!

President Barack Obama's intelligence chief confirmed Thursday that some Guantanamo inmates may be released on US soil and receive assistance to return to society.

"If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort of assistance for them to start a new life," said National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair at his first press conference...

Obama has vowed to close the controversial prison camp by next January and has ordered individual reviews for cases against each of the over 240 remaining prisoners...

The Obama administration is currently evaluating what could be done with the prisoners, he said, but pledged that if they are sent to another country, "we have to be sure that that country will treat them in a humane fashion."

Well isn't that just lovely. Many of these men were directly involved in plots to attack the United States and many more were caught conspiring against the U.S. So what better way to keep America safe than by releasing these men freely onto American soil in the interests of political correctness? After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Oh and by the way, to help fund their newly found freedom, your president wants to give them your tax money in the form of welfare. Awesome! Pray they don't use it to buy fertilizer and diesel fuel.

Punishment for Thee, But Not For Me

2009-03-26T19:25:00.003-06:00

When AIG received the full blunt of the Obama administration last week, many in Barry's own cabinet demanded that the execs return the money. The outcry has since reached the point of calling for a return on any "bonus" received by any bailed-out company.

Ah, but how about now Rahm?

Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.

One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was Chicago's Rahm Emanuel—now chief of staff to President Barack Obama—who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.

I wouldn't expect ol' Rahmy to return the money any time soon.

Blame Game

2009-03-25T19:02:00.006-06:00

Last night in his address, Barack Obama lied to the American public about how he "inherited" this out-of-control deficit.

Read it and weep, jerk. The figues don't lie:

Emulation

2009-03-25T17:22:00.004-06:00

The following speech was given by British MEP Daniel Hannan to his own country's prime minister yesterday, but I feel safe in saying that 99% of what is said here could be applied to Obama and his cabinet as well:

Help Wanted

2009-03-24T14:00:00.002-06:00

While millions of unemployed Americans are looking for new work, the Treasury Dept has a huge 'help wanted' sign in their window. After promising to execute better fiscal reform in Washington and committing to hold regulatory meetings in the Treasury each month, as of last night Barack Obama has still failed to fill 17 out of the 18 positions at the Treasury - and the only man seated there is currently being called upon from both sides to resign. If that alone doesn't speak leaps and bounds as to how much Barack Obama is in over his head with this financial crisis, then I don't know what does.

Power Grab

2009-03-24T12:19:00.003-06:00

Obama just keeps inching more and more towards that slippery slope:

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Fantastic. Obama wants to power to seize any company in America that he deems as an "unsuccessful" company. How can anybody not see about a dozen problems with that statement?

Heck, why stop with financial companies, Barry? Why not start seizing the assets of each and every one of the millions of Americans working at those companies? And then why not take it a step further by seizing all of the earnings of small businesses making over $200,000/yr? After all, that is your ultimate plan, isn't it?.. To take from the wealthy and redistribute it to the lazy. Why not just get it all over with in one fell swoop instead of trying to be sneaky about it?

Pants on Fire

2009-03-23T16:42:00.002-06:00

Damning evidence, indeed.

Pair the clip above with the WSJ's article on how Geithner's crew has been working with AIG on the bonuses for months, and you've got a president caught in a lie big enough to make Pinocchio ashamed. Obama claimed a week ago today that he and his cronies in Washington had no clue about the bonuses until after they were paid. Hey Barry, check the timestamp on the video above - it's Dec. 30, 2008 which was several months before AIG ever paid them. You still holding to the story that your cabinet didn't know about them?

Now That's Bipartisanship!

2009-03-23T14:52:00.003-06:00

Didn't Barack Obama promise during his campaign that he would end this kind of stuff in Washington:

Senior members of the Obama administration are pressing lawmakers to use a shortcut to drive the president's signature initiatives on health care and energy through Congress without Republican votes, a move that many lawmakers say would fly in the face of President Obama's pledge to restore bipartisanship to Washington...

"That would be the Chicago approach to governing: Strong-arm it through," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), .. "You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River."

The shortcut, known as "budget reconciliation," would allow Obama's health and energy proposals to be rolled into a bill that cannot be filibustered, meaning Democrats could push it through the Senate with 51 votes, instead of the usual 60. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both used the tactic to win deficit-reduction packages, while George W. Bush used it to push through his signature tax cuts.

While the last sentence of the article suggests that this isn't the first time this tactic has been used by a president, it is, however, the first time that it has been used by a president who promised not to use it and even dedicated a portion of his biography to condemning the practice.

I'm now accepting everyone's guesses on how many more of his promises Barack Obama will break during his first 100 days.

Dude

2009-03-20T11:33:00.004-06:00

Remember that blissful time just a few short months ago when $800 billion seemed like an insane amount of money for government to spend.

Wow:

President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.

The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget.

As I pointed out yesterday, the total amount of debt accumulated by this country from George Washington's days til the end of W's era totaled a staggering $10.7 trillion. Now Obama plans to double our entire 225+ years' worth of debt in just 8 short years.

Hope your great-great-grandkids enjoy paying for Obama's out of control spending.

Chaos

2009-03-19T14:30:00.011-06:00

When Bush handed the reigns to King Obama the national debt totaled about $10.7 trillion. Keep in mind that that's the entire amount of debt we have accumulated from the time George Washington ran the show all the way up until D-Day when Rookie-in-Chief Obama took over.

And in 8 short weeks, Obama has spent the following:

$1.2 trillion (including interest) on his pork-laden spending bill

$1.5 trillion to implement his universal health care reform

$2 trillion on new cap-and-trade regulation

$1 trillion created out of "thin air" to purchase Treasury bonds and mortgage securities

TOTAL SPENT IN 8 SHORT WEEKS: $5.7 trillion - more than half of the total debt accumulated in the first 225+ years of this country's existence

So I ask: Why then is Congress and the White House freaking out about a measly $160 million in bonuses (which they all authorized) - only 0.0028% of the total amount spent by Barack Obama to date on complete crap?

Answer: Because it is a populist technique designed to make a crappy administration look good in the eyes of the uninformed American public.

Sure, the AIG guys probably don't need the extra cash and shame on them for taking my tax dollars as a bonus, but there's a bigger point that people are missing here. We have reached a terrifying new era in American politics. That is, to punish people after the fact for an act which was 100% legal and authorized by the government when it was committed.

Imagine you are driving down the freeway today at the correct speed of 65 MPH. Now imagine that three years from now Congress decides that the new speed limit is 55 MPH. So they go knock on your door and try to issue you a ticket for speeding that same three years ago. You argue that when you were driving 65 MPH three years ago it was perfectly legal. They reply that that may be true, but now they like lower speed limits and want to exercise ex post facto and punish you anyway.

That is EXACTLY what is happening here. And once this is done, what's to stop them for punishing gun owners who legally purchased firearms in years past? Or folks whose great-great-great-grandaddy was slave owner?

Semi-related exit thought: It's nice to know that, while the economy is collapsing all around us, Barack Obama still has time to pick his NCAA bracket and go showboating on Jay Leno. Way to prioritize there, Chief.

PS - Did you know that Fannie and Freddie execs get big-time bonuses too? Where's your outrage over that, Obama?

Promises Made, Promises Broken

2009-03-18T18:30:00.002-06:00

Obama, February 12, 2009, while digging to find any possible reason he could to implement his ridiculous spending bill:

Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off.

Caterpillar, March 17, 2009:

Caterpillar to lay off 2,454 workers in 3 states

Remember, Obama: Underpromise, overdeliver.

Pelosi = Traitor

2009-03-18T15:30:00.000-06:00

This is from the woman running Congress and who is currently 3rd in line from the Oval Office

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants and their families that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced, is "un-American."

The speaker, condemning raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, referred to the immigrants she was addressing as "very, very patriotic."

"Who in this country would not want to change a policy of kicking in doors in the middle of the night and sending a parent away from their families?" Pelosi told a mostly Hispanic gathering at St. Anthony's Church in San Francisco.

"It must be stopped....What value system is that? I think it's un-American. I think it's un-American."

I'm just curious, Nancy... Since when did enforcing America's laws become "un-American"

Obama = Greenie

2009-03-18T12:03:00.005-06:00

This guy has no clue what he's doing:

For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG...

"It's shocking that they would -- the administration would come to us now and act surprised about these contracts," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate GOP leader. "This administration could have and should have ... prevented this from happening. They had a lot of leverage two weeks ago."

That would be when the Treasury Department decided to make an additional $30 billion available to American International Group Inc., the huge insurance conglomerate deemed too big to fail by two administrations....

Allow me to sum up the AIG timeline for you:

1) AIG needs money

2) AIG is granted money in the stimulus bills

3) AIG has contractual obligations to pay the bonuses

4) Chris Dodd adds amendments to the bills that allow AIG executives to pay bonuses through Feb 2009

5) Obama and the Democrats in Congress (along with a few RINOs) pass the bill without even reading it, thereby missing the loophole allowing for the bonuses

6) White House press secretary Robert Gibb's tells America it "knows where the AIG bailout billions are going" and not to worry because it is on top of it all

7) AIG pays the bonuses that it was contractually bound to do and that the White House said it (supposedly) knew about

8) Obama gets mad that AIG pays the bonuses even though the bill that explicitly allows them to do so has his signature on it (again, this is what happens when he signs the bill without even reading it)

9) Obama goes out on Monday and hammers AIG in populist rhetoric while praising the new CEO (who just happens to be the guy authorizing the bonuses, might I add)

10) The White House is then forced to crawl back into its gopher hole when it realizes that it knew about the bonuses all along and had the ability to stop them, but chose not to

11) Obama and cronies try to find a way to take the money back in the form of massive taxes

12) (This step hasn't occurred yet, but will) Obama will be challenged by the United States Supreme Court for his unconstitutional taxes employed to recoup some of the bonus money that, again, HE AUTHORIZED WITH HIS SIGNATURE TO BEGIN WITH!

Like others, I myself am beginning to seriously question the competency of Obama and his cabinet.

Complete Ineptitude

2009-03-16T13:03:00.008-06:00

Even the more leftist Obama shills are starting to figure it out...

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, “Do you think they know what they’re doing?”

The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Yes, it’s early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It’s a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House.

I'm stumped. People are just now starting to realize that electing a guy with no executive, economic, or business experience and an ultra-thin resume in the middle of a tough recession might have been a bad idea?

Note to Obama: The polls don't lie, champ. You're approval ratings are now lower than public hero George Bush's were at this point. Good luck with that.

More Bad News for Al Gore

2009-03-14T12:16:00.000-06:00

Remember in 2005 when Al Gore boldly declared that, because of global warming, hurricanes would be so common and severe that people in Colorado would have to seek shelter from them?

Ahem:

Tropical cyclone (TC) activity worldwide has completely and utterly collapsed during the past 2 to 3 years with TC energy levels sinking to levels not seen since the late 1970s.

Add to this the fact that global warming skepticism in America has now reached an all-time high and that Discovery.com now even thinks that global warming is "on hold", and you have a perfect trifecta devastating enough to make Al Gore crawl into the fetal position on the floor of his incredibly energy-inefficient home.

ACLU Hard at Work Again

2009-03-13T15:55:00.006-06:00

Our friends at the ACLU (you know, the same people who provide legal help to suspected terrorists and want to grant the rights to Code Pink to protest veterans' funerals) have outdone themselves yet again with this latest embarrassment of a fiasco aimed at your children. A district in California has made it illegal for children to leave school for medical treatment without notifying parents. But the ACLU aims to reverse that, while slipping in a little something extra of their own:

The ACLU is threatening to sue a California school district after it changed a policy to require teenagers get parental consent to leave campus for confidential medical services.

The Vista Unified School District board voted unanimously Thursday to change its existing policy that allowed students to be excused for confidential appointments — including abortions — without notifying parents, according to the North County Times.

The government already provides condoms and sex ed training in schools, making the process now complete, and all thanks to the great efforts of the ACLU. Your kids can now get condoms and sex ed training in 1st period health, leave campus during lunch, and get a abortion during 6th period gym - and all without having to notify parents. How efficient!

Of Course!

2009-03-13T10:29:00.006-06:00

To anyone out there who wants more evidence that Obama is the most backwards man to run this country, here's a cold splash of water for your weekend:

President Obama has just released the name of his pick to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division. Who is it? John Walker Lindh's defense attorney - the same John Walker Lindh who trained and ultimately became a member of the Afghan Taliban and even sat at the feet of Osama Bin Laden himself.

So there you go. The lawyer who defended a member of the Osama Bin Laden's Taliban is now Obama's pick to work for justice in America. My, how far we've come since 9/11.

Schadenfreude

2009-03-13T09:59:00.007-06:00

Headline of the Day: Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth

Heh. Maybe it's because, instead of fixing the economy, he's decided to spend his valuable time coordinating attacks on Rush Limbaugh, holding important meetings on how to keep up appearances with the local glitterati, insulting our strongest ally, shafting our veterans, and trying to use this economic crisis as an excuse to pass his radical agenda that is, in fact, hurting the market more than helping it. The DOW has sunk as much as 15% under his watch - a travesty that the majority of economists have attributed directly to his implemented policies.

Don't consider me to be surprised here. I knew this was gonna happen. In fact, most out there who voted against Obama knew this was gonna happen too. Only now are large numbers of Obama supporters beginning to feel some buyer's remorse for their November ballot cast proudly for The One on his empty promises of hope and change.

Friday morning tip to Obama: My father used to always tell me "Underpromise, overdeliver." And yet, Obama, you have instead decided to do the exact opposite thereby alienating both your wavering democratic base and frustrated republicans across the board. Well played, sir.

Backpedal

2009-03-12T21:51:00.000-06:00

Fearless champion of liberty and financial freedom Barack Obama has spent the last 6 weeks of his incredibly productive presidency declaring from the rooftops the impending doom of the next depression that is surely right around the corner.

...Except today:

Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is "not as bad as we think" and his plans will speed recovery.

What is this guy smoking? I want some.

More Priorities

2009-03-12T14:50:00.003-06:00

I already hammered Obama once for his apathetic response towards the rotten markets by choosing to host White House meetings on how to attack Rush Limbaugh instead of how to attack the economy?

But alas, The Leader has outdone himself yet again with this latest act guaranteed to get blood shooting from your eyes:

While publicly identifying with the nation's have-nots, the Obama administration has been quietly cultivating the Beltway social elite behind the scenes.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration invited top editors of Washington's three local luxury lifestyle magazines, Capitol File, DC Magazine and Washington Life to a meeting where, among other things, they discussed how the President and first lady can embrace Washington's glittery social scene...

The outreach to the luxury lifestyle glossies, which cater to the region's highest socioeconomic strata with knowing coverage of everything from the choicest real estate and most exclusive parties to the plushest resorts and spas, is not the only recent evidence that the Obama administration is eager to forge ties with the nation's social and style arbiters.

This man is on a light-speed path to epic failure, and we're in the backseat with him. If the economy was tanking and President Bush, instead of tackling to issues of real priority like this coming year's almost $2 trillion deficit, was hosting meeting after meeting and party after party to practice his skills on blinging with the local glitterati, Keith Olbermann would be breathing into a paper bag.

Obama Gets an F

2009-03-12T12:17:00.009-06:00

...And it may not be his first seeing as he is still refusing to show us his grades from his Ivy League education he keep flaunting. Bush showed us his, after all...

Anyway, the WSJ has released their poll on Obama's handling of the economy. It should be added, for whatever extra gravitas, that this wasn't some bunk poll of random, uninformed Americans. This poll asked only economists how Obama stacks up. Their response:

U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey...

[E]conomists’ main criticism of the Obama team centered on delays in enacting key parts of plans to rescue banks. “They overpromised and underdelivered,” said Stephen Stanley of RBS Greenwich Capital. “Secretary Geithner scheduled a big speech and came out with just a vague blueprint. The uncertainty is hanging over everyone’s head.”...

The economists’ negative ratings mark a turnaround in opinion. In December, before Mr. Obama took office, three-quarters of respondents said the incoming administration’s economic team was better than the departing Bush team. However, Mr. Geithner’s latest marks are lower than the average grade of 57 that former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson received in January.

No shock here. I mean, for heaven's sake, President Obama, the man that is calling the shots on how to fix the markets and economy, thinks that a P/E ratio is a "profits and earnings" ratio... a ratio that doesn't even exist! How is that supposed to build confidence in the markets? Clearly this guy is a total financial novice!

Sure, this all started under Bush's watch, but Obama is prolonging this recession by trying to simultaneously implement his radical agenda. For example: Obama was championing health care reform a full year before this recession even started. Why then is he including health care reform as a "necessary" component of his economic recovery plan when health care had nothing to do with the recession to being with? Clearly he's using this crisis as a means to bring about his own "social engineering". After all, didn't his own chief of staff admit to that?

Look, Obama, if you want to pass you ultra-radical policies (what you and your followers call "change") then that is in your authority. But please, for the love of everything that is good and holy, PLEASE wait until this crisis is over before you start piling more weight on the economy's back with your policies.

Shafted

2009-03-12T11:28:00.005-06:00

What does Obama's cabinet think the best way is to reward our troops for their sacrifice to this country?

Answer: Make them pay for their own injuries:

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance...

No official proposal to create such a program has been announced publicly, but veterans groups wrote a pre-emptive letter last week to President Obama voicing their opposition to the idea after hearing the plan was under consideration.

The groups also cited an increase in "third-party collections" estimated in the 2010 budget proposal -- something they said could be achieved only if the Veterans Administration started billing for service-related injuries.

Asked about the proposal, Shinseki said it was under "consideration."

"A final decision hasn't been made yet," he said.

Ed at HA makes a great point: The same government that had no problem giving $100 million to research lead-based paint or $400 million to STD research or $600 million to refurnish government offices or who knows how much money to AIG and to "rebuild" Gaza, now wants veterans injured in the service of their country to pay for their own battle-related injuries??

Is it even physically possible for Obama's cabinet to be any more backwards lately? Obama keeps this garbage up and 2012 will be a walk in the park.

Duplicity

2009-03-11T16:43:00.005-06:00

September 11, 2001 (Just minutes before the attack occurred): James Carville, Democratic Strategist - “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.” (regarding President Bush)

Media Outrage: None

August 9, 2006: Fox News Poll asking Democrats "would you say you
want President Bush to succeed or not?" wherein 51% of Democrats said "No."

Media Outrage: None

January 25, 2009: Rush Limbaugh - "I hope he fails." (regarding President Obama)

Media Outrage: Plentiful. In fact, it was the number 2 news story in America last week (beaten out only by the economy) with pundits, politicians, and punks alike calling for everything from a ban on Limbaugh, to the revocation of his radio license, and all the way to calls for him to be hanged for treason. An effort that the White House admits was both coordinated and "explicitly authorized" within its walls by Obama's advisers.

Egregious double-standard anyone?

More Stimulus?

2009-03-10T15:10:00.005-06:00

Such are the words of Queen Pelosi and crew, who seem to be having plenty of fun spending your grandchildren's money these days:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she is open to introducing a second stimulus bill, but it's too early to determine the size of such a package and the timing on another major economic measure.

“We have to keep the door open to see how it goes,” Pelosi told reporters Tuesday following a House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing on the economy...

“We hope it will be sooner rather than later that [the stimulus] catches fire in Washington, D.C.

I'm confused. I remember Washington promising us that the first TARP bill would save the economy. Then we were promised the second bill would fix everything. Now we need a third? When are these guys going to stop? Stimulus #9?

As I've already noted, the numbers from this recession mirror those of the 1981 recession that Jimmy Carter left as a parting gift to Reagan. And yet, somehow, we didn't need oodles of spending bills to pull us out back then. Why then do the Dems in Congress need a new weekly stimulus bill paid for by my great-great-great grandkids before they are satisfied?

Insult, or Just Plain Incompetence?

2009-03-05T13:56:00.002-07:00

Often times when high-level international government officials meet for the first time, they exchange gifts. For example, when Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently visited Washington, he gave President Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet - once called HMS President. The gift holds significant meaning as the timbers come from the sister ship of the HMS Resolute - the same HMS Resolute whose remnants became the Resolute desk which serves as the president's personal desk in the oval office - yet another gift from the Brits.

So what thoughtful gift did President Obama give to Gordon Brown on his trip to Britain? A 25 pack of DVDs. And not even Blu-Ray for that matter:

For despite being leader of the world's most bountiful nation, President Obama handed over nothing more thought-provoking than 25 classic American films on DVD.

It was the equivalent of receiving a pair of socks from an unfamiliar aunt at Christmas - and a less-than-glowing affirmation of the UK-US bond

Despite being a 'special collector's box set', any film buff could have picked up the movies from their local video store for just £250.

It is not clear what the Prime Minister - not believed to a great fan of cinema - thought about receiving the films.

What a slap in the face to our strongest world ally. And to top it all off, I bet Obama doesn't even know that they probably weren't even for the right DVD region, meaning PM Brown wouldn't even be able to watch them in the UK.

Well, maybe Michelle Obama did better with her gifts to the Brown's children

Mr Brown and his wife also showered gifts on the Obama children giving Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children's books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

In return, the Obamas gave the Browns two models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, to take home to sons Fraser and John.

A couple of plastic replicas of the presidential helicopter? I'm a poor college student and even I get my kids better gifts than that! Way to go family Obama.

Priorities

2009-03-04T16:26:00.005-07:00

Wall Street is in shambles. Retirement funds are all but gone. And there's some talk that a full-blown depression may be around the corner.

So what's your courageous president up to these days:

Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House.

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville [as well as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who is listed later in the story - ed.] included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.

Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

The markets have lost almost 20% of their value since Obama took over (with much of that loss being directly attributed to his implemented policies). But instead of working on real issues of merit, we are now learning that the White House is the one leading the charge on the recent vicious attack on Rush Limbaugh. The story linked above details how White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was even conducting conference calls from the White House to discuss with democratic strategists on how to successfully attack Limbaugh.

How in the world is this "the change we can believe in" Mr Obama? You promised us real leadership and change over how politics is done in Washington. And many in America believed you. But instead, you've shamelessly become the very type of attack machine you promised to abolish. For heaven's sake, we are in a serious financial crisis!! And yet your only top priority right now is to bash conservative talk-show hosts?

Headline of the Day

2009-03-04T11:21:00.003-07:00

Via Discovery.com:

Global Warming: On Hold?

Hey geniuses, if you're running stories about how global warming is on hold, there's obvisously no more global warming, is there?...

How Did This Happen

2009-02-28T10:51:00.004-07:00

How did we go from this:

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association — the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

- Thomas Jefferson

... to this:

Super Awesome Fun Weekend Facts

2009-02-28T09:53:00.008-07:00

The amount of increased debt to pay for the Democrat spending in just the last month is the same amount of debt incurred over two whole centuries by the U.S. government from 1789-1978 (just 30 years ago)

The Bush era increased debt $4.9 Trillion over 8 years. Obama's budget increases debt $5.6 Trillion in just 3 years

Democrats have complained amount all the money Bush spent on Iraq in his 8 years ($600 billion to date). Obama spent triple that amount in his first 4 weeks, and plans to spend a whopping 6x the entire cost of the Iraq war on just his 2010 budget

As of this morning, if you include only his stimulus and his 2010 budget, Obama has spent $78 million per minute since taking office

Wiping Now Causing Global Warming

2009-02-27T12:31:00.003-07:00

These people are morons:

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

"This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.

"Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution."

This has gone so far that these people have actually invented reusable toilet paper...

Hey guys, last time I checked trees were a renewable resource. Let us use the bathroom in peace!

Fun Fact of the Day

2009-02-26T16:50:00.004-07:00

Did know that Obama's 2010 budget will cost each United States taxpayer $25,573?

And since scientists haven't figured out a way to make money grow on trees yet, you do know that you're gonna have to pay that $25 grand sometime, right?

Cult of Obama

2009-02-26T16:36:00.004-07:00

From a parade in Germany. Do take note of the halo over his head (Photo Credit: AP)

A little over the top considering Obama hasn't even done anything worth noting while serving as POTUS (except watching the DOW shed another 1,000 points since Inauguration Day).

WSJ: Taxing Rich Won't Be Enough

2009-02-26T09:23:00.002-07:00

Duh.

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

Nothing shocking here. Back of the envelope math from the WSJ figures that even if Obama confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 per year, it would still only yield enough to cover a measly one-third of what Obama plans to spend next year alone.

Of course the rich won't be able to pick up the tab for everyone else. Only in Obama's magical fairy land will he be able to tax only the rich, cut the deficit by 1/2, and still have enough pocket change to spend the $4 trillion he wants for his 2010 budget. Obama knows this, but instead of being up front about it, he is trying to buy time before he finally admits to your face that your taxes are headed for top of Mt. Everest to cover all his special projects that are, somehow, supposed to be puting money back into our pockets.

As we've already pointed out ad nauseam, there is no way Barack can keep this up without raising taxes on everybody - including the middle and lower classes. In fact, with the Bush tax cuts ready to expire and with Obama vowing to not renew them, we're all going to see Obama's promise of not seeing our taxes go up "one single dime" be broken. *Sigh* What's one more broken promise...

New York Times Sums It Up

2009-02-25T19:54:00.003-07:00

How can Obama spend trillions of dollars on endless stimulus packages while simultaneously promising to cut the federal deficit by 1/2?

Answer: Magic!... or he'll just break another promise:

Your taxes are going up. They will probably go up in the coming decade, and the increase will be permanent.

So It Begins... (UPDATED)

2009-02-25T15:35:00.005-07:00

Uh oh:

President Barack Obama's first budget will seek $634 billion over 10 years as a down payment on health care reform, a senior administration official said Wednesday. The official said Obama's proposal is meant to start a dialogue with Congress over how to provide coverage for an estimated 48 million uninsured while also slowing health care costs, which amount to $2.4 trillion a year and keep rising even as the economy is shrinking.

A lot of people have asked me why I decided to no longer attend medical school. Here's part of your answer. 48 million Americans are about to get their health care paid for by you. If you remember, 2/3 of that 48 million already has access to health care, but is too lazy to pay for it themselves. With another 48 million having the government pay the bill for them, you may now happily expect to wake up at 0-dark-30 to visit your doctor from here on out if you wish to avoid the long lines.

Government beaurocracy is what ruined Medicare and Medicaid. But for some reason Barry O thinks it's gonna work out just dandy this time. Does this guy ever read a history book?

UPDATE: Another reason I feel bad for my friends in the medical field:

Obama would pay for the expansion by trimming tax breaks for the wealthy and tightening payments to insurers, hospitals and physicians, according to a senior administration official.

Giving less money to doctors and hospitals is supposed to make health care better?

Fair and Balanced

2009-02-25T10:28:00.002-07:00

I thought Matthews and Olbermann were dropped from anchoring news events after their shamefully biased fawning commentary from Obama's DNC speech.

But alas, McDewey and McDuff are back in the anchor chair giving you more of the unbiased news you've come to expect from MSNBC:

In case you missed it, either Olbermann or Matthews sighs out an "Oh God" when Jindal hits the stage, followed by laughter from the stage crew.

Look, if you guys wanna disagree with Republicans on policy that's fine. But as head anchors from one of the largest news outlets in the entire country, you should exercise more self-control in instances like this.

MSNBC: The Fox News of the Democratic party.

Blast From the Past

2009-02-24T23:59:00.005-07:00

Just when you thought the media couldn't possibly squeeze any further into the tank for Obama, we get succulent articles such as this:

Standing before a nation on an economic precipice, President Barack Obama aimed to balance candor with can-do Tuesday night in his first address to a joint session of Congress. Millions more anxious Americans were tuning in on TV.

Obama was arguing that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for—even demands—a broader agenda including dramatic increases in health care coverage and wiser, "greener" fuel use. He was addressing an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as worried viewers at home.

Nothing interesting here... except for the fact that this article which specifically details how exquisitely Obama addressed the nation on Tuesday night was written almost 6 HOURS before Obama even gave his speech.

If the media swoons over his words before the man even speaks, then all hope is lost my friends.

DOW(n)

2009-02-23T17:35:00.004-07:00

The DOW sure loves Washington's bailout plan that's supposed to save Wall Street:

Now More Than Ever

2009-02-23T12:01:00.002-07:00

Here's a quote my father forwarded along regarding the government's new welfare policies:

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

- Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005

Fuzzy Math

2009-02-21T11:02:00.004-07:00

Today Barack Obama began his pledge to give tax breaks to 95% of all Americans:

President Barack Obama ordered the U.S. Treasury on Saturday to implement tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans, fulfilling a campaign pledge he hopes will help jolt the economy out of recession.

I may not be a Harvard grad like President Obama, but at least I can tell that it's impossible to give 95% of Americans tax cuts when almost 40% already don't pay any taxes at all (and a large part of that 40% goes exempt on their payroll status, making it impossible for them to pay less in their paycheck each week as Obama claims).

Obama's policies sound good on paper, but in reality are statistically impossible to implement. He should be held more accountable for lies like this.

Thanks Barack

2009-02-20T10:57:00.004-07:00

It's been about a week now since Obama's massive spending bill that was "going to save the economy" was passed.

Let's see how that's been going:

Nothing like a 6-year low for the DOW to start off a great weekend. Thanks Barack. My 401K thanks you for your awesome plan.

No, The Polar Ice Caps Aren't Melting

2009-02-19T16:42:00.004-07:00

Awesome:

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice-free, open ocean.

The more stories like this come out, the less I see of Al Gore. Wonder why that is...

Revolution

2009-02-19T10:59:00.008-07:00

In a post I wrote the other day about the economy, I originally used the phrase 'revolution is coming' before re-wording it as I thought the that phrase was a little too strong.

Dude. I should’ve left it in:

Rick Santelli on CNBC nails it here, while capturing the mood most of us Americans are feeling right now about President Obama’s plan to bail out those who aren’t keeping up on their mortgages, while making us who did it right the first time pay for it. My favorite quotes from this awesomely awesome rant of all rants:

“The government is promoting bad behavior… Let’s put up a website to have people vote [to see] if we wanna subsidize the losers’ mortgages... We need to reward the people carrying the water instead of those drinking the water. (Cheering in background on Chicago trading floor)… How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? (Boos in background on trading floor.) President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages? It’s a moral hazard.”

Kids, the revolution has begun and a new tea party is on our horizon. It was only a matter of time before Americans started exercising their own voices of frustration on Obama’s welfare policies instead of letting the media dictate, whether accurately or not, their voices for them. Obama seems to think that all Americans are in love with him and his ultra-liberal welfare policies to help those too lazy to help themselves. But he seems to have already forgotten that 46% of us voted for the other guy.

Here are the facts: 93.7% of mortgages are paid on time and only 2% are in foreclosure as we speak. But now Obama wants to reward the 2% while shafting the rest of us who did it right the first time. Why should I, the guy who took on a mortgage he knew he could afford, have to pay the tab for a guy who, even though he knew the terms of his adjustable loan, still foolishly chose to bite off more than he could chew?

It’s becoming ever more apparent that Obama doesn’t care about the majority of us who do the right thing every morning. Instead he chooses to reward the slackers, the whiners, the complainers, and the outspoken minorities... and people are starting to get fed up with it. If he doesn’t start listening to our voices, and listening now, he may find many Americans storming Washington sooner than he thinks.

Hypocrisy 101

2009-02-18T16:34:00.004-07:00

Today President Obama told Americans while unveiling his mortgage plan that "all of us must learn to live within our means again."

Correct me if I'm wrong, Barack, but didn't you guys just pass the most expensive piece of legislation in American history? A bill so expensive that we have to loan/print the money just to pay for it all? Would you like to explain to the American public why "we need to live within our means" while you guys in Washington get to go out and do the exact opposite while blowing all of my grandchildren's money on your pork barrel projects?

Way to lead by example.

Great Depression? Not So Much

2009-02-17T16:28:00.004-07:00

Democratic politicians, including President Obama himself, have tried to scare us into accepting their will by constantly comparing this crisis to the one of the 1930s. Well economics professor Brad Schiller has a nice piece in The Wall Street Journal on the true comparison between what's happening in the economy now, and what was happening in the 1930s:

This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That's a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost -- fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.

Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82.

This was reflected in unemployment rates. The latest survey pegs U.S. unemployment at 7.6%. That's more than three percentage points below the 1982 peak (10.8%) and not even a third of the peak in 1932 (25.2%). You simply can't equate 7.6% unemployment with the Great Depression.

Other economic statistics also dispel any analogy between today's economic woes and the Great Depression. Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose in 2008, despite a bad fourth quarter. The Congressional Budget Office projects a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. That's comparable to 1982, when GDP contracted by 1.9%. It is nothing like 1930, when GDP fell by 9%, or 1931, when GDP contracted by another 8%, or 1932, when it fell yet another 13%.

Auto production last year declined by roughly 25%. That looks good compared to 1932, when production shriveled by 90%. The failure of a couple of dozen banks in 2008 just doesn't compare to over 10,000 bank failures in 1933, or even the 3,000-plus bank (Savings & Loan) failures in 1987-88. Stockholders can take some solace from the fact that the recent stock market debacle doesn't come close to the 90% devaluation of the early 1930s.

I don't remember trillions of dollars worth of stimulus packages in the 1980s, and yet somehow we bounced back strong in the 1990s. So why do we need such packages now?

In his acceptance speech, Barack Obama told Americans they had "chosen hope over fear"... and then he proceeded to use nothing but fear to get his ugly ~~stimulus~~ welfare bill passed.

Whatever happened to the "change we can believe in" Mr. Obama?

Urgency? What Urgency?...

2009-02-15T13:42:00.006-07:00

Remember Barack Obama telling America how urgent it was that we pass this thing, with members of Obama's cabinet claiming we were within "mere days" of complete collapse?..

Ahem:

After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway.

Obama arrived at his home in Chicago on Friday, and treated wife Michelle to a Valentine's Day dinner downtown last night. The couple was spotted leaving upscale Table Fifty-Two, which specializes in Southern cuisine, with the first lady toting what appeared to be a doggie bag.

The president plans to spend the Presidents' Day weekend in the Windy City, and is not expected to sign the bill until Tuesday, when he travels to Denver to discuss his economic plan.

We just got played by our own government. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid told America that this bill was so immediately needed that they ended up forcing Congress to vote on it without even reading it because time was so vital. But now that they got what they wanted, they can take all the time they need to finalize they bill that they obviously falsely claimed was necessary to prevent the "immediate collapse" of our entire economy.

Any honest liberal who claims that Bush used fear-mongering tactics to prematurely rush us into Iraq would only be honest to admit that Obama and cronies have used the exact same tactics to push this travesty of a bill through.

Speaking of honesty, how "urgent" does Obama really think this crisis is if he has enough time to take a long weekend off dining at fancy restaurants before getting around to it?

Armageddon

2009-02-13T22:58:00.003-07:00

And with that, the Senate finalizes the most expensive bill in American history, loaded with enough pork to warrant a PETA ad.

Hope everybody enjoys paying 80% taxes in 2020 when the $790 billion bill is due.

Will Stimulus Work: Economists Say No

2009-02-13T14:50:00.003-07:00

Good thing the House just passed it, huh:

Will the stimulus actually stimulate? Economists say no...

The compromise economic stimulus plan agreed to by negotiators from the House of Representatives and the Senate is short on incentives to get consumers spending again and long on social goals that won't stimulate economic activity, according to a range of respected economists.

"I think (doing) nothing would have been better," said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who's usually an optimist..."

I refer back to what I said a few days ago, Obama and Pelosi (two people with minimal to no business experience) are telling you this will work. Economists keep saying it won't. Who are you going to believe?

House Passes Spending Bill

2009-02-13T13:29:00.002-07:00

Just in. And without a single Republican vote. If it fails, Democrats won't get to play the "blame Bush" game any longer. This bill is completely the Democrats' baby, now.

What's In the Stimulus? (UPDATED)

2009-02-13T11:29:00.012-07:00

...Answer: Nobody knows.

Via Drudge, the bill has now ballooned to 1,071 pages and Nancy Pelosi is forcing the House to vote on it quickly, without the chance to read it so that she can catch her flight for an 8-day trip to Europe.

A very frightening problem lies here, folks: Democrats promised to post the bill on the internet for 48 hours before Congress voted on it so that everybody would have a proper chance to see what was in it. The are now breaking this promise. Why would they do that? Obviously they're trying to hide something by refusing to post it on the net and then forcing the House to vote on it without seeing what's even in it. I mean, for all we know there could be text in the bill declaring Obama as king and tyrant over America forever - and we wouldn't even know it. So now your Congress is going to blindly vote on the most expensive piece of legislation in American history while, as one Congressman puts it, "casting our votes with one hand and crossing our fingers with the other.”

And all on Friday the 13th. Be afraid, people. Be very afraid.

UPDATE: Looks like lobbyists were getting copies of the bill before congressional leaders even did. Good to hear that Washington has its priorities straight.

Coward-in-Chief

2009-02-12T13:05:00.003-07:00

Remember when President Obama pledged openness to the American public?

Ahem...

[During] President Obama's press conference Monday night, The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.

Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors.

Backdoor deals in the stimulus, cameras (and Republicans) not allowed into closed-door negotiations regarding your tax money, failure to disclose all of the details to the American public, and a president who's so scared to answer honest questions about the stimulus bill that he has to pre-screen reporters.

That's the "change" you were excited for, America. But remember, there is such a thing as change for the worse. And you voted for it.

Now That's Stimulus!

2009-02-12T12:05:00.003-07:00

Some argue that tax cuts are better for boosting a sour economy. Others say reasonable, focused government spending is more effective. I say why not do both.

That being said, we already know the government has pledged a trillion bucks for the latter, but how much in tax cuts can American workers expect with this stimulus package:

The $500-per-worker credit for lower- and middle-income taxpayers that Obama outlined during his presidential campaign was scaled back to $400 during bargaining by the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House. Couples would receive $800 instead of $1,000. Over two years, that move would pump about $25 billion less into the economy than had been previously planned.

Officials estimated it would mean about $13 a week more in people's paychecks this year when withholding tables are adjusted in late spring. Next year, the measure could yield workers about $8 a week. Critics say that's unlikely to do much to boost consumption.

A whopping $13 a week?! Thanks, Washington. That's sure to boost the economy.

AP Covers For Obama Yet Again

2009-02-11T16:15:00.005-07:00

Top headline at Yahoo News right now: "Wall Street rebounds as lawmakers agree on stimulus plan"

...and the chewy center inside the article itself:

Investors shuttled between optimism and pessimism Wednesday, finally betting that the government might help the economy out of recession after all.

News in late afternoon that key lawmakers agreed on a $789 billion economic stimulus plan sent stocks moderately higher in a partial rebound [a measly 50 points - ed.]...

"Partial" being the operative word here from the AP in a story titled "Stocks end higher on agreement on stimulus bill"... a story which buries deep within its paragraphs the fact that the DOW fell a narly 400 points yesterday solely on news regarding the stimulus!!

Yesterday the DOW fell almost half a thousand points because of the government's stimulus plan. Result: No headline story. Today the DOW climbs a measly 50 points. Result: Glorious Headline treatment from the most visited website in the world.

Who ever said the media wasn't biased...

Poll: We Could Do Better Than Congress (UPDATED)

2009-02-11T15:50:00.004-07:00

Makes sense:

67% say they could do a better job on the economy than Congress...

Forty-four percent (44%) of voters also think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress...

Add that to another poll released yesterday stating that 58% of Americans believe Congress won't even know what's in the bill tomorrow when they vote on it, and we're in for a wild week. With the congressional switchboard reportedly lighting up at a 10:1 ratio against the stimulus bill, it's comforting to hear that the bill is still charging through at "lightening speed".

Regarding the 67% mentioned above, the old adage "everyone's an economist" seems to be ringing truer these days than most. But judging by these polls, if Congress refuses to represent the public its being paid to represent, they may find revolution knocking on their doorsteps sooner than later if they pass this thing.

UPDATE: Then again...

Public support for an $800 billion economic stimulus package has increased to 59% in a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Tuesday night, up from 52% in Gallup polling a week ago, as well as in late January.

Australia: Why it Sucks to be 'Green'

2009-02-11T14:49:00.006-07:00

Last week's fires in Australia have taken close to 200 lives, injured 500 more, left 5,000 without homes, and flame-broiled over a million acres.

So what do some Aussies think could have been done to minimize the damage? Answer: End the "green" movement:

Angry residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.

During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne's northern fringe, Warwick Spooner [commented], "We've lost two people in my family because you ***** won't cut trees down," [adding,] "We wanted trees cut down on the side of the road... and you can't even cut the grass for God's sake"...

Another resident said she had asked the council four times to tend to out-of-control growth on public land near her home, but her pleas had been ignored.

Those on the other side of the green movement fence need to understand that are repercussions to the green policies they force on the rest of us. In this case, death.

Fantastic: Stimulus Bill Agreement Reached

2009-02-11T13:39:00.010-07:00

...Not with any help from Republicans, mind you, who weren't even allowed to attend the negotiations on the so-called "compromise". The price tag? A cool $790 billion:

Moving with lightning speed, key lawmakers announced agreement Wednesday on a $789 billion economic stimulus measure designed to create millions of jobs in a nation reeling from recession. President Barack Obama could sign the bill within days...

It was not immediately clear when final votes in the two houses would occur. A House vote was possible as early as Thursday, with the Senate to follow before lawmakers begin a scheduled weeklong vacation.

Gee, I hope lawmakers pass this thing soon so that they can finally go buy the $300 million worth of oh so critical golf carts added to the spending bill that are somehow vital to the saving of the economy. Really.

3 Cheers For Bipartisanship (UPDATED)

2009-02-11T12:52:00.017-07:00

Obama's news conference to Americans Monday night was riddled with campaign-esque rhetoric on how incredibly bipartisan the stimulus bill is.

Apparently the word 'bipartisan' means doing only what Barack and the Democratic party wants:

Republicans have caught the Democrats in a midnight “stimulus” power play that seeks to cut Republican conferees out of the House-Senate negotiations to resolve a final version of the Obama “stimulus” package...

They intend to attempt to shove this $1.3 trillion spending bill through in the dead of the night without Republican input so floor action can take place in both chambers on Thursday.

I spoke with House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) moments ago about this latest version of Democratic “bipartisanship.” Pence told me, “I think the American people deserve to know that legislation that would comprise an amount equal to the entire discretionary budget of the United States of America is being crafted without a single House Republican in the room.”

How can Obama claim that the bill is bipartisan when you consider the fact that 216 out of the 219 Republican members of Congress DID NOT vote yes on this thing and that Republicans were completely shut out of the final negotiation process?

Quote of the Day:

“Democrats are ready to lead and prepared to govern in a fair and open way to promote a new direction for all Americans.”

- Nancy Pelosi, 12/07/2006

UPDATE: From BMI via Drudge:

“My name’s Tom Price and I represent the Sixth District of Georgia and [am] the privileged chair of the Republican Study Committee,” Price said. “It’s now noon on Wednesday. I’m standing outside the office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The door is closed. We just heard news break there’s been an agreement between the House and the Senate on the non-stimulus bill."

Negotiators were slated to meet later in the day. However, since news of a deal was leaked to the media, Price questioned if there were “shady deals” going on.

“It’s curious because Republicans were invited to a meeting they said at 3 o’clock this afternoon,” Price continued. “What this means is there are more shady deals going on behind closed doors -- without the public, without Republicans in attendance.”

To echo Price, how could Pelosi, Reid, and crew announce to the media at noon that a deal and price tag had been reached when Republicans weren't allowed to the meetings until 3 PM?

So much for Obama's claim 3 months ago that both he and the Democratic controlled Congress will "end the practice of writing legislation behind closed doors" while "restoring the American people's trust in their government by making government more open and transparent."

More Good Economy News

2009-02-10T18:21:00.006-07:00

Crappy.

General Motors announced Tuesday it is cutting 10,000 workers, or 14% of its salaried jobs worldwide. A third of those job losses will be in the United States.

The troubled automaker also said it will cut the pay for its remaining U.S. salaried staff.

GM (GM, Fortune 500), which is preparing to present a long-term viability plan to the Treasury Department next week, said the cutbacks are part of the restructuring plan it submitted to Congress on Dec. 2 when it was first asking Washington for federal assistance.

The company said at that time it intended to cut its U.S. staff by between 22% and 33% by 2012.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this whole stimulus thing supposed to create jobs? This couldn't be any more backwards: Government is attempting to intervene and create jobs, yet companies are having to lay off thousands of workers so that they can meet the government's "job creating" regulations.

Brilliant!

Are Your Kids Not Watching Enough TV?

2009-02-10T14:44:00.006-07:00

...Well scientists have come up with the perfect solution: Television integrated right into everyone's contact lenses!

Televisions could be fitted into contact lenses within ten years, according to analysts...

The sets would be powered by the viewer's body heat, according to Ian Pearson, a so-called "futurologist" who has advised leading companies including BT on new technologies.

Mr Pearson told the Daily Mail he believed that channels could be changed by voice command or via a wave of the hand....

"We could even get to the point where we'll be able to immerse ourselves in a football game, making it feel like you're running alongside your favorite player or berating the ref," the report added.

Nothing helps a kid with ADHD concentrate during math class better than by embedding Spongebob Squarepants right into his eye sockets before he leaves for school each morning.

Define "Pork"

2009-02-10T12:55:00.003-07:00

Obama's been called to the table by his own disciples for his absurd claim that there is no pork in the spending bill.

President Barack Obama had it both ways Monday when he promoted his stimulus plan in Indiana. He bragged about getting Congress to produce a package with no pork, yet boasted it will do good things for a Hoosier highway and a downtown overpass, just the kind of local projects [a.k.a. pork - ed.] lawmakers lard into big spending bills...

THE FACTS: There are no "earmarks," as they are usually defined, inserted by lawmakers in the bill. Still, some of the projects bear the prime characteristics of pork - tailored to benefit specific interests or to have thinly disguised links to local projects.

For example, the latest version contains $2 billion for a clean-coal power plant with specifications matching one in Mattoon, Ill., $10 million for urban canals, $2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars, and $255 million for a polar icebreaker [But wait, I thought global warming was already melting the polar icecaps. Why do we need an icebreaker? - ed.] and other "priority procurements" by the Coast Guard.

Obama told his Elkhart audience that Indiana will benefit from work on "roads like U.S. 31 here in Indiana that Hoosiers count on." He added: "And I know that a new overpass downtown would make a big difference for businesses and families right here in Elkhart."

In case there was any confusion, Obama clarified by adding this to the soup yesterday:

Understand, this bill does not have a single earmark in it, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size, does not have a single earmark in it.

When the recipe calls for stuffing a kalua pig with greasy bacon, sausage, and ham, then searing it all over a hot fire for 3 hours, how can Obama look Americans in the face and honestly claim the meal is kosher?

How to Pay Off Your Mortgage

2009-02-10T12:00:00.008-07:00

If the spending bill atrocity wasn't enough to handle already, here's an added kick to the groin:

The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.

"Hmm, let's see, we here in Washington could go with option A and use the money to pay off 90% of all home mortgages in the entire country (which was the cause of this whole crisis to begin with) thereby injecting tons of disposable income into the economy... Or we could go with option B and spend the money on things like, oh I don't know, $100 million for reducing the hazards of lead-based paint. Or $696 million for constructing and buying furniture for the new Department of Homeland Security headquarters. Or $400 million on STD research and prevention - a disease that's already 100% preventable! (while adding no money for cancer or heart disease research, mind you). Hey, and while we're at it, let's ask President Obama for $2 million for some new neon signs for the Vegas strip, $4.5 million for a butterfly park, and $1 million for a new frisbee golf course.

Yea, we think we're gonna go with option B. After all, lead-based paint research is sure to save the economy."

Advertisement: This month's mortgage payment brought to you by the United States Congress

Proof the Spending Bill Won't Work

2009-02-10T11:00:00.014-07:00

This morning Tim Geithner (you know, the tax fraud who doesn't feel the need to pay his own taxes but is somehow now running the IRS) unveiled more details on the government's bottomless bailout. Let's see how that's working out:

Barack Obama, a man with zero executive experience who's never run a business in his entire life says this bill is gonna fix the economy. The DOW Jones on the other hand, which is completely run by businessmen and financial gurus mind you, says... well just look at the graph above. Who are you gonna believe?

Change

2009-02-09T15:21:00.002-07:00

And so as we begin the year with a new president, a new adminsitration, and a new chapter of American history being penned as the days go forward, this blog has taken Obama's overly repeated advice of "change" by implementing a new look, as well as a new overall feel and theme. For the last year and a half this blog has been an outlet for me to write extensively about all subjects political. Most of my posts have been very time consuming for me to research and write and ended up being rather lengthy by the time I finished them. As such, I could only post about once a week on average and many of you left after only reading the first paragraph or so because many of you were turned off by the extensive length or each post (yes, I can tell how often and for how long you visit). Therefore, in the interest of preserving my time, as well as yours, starting tomorrow this blog will begin to take the feel of other, more mainstream political blogs. Instead of one long post per week, this site will have as many as half a dozen or more posts per day - all of which being much shorter in length than this blog is used to seeing. I encourage you to check in often, several times per day even, to stay up to date and see the latest in political news and commentary, as well as other news stories as we see fit to post ;)

I've also added an "About Me" section at the top of the blog and on the sidebar to the right (Or, you could just click here to read it).

About Me

2009-02-09T15:18:00.017-07:00

A few people have asked who I am and what my core political beliefs are. So instead of answering each individual request about me, I figured I would just add this post about who I am and what I believe.

So without further ado:

Government Politics: I guess you could say I’m somewhere between conservative and libertarian. I think that government spending is out of control and politicians are constantly seeking more and more power – and most of them probably won’t be satisfied until we reach full-blown socialism. Leaders in Washington rarely have what’s best for America at heart and, instead, for the sole sake of political expediency, cast votes and make decisions based on what will most likely get them re-elected. Lobbyists, affirmative action, and special interest groups run this country. Unless you’re a member of some loud-mouthed outspoken minority group like “Hispanic Gays for Abortion”, Washington doesn’t care what you have to say. And even if, by some heavenly miracle, they did actually listen, it wouldn't matter as Washington is full of a bunch of sycophantic hypocrites anyway. Case in point: Nancy Pelosi screams at corporate executives for flying around in their corporate jets, while she herself paddles around in one of her own – paid for by you, or course. While the rest of us are struggling financially in this stricken economy, Congress is giving themselves raises. While any of us would be thrown in jail for not paying our taxes, many in Obama’s cabinet – including the guy running the IRS – are tax frauds themselves who, oddly, don’t face any repercussions whatsoever. And even our fearless leader Obama himself, who recently told us that “we can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times” just recently (as of this writing) finished a lavish vacation in a $9 million mansion on a secluded beach in Hawaii. Way to lead by example, you morons.

Foreign Policy: The Middle East is a joke. It’s always been at war, and probably always will be. Don’t expect things to settle down over there, regardless of whether or not we withdraw out troops from Iraq. I’m also constantly amused how often other nations in the world criticize us and our policies; that is, until they need America’s help with something.

The War on Terror: I know that Obama and cronies are already trying to rid this phrase from American culture, but face it: The war exists. Terrorist cells throughout the world declared war on America decades ago, and we’ve already been hit by them multiple times. And you know what, they aren’t going to stop trying.

Media: With the blatantly obvious exception of Fox News, the entire media is in the tank for Obama and the Democratic Party. They try to slip in an article now and then often pretending to criticize the left, but what all the major media outlets did during the election of Barack Obama was shameful malpractice, and they know it. Once anchors start crying every time Obama speaks and after newspapers start giving 50% discounts to think tanks running anti-Republican ads, you’ll know the battle is lost. Oh wait, that’s already happening…

Global Warming: Instead of reiterating every post I’ve ever had on global warming, allow me to sum it up this way instead: If Al Gore himself isn’t worried enough to stop flying his jet around and using 12 times the national average amount of energy in his own home, then you shouldn’t either.

American Culture: Americans, for the most part, are incredibly uniformed zombies. Case in point: Millions of women don’t know how to think for themselves unless Oprah tells them what to say/think/do. And anyone who is left just thinks whatever a bunch of high school diploma Hollywood celebrities tell them to. The time in America is long overdue for people to get informed and start thinking for themselves.

My Stats

2009-02-09T13:32:00.002-07:00

This blog's stats can be found at the following website:

http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm2politicsmeoff

...and can also be found at the 'Stats' section to the right

New Look Coming Soon

2009-01-12T10:56:00.002-07:00

Blogging has been a little slow here lately because I am curently remodeling the look and feel of this website. Stay tuned for the unveiling of the new politicsmeoff within the next couple days.

Congress Gets A Well-Deserved Raise

2008-12-23T12:07:00.008-07:00

The economy is in shambles, millions of Americans have lost jobs (with potentially millions more to be lost in the coming months), and every industry from banking to cars to prostitution is getting a nice slice of the delicious bailout pie from Washington at the expense of mere trillions to the United States taxpayer.

...And what better way to reward one of the worst Congresses in American history than by giving each and every blowhard in Washington a nice, fat raise. You know, cuz they deserve it so much.

Each lawmaker's annual salary is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living increase starting in January, which will amount to a cost to taxpayers of $2.5 million in 2009...

Members of Congress make an average of $169,300 a year, with Congressional leaders making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cailf., makes $217,400, while the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate each make $188,100.

The raise will increase the average salary to about $174,000, up 2.8 percent.

While $2.5 million is mere chump change in ~~Monopoly~~ U.S. government dollars, it's the principle that bothers me here. At my place of work we are given raises which reflect the merit of our working contributions to the company over the past year. On the other hand, your 110th Congress after having approval ratings in the single digits and accomplishing nothing of real value or recognition over the last 12 months - and after having taken a whopping 50 days of vacation by September's end (just in time for them to take yet another 6 weeks of pure vacation in the Fall) - Nancy Pelosi and crew have decided that they deserve yet another raise for all their hard work.

Now, while cost-of-living allowances are rather standard in almost every line of work, what baffles me here is the shameless double-standard seeping from the depths of Capitol Hill. While lawmakers virtually force automaker executives to take $1 per year salaries until they pay off their debts, Congress (whose debt exceeds that of the automakers by 1,000 fold, mind you) quietly takes a raise. While Pelosi screams at executives for flying around in corporate jets, the Madame Speaker is herself paddling around in a private jet of her own - paid for by you, of course.

My question is this: Why do the rules seem to apply to everyone else except for our beloved politicians? Why is it that lawmakers can tell one failing industry to make cuts, while they themselves take raises in spite of their own failure? Why is it that Pelosi and crew can tell corporate executives how to fiscally manage their businesses when Congress themselves have failed at every feduciary task appointed to them over the last 50 years? Why is it that Obama can tell us that "we can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times" while he himself vacations and golfs in a $9 million extravagant mansion on a secluded beach in Hawaii?

Just another day in Washington's "Do as I say, not as I do" world.