Obama sets records

From The City Square:

Pres. Obama continues to set records. One of them is that his approving rating at this point in his presidency is the lowest in the history of polling. White House Press Secretary Gibbs responded to the poll results by comparing Gallup to a kid with a crayon. Jay Leno put Gibb's claim in perspective:

 “President Obama’s approval rating hit a new low of 47 percent, according to the latest Gallup poll. But White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that a 6-year-old with a crayon could come up with the same poll results. I bet it’s the same 6-year-old with a crayon that came up with the last budget.”

Another impressive Obama accomplishment has been that, for the entire period of his first 306 days in office, Obama's job approval was been as low or lower than Pres. Carter's:

That's a real comforting thought, isn't it?

I'm Starting to See the Problem......

Elitism in Action

The following chart is from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all.

When one considers that public sector employment ( local, state and federal government employees )  has ranged since the 1950s at between 15 percent and 19 percent of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet—over 90 percent of its prior experience was in the public sector—is remarkable.  In the midst of a recession of almost-historic proportions, we see a President who insists on actively ignoring any input from people whose experience gives them unique insight into the problem. Seem foolish to you too?

"You lost," as it were. Or, as the Great Uniter put it at another occasion, "Get out of the way." ( No matter how you put it, it does give one the impression that he's keen on telling half of the country to "STFU.")

9+6=4...Climate Scientist Fudge the Numbers!

 with excerpts from RealClearPolitics

"For more than a decade, we've been told that there is a scientific "consensus" that humans are causing global warming, that "the debate is over" and all "legitimate" scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this "consensus" really means. What it means is: the fix is in."

_______________________________

In early October, evidence of corruption in the basic temperature records maintained by key scientific advocates of the theory of man-made global warming were brought to light. Global warming "skeptics" had unearthed evidence that scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit(CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia had  played part in cherry-picked data to manufacture a "hockey stick" graph showing a dramatic-but illusory-runaway warming trend in the late 20th century.

But now newer and much broader evidence has emerged that looks like it will break that scandal wide open. Pundits have already named it "Climategate."

 On Thursday 19th November 2009 news began to circulate that hacked documents and communications from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) had been published to the internet.The information revealed how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise (and grant money) that man-made factors are driving climate change. Hackers, over a period of a month, gathered thousands of e-mails and tons of incriminating data from the CRU and made them available on the Internet from servers in Russia.Officials at the CRU have verified the breach of their system and acknowledged that the e-mails appear to be genuine. Yes, this is a theft of data and a few things must go without saying: (1) Hacking into someone's emails and private files is obviously wrong, and it should be prosecuted. (2) that global apocalyptic alarmists have been exposed as fear-mongering chicken little liars (not to mention hypocrites) for decades, but rarely has it been on a level where you actually have “scientists” and their associates caught on paper attempting to suppress data that is contra to their pre-desired result. And it looks to me some of these “scientists” have been clearly exposed.

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realize just why the (experts) at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”.

Read for yourselves: Climate Research Unit Emails
These emails, exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory suggest: Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the email messages contains gloating  over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

Now that's freakin sick!  But perhaps the most damaging revelations are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.
Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline in temperature.

"Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

>>>>
These e-mails show, among many other things, private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory. In acknowledging that global temperatures have actually declined for the past decade, one scientist asks, "where the heck is global warming?... I don't know where these people got their scientific education, but where I come from, if your theory can't predict or explain the observed facts, it's wrong.

Repeatedly throughout the e-mails that have been made public, proponents of global-warming theories refer to data that has been hidden or destroyed. Only e-mails from Mr. Jones' institution have been made public, and with his obvious approach to deleting sensitive files, it's difficult to determine exactly how much more information has been lost that could be damaging to the global-warming theocracy and its doomsday forecasts.


But what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the "peer review" process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.


This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money- Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being "confused" by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

These revelations of fudged science should have a cooling effect on global-warming hysteria and the panicked policies that are being pushed forward to address the unproven theory. This very well could be the scandal of the century, and needs to be thoroughly investigated.

It seems clear that the Obama administration, and the folks in traditional media, think this is a story better ignored. It won't work. While Big Media folks ignore the story, the alternate media are all over it. Polls have shown growing public skepticism, both in the U.S. and abroad, even before the Climategate revelations. That is now likely to grow.

You're Making Us Proud, Mary.

 Is ObamaCare Important Enough to Buy Your Vote?
  
To get Senator Mary Landrieu's  (D-La.) vote, just to proceed, just to go across the starting line, language was inserted in the Senate Health Reform bill that gives the state of Louisiana up to $300 million. To get Senator Ben Nelson's vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed to drop a request that you take away the antitrust exemptions for insurance companies. I ask again.....Is healthcare reform important enough to buy votes?


This got us to day one of the debate. Is this the way to do things Mary? The central promise of the Obama campaign was to change the way Washington works, remember? This is Washington as usual, is it not? 


I will  reminded you that Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) claimed Saturday "very partisan Republican bloggers" were making the case that she voted for cloture as a result of the provision added to the bill giving her state additional healthcare funds.
 
I Can't speak for the Republican bloggers, but you can add me to the list that think you were bought out by the Senate leadership! Congress is full of gutless people without integrity, and doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea, Senator.
  

 But a least your trained to do something when 
we boot you out of office next election!

Even More Nonsense from the Obama Administration.

 Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration Recovery.gov to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts. Discrepancies on government web site call into question stimulus spending.

The recovery.gov Web site was established as part of the stimulus bill "to foster greater accountability and transparency" in the use of the money spent through the stimulus program.

The issue has raised hackles on Capitol Hill.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc, who chairs the powerful House appropriations Committee, issued a paper statement demanding an explanation.

"Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We've got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen," Obey said in a statement. "Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now."

The site is a well-funded enterprise; the General Services Administration updated it earlier this year with an $18 million grant. I'll repeat that.....$18 MILLION DOLLARS. 

ABC News reported it was able to locate several examples on the government's Web site outlining hundreds of millions of dollars spent and jobs created in Congressional districts that have been misidentified or non-existent.  For example, recovery.gov says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent in Arizona's 86th congressional district in a project for the Navajo Housing authority, which is actually located in the 1st congressional district.

The reporting problems are not limited to Arizona, ABC News found.

In Oklahoma, recovery.gov lists more than $19 million in spending -- and 15 jobs created -- in yet more congressional districts that don't exist.

In Iowa, it shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs created -- in nonexistent districts.

In Connecticut's 42nd district (which also does not exist), the Web site claims 25 jobs created with zero stimulus dollars.

The list of spending and job creation in fictional congressional districts extends to U.S. territories as well.

$68.3 million spent and 72.2 million spent in the 1st congressional district of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

$8.4 million spent and 40.3 jobs created in the 99th congressional district of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

$1.5 million spent and .3 jobs created in the 69th district and $35 million for 142 jobs in the 99th district of the Northern Mariana Islands.

$47.7 million spent and 291 jobs created in Puerto Rico's 99th congressional district.

Has anyone asked where the money actually went? Some of it could have been honest mistakes but that’s a lot of money floating around unaccounted for. The same “mistakes” happening again and again in several states?  It might be possible to claim human error in not knowing that a particular district doesn't exist (99 congressional districts in the Virgin Islands?) Please! However, a light should have gone off in someones head when they input the data showing we've spent 19 million dollars to create or save only 15 jobs!

In the mean time, the media reports  phony numbers and wah-la , we got us a economic recovery!  But hey, with tingles going up their legs when Obama speaks and that crazy Palin chick running around loose, guess they just  don't have time to really check it out.

BTW, how's that hope and change working for ya?

_______________________________________________

Obama's Unique Insensitivity

President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.

After news broke of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner."

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should have occurred.

What happened to all the intelligence and intellect I keep hearing about, eh Barry?
You're Commander and Chief....AND THEY WERE SOLDIERS!!

Did the President not realize what sort of image he was presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on -- and the initial words coming out of their president's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing. Guess he had to work that Native American vote a little, after all  he has the dead people vote pretty much in the bag.

Just one more reason  for Obama's detractors to call him "an empty suit".

It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this?

Some Congressional Democrats must wonder if the White House has burdened them with an overly  ambitious, extremely expensive  policy agenda of disastrous consequences.

 And supporters across the country have real reason to panic..... it looks as if the empty suit has no coat tails.

 ________________________________

The Democrat's Quandary

When things go badly for a Democrat, they do two things. (1) blame it on Republicans or (2) yell racism.
I knew it would happen (always does), just not this soon. They have overplayed their hand, and are acting more like dictators then public servants. With the help of their lap dogs in the media, the race card has been played.

“Liar” is now a code word for “Black” in the leftist thesaurus.

And now this….. Former President Jimmy carter said Monday: "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American. The president is not only the head of government; he is the head of state. And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect."

This,  from a man who, when he’s not validating the regimes of some  dictator or disrespecting his fellow presidents while visiting foreign countries, is talking trash about America!

To suggest that a great deal of the opposition or to go as far as saying the majority of the opposition is based on racism is a clear political tactic designed to discredit and overshadow the genuine MASS opposition that has surfaced against the Presidents policies. Since when did protesting an unprecedented (and quite possible un-constitutional) expansion of the Federal government become bigoted?

I have friends of all political stripes, and I’ll be honest; I’ve never met a Racist Conservative in my life. I’ve heard that they’re out there and I’m sure that they exist, but much like a Great White Shark or a decent Joel Schumacher film… I’ve never seen one in real life. The truth is that a vast majority of Americans are fully on board with a post-racial America. The only problem is that conservatives  seem to be  the only ones to begin treating it as a reality. They continued standing for the same things that they always had (lower taxes, more power to the individual, smaller government, that constitution thingie,  etc.), regardless of whomever was in office. They almost act, dare I say it… Color blind.

After Barack Obama was elected, Democrats knew that reconciliation was taking place, but decided to move things in the directly opposite direction of that. If one were to believe the little world that Democrats have painted to be true, one would have to assume that the United States today is as racist as it’s ever been. After all, when was the last time you saw tens of thousands of racists openly march through the streets of Washington?

Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn't create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It gives us no grounds for solutions. It only divides Americans even more.

Liberals, however, need ongoing racism to get votes. Racism MUST be alive for the Democratic party to succeed. After all, how can you promise people to fight an oppressive establishment if you’re the ones running it. Plus, it makes it harder to promise folks all of that awesome free stuff.

Realizing this, Democrats have decided to go on the extreme offensive. They’ve made the decision to create an atmosphere where any disagreement with the current president must undoubtedly contain some sort of “secret racial component.” Liberals don’t believe for a second that tea party protesters are a bunch of Robert Byrd-like Klansmen out there. No, the whole “race” card is a conscious/concerted effort to keep racism alive. The truth is that the general American public knows that dissenters are not racists, and the fact that the accusation is being tossed around more flippantly than ever is laughable.

Right now they think that their shtick is so cute that they’re unaware of the imminent political suicide they’ll be facing and that they may have their heads handed to them in the next congressional elections, just around the corner.

George Orwell once said: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Is this where we are headed? This constant pulling out the race card is getting a little ‘old’. Like a magician who keeps pulling the same ol’ tired rabbit out of the same ol’ hat.

If the only tool in your toolbox is the race card – guess what – all your opponents look like racists.

The ACLU and it's Goals

"What insane times we live in," one film critic notes. "Here we are in the midst of the War on Terror, and all Hollywood can do is continually bash Christianity." 

The opiate of Hollywood fare disguised as high—minded popular culture further dulls the minds of a culture already narcotized by a steady supply of anti—Christian rhetoric. In an industry historically known for coddling communists (the blacklist, Jane Fonda, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and others traipsing off to Cuba to glorify Castro) and other Dictators who oppress their people,  one tends to surrender to the unregenerate status quo.

"America," said Joseph Stalin, "is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."

Patriotism seems subjective these days. The media says you have to belong to a certain political party to be patriotic now, support certain polices.  And Hollywood and the media certainly play major roles  in dumbing down our morals through the young, and with the subtle campaign to subvert Judeo—Christian traditions. But they pose a lesser threat than the judiciary and activist organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the LAMBDA Legal Defense and Education Fund, who represent its driving force. 

When the ACLU cleverly named itself a "civil liberties" union in 1920, its idea of civil liberty was hardly consistent with what the U.S. Constitution's framers had in mind.

"I am for socialism," wrote ACLU founder Roger Baldwin in 1936. "I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

He spent time in the soviet paradise of the USSR.
Communism, a political theory favoring collectivism in a classless society, remains the goal.


And while occasionally taking up a righteous cause, defending the defenseless and clocked in the matters of justice (their view) this organization has done more damage to this country than any other!
 
The ACLU is well known for their bullying tactics, filing suits against school districts, most financially unable to defend themselves in court, intimidating them into stopping Christmas programs, and denying school youth religious groups of use of facilities after hours, while at the same time assuring there's no discrimanation of gay and lesbian groups by making those same facilities available to them. (Starting to see the picture?) 
They have also recently participated in shameless attacks on the Boy Scouts of America.
 
In Southern California especially, these activists have targeted the Christian cross with glorious success. Examples abound:

Government Seal Cases: The ACLU Foundation of Southern California threatened to sue the County of Los Angeles and the City of Redlands unless depictions of the cross were removed from their official seals.
  
War Memorial Cases: The ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties succeeded in its legal effort to dismantle the 43—foot tall Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross, a landmark for more than 50 years in La Jolla. The ACLU Foundation of Southern California was equally successful in obtaining an order dismantling a cross that has been a World War I memorial fixture on Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert since 1932.
 
 And on April 8, after an unsuccessful appeal to the Ninth Circuit, and without media fanfare, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin signed an order requiring the immediate dismantling of the Sunrise Rock cross.  That case,  Buono v. Norton, has drawn the wrath of the American Legion, which is approaching the defeat with a novel solution.  The Legion passed a resolution calling on Congress to amend 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to bar recovery of attorney fees to the prevailing party in cases filed for the purpose of removing and destroying religious symbols located on public property.  U.S. Representative John Hostettler (Indiana) is expected to introduce the Public Expression of Religion Act. Its goal is to drive out one incentive to file lawsuits where no one is complaining and no one is actually injured.

  The ACLU pockets the change even when delegating work to pro bono attorneys.

Who really believes that a cross in the desert, on a hilltop or on a seal establishes a government—endorsed religion?? Who honestly believes their tax money is working to do any more than to honor war veterans or the community's heritage?  

Communicating the message of religious liberty certainly presents challenges, not the least of which is convincing the media, or Hollywood for that matter, that defending the cross is beneficial to our society and in fact crucial to preserving our civil rights and liberties.
 
When U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite composed his analysis of the Establishment Clause in Reynolds v. United States in 1878, a Free Exercise case, he relied on Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association and Jefferson's phrase "'wall of separation between church and State."

Strange that he would examine the Establishment Clause at all since it was not in issue. Stranger still was his reliance on Jefferson's letter and his attraction to the 'wall of separation' phrase, parroted by judges and liberal activists ever since.
  
As Justice Waite even observed, Jefferson was in France when the language of the First Amendment was finalized and adopted.  It was James Madison's version that we venerate today. 'It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted,' Waite wrote. 

Jefferson's letter was a peevish response.
 
 When Justice Hugo Black lifted the Reynolds analysis in Everson v. Board of Education (1945), he resisted the urge to compare what other founding fathers thought about the matter.

So the phrase "The wall of separation" (which appears no where in the founding documents) was thus enshrined in our national consciousness and divides us still.

If the ACLU were to support the Hostettler bill, it would go a long way toward proving that they aren't profiteers at the expense of people of faith and believers in the sanctity of tradition. 

But I suspect they will commit all their resources toward winning another tiny battle in their classless and unholy crusade.
 

Welcome to Hypocrisy, the Millennial Edition.

New FCC Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd.


Yes, you read that right……. "Chief Diversity Officer"

A virulently anti-capitalist, racially fixated, exuberantly pro-regulation, and  big fan of the Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez...another hand-picked leftist from the centrist Obama?
And it appears that the First Amendment and free speech are either completely foreign or irrelevant to him.

In his 2006 book entitled "Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America", he calls for an all-out "confrontational movement" against private media. What Lloyd has written is a road map for how left-wing  activists should use the FCC to threaten the licenses of stations with whom they do not agree politically. He seeks to impose an annual FCC license fee equal to each station's annual gross operating budget, with the money going to public broadcasting stations with whom the private stations then have to compete. He wants leftist activists - through incessant political pressure - and the government - through the creation of a totally untenable operating environment of fees, fines and regulations - to work together to force the commercial broadcasters out, to be replaced by public broadcasters. 

Ridiculously exorbitant fees and fines on broadcasters could certainly be "used to financially strangle groups that criticize the government," could they not? That is, when the government's not simply "revoking the licenses" of stations that don't toe the Party line. Or better still, "seizing control of media outlets to stifle criticism."
That he now works at the FCC where he can put his ridiculous policy proposals into place is more than a little disconcerting. Think about it!

  And in his tome, Lloyd had this to say about the First Amendment:

"It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

" The purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."

Nice, eh? Note how Lloyd views the freedoms of speech and the press as just two of a number of "communications policies."

This end-run around elected officials (Congress) and appointing a political czar crap is totally out of control. Another two years of this and we won't even recognize our own form of government.

*Stacks Soapbox a Little Higher*

Political Correctness is the left’s way to supress free speech with which they do not agree. For decades the left have been bemoaning the perceived errosions of free speech when discussing things like, books, profanity, flag burning, etc.. 

Now that the left has been assuming positions of power for the last 25 years, certain words and ideas from free-thinking americans have become an anathema to their ideologies that they are completely intolerant of.

P.C. is a way of getting around that pesky old first ammendment by claiming that limiting certain kinds of speech prevents certain minorities and the politically protected from becoming "victims" of the thoughts and words of members of the majority. So limitations on free speech in the realm of certain media outlets is now a popular if not a necessary measure. As has become so transparent starting in the 90's with the Clintons and ramped up to the max with the Obamas today-- any and all violations of the Constitution are acceptable as long as they can maintain their power base. And as usual, the media looks the other way.

Welcome to hypocrisy, the millennial edition.

Just a couple of sterling examples from years gone by.....

PBS’s Bill Moyers in 2003 found it “galling” to see “all those moralistic ideologues in Washington...attacking dissenters as un-American.”
It’s not the 1960’s anymore Billy boy! Undermining your own security is un-American Mr. Moyers!

In 2003, MSNBC’s number one Wing Nut Keith Olbermann saluted protests:“It is political dissent that created this country and sustained it and improved it.”

For eight years in America, protest was in and all the cool kids did it. We had flamboyantly dressed Code Pinkers demonstrating at conventions and in sessions of Congress, calling Marine recruiters “traitors” and protesting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Then there were the crazies from Acorn stalking Wall Street executives at their homes. And anti-war lefty Cindy Sheehan got so much news coverage from the major networks and top newspapers that they practically had to create a bureau to handle her antics. Dissent was patriotic back then we were told. Those hate-spewing anti-war activists really loved our soldiers – especially when they were mocking the war right outside a veteran’s hospital.

That all happened before January 20, when the left, along with their supporters in the news media, decided protest and dissent were suddenly unpatriotic. Now everything said or done in those eight years is forgotten. America has a blank slate to build hope and change under Obama, so we are told.

MSNBC host Ed Schultz:
“Oh, there's a lot going on. Tonight: it's an uprising! Angry old white folks are storming into town halls all across the country spewing lies about health care reform. Let me set the record straight early on: these folks, I think, they're dumber than Joe the Plumber. “
.
“Mr. President, you have the people behind you. I've done enough of these [town halls] to know that there's a fraction of Americans out there who are, you know, the old right wing, they're playing on the old, angry white uneducated misinformed Americans”

Don’t dare criticize him, knock his policies or voice your opinion. Do it and you are called “mobs” or racist by the media and treated as scary forces of hate.
 

HOPE AND CHANGE BABY!

Why Do We Continue to Vote for These People?

I must confess my dismay at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the Democrat party and should immediately step down.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. With the cover of his lap-dogs in the media, who just echo democrat party talking points, the president is promoting a colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation. You tell me, what does a bunch of lawyers know about how a healthcare system should work?

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing. Ever lived abroad? Ever seen a veteran’s hospital? Don’t get me started!

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.

What is needed for reform is an in-depth analysis, buttressed by documentary evidence, of waste, fraud and profiteering in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Instead what we've gotten is a series of facile, vulgar innuendos about how doctors conduct their practice, as if their primary motive is money. Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
What does either party stand for these days? Republican politicians, with their endless scandals, are hardly exemplars of traditional moral values. Nor have they generated new ideas for healthcare, except for medical savings accounts, which would be pathetically inadequate in a major crisis for anyone earning at or below a median income.

And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.But the Democrats have become full fledge, dyed in the wool Leftist, who worships big government and revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills.

The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" and “emails” critical of the health care plan to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced.

……And as for me, I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!

Are They Really That Foolish?

Summer in Washington.
By Susan Estrich
Ms. Estrich is a Law professor and former Democratic Strategist as well as a Campaign Adviser for Michael Dukakis 1988 Presidential bid.




The stimulus program must really be succeeding in Washington, D.C. Government is hiring; people are working. In fact, if news reports are to be believed, they're working night and day. So maybe there's some sleep deprivation thrown in for good measure.

What other explanation could there be for my friends in Congress and the administration thinking that what the country wants them to do right now is raise taxes and spend a trillion dollars to overhaul health care, much less to push it through in a month in a 1,000-page bill being rewritten every day?

In California, where I live, unemployment is in double digits and climbing, and the state has been issuing IOUs for weeks. I'm blessed, and I'm not complaining.

But not a day goes by that someone doesn't call me, desperate for help in finding a job. And it's never been harder to help. For all intents and purposes, unless you have some very special skill to sell, there are simply no jobs. You want to wait tables or make coffee drinks? Good luck. Get in line.

The idea that somehow you're going to tax the "rich" enough to pay for quality health care for every American who doesn't have it, can't afford it or stands to lose it, not to mention for all of the undocumented aliens who receive it for free now and presumably will continue to in Obama health land, is almost laughable. It's one of those things candidates say in campaigns, ignoring the fact that it doesn't add up. But in a bill that might pass? Add a 5 percent surtax on every small business in the country that makes $250,000 or more? This is going to create jobs? What am I missing?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office came out with a report this week concluding that the bill being written by House Democrats would increase the deficit and weaken the already weak economy.

Duh.

No one is explaining to people how the big changes in the bill will affect people who have insurance now, which happens to be the overwhelming majority of all Americans (and an even higher percentage of all voters).

Will our premiums and deductibles go up or down? Will our doctors and hospitals be better or worse off? It is simply not credible to tell me that if I like my insurance now, nothing will change. If you turn the health care delivery system on its head and start regulating, mandating and controlling the terms, don't tell me it won't change things.

Changing the tax treatment of insurance benefits changes who gets them and who pays for them. "Controlling costs" means what? Does my doctor have to see more patients? Get more approvals before ordering tests? Order less expensive tests? I don't know a single person who is willing to sacrifice, or even risk, their health care right now to an uncertain plan that they don't begin to understand — except folks in D.C.

I went to my doctor this morning and suspect I had an experience that's being repeated in doctor's offices across the country. My doctor told me how worried she is about the plan. Actually, it was much stronger than "worried."

She wasn't a big fan of HillaryCare, but from her reading, it was a carefully drafted and thought-out program compared to what's being discussed now. She's convinced that if the administration succeeds, the ripple effect will cost Democrats the House in 2010 and her patients' their access to high quality, affordable care.

I reassured her that the Democrats would never be that foolish. I hope. Maybe it's time for Congress to get out of Washington. They'll get an earful when they do.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/susan-estrich.html?columnsName=ses

When the work product is indefensible, deliberation is dangerous.

Posted by Diogenes Sarcastica
July 21, 2009 

When Barack Obama pilfered Martin Luther King Jr.’s line about the “fierce urgency of now,” he wasn’t kidding. The line has come to define his presidency. His legislative strategy moves in two gears — fast and recklessly faster.

As with the stimulus package, Obama’s health-care plan depends on speed. More important than any given provision, more important than any principle, more important than sound legislating is the urgent imperative to Do It Now.

Do it now, before anyone can grasp what exactly it is that Congress is passing. Do it now, before the overpromising and the dishonest justifications can be exposed. Do it now, before Obama’s poll numbers return to Earth and make it impossible to slam through ramshackle government programs concocted on the run. Do it now, because simply growing government is more important than the practicalities of any new program.
The stimulus partly drives the rush on health care. The program was so ill-considered and so festooned with irrelevant priorities as the price of hustling it through Congress that it becomes more of a drag for Obama every day. So health care has to be rushed through before Obama pays the full price for the failure of his previous rush job. Haste — and waste — makes for more haste.

Obama cultivated an image of cool during the campaign. Unrattled. Deliberate. Cerebral to a fault. Who knew he’d be in a panic to remake one-sixth of the economy by the first week of August of his first year in office?

Normally, the larger and more complicated a bill is, the longer Congress takes to consider it. With the stimulus and cap-and-trade, Obama and the Democrats upended this rule of thumb by passing byzantine, 1,000-page bills that no one had the time to read. When the work product is indefensible, deliberation is dangerous.

There’s a touch of the guilty conscience about Obama’s terrible rush. As if he knows he was elected as a moderate-sounding deficit hawk last year, and if he’s going to pass an ambitious left-wing program, he must do it before the opposition builds.

Why else the mad dash? Obama noted in an interview with ABC News the other day that his health program won’t be phased in until 2013. That’s four years from now. The problem that Obama describes of rising health-care costs bankrupting the government is also a long-term issue, one that needn’t be addressed in pell-mell fashion over the next two weeks.

But the longer Obama’s health-care program marinates in the sun, the worse it smells. Obama’s signature line that anyone who likes his current coverage gets to keep it has been shown to be untrue in recent weeks. His rationale of passing a $1 trillion program to reduce costs is undermined every time the Congressional Budget Office analyzes a real Democratic proposal. No wonder Obama wants to close down the debate before his rating on health care — down to 49 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — drops any farther.

Ramming through legislation without any assurance that it will work doesn’t seem pragmatic or farsighted. But for Obama’s purposes, it is. His goal is nothing short of an ideological reorientation of American government. Putting in place the structures to achieve this change in the power and role of government is more important than how precisely it is accomplished.

The stimulus might not do much to stimulate the economy during the recession, but its massive spending creates a new baseline for all future spending. The cap-and-trade bill might not reduce carbon emissions during the next decade, but it creates a mechanism for exerting government control over a huge swath of the economy. Obamacare might not work as advertised, but it will tip more people into government care and create the predicate for rationing and price controls.

Barack Obama is an ideologue in a hurry. He wants to put American government on a radically different path.
And he wants to Do It Now.

A Reckless Congress:

Trying to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history.

Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government.

With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks. Mr. Obama's February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren't nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.

Hyperbole? That's what people said when we warned about this last fall in "A Liberal Supermajority," but even we underestimated the ideological willfulness of today's national Democrats.

Consider only a few of the details:

A huge new income surtax. The bill's main financing comes from another tax increase on top of the increase already scheduled for 2011 under Mr. Obama's budget. The surtax starts at one percentage point for adjusted gross income above $350,000 in 2011, rising to two points in 2013; a 1.5 point surtax at incomes above $500,000, rising to three in 2013; and a whopping 5.4 percentage points in 2011 and beyond on incomes above $1 million. This would raise the top marginal federal tax rate back to roughly 47% or 48%, if you include the Medicare tax and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. With the current top rate at 35%, this would be the largest rate increase outside the Great Depression or world wars.

The average U.S. top combined state-federal marginal tax rate would hit about 52%. This would be higher than in all but three (Denmark, Sweden, Belgium) of the 30 countries measured by the OECD.

According to the table to the left, compiled by the Heritage Foundation, taxpayers in at least five U.S. states would pay higher marginal rates even than Sweden. South Korea, which Democrats worry is stealing American jobs, would be able to grab even more as its highest rate is a far more competitive 38.5%.

House Democrats say they deserve credit for being honest about the tax increases needed to fund their ambitions. But then they also claim that this surtax would raise $544 billion in new revenue over 10 years. America's millionaires aren't that stupid; far fewer of them will pay these rates for very long, if at all. They will find ways to shelter income, either by investing differently or simply working less. Small businesses that pay at the individual rate will shift to pay the 35% corporate rate.

When the revenue doesn't materialize, Democrats could move to soak the middle class with a European-style value-added tax.

The plan drew fire from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s biggest business lobby.
“The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America’s small business owners,” the Washington-based group’s president, Thomas Donohue, said in a statement. “Since when does our great free-market country punish success?”

Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, picked up on the theme, saying the plan would be paid for by “small business men and women we are counting on to start hiring workers again.”

Phony numbers. Democrats will have to come up with something, because even the surtax puts their bill at least $300 billion short of honest financing. The public insurance "option" doesn't even begin until 2013 and the costs are heavily weighted toward the later years, but the tax hikes start in 2011. So under Congress's 10-year budget window, the House bill is able to pay for seven years of spending with nine years of taxes. Andy Laperriere of the ISI Group estimates the bill would add $95 billion to the deficit in 2019 alone.

Then there's yesterday's testimony, from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf, that ObamaCare's cost "savings" are an illusion. Mr. Obama claims government can cover more people and pay less to do it. But Mr. Elmendorf told the Senate Finance Committee that "In the legislation that has been reported we don't see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs." The nonpartisan agency said in a partial and preliminary analysis that the plan would run to more than $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce the number of uninsured by roughly 37 million. The agency said that by 2019 some 17 million people....about half of them illegal immigrants.....would lack coverage.

Further on the public plan: "It raises the amount of activity that is growing at this unsustainable rate."

No matter, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is whisking the bill through House committees even before CBO has had a chance to score it in detail. As Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan put it to us, "We will not have read it, and we will not have a score of it, but we will have passed it out of committee."

A new payroll tax. Unemployment is at 9.5% and rising, but Democrats will nonetheless impose a new eight percentage point payroll tax on employers who don't provide health insurance for employees. This is on top of the current 15% payroll tax, and in addition to a new 2.5-percentage point tax on individuals who don't buy health insurance. This means that any employer with more than $400,000 in payroll would have to pay at least 25% above the salary to hire someone. Result: Many fewer new jobs, with a higher structural jobless rate, much as Europe has experienced as its welfare states have expanded.

Other new taxes, including an as yet undetermined levy on private health plans. This tax, which Democrats say could raise $100 billion or so, would make it even harder for private plans to compete with the government plan, which would already benefit from government subsidies and lower capital costs. For good measure, the House bill also gets the ball rolling on tax increases on foreign-source corporate income.

But the most remarkable quality of this health-care exercise is its reckless disregard for economic and fiscal reality. With the economy still far from a healthy recovery, and the federal fisc already nearly $2 trillion in deficit, Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history.

The world is looking on, agog, and wondering why the United States seems intent on jumping off this cliff.

Dodd on Health Care: Hey, We've Passed Legislation Way More Irresponsibly Than This Before!

Sen. Chris Dodd, who is guiding Senator Ted Kennedy's Health Care Legislation in his absence, speaking about the cost of this.....plan, offered this telling retort:

"Looking back over the past eight years, we've done a lot of legislation here where actually bills have been passed before we knew the numbers. Hey, we've passed legislation way more irresponsibly than this before! I'm not trying to use historical precedent for all of this but..." he said, trailing off before thanking the CBO for its work in coming up with estimates for the in-progress legislation.

So, should  we've been as much, if not more, irresponsible in the past  be the rallying cry for this complete overhaul of the health care system and control of about 1/6th of the economy?

How bout that Hope and Change, baby?

But, as it is, Dodd is only following the lead of the President and Party leaders.

House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer laughed at the notion that he would read all of what was in the health care bill before voting on it. “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer said at his regular weekly news conference....In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

Wait, wait! Isn't that what you were elected to do, Congressman? Make informed votes!!

Makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside, don't it?

**************

* Senator Dodd is a member of the powerful Senate Banking Committee and a major player in the events leading to the mortgage crisis and the recent financial meltdown of our economy! Just thought you'd like to know who's helping to molding your future with all his expertise!

___________________________________________________________________________

........and just a note:

Congratulations to the people of the Great State of Minnesota on the selection of your new United States Senator.

I know I would be proud.

Senator Al Franken