Obama's Dastardly Deficit

The master politicians have done it again.  I have watched the news channels and commentators.  They have completely ignored the fact that during Obama’s first year, there has been an act of terrorism on American soil.  I would say Obama and his Attorney General knew exactly when to break this story of the trials for the five terrorists coming from the hands of military decisions in Gitmo.  The questions raised about Obama’s decision on the request of the military commander in Afghanistan have also been erased from the minds of Americans.  If this isn’t a political master stroke, I don’t know what is.

The news media, even Fox, are being led around by the nose like a calf to slaughter.  The new White House council, Anita Dunn’s husband, is another way of getting some underhanded things done.  As politicians, the Obama administration has no equal.  There have been programs put in place, like this health care bill, waiting in the wings to destroy our economy.  The refusal to allow drilling on our shores and the interior, but going to solar and wind farms has been a joke – put in place for the benefit of General Electric.  Their CEO is in the pocket of Obama and GE’s NBC and affiliates are a voice used for the benefit of the Obama administration.  I know the Obama administration is going to have Chris Matthews’ leg bronzed.

The deficit is growing at a fantastic rate.  Our balance of payments is at a disastrous rate, and our Treasury department is printing money at a phenomenal rate to help Obama along, but all it is doing is lowering the value of our dollar lower and lower.  The importation of oil, which is completely unnecessary, is a large part of this.  Also, the taking of a large part of that is the fact that the government took over a large portion of our auto industry and efforts made to help the labor unions survive and grow.  Don’t forget, the Obama administration still has Card Check up its sleeve to have the labor unions take over the country.  Who has been the person given an inordinate amount of visits to the White House – Andy Stern, the labor leader of the SEIU and helper to ACORN.

See the following:

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) — The trade deficit in the U.S. widened in September by the most in a decade, reflecting rising demand for imported oil and automobiles as the economy rebounded from the worst recession since the 1930s.

The gap grew a larger-than-anticipated 18 percent to $36.5 billion, the highest level since January, from a revised $30.8 billion in August, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Imports surged by the most in 16 years, swamping a gain in exports.

Demand for foreign products may remain elevated in coming months as consumer and business spending improve and companies aim to prevent inventories from collapsing even more. Exports may also rise as expanding economies in Asia and Europe and a weak dollar drive demand for American goods, giving manufacturers such as Dow Chemical Co. a lift.

“Sometimes what looks bad on the surface is actually quite good and I think that’s the case this time around,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “Exports are growing strongly and imports are turning up because domestic spending has turned the corner.”

The dollar dropped after the report. One euro cost $1.4875 at 8:50 a.m. in New York, up 0.2 percent from late yesterday. The yen climbed to 89.68, up 0.8 percent. Stock-index futures pointed to a gain at the open.

Exceeds Forecasts

The trade gap was projected to widen to $31.8 billion, from an initially reported $30.7 billion in August, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 77 economists. Deficit projections ranged from $28.6 billion to $34.1 billion.

A collapse in world trade earlier this year brought the gap down to $26.4 billion in May, its lowest level since November 1999, as imports plunged even faster than exports. As commerce begins to pick back up, global leaders agree more needs to be done to strengthen the expansion.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other finance ministers at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore this week reiterated a pledge to maintain stimulus efforts “until a durable recovery in private demand is secured.”

Asia is “leading the world” back to recovery, Geithner told reporters at a joint press briefing with his APEC counterparts. President Barack Obama began a swing through Asia today as world leaders work toward a rebalancing that will make global growth more reliant on spending by Asian consumers and businesses and less dependent on their American counterparts.

Imports Jump

Imports climbed 5.8 percent, the most since March 1993, to $168.4 billion. The figures reflected a $4.1 billion increase in imported oil as the cost of a barrel of crude climbed to the highest level since October 2008 and volumes also rose.

Purchases of foreign-made autos and parts surged by $1.7 billion to $16.4 billion, due mainly to a $1.3 billion increase in imports from Canada and Mexico as North American vehicle production picked up. Imports from South Korea also climbed.

The federal “cash for clunkers” auto trade-in program, which expired in late August, generated momentum in car sales and boosted demand for parts and supplies. Automotive inventory restocking is also boosting demand for foreign-made autos and parts.

U.S. sales for South Korea-based Hyundai Motor Co. increased in September for the third month in a row, while Toyota Motor Corp. is boosting production of models such as Corollas and Camry sedans to rebuild its U.S. inventory.

Replenishing Stockpiles

“Our inventories are continuing to recover with a very good pipeline as we move into the fourth quarter,” Robert Carter, Toyota’s North America sales chief, said on a conference call last month.

Exports rose 2.9 percent to $132 billion, the most this year, propelled by sales of civilian aircraft, industrial machines and petroleum products. The dollar this month was down 12 percent from a five-year high reached in March against a trade-weighted basket of currencies from it’s biggest trading partners.

China’s economy grew 8.9 percent in the third quarter from the same period in 2008, the best performance in a year. Exports to the Asian nation were the highest since October, even as imports from China also climbed.

“The economic outlook for the rest of 2009 appears to be stabilizing, with strong growth in Asia Pacific, especially China, and other emerging geographies,” Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical’s chief executive officer, said in an Oct. 22 statement.

Factory Pickup

Dow’s factories around the world ran at 78 percent of capacity in the third quarter, an increase of 3 percentage points, because of increased demand in developing markets, including China and Brazil, as well as relatively low North American ingredient costs that led to increased exports. The largest U.S. chemical maker yesterday said cost cuts and rising sales will boost earnings more than analysts estimate.

After eliminating the influence of prices, which are the numbers used to calculate gross domestic product, the trade deficit grew to $41.7 billion, the highest since January. The figures suggest the government may revise down their estimate for third-quarter economic growth.

The U.S. is growing again after posting its worst contraction in seven decades. The world’s largest economy expanded at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the best performance in two years. Economists surveyed last month forecast a 3 percent rate of growth this quarter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Willis in Washington at bwillis@bloomberg.net

Obama says he is going to reduce the deficit.  Then why is he wanting to increase the national debt limits?  He could use the tarp funds and the unused portion of the stimulus to keep from having to raise the debt limit.  The adding of  $1.3 trillion boondoggle of a health care bill to take affect in four years, right after the next election, is very droll.

See this article:

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration is confident Congress will raise the country’s debt limit by year end to avert a showdown similar to the one that shuttered parts of the government in 1995, administration officials said.

The White House wants an increase of at least $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, according to a person familiar with the deliberations between lawmakers and the administration. Record budget deficits are pushing the national debt closer to the $12.1 trillion statutory limit.

The administration’s request, higher than a proposed increase already passed in the House of Representatives, would get the government through the November 2010 midterm congressional elections without needing another increase. Earlier this month, Treasury officials acknowledged they’ll need more borrowing room by year-end to avoid market disruptions.

“Market participants still remain on edge, especially since many have concerns over the rising debt loads that were kicked off this year,” said George Goncalves, chief fixed- income rates strategist in New York at primary dealer Cantor Fitzgerald LP.

The administration officials said the White House is open to any legislative vehicle that will raise the debt limit, by any amount. Although the Obama administration has pledged to bring deficits down to “sustainable” levels in the longer term, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has focused recently on the need to keep up spending on economic assistance programs until the unemployment rate, which reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October, comes down.

TARP Savings

To rein in the 2010 deficit, the administration will save as much as it can from unused portions of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, another administration official said. Treasury data show that the administration has more than $200 billion in uncommitted TARP funds.

One Treasury official said the memory of the 1995 budget standoff should be motivation to avoid another showdown. In that confrontation, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich battled with the White House over federal budget bills, forcing President Bill Clinton to shut the government down temporarily.

With the economy still in the early recovery stage, Congress understands the stakes and doesn’t want to fuel investor concern, the official said.

Republicans in Congress are seeking to link the debt limit to the debate over health-care spending, while Democrats prefer to keep the two issues separate. The Senate Budget Committee has proposed a commission to look into the nation’s fiscal health, which backers say should be a condition of any debt limit increase.

‘Not Right’

“We’re seeing deficits projected for the next 10 years of over a trillion dollars a year,” said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, in congressional comments last week. “It’s not sustainable. It’s not fair, and it’s not right.”

Treasury debt-management director Karthik Ramanathan told bond market participants in Washington last week to expect another year of government debt sales of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in fiscal year 2010, which began Oct. 1, according to minutes of the meeting.

For fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. racked up a $1.4 trillion deficit, and the Congressional Budget Office in August predicted a deficit this year of about the same size.

Treasury officials also have said they have less maneuvering room than in the past. Tactics such as tapping federal retirement funds would free up roughly $150 billion – about the same amount as the interest payments that come due on Dec. 31.

Temporary Measures

“Depending on the date that we hit the debt limit, they could last days or at most weeks,” compared with five or six months in previous debt-limit impasses, said Matthew Rutherford, deputy assistant Treasury secretary for federal finance, in a press conference last week.

Forecasting a precise date for a debt-ceiling collision is difficult because the government’s cash flows are “volatile,” the Treasury said last week, adding that it would keep markets and lawmakers notified of developments. The department said it could need extra immediate cash because there’s so much uncertainty surrounding incoming taxes and outgoing spending on fiscal stimulus and financial market stabilization programs.

“Debt ceiling showdowns used to be long, drawn-out affairs,” said Louis Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey. “Things come to a head much faster when your cash burn rate averages more than $100 billion a month.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at rchristie4@bloomberg.net

I think every wife, mother, father and relative of any of our soldiers killed in Afghanistan during the time Obama has stalled and wavered about sending additional troops to help those troops already there who are feeling neglected and demoralized should turn to their representative and Senator (regardless of party), as well as the news media and DEMAND an apology from Obama!

Only liberals would want their children in these hands!

Obama and his administration are very slow in sending additional troops to Afghanistan, as his appointed Military Commander asked for.  He knew right away what he wanted to do on health care, but doesn’t have the time to decide on helping the young troops over ‘there’ and keep more of ‘them’ alive – choices too hard to make.  He has no problem with wrecking the country with his health care reform by adding a massive deficit to be paid for by our children, grand children and their children.   He is not the only one shorting the troops.  Both the Democrats and Republicans shorted the troops when they took $2.1 billion out of the defense budget for their own little earmarks, to get themselves re-elected.

Originally published 04:45 a.m., October 15, 2009, updated 09:02 a.m., October 15, 2009

U.S. troop funds diverted to pet projects

Shaun Waterman THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis.

Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, “in 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year,” said Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, an independent research organization.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, called the transfer of funds from Pentagon operations and maintenance “a disgrace.”

“The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and women fighting on the front lines,” he said in a statement.

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Mr. Wheeler, who conducted the study, compared the Obama administration’s requests for funds with the $636 billion spending bill that the Senate passed. He discovered that senators added $2.6 billion in pet projects while spending $4 billion less than the administration requested for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1.

Mr. Wheeler said that senators took most of the cash for the projects from the “operations and maintenance” or O&M accounts.

“These are the accounts that pay for troop training, repairs, spares and supplies for vehicles, weapons, ships and planes, food and fuel,” Mr. Wheeler said.

Raiding those accounts to fund big-ticket projects the military does not want, but that benefit senators’ home states or campaign contributors, amounts to “rancid gluttony,” he said.

The administration’s budget requested $156 billion for the regular O&M account and $81 billion for O&M for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill passed by the Senate cut $2.4 billion from the regular account and $655 million from the war O&M fund.

Senate appropriators insisted that the O&M accounts, despite the cuts, do not shortchange the troops.

“The operation and maintenance title is fully funded,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, said during the debate on the bill. “There is no shortage. … The committee is deeply concerned that the critical operational needs of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are met with the finest equipment available.”

Money for the Kennedy Institute was inserted by Mr. Inouye and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, and Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, sought the funding for the World War II museum.

Whitney Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, said the earmark was “a worthy investment.”

“Sen. Kennedy served on the Armed Services Committee for 27 years, where he fought to deliver top-of-the-line body armor and armored Humvees to protect our troops and save lives. Educating Americans about these battles is a core mission for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, which showcases one senator’s ability to make a difference,” Mr. Smith wrote in an e-mail. “This funding will help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute become one the nation’s pre-eminent civic educational institutions, and Sen. Kerry is proud to have worked with Chairman Inouye to make it possible.”

Mrs. Landrieu said she was “proud to fight” for money for the World War II museum, which is not just a “monument to the brave men and women who served during World War II,” but also “a constant reminder to future generations about the tremendous sacrifice of millions of Americans.” She added that the earmarked funds “will help to increase tourism to New Orleans.”

Beyond those two earmarks, the largest in the Senate bill are:

- $20 million for Humvee maintenance at an Army National Guard installation in Maine, sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, Maine Republicans. The senators said cuts in the maintenance program proposed by the administration would result in the “layoff of 175 employees in a region already suffering” from the recession.

- $20 million for the Maui Space Surveillance System in Hawaii, requested by Mr. Inouye.

- $25 million inserted by Mr. Inouye for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network. Mr. Inouye’s Web site says the health care program “supports applied research, development and deployment of technology to improve access and the quality of care to service members, military families and impacted communities.”

Laura Peterson, of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan spending watchdog, told The Washington Times, “Earmarks like these take money away from other defense programs that the Defense Department actually wants. While military health care is certainly a worthwhile venture, it’s hard to see how a program located in Hawaii that openly favors Hawaii-based industries guarantees [the Department of Defense] the best value for such an exorbitant price tag.”

Mr. Inouye had a total of 35 earmarks worth more than $206 million in the final bill, and the ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, sponsored 48 worth $216 million.

Mr. Cochran defended earmarking as part of Congress’ responsibility to direct government spending.

“I am not ready to cede the power of the purse to any administration,” he told The Times in an e-mail. “It is vested by the Constitution in the Congress.” He added that appropriators had “reviewed the budget request very carefully, conducted public hearings and reported the appropriation bills that the committee thinks will serve the public interest.”

In addition to the $2.6 billion in earmarks, the bill includes $2.5 billion for 10 Boeing C-17 cargo planes that the military says it does not need, and $1.7 billion for an extra DDG-51 destroyer not requested in the Pentagon’s budget proposal.

Mr. Coburn mounted a rear-guard action on the Senate floor to try to restore some of the money to its original purpose. One proposed amendment restored $100 million to the accounts by correcting the economic projections used in the bill to estimate future costs. That passed, but other amendments to prevent the use of O&M money to fund earmarks were soundly defeated.

Mr. Wheeler said senators had raided O&M accounts to pay for narrowly targeted projects in every budget since 2002, with dire results for troops on the front lines.

“Air Force and Navy combat pilots training to deploy are getting about half of the flying hours they got at the end of the Vietnam War,” he wrote in his analysis. “Army tank crews get less in tank training today than they did during the low-readiness Clinton years.”

Mr. Wheeler told The Times that the figures were drawn from the Pentagon’s budget justification.

Mr. Coburn said in May that the Navy had been forced to curtail at-sea training and flying because of a shortfall in 2009 O&M funds.

The White House Office of Management and Budget has called on lawmakers to reverse the cuts.

“These reductions would hurt force readiness and increase stress on military people and equipment,” the agency said.

The House approved its version of the bill in July. Ms. Peterson said that lawmakers still could restore the funding in the conference that reconciles the two versions of the bill.

The conference “presents a final opportunity for Congress to take their hands out of the cookie jar and put some dough where it’s really needed – protecting our fighting men and women,” she said.

This Congress is really the pits.  They gave themselves a raise and raised their budgets to help with their partying and flitting around to desirable locales.  They really put themselves out, seeing to it that the seniors didn’t get the cost of living adjustment.  I don’t know where they get this cost of living figure.  They must not go into grocery or drug stores.  But why would they when they can pay someone else to do it for them?

When Obama appoints Kevin Jennings to be in charge of safe schools, what does that say about Obama?  Remember when Obama had the charter schools stopped in D.C. so his daughters wouldn’t have to possibly brush up against the non-elites?  What a dad!  At least there is a group in Congress asking for the removal of Kevin Jennings.  If you don’t know his history, look it up:

Fifty-three House Republicans have written President Barack Obama asking him to remove “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings from that position.

The lawmakers accused Jennings of “pushing a pro-homosexual agenda” and said that Jennings’s past writings exhibit a record that makes him unfit for the position.

“We respectfully request that you remove Kevin Jennings, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, from your Administration,” the Republicans wrote. “It is clear that Mr. Jennings lacks the appropriate qualifications and ethical standards to serve in this capacity.”

Jennings has come under scrutiny from conservative personalities like talk show host Sean Hannity for his handling of an alleged incident involving underage sex, as well as Jennings’s own reported personal history with drugs and alcohol — charges the GOP members echoed.

The letter was primarily assembled by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), and was joined by 52 Republican colleagues, including two members of leadership: House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) and House Republican Conference Vice Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

Jennings, who founded the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teacher Network (GLISTeN), was appointed by Obama to head the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, a position Jennings assumed in July.

“Kevin Jennings cannot gain the approval of parents who want their children safe and their schools drug free,” the Republican congressmen said. “You should replace him with someone who has a record of educating children in a safe and moral environment.”

The Jennings controversy follows the Sept. 6 resignation of Green Jobs Czar Van Jones and the long-blocked nomination of Cass Sunstein as regulatory czar.

Find the entire letter, with signatories, below:

October 15, 2009

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We respectfully request that you remove Kevin Jennings, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, from your Administration. It is clear that Mr. Jennings lacks the appropriate qualifications and ethical standards to serve in this capacity.

As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools—an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children. As evidence of this, Mr. Jennings wrote the foreword for a book titled Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue About Sexualities and Schooling. Throughout his career, Mr. Jennings has made it his mission to establish special protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students to the exclusion of all other students. The totality of Mr. Jennings’ career has been to advocate for public affirmation of homosexuality. There is more to safe and drug free schools than can be accomplished from the narrow view of Mr. Jennings who has, for more than 20 years, almost exclusively focused on promoting the homosexual agenda.

Equally troubling is Mr. Jennings’ self-described history of ignoring the sexual abuse of a child. In his book, One Teacher in Ten, Mr. Jennings recounts a 15-year old student confiding in him that he had a sexual relationship with a much older man. Mr. Jennings’ only response was to ask if the underage boy used a condom. As a mandatory reporter, Mr. Jennings was required by law to report child abuse, including sex crimes. Mr. Jennings cannot serve as the “safe schools” czar when his record demonstrates a willingness to overlook the sexual abuse of a child.

As the “safe schools” czar, Mr. Jennings is also charged with ensuring our schools and students are drug free. It is clear that Mr. Jennings is unfit to serve in this capacity, as well. His own history of unrepentant drug and alcohol abuse indicates that he is of the opinion that getting drunk and high as a young person is acceptable. In his memoir, Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son, Mr. Jennings describes his use of illegal drugs, without expressing regret or acknowledging the devastating effects illegal drug use can have on a person’s life.

Everyone that deals with the education of the most vulnerable must be a positive role model.  Our children are not blessed with the wisdom to discern and reject. Children presume the adults who educate them are approved by the larger society and their parents.  Kevin Jennings cannot gain the approval of parents who want their children safe and their schools drug free. You should replace him with someone who has a record of educating children in a safe and moral environment.

Given these very serious issues with Mr. Jennings’ record, we urge you to remove him immediately.

Sincerely,

KING
Alexander
Aderholt
Akin
Austria
Bachmann
Bachus
Bartlett
Barton
Boozman
Broun
Brown, H.
Carter
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Conaway
Davis, Geoff
Fallin
Fleming
Foxx
Franks
Garrett
Gingrey
Gohmert
Hunter
Issa
Jordan
Lamborn
Latta
LuetkemeyerMarchant
McClintock
McHenry
McKeon
McMorris
Mica
Miller, J.
Myrick
Neugebauer
Olson, P.
Pence
Pitts
Posey
Rogers (AL)
Rooney
Ryan, Paul
Shuster
Smith, C
Smith, L.
Wamp
Westmoreland
Jones, Walter

When you see the czars Obama appoints, don’t it make you wonder?

This administration talks about the fact that the leader of Afghanistan was elected by fraudulent voting… HEY, WHAT’S NEW?  Did ACORN fraudulently vote in Obama?  Could be.  With ACORN’s fraud and those voters who voted in Obama because of their desire to break the color bar, which was good intent, look what it brought us.  Who’s sorry now?  Anyone who thinks that Obama has ever stopped campaigning and planting questions in the audience, check today in New Orleans.  Has he gone to any state that he didn’t win since the election?  Does it make you wonder why he wants the leader that was removed in Honduras, President Manuel Zelaya, to be returned to power even though he tried to overturn their constitution to retain power?  Their supreme court threw him out.  Does Obama have a similar desire for power and would he go against OUR Constitution?

We know there is no transparency, as he promised.  He has lied and denied since being in Office.  He went on the Letterman show – could they be of the same stripe?  Look at the czars he appointed.  Is Code Pink keeping Obama from sending troops to Afghanistan?  Wonder why Obama never stopped by Mississippi to see THEIR Katrina damage.  Could it be he didn’t carry Mississippi in the election?

Out with the old and in with the new, huh Obama?

Isn’t it nice that the Boston Tea Party people were not afraid to act against the British forces that wished to deny us freedom?  We cannot allow Obama’s union goons and ACORN from depriving us also.  I had three brothers and many nephews, cousins, and uncles who fought for our country during World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars.  These were all foreign wars.  I am 77 years young and will gladly go into service to fight the union goons, ACORN, and people Obama has assigned to take our freedoms away in our country.  This cannot be allowed, even if THEY wished.

This is all about the “gimme generation”.

As a Christian, I believe that it is every Christian’s duty to live complete lives as given to them by God.  They have no right to end it for economics.  Our country has only ONE chance – a new two party system calling for term limits.

Remember the Soviet Union insisting that its citizens rat out their relatives and friends?  Where is the Soviet Union today?  Cuba forced citizens to rat on parents, friends, and relatives… where is their economy now?  Is Obama’s rant against rumor and false information a similar program, set up to destroy dissent and crush our our rights to privacy and freedom of speech?

I sure hope the DNC comes out with more of their great commercials to divide the American people.  It shows their true character, absence of principal, lack of integrity, and their hate for the First Amendment and their fellow countrymen.  They call their fellow Americans Nazis for using their free speech rights.  This is the best hope for the Republican party to regain the majority in Congress.  KEEP ON TALKING!

Hitler also decided who lived and who died.  The Jews went first, then the mentally ill, criminals, people who espoused free speech and any enemy of the state.  Obama’s health plan decides who lives and who dies – the Obama five year program.

Monday, August 10, 2009

EDITORIAL: Look for the union label

Politics is getting increasingly violent as Democrats desperately try to salvage their health care bill.  Rep. Brian Baird, Washington Democrat, said last week that public protest against the government health care plan “is close to Brown Shirt tactics.” For Mr. Baird to characterize his constituents as Nazi storm troops is distasteful, to say the least. Yet it is fully in line with the tone set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who misleadingly decried protesters “carrying swastikas.” Closer examination revealed that in every case, the symbol was being used as a warning against the arrogance of power of which Mrs. Pelosi has become emblematic.

Democratic talking points characterize the spontaneous grass-roots opposition to the planned government takeover of the health care system as being organized by a shadowy cabal of lobbyists and insurance companies. However, the real storm troops are being deployed openly by organized labor in an attempt to squelch dissent.  On Aug. 6, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sent marching orders to his members to confront concerned citizens at town-hall forums. In St. Louis, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) reportedly attacked and beat Kenneth Gladney, who was passing out yellow flags outside a forum held by Rep. Russ Carnahan, Missouri Democrat. SEIU President Andy Stern has summed up his philosophy as, “We prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work, we use the persuasion of power.”

We expect to see his grim-faced “purple shirts” using intimidation at other events during the congressional recess.  This effort is fully consistent with the general contempt that the Democratic majority has shown for those who oppose its radical agenda. The promised era of bipartisanship is long gone. The government’s new slogan is “sit down and shut up.” In an appearance in McLean last week, President Obama advised opponents of his plan to “get out of the way” and said he didn’t want them “to do a lot of talking.” The Obama White House made history when it set up an e-mail snitch line for people to report on the “fishy” ideas of their fellow citizens.  The Democrats would do better to try to understand the root causes of this unprecedented spontaneous outpouring of public concern and frustration than to resort to intimidation tactics.

There are many serious questions about the growth of government and the planned takeover of health care that need to be answered, not beaten down. Deploying thugs will only lead to violence, which serves no one’s interest. If the people are shouting, it is because the politicians have stopped listening.

Another article:

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Angry rich liberals

Victor Davis Hanson

Scolding Americans for our various sins is proving popular among an elite group of self-appointed moralists.  Take well-meaning environmentalists who warn us that our plush lifestyles heat up and pollute the planet. To listen to former Vice President Al Gore or New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, we must immediately curtail our carbon emissions — or face planetary destruction.  Yet these influential prophets of doom do not have lives remotely similar to the lesser folk they lecture. From time to time, Mr. Gore hops on a private jet – and purchases “carbon offsets” penances for the privilege. His mansion not long ago consumed more energy in a month than the average American home does in a year. Mr. Friedman lives on a sprawling estate reminiscent of those of the grandees of the 18th-century English countryside.

The rest of us would find these environmental scolds more convincing if they chose to live modestly in average tract homes. That way, they could limit their energy consumption and provide living proof to us of how smaller is better for an endangered planet Earth.  Critics in the business of racial grievance offer the same contradictions.  Recently, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. got into a spat with a white policeman who arrested him in his own home for disorderly conduct. Mr. Gates immediately cried racism. He argued that his plight was emblematic of the burdens the black underclass endures daily from a racist white America.  However, Mr. Gates is one of the highest-paid humanities professors in the United States. And Mr. Gates – not the middle-class Cambridge, Mass., white cop — engaged in shouting and brought up race.

Within hours, the black mayor of Cambridge, the black governor of Massachusetts and the black president of the United States all rallied to their chum’s side.  Yet this well-connected, well-paid man apparently wants us to believe in melodramatic fashion that he is living in something like the United States of decades ago.  Indeed, citing racial grievance at times proves a valuable asset for wealthy celebrities. Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson posed as victims of various racial oppressions when they found themselves in their own self-created legal problems. Race-baiter the Rev. Jeremiah Wright simply retreats to his three-story mansion on a golf course after his day job of denouncing whites as exploiters.

We have more of the rich on the barricades railing about the economic inequality of America. Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina preached about “two Americas,” one poor and abandoned, one wealthy and connected. Mr. Edwards should know because he built himself a gargantuan multimillion-dollar mansion in which he might better contemplate the underprivileged outside his compound.  Sen. Christopher Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, sermonizes about corporate greed and credit card companies’ near-extortion. Nonetheless, Mr. Dodd managed to squeeze out of the corporate world a low-interest loan, a sweetheart deal for a vacation home in Ireland, and thousands in campaign donations.

Former senator and Cabinet nominee Tom Daschle of South Dakota was a big proponent of raising taxes to nationalize our health care system. The problem was that the populist Mr. Daschle both hated paying taxes and loved limousines — and so avoided the former but welcomed the latter.  In the old days, critics of what we called the “system” were at least for the most part blue-collar workers, underpaid teachers or grass-roots politicians whose rather modest lives matched their angry populist rhetoric. Now the most vehement critics of America’s purported sins are among the upper classes. These critics’ parlor game has confused Americans about why they are being called polluters, racists and exploiters by those who have fared best in America.

Do the wealthy and the powerful lecture us about our wrongs because they know their own insider status ensures that they are exempt from the harsh medicine they advocate for others? Mr. Gore, a millionaire, is not much affected by higher taxes for his cap-and-trade crusade.  Or does the hypocrisy grow out of a sort of class snobbery? Do elites hector the crass middle class because its members lack their own taste, rare insight and privileged style? Judging from the police report, Mr. Gates seemed flabbergasted that the white Cambridge cop did not know who he was “messing” with.  Or is the new hypocrisy an eerie sort of psychological compensation at work?

Perhaps the more Mr. Gore rails about carbon emissions, the more he can without guilt enjoy what emits them. The more Mr. Gates can cite racism, the more he himself is paid to spot it. And the more Tom Daschle wants to tax and spend for health care, the less bad he feels about his own chauffeur and tax avoidance.  Here’s a little advice for all of America’s wealthy critics: a little less hypocrisy, a little more appreciation of your good lives — and then maybe the rest of us will listen to you a little more.

And another…

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

PRUDEN: Recycling the contempt

OPINION/ANALYSIS: Recycling is so popular that even our congressmen, unaccustomed as they are to practicing what they preach, do it. They’re reaching back into the dark past to recycle contempt. Never waste a crisis, even if you have to manufacture the crisis.  Democrats from the cosseted life in the House and Senate, accustomed to getting the deference at home so often denied in Washington, are suddenly having to deal with inconvenient old folks at home. President Obama insists that the War on Terror is over, ended by his ultimate weapon, the Apology Bomb. But to listen to delicate congressmen whose feelings are hurt, al Qaeda has merely moved terror operations to their congressional districts.

Angry lynch mobs (to hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her sidekick Steny Hoyer tell it) of elderly gents on walking sticks and little blue-haired ladies in their 80s have descended on congressmen at town meetings across the country – in California, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, Georgia and other places. They’re taking out their anger and frustration at the Obama health care “reform” in the robust American way, but Mrs. Pelosi professes to see “reform” adrift on a turbulent sea of Nazi swastikas. Rep. Brian Baird of Washington sees a blur of Brown Shirts. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas calls the dissenters “un-American.” She later remembered where she was and said she didn’t mean to call them that. Her contempt for Arkansas folks just popped out. In Georgia, Rep. David Scott tried to calm a town meeting with a plea to “calm down and take a deep breath,” then took a deep breath and scolded everyone with a hysterical screed about the “hijacking” of his meeting.

Rep. Steve Cohen treated his Memphis constituents with similar contempt: “Take two aspirin and come back in the morning.” Rep. Russ Carnahan told livid St. Louis constituents, naive yokels in his view, that they had been “mobilized [by] special interests in Washington.”  The frightened Democratic reaction to robust debate – “the conversation” that “progressives” are so eager to have with those who disagree with them – recycles the insults and epithets last heard in confrontations over civil rights and the war in Vietnam. The protests are “organized,” the work of “outside agitators.” Martin Luther King, by Democratic reckoning, was an outside agitator. The marches against the Vietnam war were marvels of organization, true, but … umm, well … that was different. Mr. Obama should recognize outside agitation when he sees it, given his career in outside agitation in Chicago. He was taught by Saul Alinsky, “the father of American radicalism,” that the left-wing strategy for achieving an unpopular goal is to “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”  We’re almost there.

The Democrats are trying to impose rationed government health care (the target) quickly, before the public wakes up from entertaining distractions (the freeze), making villains of all who oppose (personalizing it) and creating a chaotic controversy (polarizing it) that can be effectively exploited. Mr. Obama once taught Saul Alinsky workshops in Chicago, so he was ready when he thought he heard opportunity knocking.  But the president and his congressional accomplices forgot that timing is everything. The public-opinion polls show that bare majorities think there’s a health care crisis, but bigger majorities are satisfied with their own coverage.

The majority can smell government medicine and the confiscatory taxes on the way. The president further miscalculated when he agreed to the insertion of a scheme, hidden in the thousand pages of the House legislation, to “offer” counseling to the aged about how they want to die. Nothing there about the “how” and “when.” That comes later.  When he confronts mortality, a man is suspicious of boodlers with smooth tongues. Roger Fakes, 70, a retired businessman, showed up at the Memphis “town hall” in neither Brown Shirt nor swastika (he’s actually a Presbyterian elder). His congressman’s insistence that Obamacare would not disturb his private insurance moved him to his feet with polite but pointed questions and observations: “There are some of us old gray-haired folks who don’t want the government involved in any of our business.” And not just the gray-haired folks. Congressmen are learning the hard way they sometimes have to listen, like it or not.

More great reading:

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Palin got it right

Rep. Don Young

On July 24, Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts took to The Washington Post to attack former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s opposition to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax legislation and her overall energy philosophy.

Mrs. Palin correctly criticized the scheme presented in the legislation sponsored by Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. By only citing a report from the left-of-liberal Center for American Progress, Mr. Kerry and Mrs. Boxer naively underestimate the effects the legislation will have on the American economy. Other, more mainstream organizations, such as the Brookings Institution and the Black Chamber of Commerce, disagree.

Waxman-Markey artificially creates competition between cheap, abundant energy and unreliable, expensive renewable forms, compelling utilities to use heavily subsidized, politically correct “renewable energy” while thousands who work producing traditional energy lose their jobs.

All the while, American industry will flee to other countries where they can power their assembly lines with cheaper energy. Because nearly four decades of obscene subsidies for wind and solar power haven’t worked, Waxman-Markey ups the ante and engages in societal re-engineering and fundamental restructuring of America’s energy supply.

According to the Energy Information Administration, wind and solar receive 55 times more in subsidies than coal and 100 times more than oil and natural gas. Yet today, wind and solar barely make up 1.5 percent of America’s electricity supply and 0.5 percent of the total U.S. energy supply, while 85 percent of the U.S. energy supply originates from fossil fuels. These figures make clear to what extent the Waxman-Markey bill must give a leg up to wind and solar to force their success. The simple fact is that these so-called industries would not survive without mandates and subsidies.

Mrs. Boxer and Mr. Kerry seem ignorant of the fact that wind and solar fail to power America’s trucks, planes, trains and ships. In reality, wind and solar will not displace the energy necessary for moving people and products around the country.

Nevertheless, while mocking Mrs. Palin’s good sense, they choose to advocate legislation and policies that will drive U.S. dependence on foreign oil through the roof. The senators seem oblivious to the fact that nearly one-fourth of every barrel of oil goes to producing the asphalt on which their electric cars drive, the lubricants that enable the blades on their windmills to spin and the plastics that are used in the medical supplies, fabrics and raw materials Americans cannot live without.

In 1995, Congress passed legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas development. In fact, legislation to open ANWR has passed the House 10 times and the Senate once. Unfortunately, President Clinton vetoed that attempt, and today, Americans fail to enjoy the hundreds of millions of barrels a year that would be flowing had the bill become law.

Now, for the first time since 1982, we have the ability to develop our offshore resources. In 2008, President George W. Bush let the Executive Moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf Development expire, and Congress did not renew the legislative moratorium. However, the Obama administration and the radical environmentalists have other plans, and a de facto moratorium remains.

American energy marvels such as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) are the real drivers of the American economy. TAPS didn’t require a government mandate; it required the federal government to get out of the way. This pipeline would never be built today. TAPS was successful only because of the oil embargo and, more significantly, because the legislation curtailed the ability of environmentalists to file lawsuits to block the project — an effort in which, unfortunately, they have become well versed. This summer, as TAPS prepares to send its 16 billionth barrel to the consumer, I am reminded that Sarah Palin is correct and Mr. Kerry and Mrs. Boxer are again on the wrong side of energy issues.

Healthy markets succeed when the federal government steps back, not when it picks winners and losers. If history has demonstrated anything, it’s that economies cannot be centrally planned by legislative bodies or bureaucrats — even though some in the majority party seemingly disagree. The market, coupled with the ingenuity and enduring spirit of hardworking Americans, always wins.

Cheap energy means a strong economy. This is something we’ve learned firsthand in Alaska. In our villages, where gasoline or heating oil can top $7 a gallon, jobs are hard to come by.

The senators write that climate legislation will “ensure that the United States — not China or India — will be the leading economic power in this century.” But the truth is, they already are.

The United States was the dynamic economic power in the 20th century without cap-and-trade. I know Mrs. Palin and I are both committed to ensuring that America’s economic dominance continues into the 21st century rather than embarking blindly down the road to serfdom offered in Waxman-Markey and by the aforementioned senators from Massachusetts and California.

Video highlight:

Hide your walkers and wheelchairs - Obama wants them back!

Caught a little bit of the Washington Correspondents dinner where Obama said “You all voted for me.”  There is no doubt about that.  A comic (or something) entertaining the Democrats said she hoped Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail.  Hers already has, and the waste is coming out of her mouth.  Obama couldn’t resist comparing himself to God, saying how on the 73rd day of his next hundred days he would rest.  The crowd there sure wouldn’t argue with him on that.  Of course he would bow for a Muslim leader of Saudi Arabia but wouldn’t declare a day of prayer in which he would participate – makes you wonder if he was, instead, using a prayer rug in solitude to a different God.  I would hazzard to say he would wish more good for the Muslim countries.  We know how he feels about the one of which he is President and making every effort to destroy Her.

Where was the Manger placed in which he was born?  Was it possibly Kenya?  We will never know.

The price of oil and gas is rising to meet the needs for funds for speculators.  It has to be that, as there is still a surplus of both.  Of course it could be for the needs of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela to use for their military designs, as they sure won’t use this to feed or care for their citizens.  What I wonder is if those three countries even send the speculators a note of thanks.  They could at least send them signed, framed photographs.

Obama means to re-make healthcare.  Unfortunately what he wants to do is take from the seniors, now retired, who have EARNED their healthcare and give healthcare to millions of illegal aliens who take from this country welfare, education, healthcare, and anything they need and charge it to those who have earned their way and had no intentions of having their country underwrite Mexico and its citizens.  In fact, in Obama’s mind those 12 million illegals will become Democratic voters, so we must be nice to them and the old citizens who helped this country succeed are dying out so why bother with them?

The disease destroying this country from within is the 60s malcontents, druggies, and terrorists now teaching in our schools, colleges, and universities and passing on their beliefs to the young and impressionable.  An example of this is the teacher in California teaching Geography, going off the subject to try to help destroy a religion that he doesn’t believe in and making false statements about a section of the country that he wishes to put down to satisfy his own twisted desire to make his life something of value – will never happen.

Friends of Obama, domestic terrorists – Aires and his wife are now teaching as are many of the 60s generation of idiots and ne’erdowells, who are now destroying the country that others built for them with Obama’s participation.

This week Obama is concentrating on healthcare.  A simple way to cut costs would be not servicing, at our expense, the 12 million aliens.  Because that would take away prospective liberal-based voters for the Democratic party, that path cannot be taken, so he must figure out a way to deprive some American citizens of their care to make up for it.  Seniors are a good target.  He may think that his abortion program will suffice and eliminate enough lives to take care of the problem.  Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, a match made in hell, are ready to kill.

Now let’s talk about the most crooked corporation in the United States, in league with the Democrats and Obama – that corporation is General Electric.  They are expecting large rewards from the use of their tv stations NBC and MSNBC to further the Democrats’ programs and incentives.  The program of windmills – GE is expecting billions from building windmill turbines – a program already tried and abandoned by some European countries.  I suppose they would probably be getting billions from nuclear energy, but at least that would be a program well established as continuing to be a source of clean energy made cheaply with the use of uranium.  There was a time when GE was considered a symbol of America, building useful and long lasting products, building everything from toasters, coffee makers, jet engines, and the list goes on.  That corporation was considered to be superior and a ctidel of integrity.  At that time, there was a program called GE Theater hosted by Ronald Reagan.  Unfortunately, since they became political their integrity is now questioned.  Many kitchens had GE products at that time, but far fewer now.  In fact, I would not buy a GE product and there are many like me.  As far as I know, Jack Welch was not political as Immelt is.

GE is not the only corporation that has disappointed me.  I have seen the deterioration of the news channel I watch.  Their analysts and Democratic talking-heads out-number any that could be considered as Conservatives by 3-1.  When Geraldo and Sheppard Smith come on I change the channel.  Fox shows Obama about 50 times every day.  I just change the channel or mute it.  I used to watch Britt Hume’s show all the time, but since he left it has become a forum for Juan Williams and Mara Liasson to push the Obama program and defend him from any disparaging remark by others.  The same applies to other Fox programs where the Conservatives giving their talking points are a little too courteous and allow the liberals to dominate the issues.  Why can’t they be a little more aggressive as the liberals are?

An instance of reporting that was questionable was Neil Cavuto, when a friend of his, Austin Goolsbee, was being questioned and accused of being involved in lies with the Obama administration and Neil jumped on the guy pointing this out.  In other words, his friend was inviolate no matter what.  I like the way, in Washington speak, there is no lying – it’s only “they were mis-quoted” or “it was someone else, not them” or “It was a matter of confusion, but no way was it a lie.”  Broken promises are the same as lies to me, unless there was no way it could possibly be avoided.  There was a time when Fox could be turned to for reliable news.  I am afraid those days are over.  It’s still better than NBC, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and NPS, but not by much!