The Impending Obama Meltdown

[Pig]

The Impending Obama Meltdown

Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S.
media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given
that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary.
And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather
than scrutiny.

We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—
and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic
delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring
rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-
fashioned Chicago politicking.

First, there were the sermons on ethics, belied by the appointments of
tax dodgers, crass lobbyists, and wheeler-dealers like Richardson—with
the relish of the Blago tapes still to come. (And why does Richardson/
Daschle go, but not Geithner?).

Second, was the "stimulus" (the euphemism for "borrow/print money")
that was simply a way to go into debt for a generation to shower
Democratic constituencies with cash.

Then third, there were the inflated lectures on historic foreign
policy to be made by the clumsy political novice who trashed his own
country and his predecessor in the most ungracious manner overseas to
a censured Saudi-run press organ (e.g., Bush is dictatorial, the Saudi
king is courageous; Obama can mend bridges that America broke to
aggrieved Muslims—apparently Tehran hostages, Rushdie, serial attacks
in the 1990s, 9/11, Madrid, London never apparently occurred; and
neither did feeding Somalis, saving Kuwait, protesting Chechnya,
Bosnia/Kosovo, billions to Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians, help in
two Afghan wars, and on and on).

Fourth, there was the campaign rhetoric of Bush shredding the
Constitution—FISA, Guantánamo, the Patriot Act, Iraq, renditions, etc.—
followed by "all that for now stays the same" inasmuch as we haven't
ben hit in over seven years and can't risk another attack.

Fifth, Gibbs as press secretary is a Scott McClellan nightmare that
won't go away, given his long McClellan-like relationship with Obama
(McClellan should have been fired on day hour one on the job). Blaming
Fox News for Obama's calamities is McClellan to the core and doesn't
work. He already reminds me of Reverend Wright's undoing at the
National Press Club—and he will get worse.

Six, Biden is being Biden. Already, he's ridiculed the chief justice,
trashed the former VP, bragged on himself ad nauseam in Bidenesque
weird ways, and it's only been two weeks.

And the result of all this?

At home, Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the
greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution.

Abroad, some really creepy people are lining up to test Obama's world
view of "Bush did it/but I am the world": The North Koreans are
readying their missiles; the Iranians are calling us passive, bragging
on nukes and satellites; Russia is declaring missile defense is over
and the Euros in real need of iffy Russian gas; Pakistanis say no more
drone attacks (and then our friends the Indians say "shut up" about
Kashmir and the Euros order no more "buy American").

This is quite serious. I can't recall a similarly disastrous start in
a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton's initial slips). Obama
immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/
Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world
abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on
foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and the
Secretary of Defense. If he doesn't quit the messianic style and
perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will
devolve into Carterism—angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him
while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDA1MTkzYTc4NjA5MWQxOGNjMzU3YmZiYTJhZDQ5YTY=

[Pig]

Cheney warns of new attacks

Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high
probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or
biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama
administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will
succeed.

In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended
the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and
coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.

And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his
stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in
ways more severe than most Americans—and, he charged, many members of
Obama’s own team—understand.

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to
an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States
against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to
kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said.

Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty
business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win
this fight by turning the other cheek.”

Citing intelligence reports, Cheney said at least 61 of the inmates
who were released from Guantanamo during the Bush administration
—“that’s about 11 or 12 percent”—have “gone back into the business of
being terrorists.”

The 200 or so inmates still there, he claimed, are “the hard core”
whose “recidivism rate would be much higher.” He called Guantanamo a
“first-class program,” and “a necessary facility” that is operated
legally and with better food and treatment than the jails in inmates
native countries.

But he said he worried that “instead of sitting down and carefully
evaluating the policies,” Obama officials are unwisely following
“campaign rhetoric” and preparing to release terrorism suspects or
afford them legal protections granted to more conventional defendants
in crime cases.

The choice, he alleged, reflects a naïve mindset among the new team in
Washington: “The United States needs to be not so much loved as it
needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions
that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the
Obama adminstration believes.”

The dire portrait Cheney painted of the country’s security situation
was made even grimmer by his comments agreeing with analysts who this
recession may be a once-in-a-century disaster.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Cheney said. “The combination
of the financial crisis that started last year, coupled now with,
obviously, a major recession, I think we’re a long way from having
solved these problems.”

The interview, less than two weeks after the Bush administration ceded
power to Obama, found the man who is arguably the most controversial—
and almost surely the most influential—vice president in U.S. history
in a self-vindicating mood.

He expressed confidence that files will some day be publicly
accessible offering specific evidence that waterboarding and other
policies he promoted—over sharp internal dissent from colleagues and
harsh public criticism—were directly responsible for averting new
September 11-style attacks.

Not content to wait for a historical verdict, Cheney said he is set to
plunge into his own memoirs, feeling liberated to describe behind-the-
scenes roles over several decades in government now that the “statute
of limitations has expired” on many of the most sensitive episodes.

His comments made unmistakable that Cheney—likely more than former
President Bush, who has not yet given post-White House interviews—-is
willing and even eager to spar with the new administration and its
supporters over the issues he cares most about.

His standing in this public debate is beset by contradictions. Cheney
for years has had intimate access to the sort of highly classified
national security intelligence that Obama and his teams are only
recently seeing.

But many of the top Democratic legal and national security players
have long viewed Cheney as a man who became unhinged by his fears,
responsible for major misjudgments in Iraq and Afghanistan, willing to
bend or break legal precedents and constitutional principles to
advance his aims. Polls show he is one of the most unpopular people in
national life.

In the interview, Cheney revealed no doubts about his own course—and
many about the new administration’s.

“If it hadn’t been for what we did—with respect to the terrorist
surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-
value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth—then we would have been
attacked again,” he said. “Those policies we put in place, in my
opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-
plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”

Cheney said “the ultimate threat to the country” is “a 9/11-type event
where the terrorists are armed with something much more dangerous than
an airline ticket and a box cutter – a nuclear weapon or a biological
agent of some kind” that is deployed in the middle of an American
city.

“That’s the one that would involve the deaths of perhaps hundreds of
thousands of people, and the one you have to spend a hell of a lot of
time guarding against,” he said.

“I think there’s a high probability of such an attempt. Whether or not
they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies
that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to
launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”

[more]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18390.html

[Pig]

Surely this isn't what Obama meant when he vowed change

WASHINGTON — These first days aren't going the way that President
Barack Obama hoped when he promised to change the way Washington
operates.

He remains popular, with broad support from the American people, but
the taint of politics as usual is challenging the aura of something
new.

Three of his top nominees have been caught with tax problems, two them
departing abruptly Tuesday. Two more were former lobbyists named to
high positions despite Obama's ban on lobbyists in his administration.
Yet another, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, had to withdraw weeks
earlier because of an investigation into alleged "pay-to-play"
politics at home.

"This tax issue was starting to reach critical mass," pollster John
Zogby said. "One is a mistake. Two is a problem. When you start
getting a third, it possibly becomes a question of judgment. How do
you ask Americans to sacrifice while Cabinet members don't sacrifice
until they get caught?"

First came reports that Timothy Geithner, a former official of the
Federal Reserve, belatedly paid $34,000 in back income taxes, and
$8,000 in interest. He was eventually confirmed as treasury secretary.

Then came Tuesday morning's departure of Nancy Killefer, who'd been
nominated to a top budget post and who'd failed to pay unemployment
compensation taxes for domestic help and had a lien placed on her
Washington home as a result. She asked Obama to withdraw her
nomination.

Finally on Tuesday, Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination to be
secretary of health and human services. Daschle, a former member of
the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, last month paid more than
$140,000 in back taxes and interest, most of it owed for his
chauffeured luxury car, which he enjoyed as a loan from a private-
equity firm he advised. He also reported that he'd earned $5 million
in two years, largely from industry groups.

Suddenly, too many of Obama's picks struck many people as business as
usual rather than "change you can believe in."

When it was reported that Daschle had worked for a lobbying firm, for
example, the Obama White House said that Daschle himself wasn't a
registered lobbyist and thus was exempt from Obama's much-ballyhooed
ban on lobbyists.

"I don't know how you get paid $2 million by a lobbying firm and not
call yourself a lobbyist," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Tuesday.
"That just seems disingenuous to me and I don't think passes the smell
test."

Obama exempted another high-profile pick from the lobbyist ban, naming
William Lynn as the number two man at the Pentagon. Lynn was a
lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon.

The president also named William Corr, a former anti-tobacco lobbyist,
as the deputy secretary of health and human services. Corr said he
wouldn't deal with tobacco issues.

"Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions," White House
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said recently at the White House.

When the reports of high-level appointees not paying their taxes piled
up, Obama and his party invited ridicule as out-of-touch elitists at a
time when Americans are suffering.

"Only the little people pay taxes," said a Rex Babin cartoon, showing
Daschle and Geithner climbing into a limousine, in The Sacramento Bee,
a McClatchy newspaper.

"There's a huge scientific breakthrough today. Researchers say they're
very close to finding someone from Obama's Cabinet who's actually paid
their taxes," Jay Leno said on NBC's "Tonight Show."

Obama conceded in a series of television interviews Tuesday that his
appointments suggested a double standard in which the rich and
powerful get away with not paying taxes.

"I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. And I
don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two
sets of standards," Obama said on CNN, one of five networks to whom he
gave interviews Tuesday.

"This was a mistake. I screwed up."

At the same time, the man who wanted to lead the way to a new, less
partisan politics finds himself caught in a partisan donnybrook
between congressional Democrats and Republicans over a landmark
proposal to stimulate the economy. The partisan fight is feeding
dissent over the proposal and eroding public support.

Obama got the proposal through the House of Representatives without a
single Republican vote. A new Gallup Poll on Tuesday found that just
38 percent of those polled want the proposal passed as written, while
37 percent want "major changes" and another 17 percent want it
defeated.

Some of the opposition in Congress is ideological; conservatives
oppose added federal spending. Some is economic; many economists think
it won't work. Some is political, fed by criticisms of proposals to
add pet projects to the bill such as $50 million for the National
Endowment for the Arts.

"They are, in some ways, political cheap shots," said Bruce Buchanan,
a scholar of the presidency at the University of Texas.

However, Obama left the door open for opponents to define the
proposal, Buchanan said, by not making his own detailed plan and then
following it up with a strong pitch. Instead the president backed a
plan drafted largely by Democrats in Congress. In doing that, Obama
surrendered some of his ability to "deflect" stories about the small
controversial parts of the bill that dominate talk shows and Web
sites, Buchanan said.

"Obama made the decision not to put his own detailed plan on the
table. He decided to let the Democrats in Congress do it, then
signaled his willingness to deal. His own story peg would have
deflected some of the things they think are nitpicking. They have a
bit of a communication problem there."

White House spokesman Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama remained confident
that he'd set a high standard for his young administration — and that
it was being met.

"We've put (in) a standard of ethics and accountability that's unseen
and unmatched by any previous administration in our country's
history," Gibbs said.

He added, however, that Obama never thought he could change the
culture of Washington — ethically or politically — in his first weeks.

"The president understands that changing the way Washington works is
not a one-, a two- or even a 15-day project," Gibbs said, "that it's
something that encompasses work that he does and has to do each and
every day."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/61424.html

[Pig]

Obama may become a disaster

By their actions ye shall know them. By now we are seeing an ominous
pattern of actions by the O administration. We know that President
Obama is a very slick liar indeed, but then so was Bill Clinton. But
Clinton had a smaller majority in Congress, and was forced to
compromise after the Gingrich Congress was elected in 1994. It is
still possible that Obama may turn toward the mainstream. But the
early omens look dark.

Foreign and military affairs

There is a reason why Israel s voters are suddenly turning to the
center-Right Netanyahu and Likud. They fear that for the first time
since Harry Truman, an American administration is turning against the
Jewish State. Obama s first phone call after the election was made to
Mahmoud Abbas. His first television interview was with Al Arabiya. The
appointments of Samantha Power and Susan Rice bode ill for the entire
Middle East. A meeting with Hugo Chavez -- to negotiate what,
exactly? Forthcoming recognition of radical Islamofascist Iran on
their terms, not ours, are all ominous straws in the wind. Richard
Holbrooke has just infuriated two crucial governments in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, by predicting their doom, and still was appointed special
envoy to those governments.

The O's just announced a 10% cut for the defense budget, while the
overall budget deficit has just risen by two trillion dollars. That
may signal a Carteresque drawdown in our burdened military. This is
not the time to lower our guard, but like Jimmy Carter, the O
administration is betting against history.

We now know that in violation of Federal law, the Obama campaign
started negotiations with Iran, Syria and perhaps Hugo Chavez long
before American voters elected O. That flagrant disregard for the law
and for simple propriety signals a radical turn Left. If that is
accurate, expect the Obama administration to start a scapegoating
campaign against Binyamin Netanyahu if he becomes Prime Minister. That
would be the first time that any American administration has turned
against an elected leader of a vigorous, pro-American democratic ally.
The voters in Israel may be preparing to go it alone if necessary. It
would be difficult, but it can be done.

Flunking Econ 101

The O administration has some sensible economic voices, but they don't
seem to carry much clout. Larry Summers is fairly mainstream, Robert
Reich is turning radical, and Paul Krugman is a hair-pulling wild
man. The so-called stimulus bill is pure political payoff to Democrat
city machines, the teachers' unions, and faithful leftwing armies like
ACORN. Those 1.17 trillion dollars are not designed to stimulate
normal economic activity, defined as products and services that
Americans want and will work for -- which is what "supply and demand"
really means, after all.

The economy is one gigantic incentive machine. Take away the incentive
value of work and buying things, and yes, you will get a very bad
recession. And no, Nancy Pelosi has it wildly wrong by arguing that
more subsidized birth control means more wealth per person, for those
who are actually born. The administration is even ignoring the first-
grade lessons of the Smooth-Hawley with its buy-American provisions in
the House bill. Suddenly alarmist headlines are appearing in the
worshipful European press. Will the US turn protectionist under Obama?
Watch what the Senate does with the outlandish House bill, and we will
know the answer.

Future generations are being burdened with this second trillion dollar
payoff in a few months -- after the first trillion bucks for TARP.
But fear not. The O administration is promising yet more trillions in
spending, under the mad delusion that the New Deal didn't spend enough
on things people didn't want. The stock market is signaling fear and
doubt. So far, the market looks to be right.

A Commissar style of governance

Vladimir Lenin pioneered a double-layered style of control by Soviet
Party Commissars. Every government official and military officer was
doubled by a Party Commissar, who wielded the real power. The result
was wild swings between radicalization and stagnation in the USSR.
Nobody could act without worrying about the local Commissars, who owed
their real allegiances to the Kremlin. Obama is using a similar
strategy by directing Samantha Power to go wherever new SecState
Hillary Clinton goes.

Those two ladies hate each other, even before Power called Hillary "a
monster" during the primaries. Power will report on Hillary to the
White House. The Obamas are introducing a parallel staff for the major
departments in the White House, to keep a jealous eye on its own
appointees. The Clintons did this with the Justice Department, where
Jamie Gorelick was the real power at Justice, and Janet Reno became
the PR front. We know about the results in a suicidal anti-terror
policy, the cynical return of the little refugee boy Elian Gonzalez to
the Castro tyranny, and the Waco massacre.

A Government-Media fusion

Karl Marx told his followers "First, conquer the Organs of
Propaganda." In Marx's Germany there was no free press. Britain was
one of the few examples of relative freedom in Europe, which is why
Marx ended up being a foreign correspondent in London, as a ferocious
public enemy of capitalism and elected governments.

Last week we found out that Rahm Emmanuel, George Stephanopoulos,
James Carville and Paul Begala have been carrying on daily, hour-
long conference calls for the last 17 years, even while they were
hopping from one top job to another in the White House, ABC News, and
various liberal political campaigns. If you think all the big media
sound oddly similar, we now now why.

A lockstep alliance between government and the big media is a marker
of radical Leftist rulers. Putin just had a couple of more journalists
murdered in Moscow. That is not likely to happen here, but then, it
wont be necessary. The big media are already PR flacks for the Left.
Well, just to make that relationship of buyer and bought explicit, a
Boston Globe journalist has just proposed a special Federal bailout
for newsies who have utterly destroyed their own audiences. Somewhere
in Hell Jozef Goebbels is smiling.

Appointing openly corrupt officials

Obama's no-lobbyist rule is now a public joke. Confessed tax cheaters
were propopsed for top positions, like Tom Daschle and Timothy
Geithner. Big lobbyist power couples in Washington are being drawn
in, including the Daschles. And of course we have the endless
Congressional show of Democrat corruption by Charlie Rangel, Chris
Dodd and far too many others.

The appointment of radical Greenies to positions like the "Science
Czar" -- a huge self-contradiction -- are sending very bad signals to
the giant Federal research establishment.

Moving against conservative media

Immediately after the election, Fox News and Washington Times
reporters were thrown off the Obama campaign plane. Obama's first
television interview just took place with terror-supporting Al-Arabiya
TV, an Islamist riff on CNN. A Republican FCC member has warned that
a disguised censorship rule giving local leftist groups additional
"community input" into radio license renewals may become law by
administrative fiat.

That's what we are seeing so far. Keep a sharp out in the coming weeks
and months. Let's hope the O's will see reason somehow. But so far,
the signals sent by their actions are ominous.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/obama_may_become_a_disaster.html

[Pig]

After a fortnight in the job, Barack is already fading to grey



FIFTEEN days into his new gig as president of the United States of
America and there are tiny signs that the burdens of office - the
responsibility of a plunging economy, the golden cage of security and
the seemingly endless hiccups in confirming his cabinet - are having
an impact on Barack Obama.

His demeanour hasn't changed. Mr Obama still seemed preternaturally
calm in the face of upsets such as the loss of one of his closest
political allies, Tom Daschle, to a messy and avoidable tax scandal.
"It was a mistake, I screwed up," he said candidly in an interview on
CNN.

But there are signs, nonetheless. Earlier in the day as the President
and first lady, Michelle, sat with a bunch of primary school pupils at
a school in Washington for a picture opportunity, the President joked
to the youngsters: "We were just tired of being in the White House. We
thought we'd come and see you." It sounded just a little too
heartfelt.

He also looked tired and, it seemed, a little greyer. Perhaps he was
due for his regular haircut, which helps hide the grey that is
emerging at his temples. Perhaps it was the lighting. Or perhaps we
are seeing the early signs of the cruel public ageing that those who
occupy the Oval Office must endure.

Bill Clinton began with a luxuriant shock of salt and pepper hair.
After eight years he still had the hair but it had turned completely
white. George Bush's face seemed to crumple and become less open, his
forehead became etched with deep worry lines, his hair seemed to fade.

There are other telltale signs that Mr Obama is human like the rest of
us. In the CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, Mr Obama confided that
the economic crisis was keeping him awake at night.

"Literally?" asked Cooper.

"Literally, because we've got a range of different problems and there
is no silver bullet," Mr Obama replied.

And then there is the question of his secret vice. Once a heavy
smoker, Mr Obama has struggled to give it up, relying on nicotine
chewing gum during the campaign as well as the odd puff. He pledged to
do make a concerted effort to give it up for good if he won office.

So has he beaten it, Cooper asked during their interview.

"No, I haven't had one on these grounds," Mr Obama said. "Sometimes
it's hard, but, you know, I'm sticking to it." Cooper did not ask the
obvious follow-up about smoking away from the White House.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/02/04/1233423310969.html?feed=fairfaxdigitalxml

[Pig]

Pelosi Pulls Omnibus Bill Rumored To Cost $500 Billion

House Republicans have not been given a copy of the omnibus spending
bill, as was the case with the so-called stimulus bill which has
little to do with actually stimulating the economy but uses the
urgency of this economic crisis to try to sneak through hundreds of
billions of dollars in taxpayers' money as payoffs to Democrat
constituencies. Due to the disingenuous manner in which the so-called
stimulus bill was engineered, Republicans are vigorously calling for
transparency in regard to release of the omnibus spending bill.

Public support for the “stimulus” spending bill continues to plummet
as more hidden wasteful spending is exposed daily. According to a new
Gallup poll released yesterday, only 38% of Americans believe that
President Obama’s so-called stimulus bill should be passed “as Barack
Obama proposed it” while 37% believe the bill should “undergo major
changes.” 17% believe that the plan should be “rejected outright,”
with 8% having “no position.”

House Republicans have challenged Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to
release the details of the expected $500 billion proposed omnibus
appropriations legislation encompassing the nine remaining spending
bills for fiscal year 2009. Entirely separate from the $1.2 trillion
Democrat “stimulus” spending bill passed by the House last week with
no Republican support, this additional estimated half-trillion dollar
omnibus spending bill was scheduled for consideration as early as
today. Pelosi removed the bill from the legislative calendar
yesterday amid Democrat fears that the actual omnibus spending bill
may help scuttle passage of the trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending
bill already in very deep trouble in the Senate.

House Republican Conference chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Rep.
Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), ranking member of the House Legislative
Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, challenged the Democratic
leadership to make the omnibus spending bill available on the internet
-- now -- for public review.

“There were some estimates that it [the actual omnibus spending bill]
would be upwards to $500 billion, and I know I speak for my colleague
and for all House Republicans when I say that we urge the Democratic
leadership and Chairman Obey to release that bill to the public,”
Pence said. “For whatever reason, the bill has been delayed. We
believe this is an opportunity for even greater public scrutiny and
we, today, are urging Chairman Obey and the Democratic leadership to
make the omnibus bill available to the public on the internet and to
the media so that it can be examined. We can use this additional time
to make sure the American people know both the broad outlines and the
specific details of the next massive government spending bill. … We
take President Obama at his word; that he wants to bring a new era of
transparency to the process of developing the nation’s laws and
spending the people’s money.”


House Republicans have not been given a copy of the omnibus spending
bill, as was the case with the so-called stimulus bill which has
little to do with actually stimulating the economy but uses the
urgency of this economic crisis to try to sneak through hundreds of
billions of dollars in taxpayers' money as payoffs to Democrat
constituencies. Due to the disingenuous manner in which the so-called
stimulus bill was engineered, Republicans are vigorously calling for
transparency in regard to release of the omnibus spending bill.

Public support for the “stimulus” spending bill continues to plummet
as more hidden wasteful spending is exposed daily. According to a new
Gallup poll released yesterday, only 38% of Americans believe that
President Obama’s so-called stimulus bill should be passed “as Barack
Obama proposed it” while 37% believe the bill should “undergo major
changes.” 17% believe that the plan should be “rejected outright,”
with 8% having “no position.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) continued his efforts to
expose non-stimulus-related items, this time in the Senate bill.
Boehner today released a new list of spending items congressional
Republicans have identified in the Senate version as unrelated to
significant job creation that included $20 million “for the removal of
small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers”; $25 million to
rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails; $34 million to remodel the
Department of Commerce headquarters, and $70 million to “Support
Supercomputing Activities” for climate research.

I asked Boehner spokesman Mike Steel yesterday about the momentum
Republicans have as the Senate begins debate on the legislation and
about a panicked Pelosi pulling the omnibus bill. Steel told me,
“After the American people, House Republicans, and almost a dozen
House Democrats last week rejected the ridiculous and wasteful
provisions in their trillion-dollar spending bill, it seems that the
House Democratic leadership wanted to take a week off before trying to
cram through another half-a-trillion dollars in government spending.
That is good news, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ve got a
lot more work to do, and it is going to require continued vigilance on
the part of Congressional Republicans and the American people to hold
the big-spending Democratic leadership accountable. We can never
forget that by standing together, and standing on the side of the
taxpayers, House Republicans can win any debate, even if we lose the
vote.”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30554

[Pig]

(Yep, this guy is doing a GREAT job............the world loves us
now!)

US base in Central Asia to close

PM - Wednesday, 4 February , 2009 18:38:00
Reporter: Timothy McDonald

MARK COLVIN: Russia appears to have dealt a sharp blow to NATO and its
allies in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Central Asia has become an important hub for supplying the troops
fighting there, but now one key base there may be cut off.

The President of Kyrgyzstan has announced he'll close a US base in his
country.

Experts say it's part of a bigger chess game between the US and Russia
in Central Asia.

Timothy McDonald reports.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev makes it very
clear that money is his main complaint about the base.

KURMANBEK BAKIYEV (translated): More than once we have discussed with
our American partners, the subject of the economic compensation to
Kyrgyzstan for the presence of the US air base but unfortunately we
did not find an understanding with the United States.

For over three years, we've been talking of the need to review the
terms of the agreement which do not satisfy us completely. Yet we've
not seen an understanding from the United States.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: For now, it seems the Russians are willing to pay
more.

They've offered Kyrgyzstan a $2-billion aid package.

Dr Kirill Nourzhanov is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Arab and
Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.

He says President Bakiyev is playing a tried and true game.

KIRILL NOURZHANOV: It's a good example of how a small country in the
middle of nowhere, in this case Kyrgyzstan, is quite capable of
playing off big powers like United States and Russia because
Kyrgyzstan has been trying to milk these two cash cows for quite a few
years.

The first time I heard rumour that Kyrgyzstan was trying to evict the
American base was 2004 so by this time it seems that Moscow has upped
the ante and have made an offer that the President of Kyrgyzstan finds
difficult to resist.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Dr Kent Calder is an Asia specialist at Johns
Hopkins University in the US.
He says it will make things difficult in Afghanistan.

KENT CALDER: This is the last major base the United States has in
Central Asia. We do have negotiations underway with Kazakhstan on over
flight rights and so on. Also Uzbekistan there's some discussions
quietly underway. But we don't have any established bases at this
point apart from Kyrgyzstan.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: But Dr Nourzhanov says the base itself is not so
vital. He says the US has a wider interest in maintaining the base.

KIRILL NOURZHANOV: The Americans have a much more strategic focus on
Central Asia and this is containing Russia and China and Kyrgyzstan is
absolutely pivotal in this regard because it's kind of sandwiched
between Russia and China so by keeping the military presence there,
the Americans are watching both those powers.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Dr Nourzhanov says the Russians are uncomfortable
with the US in what they consider their backyard, and are seeking to
project their own power in the region.

But the chessboard is even more complicated because of the other major
power that borders the region, China. Dr Nourzhanov says they'll be
happy to see the US base out.

KIRILL NOURZHANOV: The Chinese will be ecstatic that the Americans are
getting out of Kyrgyzstan. Again it would be worth our while
remembering that the first time that this motion was put forward that
'Yankees go home' from Central Asia was 2004 and it happened at summit
of (inaudible) which Russia, Kyrgyzstan and China are members.

MARK COLVIN: Dr Kirill Nourzhanov from the ANU speaking to Tim
McDonald. And tonight wire services are quoting a spokesman for the
U.S. military air base in Kyrgyzstan as saying they've received no
official notification of an order for the base to close.

[Pig]

YEP, they just love us now!!)

Iran denies visas for US women's badminton team

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran invited the U.S. women's badminton team to
compete in a tournament then denied its players visas Wednesday,
saying there was no time to process their visa applications.

But the chief executive of USA Badminton said in a statement the team
was told visas had been approved and was invited to Dubai to secure
them.

"Our athletes ... are very disappointed that they will not be able to
compete and meet new friends. Friendship through sport is a good thing
that should be respected and cherished," Dan Cloppas said in the
statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

The team's participation in event starting Friday was to have been the
first U.S.-Iranian exchange under the Obama administration. The two
countries have not had diplomatic relations since the Islamic
Revolution and the hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in
1979.

The U.S. team will not participate in the competition due to a "lack
of enough time to process" its visas, the spokesman for Iran's Foreign
Ministry, Hasan Qashqavi, said Wednesday.

It was not clear when Iran invited the 12-member team or when they had
applied for their visas - usually a long bureaucratic process that is
complicated for U.S. citizens by the lack of diplomatic relations.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Iran has provided no
official explanation for not providing the visas, and that the U.S.
team had supplied all required paperwork to the Iranians.

The U.S. State Department sponsored the squad's trip to the Middle
East and said it is disappointed that Iran failed to issue visas.

Wood said the team is returning to the United States.

The eight players, along with four coaches and managers representing
USA Badminton, had been in Dubai on Tuesday.

"The Iranian Badminton Federation was sincere in their invitation to
us and we completed our visa applications over two months ago in
plenty of time to meet all deadlines," Cloppas said in his statement.

The State Department said Monday that the Iranian Badminton Federation
had invited the team to take part in the Iran Fajr International
Badminton Tournament, and that it hoped to extend an invitation to
Iran's national team to come to the United States in July.

Without the Americans, the competition will go ahead with 13
participants including teams from Malaysia, Syria, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Iraq.

More than 250 Iranian artists, athletes and medical professionals have
participated in exchange programs in the United States since 2006, the
State Department said.

The U.S. has sent 32 athletes to Iran under a sports exchange program
launched in 2007, and 75 Iranian athletes and coaches have visited the
United States, it said.

Tensions between the countries nevertheless remain high because of
Western concerns over Iran's nuclear program and the country's alleged
support for Shiite militias in Iraq - a charge that Iran denies.

In late December, the Bush administration expressed grave concern
about the detention and interrogation in Iran of a prominent American
academic who was participating in an exchange. The incident led the
National Academies of Science to suspend educational exchanges with
Iranian institutions.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107ap_ml_iran_us_badminton.html

[Pig]

Poll: Americans Oppose Obama's First Two Executive Orders

President Obama's first two executive orders -- allowing federal
funding for overseas abortions and closing Guantanamo -- have been met
with widespread opposition, according to a poll released Tuesday.

President Obama has garnered widespread support for his early actions
in office, but Americans strongly oppose the commander-in-chief's
first two executive orders -- allowing federal funding for overseas
abortions and closing Guantanamo -- according to a Gallup poll
released Tuesday.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they disagreed with the
president's decision to give overseas funding to family planning
organizations that provide abortions, according to the survey taken
between Friday and Sunday. Thirty-five percent supported it.

Obama signed an order Jan. 23 reversing the "Mexico City policy" -- a
prohibition first implemented by Ronald Reagan, which forbade the U.S.
government from sending money to overseas family-planning
organizations that perform abortions or offer abortion counseling.
The ban, which was lifted when Bill Clinton took office, was later re-
established by George W. Bush in 2001.

The poll also found that more Americans -- 50 percent to 44 percent --
oppose the president's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for
terror suspects within in a year.

Obama's executive orders are especially unpopular among Republicans.
Only eight percent said they approve the president's decision to fund
overseas abortions, while 11 percent said they agree with his order to
shut down Guantanamo.

Both orders were also least popular among Democrats, though most
surveyed said they approved of the president's decisions.



Despite clear disapproval to the two executive orders, an overwhelming
majority of Americans said they supported the president's first
actions as president.

Seventy-four percent favored Obama's position to lift interrogation
techniques on prisoners, while 76 percent said they agreed with the
decision to name special envoys to the Middle East, Afghanistan and
Pakistan.

Seventy-six percent also said the agreed with Obama's decision to
tighten ethics rules for administration officials. And 66 percent said
they agree with his effort to make it easier for workers to sue for
pay discrimination.

Click here to see the Gallup poll.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114091/Americans-Approve-Obama-Actions-Date.aspx


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/03/poll-americans-oppose-obamas-executive-orders/

[Pig]

Stimulunacy

Things aren't going well for President Obama's trillion-dollar
economic stimulus package -- which is rapidly becoming an albatross
around the Democrats' necks. The latest public opinion polls now show
a majority of voters want the plan revised or scrapped altogether.

Despite the president's insistence that the economic plan is "urgent"
because the financial outlook is grim and getting worse, political
momentum is rallying against the two-week old administration. In
response, Democrats have begun rolling out doomsday scenarios if the
plan gets tripped up. Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill declared on
Fox News Tuesday that failure to enact the president's package could
be "apocalyptic." Democrats keep saying they want to emulate Franklin
Roosevelt, but they sure aren't practicing FDR's maxim that "all we
have to fear is fear itself."

The scare tactics aren't working. Republicans fell for a similar ploy
only a few months ago during the first banking crisis, and many now
tell me they regret voting in an environment of panic. They're not
going to let Mr. Obama "fix it later," as President Bush and Treasury
Secretary Hank Paulson promised to do with the rushed-out $700 billion
TARP plan. Mr. Obama recently tried to woo his former rival John
McCain, but instead Mr. McCain has denounced the Obama stimulus
program and proposed an alternative with more tax cuts now and more
fiscal restraint later.

Mike Pence, chairman of the Republican House Conference, tells me:
"The more Americans learn about this bill, the more they hate it."
When Rush Limbaugh mentioned on his radio show the Americans for
Prosperity Web site, NoStimulus.com, a stampede of traffic temporarily
shut down the site.

Mr. Obama didn't help his cause Tuesday when he defended House
Democrats who larded the bill with extraneous spending. According to
Mr. Obama, "less than 1 percent of the spending" is for indefensible
projects. Republicans are having a field day with that one. One
percent of $800 billion is still $8 billion of waste. Meanwhile,
Senator Tom Coburn -- another Republican who Mr. Obama has been trying
to win over -- prepared a three-page list of oinkers in the bill that
has been zipped to every corner of cyberspace in the last 48 hours.

Could this plan suffer the same fate as Bill Clinton's $20 billion
fiscal stimulus bill back in 1993 -- which never made it out of the
Senate? Probably not. But this plan is limping, not sprinting toward
the goal line. More importantly, Republicans no longer are awestruck
by the new president's gaudy 70%-plus approval ratings and they're
gearing up for the next policy fight over the budget and union card
check. The era of postpartisan politics is over. If you blinked, you
missed it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123376957869148523.html

[Pig]

Support for Stimulus Package Falls to 37%

Support for the economic recovery plan working its way through
Congress has fallen again this week. For the first time, a plurality
of voters nationwide oppose the $800-billion-plus plan.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37%
favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure.

Two weeks ago, 45% supported the plan. Last week, 42% supported it.

Opposition has grown from 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43%
today.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Democrats still support the plan. That
figure is down from 74% a week ago. Just 13% of Republicans and 27% of
those not affiliated with either major party agree.

Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans oppose the plan along with
50% of unaffiliated voters and 16% of Democrats.

Related survey data shows that half the nation’s voters say the plan
that finally emerges from Congress may end up doing more harm than
good.


Despite the declining support, 78% say it is at least somewhat likely
that the economic recovery package proposed by President Obama and
congressional Democrats will become law during Obama's first 100 days
in office. That figure includes 36% who say passage is Very Likely.
That latter figure is down significantly from a week ago when 52% said
passage of the legislation was Very Likely.

A stimulus plan that includes only tax cuts is now more popular than
the economic recovery plan being considered in Congress. Forty-five
percent (45%) favor a tax-cut only plan while 34% are opposed. Those
figures reflect a modest increase in support over the past week.
Candidate Obama campaigned heavily on a promise to cut taxes for 95%
of all Americans, and voters strongly believe that tax cuts are good
for the economy. Most Americans believe that a dollar of tax cuts is
better for the economy than a dollar of government spending.

A stimulus plan with tax cuts only is supported by 64% of Republicans,
31% of Democrats and 46% of unaffiliated voters. It is opposed by 17%
of Republicans, 46% of Democrats and 35% of unaffiliated voters. Obama
initially proposed $350 billion for tax cuts in the recovery plan, but
the congressional Democratic leadership lowered this to $275 billion
to make way for more spending.

Going to the other extreme, 72% of voters oppose a stimulus plan that
includes only new government spending without any tax cuts.

Forty-six percent (46%) of voters remain concerned that the government
will do too much in reacting to the nation’s economic problems. Forty-
one percent (41%) are concerned that the government will do too
little.

The House of Representatives passed an $819-billion version of the
plan last week with all but 11 Democrats voting in favor of it and all
Republicans voting against. Democrats argue the plan is full of
essential stimulus measures for the economy; Republicans say it has
far too much new spending in it. The Senate is now expected to pass a
different version of the bill, raising its price tag as high as $900
billion. If so, a conference with representatives from the Senate and
the House will be needed to resolve the differences.

The president has indicated that he will be more aggressive in
promoting the plan through the media. A recent analysis by Scott
Rasmussen noted that Obama himself is key to passage of the
legislation. The president enjoys high job approval ratings overall
and is especially popular among those who are undecided about the
current legislation.

These latest survey results are very similar to a recent Gallup survey
which found that only 38% now support the recovery plan. The Gallup
survey found that another 37% wanted major changes made to the
legislation, and 17% said that it should be rejected entirely.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/support_for_stimulus_package_falls_to_37

[Pig]

<<<ROAR>>>

AND.................Rush has been off all week. This do-nothing,
pseudo-messiah-monarch doesn't even need any help to begin failing!

[Pig]

Is Obama Moving Bipartisanship Goalposts?

ABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: Beneath the surface of the Obama
administration’s continuing efforts to rally support for the stimulus
bill is an important shift that shouldn’t be overlooked: President
Obama appears to be scaling back his efforts to attract a broad
bipartisan consensus for his bill.

Where once there was talk of a resounding bipartisan vote in Congress,
the goal now is simple passage of the bill -- even if that means (as
seems very likely) it will pass with almost exclusively Democratic
votes.

Here’s what Obama said Tuesday on the subject, in an interview with
ABC’s Charles Gibson:

“I'm less concerned about bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake,”
Obama said. “I'm interested in solving the problem for the American
people as quickly as possible.”

Larry Summers, the director of Obama’s National Economic Council, made
similar comments in an interview with USA Today: “The president's
prepared to compromise . . . but our focus is on the fact that the
American economy badly needs help,” Summers said.

Contrast that with the comments Obama made on the subject Sunday, to
NBC’s Matt Lauer:

“Well, look, the important thing is getting the thing passed,” he
said.

He quickly added: “And I've done extraordinary outreach I think to
Republicans, because they have some good ideas and I want to make sure
that those ideas are incorporated. I am confident that by the time we
actually have the final package on the floor that we are going to see
substantial support and people are going to say this is a serious
effort. It has no earmarks. We're going to be trimming out things that
are not relevant to putting people back to work right now.”

In practice, the strategic shift means that the administration is less
likely to make major structural concessions in the hopes of attracting
a large group of Republicans. Instead, with even some moderate
Democrats not yet on board, he’s focused on building support in the
Senate one vote at a time.

As ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reported today, Obama is now meeting
individually with centrists from both parties -- senators including
Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Susan Collins, R-Maine,
and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

In terms of politics, this puts Obama closer to congressional
Democrats, who digested the likelihood of a partisan vote on the
stimulus far sooner than the White House. Some Democrats feared
privately that Obama was allowing the GOP to define “bipartisanship”
based on the ultimate vote total, even though the vast majority of
Republicans were always likely to oppose the stimulus package.

Instead, the White House is pointing toward the outreach to
Republicans as the fulfillment of Obama's promise to work in a
bipartisan manner -- deemphasizing the final vote tally.

Today, Obama pushed back at critics of the stimulus in part by citing
his victory at the polls -- something, as ABC’s Jake Tapper points
out, sounded almost like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent “we won
the election” comment.

“In the past few days I’ve heard criticisms of this [stimulus] plan
that echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this
crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems;
that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and
the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our
country to thrive,” Obama said. “I reject those theories, and so did
the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted
resoundingly for change.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/02/is-obama-moving.html

[Pig]

CBO: Obama stimulus harmful over long haul

Stephen Dinan (Contact)
Wednesday, February 4, 2009

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the
economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and
Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much
government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private
investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over
the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would reduce GDP by
0.1 percent to 0.3 percent on net. [The House bill] would have similar
long-run effects, CBO said in a letter to Sen. Judd Gregg, New
Hampshire Republican, who was tapped by Mr. Obama on Tuesday to be
Commerce Secretary.

The House last week passed a bill totaling about $820 billion while
the Senate is working on a proposal reaching about $900 billion in
spending increases and tax cuts.

But Republicans and some moderate Democrats have balked at the size of
the bill and at some of the spending items included in it, arguing
they won't produce immediate jobs, which is the stated goal of the
bill.

The budget office had previously estimated service the debt due to the
new spending could add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of
the bill -- forcing the crowd-out.

CBOs basic assumption is that, in the long run, each dollar of
additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollars worth of private
domestic capital, CBO said in its letter.

CBO said there is no crowding out in the short term, so the plan would
succeed in boosting growth in 2009 and 2010.

The agency projected the Senate bill would produce between 1.4 percent
and 4.1 percent higher growth in 2009 than if there was no action. For
2010, the plan would boost growth by 1.2 percent to 3.6 percent.

CBO did project the bill would create jobs, though by 2011 the effects
would be minuscule.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/

[Pig]

Losing Control

Obama needs to reassert command of the agenda in Washington
Feb 4, 2009

Barack Obama began making his comeback Wednesday, apparently aware
that he has all but lost control of the agenda in Washington at a time
when he simply can't afford to do so. Obama's biggest problem isn't
Taxgate—which resulted in the Terrible Tuesday departure of his
trusted friend, Tom Daschle, and the defanging of his Treasury
secretary, Tim Geithner. Nor is the No. 1 problem that the president
can't seem to win a single Republican vote for his stimulus package.
That's a symptom, not a cause. The reason Obama is getting so few
votes is that he is no longer setting the terms of the debate over how
to save the economy. Instead the Republican Party—the one we thought
lost the election—is doing that. And the confusion and delay this is
causing could realize Obama's worst fears, turning "crisis into a
catastrophe," as the president said Wednesday.

Obama's desire to begin a "post-partisan" era may have backfired. In
his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas
over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over
the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate
over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic
sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by
day. Yes, there are still some very legitimate issues with a bill
that's supposed to be "temporary" and "targeted"—among them, large
increases in permanent entitlement spending, and a paucity of tax cuts
that will prompt immediate spending. Even so, Obama has allowed
Congress to grow embroiled in nitpicking over efficiency when the
central debate should be about whether the package is big enough. When
you are dealing with a stimulus of this size, there are going to be
wasteful expenditures and boondoggles. There's no way anyone can spend
$800 to $900 billion quickly without waste and boondoggles. It comes
with the Keynesian territory. This is an emergency; the normal rules
do not apply.

But the public isn't hearing about that all-important distinction
right now. And by the time Obama signs a bill—if he can get one
approved—many Americans may have concluded that the GOP is right and
that the Democrats have embarked on another spending spree, as if this
were just another wearying Washington debate. Judging from his flurry
of TV appearances Tuesday night and his remarks Wednesday, Obama
himself seems to have realized belatedly that he needs to stop
empathizing and take charge. After trying to put the Daschle imbroglio
behind him by frankly acknowledging that he, the president, "screwed
up," Obama reminded everyone of the urgency of the moment. "A failure
to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee
a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain
future," he said at the White House. Obama also sought to regain the
moral high ground by announcing he would limit senior executive pay at
bailed-out Wall Street firms to $500,000. "We're taking the air out of
the golden parachute," Obama said, adding that it was only "the
beginning of a long-term effort to examine the ways in which the means
and manner of executive compensation contributed to a reckless culture
…" That's a step in the right direction. But now Obama needs to remind
the American people that unless the Republicans get on board, they
will bear political responsibility for failing to act in the face of
the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Proof that that Team Obama and his party are losing the debate can be
found in a new poll out Wednesday. The Rasmussen Reports survey found
that, even though Obama still has a very high approval rating, only 37
percent of Americans now favor the stimulus legislation, compared to
45 percent two weeks ago. The results were similar to a recent Gallup
survey that found just 38 percent of voters now support the recovery
plan. Mitch McConnell, the GOP Senate minority leader, hinted
Wednesday that Obama has lost control of his own Congress. "The
president has tried to set some priorities. Unfortunately, Democrats
just keep throwing more money on top of an already bloated bill,"
McConnell said on the floor.

The decisive issue here is leadership. The lack of it is what is
plaguing the Obama administration. Every war needs a successful
general, and this administration doesn't have one yet. Geithner is
still wounded by his soul-scourging confirmation vote (he was the
first tax controversy of course, barely escaping on a 60-34 vote; had
his vote come after the Daschle news, it's likely that Geithner would
be the one leaving town today). On Wednesday the taciturn new Treasury
secretary delivered all-too-brief remarks at a meeting with House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying he was working to "help lay the
foundation for long-term recovery, [develop] a comprehensive plan to
help get credit flowing again and address the housing crisis." Sounds
great, but Geithner is apparently going to wait until next week to
announce a lot of this, and that seems a long way off. (Monday is
President's Day, which became Obama's informal deadline for passage of
the stimulus package after he backed off his original hopes of having
something to sign inauguration week.)

In the interim, no one else has dominated the newscasts. National
Economic Council chief Larry Summers, by every account a brilliant
economist and policymaker, has mainly worked behind the scenes. Paul
Volcker finally spoke out Wednesday, but mainly to provide a
postmortem on last fall's crash. And it's still not clear what the new
body he heads, the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, even does. And
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel appears shell-shocked by
Taxgate and other defeats. An administration that two weeks ago set
out to change the world, having claimed the first Democratic majority
victory in a presidential race since Jimmy Carter, now looks like it's
engaged in a Pickett's Charge—without the benefit of being led by
Pickett. Meanwhile, the Senate Dems took off part of Wednesday for a
"retreat."

This is all too leisurely. Speed is of the essence now. No one
understands this better than Geithner, whose formative experience as a
young Treasury official in Tokyo came in watching Japanese authorities
dither and muddle about for a decade after their own giant bubble of
an economy collapsed in 1989. "Monetary policy was very slow to
respond,"Geithner told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "Fiscal
policy was very tentative and then did a lot of zigzagging." He's
right. Like Geithner, I was working in Tokyo at the time (as a
journalist) and watched every one of those zigs and zags. The answer
then, as now, was bold leadership. The Japanese didn't supply it, and
they still haven't fully recovered. What's the point of historical
lessons if you don't learn from them?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183204

[honeybee]

Awwwww.....life is good. 8)

He's going under and that arrogant smirk will be turned into bleary-
eyed humility.

[Pig]

Unreal Stimulus

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, February 04, 2009
4:20 PM PT

Stimulus: Since the president seems to be in a mood to admit his
mistakes, we humbly offer one more for him to acknowledge: His effort
to ram most of his spending agenda into a must-do economic stimulus
bill is failing.

His effort is failing. He can't even get his own party to sign on to
the plan. So far, at least, Obama doesn't appear willing to recognize
this. In a CNN interview on Tuesday, Obama was asked what was
nonnegotiable in the stimulus bill. His answer, in short, was pretty
much everything.

On his list of nonnegotiables: Infrastructure, weatherizing homes,
health IT spending, and education spending, investments in science and
technology research, health insurance for the unemployed, relief to
states, and aid to families.

That's basically what the House passed last week with zero Republican
support, and what the Senate admitted this week that it can't pass —
despite being one vote shy of a filibuster-proof Democratic
supermajority and despite the repeated and public urgings of a very
popular new president.

"I think, in fairness to the House Democrats . . . if you tally up all
of the programs that have been criticized . . . that amounts to less
than 1% of the total package," Obama said.

But clearly, the concerns aren't about a tiny amount of waste in an
otherwise good bill. If that were the case, the fix would be simple.

The fact is it's Obama's effort to get much of his domestic agenda
enacted under the guise of stimulus that has lawmakers — on both sides
— increasingly agitated.

And make no mistake, a significant portion of the stimulus spending
comes right out of the agenda Obama announced last summer — long
before the need for a massive stimulus bill emerged.

Take the home weatherization program. On CNN Obama argued that this $6
billion program was nonnegotiable because: "First of all, you can
employ people weatherizing those homes."

But Obama announced plans to weatherize a million homes a year last
summer. Except back then it was touted as part of a plan to create a
"clean energy future" — not as a jobs program.

How about investment in health information technology? In his
Blueprint for Change, issued in August, Obama vowed to "Make an
upfront investment of $50 billion in electronic health information
technology systems to reduce errors, and save lives and money."

So why is this now a nonnegotiable part of a stimulus package?

Ditto the $1 billion in "Comparative Effectiveness Research" in the
stimulus bill. Last year, Obama called that "a comprehensive effort to
tackle health care disparities" to cut health care costs.

Transportation spending, education spending, money for science and
technology — all were also key parts of Obama's Blueprint.

To be fair, Obama admits he's trying to marry short-term stimulus
spending with, as he put it, investments that "lay the groundwork for
long-term economic growth."

But it's a marriage that shouldn't be saved.

As former Clinton budget chief Alice Rivlin noted, the proper
government response in a recession is to "act quickly to mitigate the
downslide with spending increases and revenue cuts that will stimulate
consumer and investor spending, create jobs and protect the most
vulnerable from the ravages of recession."

She added that "the anti-recession package should be distinguished
from longer-run investments needed to enhance the future growth and
productivity of the economy. . . . Such a long-term investment program
should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-
recession package."

President Obama has said many times that he's open to good ideas from
Republicans. So why isn't he listening to the sound advice of a
prominent expert from his own party?

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318641713926633

[Pig]

Top Iranian official: Iran won't talk to 'Zionist' Obama (YEP, they
just love us now!!)

A representative of Iran's supreme leader said the installation of
U.S. President Barack Obama did not mean Tehran's ties with Washington
would change, the Fars news agency reported Wednesday.

"The Zionists brought Obama to power to help America pass through its
current challenges," said the representative to the Revolutionary
Guards in northwestern Zanjan province, cleric Hojjatoleslam Ali
Maboudi.

"Any government has 'red lines' and our 'red lines' are rejecting the
arrogant policies of America and the Zionist regime."
Advertisement
[AD]
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority over
policy in the Islamic Republic, has yet to comment on Obama's
presidency or his offer to extend a hand of peace if the Islamic
Republic would only "unclench its fist."

The leader has representatives to many institutions and regions whose
comments can give an indication of views prevalent among Iran's
leadership.

"Opposing the Zionist regime and defending oppressed people are among
the pillars of the Islamic revolution and Iran and America's
relationship will not change because of Obama taking office," Maboudi
said.

Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist and officials often
refer to the country as the "Zionist regime."

Officials reflect the view that the United States and Israel have such
close ties as to render their policies indistinguishable.

The United States has long accused Iran of trying to undermine peace
in the Middle East by backing what Washington calls "terrorist" groups
like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Tehran says the groups aim to free Palestinians from Israeli
occupation.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061715.html

[Pig]

Obama in the Post [Yuval Levin]

President Obama’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post is a very peculiar
move by the White House. It makes a case for refusing to compromise on
the stimulus bill that Obama is clearly about to compromise on, and it
makes the argument of his opponents: that the bill is not really
emergency legislation to give the economy a short-term boost but an
ambitious move to enact a much larger long-term liberal agenda in one
fell swoop rather than working through the normal legislative and
budget process. Why not wait a day or two for a compromise measure to
emerge in the Senate and then make a case for why it’s better than the
original bill and how it reflects your bipartisan outreach and
whatnot? Instead we have a collection of campaign talking points that
don’t make much sense when you’re the guy running the show, and that
will make you look weak when you accept a different bill later this
month.

After the past week or so, it’s really not all that clear who is
running the show.

02/05 10:17 AM

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmIzYzcxNDgwZGU4NjI1YzM1MWM1NDlkMzQ5ODJmZGQ=

[Pig]

Obama's First Two Weeks

WASHINGTON -- Egads, it is going to be a long four years! It has been
only two weeks since the Prophet Obama's inauguration, and already he
has revived memories of Boy Clinton's first 100 days. Political
observers with a sense of history might well ask whether the Obama
administration will approximate the adolescent incompetence of the
Clinton administration or the Pecksniffian pratfalls of the Carter
administration. Presidential historian that I am, allow me to caution
my fellow citizens that here in the vestibule of the Obama
administration, it is probably too early to say. Yet with the economy
in crisis and American national security in the hands of a starry-eyed
novice, one can argue that we are in for a reprise of the Carter
years, complete with the self-righteous pout.

I had wanted to suspend criticism of our incoming president for a few
months until his bungling became obvious. As I wrote during the
campaign, it is inconceivable that a modern-day president with only
four years in the Senate (and but three terms in a state legislature)
could be equal to the demands of this high office. Still, I thought it
would take a few months for President Barack Obama to reveal his
ineptitude. Well, it only took two weeks. In the areas of foreign
policy, fiscal policy and now appointments, it is apparent that 52.9
percent of the electorate vouchsafed us a dud. Vice President Joe
Biden, stay close to Washington! Yet wait; this six-term senator has
had no executive experience, either. To whom can we turn to administer
the federal government?

I know there are conservatives who believe that by 2012, the republic
can be saved by the pulchritudinous governor of Alaska. Admittedly,
Gov. Palin, having been in office two years and served as mayor of
Wasilla before that, has more executive experience than either the
president or the vice president, but four years is a long time to wait
for the curvaceous governor to deliver us. Withal, I have almost as
many doubts about her as I have about President Obama, which brings to
mind my growing awareness during the 2008 election that our political
class at the national level is distinctly second-rate.

The mediocrity of our national leaders, truth be told, has been
apparent since the first baby boomer replaced the last member of the
World War II generation in the White House. President Bill Clinton's
unreadiness for the presidency was obvious during his first campaign,
as he flailed his way through the Gennifer Flowers controversy, his
draft-dodging stratagems, and all the other lies he had to confront.
Then his unreadiness was observable anew immediately following his
election, with his appointment snafus, and it is eerie to think that
some of his failed appointments had the same problems President
Obama's now have, to wit, employing domestic help (in Clinton's day,
illegal domestic help) and failing to pay taxes.

Actually, the problems President Obama has had with his appointments
are more egregious than President Clinton's. Mr. Obama nominated New
Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson apparently not knowing that Richardson was
under grand jury investigation. He nominated for secretary of treasury
and for secretary of health and human services two men whose tax
problems suggest that evading taxes is commonplace among prominent
Democrats. The problem that forced President Obama's nominee for the
new -- and may I say purely ceremonial -- position of chief
performance officer demonstrates that high-level Democrats still have
difficulty paying taxes on their domestic staffs. Then there are the
two lobbyists President Obama brought into his government at the
Pentagon and at the Department of Health and Human Services despite
bragging that his newly adopted ethics rules against lobbyists are the
strictest in American history. Explained the White House press
secretary, "Even the toughest rules require reasonable exceptions."
Yes, and a few more such exceptions and President Obama's tough rules
will be rules no longer.

Finally, turn to the problems President Obama now faces with his so-
called stimulus bill. It is a mountain range of pork created by
wantonly spendthrift Democrats defiant of any economic stimulus
theory, Keynesian or otherwise. Even President Obama is backing away
from some of it, for instance, its "Buy American" provisions.
Obviously, our presidential novice was had by Washington's special
interests. In the area of foreign policy, he has been had by his own
self-righteous meddling. This week, the Indians warned him that he is
"barking up the wrong tree" in involving himself in their dispute with
Pakistan over Kashmir. The Iranians were even ruder in responding to
his offer of talks with them. They simply mocked him. Said the Iranian
spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, "This request means Western ideology
has become passive." Frankly, I can understand the chap's playful
mood. The Iranians are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of
the shah. That happened, if memory serves, during the Carter
administration. Again, it is going to be a long four years.

http://townhall.com/columnists/EmmettTyrrell/2009/02/05/obamas_first_two_weeks

[Pig]

Wow–That Was Fast! Jennifer Rubin - 02.06.2009 - 9:59 AM

Liberals may be disappointed, but conservatives are shocked. Among
conservatives taken aback by the Obama semi-meltdown you hear the
buzz: ”Did you think it would happen this quickly?” “Aren’t you
surprised how fast it happened?” The “it” is the undoing of the
pretense that Obama has near-magical political powers.

Instead, what is setting in is the realization that this
administration might be as bad, indeed worse, than recent ones on a
basic level of competency and political dexterity. The Obama team is
resorting to crass fear mongering (”Gotta pass the stimulus, gotta
pass it — no time to wait!”) and has suffered from a run of
incompetent personnel blunders, an atrocious press secretary, and a
startling drop in support for his signature piece of legislation.

President Obama seems to have an exceedingly low tolerance for
criticism and adversity. At a Democratic retreat (which, come to think
of it, is a timely idea) he dropped all pretense of bipartisanship and
went rip-roaring negative on the Republicans and anyone who would
question the wonderfulness of the pork-a-thon. (Senators Snowe and
Specter, that must mean you guys too.) Even the New York Times thought
he sounded “irritated.” Just when he needs some moderate Republican
help he chooses the “blunt derision” route. Well, so much for the
superior temperament.

Few imagined, after a very effective campaign and a mostly skillful
transition, that the first couple of weeks would be so cringe-
inducing. As Charles Krauthammer summed up:

After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear
that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The
nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The
hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great
ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that
all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half
weeks.

You didn’t think it was possible for them to offend the White House
press corp, at least so quickly. It didn’t seem possible they’d really
let the mask of bipartisanship slip so fast. But they did –in record
time. We can mull over the reasons — arrogance, inexperience, and lack
of a distinct vision (”I won” doesn’t count) all factor in. But they
better get their act together, and quickly. Because one thing we know:
once the president has lost the mystique of power, the political high
ground and the respect of the Congress, press, and public, it’s darned
hard to get it all back.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/53492

[Pig]

Stumbling out the gate: Barack Obama flubs his first big test

It's not easy to waste a mandate and a honeymoon at the same time, but
President Obama seems determined to try. You know he's off to a lousy
start when his most favorable reviews came after he said, "I screwed
up."

Did he ever, and not just once. If he keeps going this way, America
will be saying, "We screwed up."

He's our President, it's a horribly dangerous time at home and abroad
and we desperately need him to succeed. But he can't be successful
unless he builds a broad swath of public trust in his leadership. So
far, he's going backward.

It's very early, but it's worrisome that Obama has stumbled almost
since he took the oath. His inauguration speech was uninspired and
next to nothing has gone right for him. Already he looks like he needs
a vacation.

The historic young President with the political wind at his back has
quickly turned testy toward those who disagree with him. Despite
promises to the contrary, he's been so rigid that the defeated
Republicans are relevant again.

Obama's fumbled rollout is surprising, given a smooth and skillful
transition. He appointed key players early, talked repeatedly of being
ready "to hit the ground running" and was eager to get off to a fast
start.

Maybe too fast. His vetting of top aides was shockingly sloppy, and he
has been concerned primarily with the speed of the stimulus bill, not
its contents. The failed vetting produced a string of embarrassments
over tax dodgers and influence peddlers, and his embrace of the flawed
stimulus has put him on the wrong side of the American public, with
only about 1 in 3 voters with him.

Even more surprising, his famously cool temperament is AWOL. He has
been visibly frustrated at what he calls needless delay, despite a
rapid timetable given the whopping price tag of the stimulus
legislation and the uncertainty of its impact.

He should genuinely welcome those who want to make the bill better.
After all, there's never been much doubt he would get a huge package
passed, so he doesn't need to make enemies over it. The only real
question is whether it will succeed.

But unable to get his way quickly, he pulled rank with a snippy, "I
won." When the Senate insisted on debate, he turned to harsh attacks
and campaign-style rhetoric. Some insiders already are grumbling about
disarray and arrogance.

So much for a change in Washington.

What happened to the gracious uniter, the man who held a dinner to
honor opponent John McCain and embraced the concept of a team of
rivals? That seems like ancient history as he and McCain now are
sniping at each other.

It's also disappointing that, instead of appealing to our hopes, Obama
has resorted to fear-mongering, a tactic he often accused former
President George Bush of using. Our new President sounds like the old
one, warning that failing to do what he wants would be a
"catastrophe," a word he used twice in one day.

The real catastrophe would be to borrow a trillion dollars for no
lasting result except the liberal pet projects that have turned the
bill into a porkfest.

A friend, in a clever reference to JFK's first big mistake, calls it
Bambi's Bay of Pork. Obama's touting the bill marks him as careless
with taxpayer dollars, and it's a reputation he will not find easy to
shake, especially if the legislation fails to boost the economy and
add jobs.

Nor will it be easy to persuade anyone he is nonideological after his
turn to hard partisanship on just his 16th day in office. In a
political hot-house atmosphere, he called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
"our rock" and "an extraordinary leader," oblivious to her 18%
approval rating. He claimed the stimulus she produced reflected
"discipline," meaning he's either cynical or didn't bother to read the
turkey before embracing it.

He accused critics of pushing "tired arguments and worn ideas," but
there is nothing more tired than Washington's wasteful spending. He
wants to "name and shame" corporate fat cats who abuse taxpayer
bailouts, but cheers his Dem mates for an outrageous tab that knows no
precedent in our nation's history.

Who is this guy? Where is the Barack Obama who charmed the country and
challenged it to greatness?

That's the guy we elected. That's the President we need.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/02/08/2009-02-08_stumbling_out_the_gate_barack_obama_flub.html?page=1

[Pig]

Barack Obama is a novice - and it shows

After a rocky start, the new President knows he has to seize back the
political agenda, says Toby Harnden.

During last year's epic election campaign, Hillary Clinton said that
in the White House "there is no time for on-the-job training". Joe
Biden, too, remarked that the presidency was "not something that lends
itself to on-the-job training". Both were aiming barbs at their then
primary opponent. Mrs Clinton has since brought what she would refer
to as her "lifetime of experience" to the role of Secretary of State,
while Mr Biden has traded 36 years in the Senate for the vice-
presidency. And the rookie they derided is President.

Now, the words of his former rivals are returning to haunt President
Obama. After a distinctly rocky start to his presidency, he has
admitted he "screwed up" and is returning to one thing in his
political career that he has perfected – campaigning. In Elkhart,
Indiana, today and Fort Myers, Florida, tomorrow, Mr Obama will try to
seize back control of the political agenda with question-and-answer
sessions with voters in two of the swing states that gave him victory.

Already, however, he is struggling, and the product he is now selling
is not himself but a near-trillion-dollar economic "stimulus" package
loaded with pet Democratic spending projects that has awakened
slumbering Republicans in Congress and is now supported by barely a
third of Americans. In between the Indiana and Florida stops, he will
return to the White House for a prime-time press conference in which
he will appeal directly to citizens and seek to rekindle the magic of
his campaign.

Which President Obama will turn up remains to be seen. Last week, he
began as a wide-eyed bystander buffeted by events as he lost his key
confidant, Tom Daschle, amid an uproar over $128,000 in unpaid taxes
for a chauffeur and limousine. Mr Obama and his advisers believed the
oversight did not matter because the over-arching virtue of the new
White House could not be doubted. He was wrong and seemed out of touch
in believing that ordinary people would not notice the contrast
between the practice of politics as usual and his campaign slogans
against it.

The White House is now in damage-control mode. After Robert Gibbs, Mr
Obama's spokesman, was lampooned by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show as a
non-answering automaton in the mode of President George W Bush's press
secretaries, former campaign strategist David Axelrod was dispatched
to television studios to make the stimulus case. However, this was
tinkering around the edges.

The American presidency is a platform without parallel, offering the
incumbent a degree of instinctive deference and goodwill and a
megaphone that will amplify his voice across 50 states and the world
beyond. But it is also a lonely perch for the timid.

In the early days of his presidency, Mr Obama has seemed passive and
uncertain. Instead of drawing up his own economic stimulus bill, he
sub-contracted the job to Democrats on Capitol Hill. They opted to
spend money on projects for contraception and beautifying the National
Mall – their doorstep – and gave Republicans an plenty of ammunition
against the package.

Slipped into the small print was a "Buy America" provision that sent
shock waves through capitals from Brussels to Beijing and triggered
fears of trade wars and a new American protectionism. It was hard for
the President to defend a bill he perhaps didn't fully support
himself. He neither championed the package as imperfect but essential,
nor sought to make meaningful changes to it. Instead, he attempted to
charm Republican centrists with his own personality and the trappings
of the White House by inviting them over for cocktails and a Super
Bowl party. It didn't work. Of 219 Republicans on Capitol Hill, only
three voted for the bill. Introducing a $500,000 pay cap for some Wall
Street executives was empty – and possibly counter-productive –
populism.

Mr Obama cast aside his emollient talk to deliver the red meat at
Williamsburg. It was an abrupt change of tone that will come with a
price, just as the double standard of preaching about the evils of
influence-peddling and lobbyists and then giving Mr Daschle a pass on
his tax evasion will not be forgotten by many ordinary Americans.

"We lived it for two years, and we forgot it for a couple of weeks,"
Mr Gibbs remarked ruefully when asked about why Team Obama
rationalised away their own principles because they wanted their old
friend in the Cabinet.

The activists who formed the backbone of Mr Obama's election campaign
appear less than energised. Few answered his call for house-party
gatherings at the weekend to build support for the economic stimulus
plan. Mr Obama could be forgiven a little nostalgia. Saturday Night
Live gently ribbed him, imagining a national address in which he
breaks off talking about economic gloom to say: "Remember election
night. Grant Park in Chicago. Nice weather. Oprah. That white guy
Oprah was crying on. Good times."

Governing, as Mr Obama is finding out, is not like an election
campaign. Mr Bush's failures will give him some leeway and his
transformative appeal remains potent. But making decisions and
operating the levers of power is something completely new to him. And
it shows

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4561229/Barack-Obama-is-a-novice-and-it-shows.html

[Pig]

President Obama’s lack of experience and, more importantly, his lack
of maturity
One Month into a Failed Presidency
By Alan Caruba Friday, February 13, 2009

“Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this
would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They
are times of great danger…The costs to the US and the world of another
failed presidency do not bear contemplating.”

his was the view expressed on February 10 in the Financial Times.

It is nothing less than extraordinary that, less than a month into the
presidency of Barack Obama, the warnings are flying that it has
embarked on a course of actions that are a danger to the nation and to
the world.

A day later, Kathleen Parker, a columnist for The Washington Post, was
lamenting President Obama’s lack of experience and, more importantly,
his lack of maturity. “Obama wants too much to be liked…but there’s a
price in becoming president. Giving up being liked is the ultimate
public sacrifice.” George W. Bush can confirm the truth of that.

“Obama’s lack of authority over the stimulus package has underscored
the value of political experience and toughness,” wrote Parker of
Obama’s ceding control to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader
Harry Reid.

Meanwhile, two weeks into his presidency, both Obama and wife Michelle
were complaining that they were “tired of being in the White House”
given the limitations on their former freedom to come and go as they
wished.

“Sell the sizzle, not the steak” is an old advertizing maxim. Just
over half the voters bought the sizzle surrounding the charismatic
candidate, but the steak is proving hard to swallow.

In the first month of his four-year term, there were several cabinet
appointments that turned out to be seriously flawed, but that was just
the beginning of a number of odd decisions culminating in what may
have been the most boring first press conference by a new President.
He delivered a ten-minute opening statement followed by a ten-minute
response to the first question.

Meanwhile, Obama has issued a flurry of executive orders including
shutting down Gitmo, but not determining what we do with a bunch of
fanatic, stone killers, some of whom have been released and went right
back to al Qaeda. Not satisfied with that, he authorized the spending
of $20.3 million in immigration assistance to Palestinian refugees—
calling them victims—who want to leave Gaza and bring their hatred
here.

His first call to a “head of state” was to Mahmoud Abbas, the leader
of the Fatah Party. Abbas is not a head of state and Fatah exists only
at the pleasure of Israel who needs to appear to be negotiating
something other than its own destruction. His first television
interview was with Al Arabia. The Iranian response was to demand that
he apologize for the “past crimes” of the U.S.

He has ordered all overseas CIA interrogation centers closed and then
withdrew all charges against the mastermind behind the bombing of the
USS Cole. Do you feel any safer now?

His administration is about to kill any possibility of exploration and
drilling for offshore oil while at the same time talking endlessly
about “energy independence.”

Finally (though not really) he has nomined David Ogden to be deputy
Attorney-General. This is a man whose most notable accomplishments
include representing pornographers, trying to defeat child protection
legislation, and undermining family values. He once represented a
group of library directors to argue against the Children’s Internet
Protection Act that requires libraries and schools receiving funding
for the Internet to restrict access to obscene sites.

The barbarians aren’t at the gates, they are inside the gates.

This isn’t just a failed presidency at this point. It is a suicidal
one that is threatening to take down the nation with it.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8444

[honeybee]

Now that is truly scary, mostly because it is so true!

[Pig]

Obama's pork barrel is open – and it is stinking


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Gerald Warner: Obama's pork barrel is open – and it is stinking


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Published Date: 15 February 2009
STIMULUS is one of those neutral, unexceptional words that is suddenly
appropriated by politicians and debauched, so that ever after it will
have connotations that are sinister, ironic and sleaze-ridden. Barack
Obama's "stimulus" plan will be long remembered as the occasion when
political euphemism triggered economic disaster.
There is no terminology available to express adequately the appalling
irresponsibility of this naked political banditry. To have squandered
a fraction of the near-$1 trillion cost of Obama's pork barrel in days
of prosperity would have been more tha
ADVERTISEMENT
n reprehensible; to do so at a time of financial crisis is
unforgivable. Obama likes to pose as the heir of Abraham Lincoln: as
this shameless bribery demonstrates, he is heir only to the Chicago
Democrat political machine that spawned him.

Where is the stimulus to the economy from throwing $6bn at colleges
and universities, many of which, unlike their British counterparts,
already have billion-dollar endowments? Or in throwing $1bn at Amtrak,
a railway re-enactment society that will appeal only to those
nostalgic for the masochistic pleasures of British Railways? Or in the
more modest $100m being squandered on reducing lead-based paint?

Even the temporary boost that such ploys as spending $5.5bn on the
"greening" of federal buildings may give the construction industry
have been blunted, at least in the Senate bill, by omitting the E-
Verify mandate that was in the House bill. This would allow an
estimated 300,000 illegal aliens to parasite on construction jobs;
they are even awarded tax breaks in another part of the package.

To call this spendthrifts' wish list a "stimulus" is an insult to
America's intelligence. Instead, it is a hotch-potch of politically
correct liberal obsessions: $75m to promote "smoking cessation" (that
will stimulate retailers); a $246m tax break for Hollywood trash
merchants; and even an extra $300m medical appropriation to treat
Casanovas who, in the coy euphemism, have been kissing girls with
runny noses.

The most blatantly sinister item is the allocation of $4.2bn to
"neighbourhood stabilisation", the programme that will enrich the far-
left organisation ACORN which played so controversial a role in voter
registration during the recent presidential election. In tandem with
that goes $1bn to forward Obama's ambition to control the 2010 census,
rich in electoral opportunity for the promoters of the one-party
state.

This pork barrel is open and stinking. Senate majority leader Harry
Reid had concerns about re-election, so he lobbied Obama and was duly
gifted $8bn to develop high-speed rail lines between Los Angeles and
Las Vegas. Presumably easier access for punters to Sin City is
designed to stimulate the economy. New York Democrat senator Chuck
Schumer insouciantly claimed last week that the American people really
don't care about "little tiny, yes, porky amendments".

The plummeting support for Obama's confidence trick – down to 37% in
one poll – suggests that they do care. They will care even more when
they see this toxic package within the context of America's overall
indebtedness. That context is what makes the difference between
writing off the stimulus as a piece of irresponsible, but ultimately
affordable, Keynesian self-indulgence and recognising it as a supreme
act of folly.

Firstly, there is the poisoned heritage from the Republicans. The Bush
administration, in its last six years, ratcheted up deficits totalling
$3.35 trillion. No wonder these pseudo-conservatives were repudiated
by their voters. All the more reason for Obama, the new broom, to
shame their memory with a policy of fiscal frugality. Instead, he has
committed himself to programmes that will record a cumulative budget
deficit of $8.4 trillion by 2017.

For do not forget that Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary who
displays a boyish unfamiliarity with tax returns, is standing by to
throw a further $2.25 trillion at banks. If you add up the US
government's commitments, the sums are: Federal Reserve, $5.5
trillion; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, $1.5 trillion;
Treasury, $947bn; Federal Housing Administration , $300bn – total
$8.34 trillion. There is, however, one key component missing: the
costs of nationalising Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which adds $5
trillion, producing the grand total of $13.3 trillion.

No wonder Barack Obama, bereft of his auto-cue, was
uncharacteristically hesitant at his press conference last week. The
messiah has to borrow $3.5 trillion over the next two years. This
could prove a burden that even the legendarily resourceful and
productive citizens of the United States cannot shoulder.



http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/comment/Gerald-Warner-Obama39s-pork-barrel.4982005.jp

[Pig]

From The Sunday Times
February 15, 2009
Obama’s new deal is the same old blunder
Dominic Lawson

Here’s something new: instead of the customary attempts to put an
optimistic gloss on the state of the economy, our governments are
doing exactly the opposite. Over here Ed Balls tells us, more or less,
that this is the worst recession since dinosaurs roamed the primordial
swamps. Meanwhile President Barack Obama declared last week that “if
we don’t act immediately, our nation will sink into a crisis that at
some point we may be unable to reverse”. As The Economist commented,
with some alarm: “The notion that [America] might never recover was
previously entertained only by bearded survivalists stockpiling beans
and ammunition in remote log cabins.”

Obama’s dire assessment was on the surface the more surprising –
wasn’t he supposed to be the great uplifter of the national mood, in
the spirit of Franklin D Roosevelt’s “The only thing we have to fear
is fear itself”? It seems all the odder because Obama has explicitly
drawn on folk memories of FDR’s New Deal, telling television viewers
to “keep in mind that in 1932, 1933 the unemployment rate was 25%”.

Obama is probably right to assume that those same memories have it
that the massive state interventionism of the New Deal triumphantly
restored America to full employment. That’s why he felt comfortable in
asserting, on the eve of the launch of a $2 trillion (or so) injection
of taxpayers’ money, “There is no disagreement that we need . . . a
recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy.”

He might, therefore, have been surprised to see an advertisement in
the national papers, signed by more than 200 eminent economists, which
declared: “With all due respect, Mr President, that is not true.
Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians . . .
we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a
way to improve economic performance. More government spending by
Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the
Great Depression in the 1930s.” The sorry facts bear this out. The
unemployment rate in the US was still 19% in 1939. Over the following
four years the number of unemployed workers declined dramatically, by
more than 7m. This had a very particular reason: the number of men in
military service rose by 8.6m.

You might say that it is always possible to find 200 economists to
disagree with anything, but in fact the practitioners of the dismal
science are genuinely divided on this one. When the US Journal of
Economic History polled economists on the proposition that “Taken as a
whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and
deepen the Great Depression”, 49% agreed. These would be the ones who
might have recalled the damning remark of FDR’s own Treasury
secretary, Henry Morgenthau. In 1939 he confided: “We have tried
spending money . . . it does not work . . . we have just as much
unemployment . . . and an enormous debt to boot.”

The trouble, 70 years on, is that America’s debt is already enormous,
even before Obama’s “jump-start” has begun to hoover up the taxpayers’
trillions.

Perhaps Obama will not repeat some of the errors of the New Deal.
Roosevelt (and indeed Hoover) recalled the anger caused by the wage
cuts during the depression of 1920-1 and cajoled employers to keep
wage rates stable, even as output dropped. This is a policy supported
by the Keynesians of today, who argue that lower wages lead to lower
demand, which leads to lower output, which leads to more unemployment,
and so on ad infinitum.

In practice, however, if labour costs do not come down in a recession,
then employers are even less willing to hire staff. The US government
of the 1930s augmented this error with protectionist tariffs –
designed to keep out imports from countries that had not sought to
maintain wage rates, regardless of profitability.

Unfortunately, it may be that Obama will indeed leap into the same
elephant trap: the president issued an executive order this month
requiring federal agencies to put in place agreements that set “wages,
work rules and other benefits” when awarding big construction
projects. Perhaps this is payback for the unions’ support for Obama
during the election. Admittedly the White House has sought to strip
out many of the “buy America” clauses that Congress had attached to
its stimulus bill, but when the gold-plating of federal contracts
reduces any beneficial effect they might have on overall employment
rates, we can be certain that the protectionist chorus will then belt
out again, fortissimo.

This fear was not the reason the Dow Jones index plunged by almost 5%
between the moment the Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, began to
announce the details of the “rescue” package and when he had finished
speaking. There was a stunning lack of detail in the plan to inject up
to $2 trillion into the financial system – prompting the observation
even from a firm supporter of his, the Nobel prize-winning economist
Paul Krugman, that it reminded him of “an old joke from my younger
days: what do you get when you cross a godfather with a
deconstructionist? Someone who makes you an offer you can’t
understand”.

How would the Treasury secretary invest the hundreds of billions
earmarked to “rescue” the housing market? “We will announce details in
the next few weeks.” How, exactly would he construct the announced $1
trillion public-private partnership to absorb the banks’ “toxic
debts”? “We are not going to put out details until we have the right
structure.” With apologies to Obama the author, this might be
described as the opacity of hope.

It is, in fact, a dangerous mix of messages, and not just because it
erodes the public’s sense that the administration knows what it is
doing with all the billions it is throwing at the banking system – a
complaint which over here is proving ever more damaging to our own
government’s fading prospect of reelection.

You simply can’t tell the public on the one hand that there is an
imminent danger of economic meltdown if your plans are not implemented
– and on the other, give the impression that those plans are little
more than scribbles on the back of an envelope. Obama is much more
able to get away with such a mismatch between promise and practice –
he has a fresh mandate and the high level of opinion poll support
which tends to attach to that. Yet, for the same reason, he will never
have had a better opportunity to harness popular goodwill to political
action.

By contrast, the $787 billion fiscal stimulus that passed through
Congress last week was almost too prescriptive, since Obama had
allowed the House Democrats to write the cheques themselves: so, for
example, there was $335m for STD prevention, $400m for research on
global warming, $198m for Filipino veterans of the second world war.
Noble of them, I’m sure, but how much is all of that guaranteed to
“get America back to work”? Yet Obama mocked those who made such
complaints: “You get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill;
this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the
whole point.”

In other words, Obama is backing the most primitive interpretation of
Keynes’s theories: that any form of government spending amounts to an
economic stimulus. He is almost blind to supply-side economics, which
suggests that if you want to encourage profitable job creation, you
should concentrate on reducing companies’ payroll taxes – and then
leave individual businesses to decide how best to employ the funds
released.

Instead, the young president seems to want to take us back to some of
the failed policies of the 1930s, under the mistaken impression that
they were a great triumph. He illustrates with dreadful clarity George
Santayana’s most-quoted aphorism: those who cannot remember the past
are doomed to repeat it.

dominic...@sunday-times.co.uk

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dominic_lawson/article5733858.ece

[Pig]

Rasmussen, the Only Poll that Matters
By David Weigel 2/18/09 12:30 AM


Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports

Last week, as they’ve done every week for nearly two years, New Jersey-
based Rasmussen Reports cycled a question about Congress into its
nightly political tracking poll. Over two nights, around 1000 voters
(they must be voters, or say they are, to be included in the poll)
were asked by an automated, voice-activated pollster whether they they
would support a Democratic candidate or a Republican candidate for
Congress, were the election held today.

The result was surprisingly close. Only 40 percent of the voters who
talked to Rasmussen Reports said they’d support the Democrats, while
39 percent said they’d support the Republicans. “Are Republicans
winning the public relations battle over spending in the $800-billion-
plus economic stimulus package?” asked company founder and publisher
Scott Rasmussen in the company’s news release. “This marks the lowest
level of support for the Democrats in tracking history and is the
closest the two parties have been on the generic ballot.”

The question, the result, and the carnival barker spin-all are
trademarks of Rasmussen Reports, a pollster that has become ubiquitous
in the conversation of Republicans and conservative pundits. It is not
a partisan polling firm, and it is not hired to ask partisan questions
the way that, for example, John Zogby was hired to test the mocking
anti-Obama questions of a conservative radio host. Rasmussen is
influential because its carefully crafted questions that produce
answers that conservatives like — 59 percent of voters agreeing with
Ronald Reagan’s view of big government, a 10-point plurality of voters
trusting their economic judgment over President Obama’s — are
bolstered by highly accurate campaign polling. The result is that
polls with extremely favorable numbers for Republican stances leap
into the public arena every week, quickly becoming accepted wisdom.

Rasmussen and three members of his staff meet every morning to discuss
what questions they can add to their daily tracking polls of politics,
consumer confidence, and consumer spending. “If you were working at an
old newspaper,” explained Rasmussen in a Monday telephone interview,
“you’d ask a question and assign reporters to find out what people
were thinking. That’s what we do with our polls; we say, let’s take
the temperature of this issue or that issue.”

While those news-cycle-dependent questions bring plenty of attention
to the company, the rolling congressional “generic ballot” poll
provided a good example of Rasmussen’s influence. On “The Beltway
Boys,” the Saturday evening Fox News show that Weekly Standard editor
Fred Barnes co-hosts with Mort Kondracke, Barnes cited Rasmussen as
proof that Republicans were winning the stimulus message war. “Look
where Republicans come out,” said Barnes. “They come out one point
behind the Democrats. The Democrats have only a one-point lead!”

On Sunday, Cokie Roberts cited the same numbers to explain to her
fellow “This Week” panelists why Republicans opposed the stimulus.
“They’re… looking at polls that are showing them about even with
Democrats in the generic congressional match up,” said Roberts.
Neither she nor Barnes cited Rasmussen by name — the polling result,
mentioned frequently by Republicans, had become part of conventional
wisdom.

Other pollsters, whose results sometimes vary greatly from
Rasmussen’s, respect the rival firm’s process and its ability to grab
headlines. Brent Goldrick, a vice president at Financial Dynamics who
conducts the monthly Hotline-Diageo poll, was surprised at the
closeness of Rasmussen’s generic ballot poll. His most recent poll,
conducted in the days after President Barack Obama’s inauguration,
gave Democrats a 46-22 lead in the Congressional generic ballot, and
gave Democrats in Congress an approval rating 23 points higher than
the Republicans. “As the Republicans have become a little more engaged
in the policy debate,” said Goldrick, “it doesn’t surprise me that
numbers would come up from 22 percent.”

It’s hard for pollsters to knock Rasmussen’s accuracy, especially its
election polling. The final pre-election Hotline-Diageo poll had given
Barack Obama a 50-45 point lead over John McCain, while the final
Rasmussen Reports poll gave Obama a 52-46 lead. Both were close to the
result, but Rasmussen was closest.

But where Rasmussen Reports really distinguishes itself, and the
reason it’s so often cited by conservatives, is in its issue polling.
Before the stimulus debate began, Rasmussen asked voters whether
they’d favor stimulus plans that consisted entirely of tax cuts or
entirely of spending. Tax cuts won every time, and Republicans began
citing this when they argued for a tax-cut-only stimulus package.

Every week that the economic stimulus package was being debated by
Congress, Rasmussen asked voters whether they “favor[ed] or oppose[ed]
the economic recovery package proposed by Barack Obama and the
Congressional Democrats.” While other pollsters, such as Gallup and
CBS News, found stimulus support rising as high as 60 percent,
Rasmussen never saw it rise above 45 percent. It was the only pollster
to find support for the plan falling below opposition, in a poll
conducted on February 2 and 3. Not only did Bill Kristol get an early
look at the data and use it to make the case against the plan,
Republicans such as Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) cited Rasmussen to argue
that support for the Democratic version of the stimulus was tumbling.
At a Feb. 10 briefing, Pence quibbled with a reporter who cited Gallup
instead of Rasmussen.

“If we’re gonna talk polls for a minute,” said Pence, “and in the
communications shop at a conference we occasionally look at polls, is
support for the stimulus bill has been dropping ever week since it was
first introduced. I expect there’ll be more polls that come out that
demonstrate that public support is continuing to drop using the same
methods and the same research.” A poll being conducted that day and
the day after would actually reveal that President Obama’s campaign
for the stimulus was driving its support back up into the mid-40s.
Still, the Rasmussen poll, buttressing other media polls that showed
stimulus support lagging the president’s own ratings, was invaluable
to Republican arguments that they were standing with the country
against an unpopular bill.

Scott Rasmussen is well aware of how Republicans use his polling to
make their arguments. “Republicans right now are citing our polls more
than Democrats because it’s in their interest to do so,” he said on
Monday. “I would not consider myself a political conservative — that
implies an alignment with Washington politics that I don’t think I
have.”

But in the early days of his polling firm, when it was named Rasmussen
Research, Rasmussen balanced a cold analysis of politics and consumer
opinion with advocacy for some conservative views. For a short time
around the 2000 elections he wrote a column for WorldNetDaily, once
arguing that President Bill Clinton had “ratified the Reagan
Revolution” by declaring the end of big government in Clinton’s 1996
State of the Union speech. “From that moment forward,” wrote
Rasmussen, “both Republicans and Democrats began to fight over their
policy differences within the political framework created by America’s
voters and articulated by President Reagan.”

In other columns, and in a 2001 company-published book titled A Better
Deal! Social Security Choice, Rasmussen made the case for privatizing
the nation’s oldest entitlement program. “In fact, 46 percent of
American adults say that relying on the government is riskier than
letting workers invest for their own retirement,” wrote Rasmussen in a
Jan. 10, 2001 column arguing that incoming President Bush should push
for private accounts. “Just 36 percent say letting workers invest is
more risky, while 18 percent are not sure.” In the book — not a huge
seller, but promoted by Rasmussen at an August appearance at the
libertarian Cato Institute — the pollster argued that “giving workers
more control over their ‘contributions’ will put the ‘Security’ back
in Social Security.”

Since then, Rasmussen’s business has boomed, aided in no small part by
those “newspaper” questions that are blasted out to reporters and
frequently buck up the Republican spin of the week. “Every pollster
wants to promote his own research,” said Brent Goldrick. “It makes
sense for Rasmussen to promote questions that are more newsworthy.”

That was the take of Phil Kerpen, the policy director at Americans for
Prosperity, a political advocacy group that collected more than
400,000 signatures of opposition to the stimulus. “He’s cited more
frequently than other pollsters because he does more than anybody
else,” said Kerpen. “His numbers are at least as accurate as anyone
else’s. I think it was helpful to us when it looked like there was a
big shift in public opinion against the stimulus. We definitely used
it to give our activists some more encouragement.”

Scott Rasmussen couldn’t say whether his polls played a key role in
the stimulus debate — after all, the bill passed. “But there have been
times that our polling had an impact,” he said on Monday. “During the
immigration debate, I think our polling — which showed the public
heavily against the Senate compromise — was part of the reason that
the compromise fell apart. The Senate acceded to public opinion. We’re
simply reporting on what the public wants.”

http://washingtonindependent.com/30539/rasmussen-the-only-poll-that-matters

[Pig]

Geesh, if these kids don't even believe him, he's done for!

I wonder if this was the speech that used the word "CRISIS" 25
times!!!


* Senior Brandon Miller wore a shirt with the words, "Hitler gave
great speeches, too" above a picture of Obama.

* "Even though I don't support him, I think it's cool he's here," said
Miller, 18. "I just don't believe all the things he's telling us. His
goal is just too big and broad."

*New sod was laid in front of the school Tuesday, and Daudfar said,
"The joke at the school is they're going to take it away when he
(Obama) leaves."

STUDENTS QUESTION OBAMA'S PLAN
Thu Feb 19 2009 09:46:55 ET

EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE
Tim Hacker

A Dobson High School Advanced Placement government class with strong
opinions about Barack Obama watched the president's speech Wednesday
on a small, grainy TV in the corner of their classroom.

Some of the students attentively watched the speech, giving
questioning looks and comments, shaking their heads and laughing at
some of Obama's words. Other students listened, occasion ally glancing
up to watch, while texting on their cell phones, reading a book or
finishing school work.

The gymnasium's events were shown simultaneously in rooms throughout
the Mesa school, and teachers were given discretion on whether to show
the speech, the students said. The students in the class were hopeful
things will work out but questioned whether Obama's plan would
actually work to dig the country out of its economic woes. They also
expected a longer speech.

Senior Syna Daudfar took some notes during the speech and was among
the most vocally opposed to Obama's words.

At one point, when he talked about the costs of his stimulus plan,
senior Maaike Albach and Daudfar looked at each other and said, "uh-
oh."

"Overall I think it's a good idea, but he's not addressing the issues
of the economic crisis," said Daudfar, a John McCain supporter who
added he leans more toward being a moderate conservative. "The
spending bill he just passed is just progressing the Democratic agenda
rather than addressing the economic issues in the country."

Daudfar thinks Obama's plan is backward and deals with the "less
important stuff" first. "Bailing out businesses" and "providing better
regulatory systems for giving out money to businesses" should have
been first, he said.

"If businesses can't afford to hire people, then people won't be able
to work and pay off their mortgages," he said. "It's kind of like
putting money into20a funnel." Albach, who is also a Republican, said
Obama's plan sounds good but questioned how Obama can want to rely on
"people's responsibility" when that is "what got us in this economic
crisis in the first place."

"This puts us more into debt," said Albach, 18. "It's a horrible
situation we're in."

Senior Brandon Miller wore a shirt with the words, "Hitler gave great
speeches, too" above a picture of Obama.

Miller said he had been an Obama supporter "because of his speeches,"
but after debating the issues in this class and looking more into
Obama's policies, his vote was swayed toward McCain.

He showed a video on his camera he had just taken of the president's
minutelong motorcade and talked about what a "great experience" it was
to watch it. Miller had also spent a couple of hours in front of the
school, hanging out and watching the protesters.

"Even though I don't support him, I think it's cool he's here," said
Miller, 18. "I just don't believe all the things he's telling us. His
goal is just too big and broad."

Miller wanted to hear more about the costs and guidelines the stimulus
bill entails.

Senior Katelyn Meyer, who also leans more toward being a Republican,
said Obama's plan sounds good, "but it's easier said than done."

"I like the refinancing part, and I like the part about mortgages, but
I'm afraid we're going to put the money in but won't s ee any effect,"
said Meyer, 18, who still thought it was "cool" to say the president
was at her school, even though she didn't get to see him live.

The students also questioned why Obama chose their school for his
speech since he wasn't talking about education and wondered how much
money the district spent on beautifying the campus while district
positions and services are being cut.

District officials noted this week that the landscaping project
completed over the weekend at Dobson was already in the works and was
just expedited by the president's visit. Funding came from voter-
approved bonds.

New sod was laid in front of the school Tuesday, and Daudfar said,
"The joke at the school is they're going to take it away when he
(Obama) leaves."

AP government teacher Jeff Sherrer said his students "feel very
strongly about the issues, maybe more than the general population." He
thought at least one of his students was outside protesting, and he
had planned to take his students outside as a class project to show
them what was going on but didn't get the chance.

"These kinds of kids really get into it," Sherrer said. "During the
election we had lots of debates on the issues."

http://www.drudgereport.com/flashosk.htm

[Pig]

55% Say Government Mortgage Help Rewards Bad Behavior
Monday, February 23, 2009


Fifty-five percent (55%) of American adults say the federal government
would be rewarding bad behavior by providing mortgage subsidies to
financially troubled homeowners. Among investors, 65% hold that view.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that,
among all adults, just 32% disagree.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 60% of those not
affiliated with either major political party believe the mortgage help
subsidizes bad behavior. Most Democrats (51%) disagree.

President Obama last Wednesday announced a $275-billion taxpayer-
backed plan that would help as many as nine million Americans avoid
foreclosure through measures including subsidized mortgage payments.
Critics of the plan, including a widely circulated on-air challenge by
CNBC editor Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade,
say it subsidizes “losers” and “bad behavior” by homeowners who bought
houses they knew they could not afford.

The Rasmussen Investor Index, which measures daily confidence, fell to
a record low today.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans are not willing to pay higher
taxes to help people who cannot afford to make their mortgage
payments. Fourteen percent (14%) say higher taxes for this purpose are
okay with them. Ten percent (10%) are undecided.

Most Americans--53%--also oppose a plan for the federal government to
pay off a portion of the mortgages only for people who can’t afford
their current payments. Thirty-two percent (32%) think it’s a good
idea. Support for that plan is even lower among homeowners.

Once again, there is a wide partisan divide. Seventy-six percent (76%)
of Republicans and 58% of unaffiliated adults oppose the plan to help
at-risk homeowners pay their mortgages. But a plurality of Democrats
(49%) favor the plan.

There is also little support for a plan that directly subsidizes all
homeowners. Just 33% of all adults support having the federal
government to pay up to $100,000 of the mortgage balance owned by
every single homeowner in America. Fifty-one percent (51%) reject such
a plan. Even though they would directly benefit, a majority of
homeowners (52%) don’t like that plan.

Last week, 45% of Americans opposed the federal government subsidizing
mortgage payments for financially troubled homeowners.

Most Americans believe the housing market will improve only when the
overall U.S. economy gets better.

In December, 59% said they expected the value of their home to rise
over the next five years, but adults were much less optimistic about
the housing market over the next couple years.

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an
independent pollster for more than a decade.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/housing/55_say_government_mortgage_help_rewards_bad_behavior

[Pig]

Bill Seeks $500 Billion for FDIC Fund

By DAMIAN PALETTA

WASHINGTON -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd is
moving to allow the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to temporarily
borrow as much as $500 billion from the Treasury Department.

The Connecticut Democrat's effort -- which comes in response to urging
from FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- would give the FDIC access
to more money to rebuild its fund that insures consumers' deposits,
which have been hard hit by a string of bank failures.
More

Last week, the FDIC proposed raising fees on banks in order to build
up its deposit insurance fund, which had just $19 billion at the end
of 2008. That idea provoked protests from banks, which said such a
burden would worsen their already shaken condition. The Dodd bill, if
it becomes law, would represent an alternative source of funding.

Mr. Dodd's bill could also give the FDIC more firepower to help
address "systemic risks" in the economy, potentially creating another
source of bailout funds in addition to the $700 billion already
appropriated by Congress.

Mr. Bernanke said in a Feb. 2 letter to Mr. Dodd that such a
"mechanism would allow the FDIC to respond expeditiously to emergency
situations that may involve substantial risk to the financial system."

The FDIC would be able to borrow as much as $500 billion until the end
of 2010 if the FDIC, Fed, Treasury secretary and White House agree
such money is warranted. The bill would allow it to borrow $100
billion absent that approval. Currently, its line of credit with the
Treasury is $30 billion.

The FDIC's deposit-insurance fund has fallen precipitously with 25
bank failures in 2008 and 16 so far in 2009. Some bank failures have a
bigger impact on the fund than others, as IndyMac's failure cost the
fund more than $10 billion, while many others cost the fund less than
$100 million.

A 1991 law generally caps the amount of money the FDIC can borrow from
the Treasury at $30 billion, and the FDIC hasn't borrowed money from
the Treasury in more than a decade.

Ms. Bair said a change in the law would give the FDIC more options to
determine the best way to rebuild its depleted fund. In an interview,
she stressed that all insured deposits were already backed by the
"full faith and credit of the United States government."

A change in the law would ease "the mechanics of how seamlessly we can
access our lines of" funding. "I'm the kind of person that likes to be
prepared for all contingencies," she said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123630125365247061.html

[Pig]

March 07, 2009

Is Obama lazy? (Updated)

Rick Moran

All we're getting is whispers from the press, of course, A raised
eyebrow here, a sad shake of the head there. But the picture that is
emerging of Barack Obama, the executive, is not very flattering if you
look between the lines.

Jennifer Rubin:

Well, it's becoming obvious he's not really much of a manager,
decider, legislation-craftsman, or supervisor. His vetting process is
in shambles and key Treasury slots are still vacant. His Treasury
Secretary is a classic under-performer and Obama encourages that
tendency by talking about everything other than our immediate recovery
needs. He lets Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do the legislating - and
they've come up with an embarrassing stimulus and an omnibus spending-
bill even Democrats aren't swallowing.

What does he like to do? Summits. These are in essence campaign
events - faux town-halls where nary a discouraging word is heard and
no real work is done. And he loves those campaign rallies around the
country.

So if the report is accurate that others are crafting his
political strategy (just like the Pelosi-Reid machine is drafting his
legislation), it should should come as no surprise. George W. Bush was
lambasted for poor management skills and excessive delegation. But
that was nothing - Obama has delegated the entire task of governing.
He will keep the campaigning for himself.


Ed Lasky:

Failure as a community organizer (at least he admits that, to some
extent) :

Lazy as an attorney-dedicated to promoting himself:

Miner's firm specialized in civil rights litigation and in
representing not-for-profits. "The 'game of law' irritated [Obama]
more than fascinated him," Miner says. "There are people who just like
the game. Barack didn't like the game."

Allison Davis, a former partner in Miner's firm (and the son of a
prominent U. of C. professor), occupied an office next to Obama's at
14 West Erie Street. "He spent a lot of time working on his book
[Dreams from My Father]," Davis recalls. "Some of my partners weren't
happy with that, Barack sitting there with his keyboard on his lap and
his feet up on the desk writing the book."


I am sure his colleagues, other lawyers, who actually had to work
killer hours to pay his salaries, appreciated his work ethic.

(BTW, he kept getting extensions on the deadline to submit a
manuscript, then he flew off to the South Pacific to "work on it")

Failure as a Senator: A habit of claiming credit for work he did not
do :

After weeks of arduous negotiations, on April 6, 2006, a
bipartisan group of senators burst out of the "President's Room," just
off the Senate chamber, with a deal on new immigration policy.

As the half-dozen senators -- including John McCain (R-Ariz.) and
Edward M. KennedySen.. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who made a request
common when Capitol Hill news conferences are in the offing: "Hey,
guys, can I come along?" And when Obama went before the microphones,
he was generous with his list of senators to congratulate -- a list
that included himself.

"I want to cite Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez, Ken
Salazar, myself, Dick Durbin, Joe Lieberman . . . who've actually had
to wake up early to try to hammer this stuff out," he said.

To Senate staff members, who had been arriving for 7 a.m.
negotiating sessions for weeks, it was a galling moment. Those morning
sessions had attracted just three to four senators a side, Sen.. Arlen
Specter (R-Pa.) recalled, each deeply involved in the issue. Obama was
not one of them. But in a presidential contest involving three sitting
senators, embellishment of legislative records may be an
inevitability, Specter said with a shrug.

Unlike governors, business leaders or vice presidents, senators --
the last to win the presidency was John F. Kennedy in 1960 -- are not
executives. They cannot be held to account for the state of their
states, their companies or their administrations. What they do have is
the mark they leave on the nation's laws -- and in Obama's brief three-
year tenure, as well as Sen.. Hillary Rodham Clinton's seven-year
hitch, those marks are far from indelible.
(D-Mass.) -- headed to announce their plan, they met


And for being on a Committee he was not on and doing work he did not
do (again):

Barack Obama today boasted about a bill in "my committee,'' a
committee on which he has no seat.

While speaking to the press in the Israeli town of Sderot, Obama
mistakenly put the U.S. Senate banking committee on his resume,
although the Illinois senator does not serve on the committee and Sen.
Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is the chairman.

The Republican National Committee distributed an e-mail pointing
out Obama's mistake with a subject line of "Obama's Gaffe Machine
Rolls Into Israel."

During the press conference, Obama said, "Just this past -- this
past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which
is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of
ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear
weapon."


Anyone see a pattern here? People overestimated him and he woefully
undelivers-time and time again. No wonder he picked Geithner.

Moran's take:

Ed's evidence is compelling. I would add that during the early stages
of the campaign, his "keepers of the body" - probably Axelrod at that
point - overextended the candidate. His gaffes about 10,000 dead in a
Kansas tornado came at the end of a long day of campaigning. They
never made the same mistake again and limited his access to the press
and reduced the number of events per day. This would seem to indicate
the president doesn't have much stamina.

But he will continue to get a pass on this from the press unless the
economy goes into free fall and still nothing much has been done.

UPDATE

Ed Lasky adds:

One more aspect of his lax work ethic is that he did not accomplish
much as a State Senator (not just his habit of voting present) but
also the fact that his so-called accomplishments as a state senator
were fictitious . Illinois Senate State President Emil Jones tacked
his name onto bills that other people did the lifting on so that
Jones, in Obama's own words, could make Obama a U.S. Senator.

In the State Senate, Jones did something even more important for
Obama. He pushed him forward as the key sponsor of some of the Party's
most important legislation, even though the move did not sit well with
some colleagues who had plugged away in the minority on bills that
Obama now championed as part of the majority. "Because he had been in
the minority, Barack didn't have a legislative record to run on, and
there was a buildup of all these great ideas that the Republicans kept
in the rules committee when they were in the majority," Burns said.
"Jones basically gave Obama the space to do what Obama wanted to do.
Emil made it clear to people that it would be good for them."

"You have the power to make a United States senator," he told Emil
Jones in 2003.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/03/is_obama_lazy.html

[Pig]

Investors see hope slip away on U.S. missteps

DAVID PARKINSON

March 7, 2009

Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency on a campaign that was all about
hope. Six weeks of missteps and relentless market declines later,
investors are wondering where the hope has gone.

Despite a late-day rally that pushed U.S. indexes higher yesterday,
the S&P 500 still lost 7 per cent this week, while the Dow Jones
industrial average shed 6.2 per cent, making it the worst week yet in
what has been a very bad 2009 for stocks. The U.S. market had fallen
in eight of nine weeks in 2009, wiping out about one-quarter of the
market's value since the year began; Canadian stocks have also been
battered, losing 15.5 per cent in the year to date.

"We've noticed that every time a politician starts to talk, the market
starts to fall," said Bill Ryder, market strategist at Riverfront
Investment Group, an advisory and fund management firm in Richmond,
Va. "Things are dragging on so long, nothing's happening, all we're
getting is rhetoric."

For many investors, it wasn't supposed to be this way. The year began
with optimism that Mr. Obama's administration would act swiftly and
decisively to restore order and confidence in the financial system,
and inject life into the struggling economy.

Instead, investors' faith has been shaken by delays in getting people
and plans in place, a lack of detail on policies needed to rescue the
floundering banking system, and occasionally mixed messages from the
Obama administration.

And while many may have voted for Mr. Obama with their ballots in
November, they're now voting against his early performance with their
money, as they pull more of it from the market with each passing day.

"This really is a vote of no-confidence," said John Riley, president
and chief investment officer of money management firm Cornerstone
Investment Services in Dallas. "It really does show they're dropping
the ball pretty badly."

Indeed, some of the market's worst stumbles of the past several weeks
have come in moments when there had been high hopes that Mr. Obama and
his economic team would deliver words and actions that would help
clarify market uncertainty and restore some confidence.

On Feb. 10, the day new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner unveiled a
disappointingly fuzzy plan to bail out U.S. banks and their troubled
mortgage assets, the S&P 500 plunged 4.9 per cent. When Mr. Obama
unveiled his nearly $800-billion (U.S.) fiscal stimulus package on
Feb. 17, the S&P 500 tumbled 4.6 per cent. And this week's market
slide follows last week's unveiling of the administration's first
budget, a monster $3.55-trillion plan that will create an
unprecedented $1.75-trillion deficit.

Meanwhile, an element market watchers see as critical to breathing
life back into financial markets - the question of what will happen to
banks that have been brought to the brink of collapse by toxic
mortgage-related assets polluting their balance sheets - will remain
unanswered for several weeks yet. The stress tests the government is
running on bank assets, to determine which banks are strong enough to
survive, won't be completed until the end of April - much later than
many frustrated market participants had hoped.

"We need to restore confidence in the banks and the financial system,"
Mr. Ryder said.

"The market is just looking for some transparency, and there's none
forthcoming."

Mr. Riley said the new administration's stumbles out of the gate have
heightened concern that it lacks a plan to lead the markets out of the
woods, and that has delivered a blow to already shaky investor
confidence.

"You need something to restore confidence. At least show some
leadership. That's all people want," he said.

"Even bear market rallies are based on hope. That was [Mr. Obama's]
campaign slogan, to bring back hope. Well, you brought it back, what
did you do with it?"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090307.RMARKET07/TPStory/Business

[Pig]

Obama Can't Double-Talk Us Out Of This

By ROBERT SAMUELSON | Posted Friday, March 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT

To those who believe that Barack Obama is a different kind of
politician — more honest, more courageous — please don't examine his
administration's budget.

If you do, you may sadly conclude that he resembles presidents
stretching back to John Kennedy in one crucial respect. He won't tax
voters for all the government services they want.

That's the main reason we've run budget deficits in 43 of the past 48
years.

Obama is a great pretender. He repeatedly says he's doing things that
he isn't, trusting his powerful rhetoric to obscure the difference. He
has made "responsibility" a personal theme; the budget's cover line is
"A New Era of Responsibility." He says the budget begins "making the
tough choices necessary to restore fiscal discipline." It doesn't.

With today's depressed economy, big deficits are unavoidable for some
years. But let's assume that Obama wins re-election. By his last year,
2016, the economy presumably will have long recovered. What does his
final budget look like?

Well, it runs a $637 billion deficit, equal to 3.2% of GDP, projects
Obama's Office of Management and Budget. That would match Ronald
Reagan's last deficit, 3.1% of GDP in 1988, so fiercely criticized by
Democrats.

As a society, we should pay in taxes what it costs government to
provide desired services. If benefits don't seem equal to burdens,
then the spending isn't worth having (exceptions: deficits in wartime
and economic slumps).

If Obama were "responsible," he would conduct a candid conversation
about the role of government. Who deserves support and why? How big
can government grow before higher taxes and deficits harm economic
growth?

Although Obama claims to be doing this, he hasn't confronted
entitlement psychology — the belief that government benefits once
conferred should never be revoked.

Is it in the public interest for the well-off elderly (say, a couple
with $125,000 of income) to be subsidized, through Social Security and
Medicare, by poorer young and middle-aged workers? Are any farm
subsidies justified when they aren't essential for food production? We
wouldn't starve without them.

Given an aging America, government faces huge conflicts between
spending on the elderly and spending on everything else. But even
before most baby boomers retire (in 2016, only a quarter will have
reached 65), Obama's government would have grown.

In 2016, federal spending is projected to be 22.4% of GDP, up from 21%
in 2008; federal taxes will be 19.2% of GDP, up from 17.7%.

It would also be "responsible" for Obama to acknowledge the big gamble
in his budget. National security has long been government's first job.
In his budget, defense spending drops from 20% of the total in 2008 to
14% in 2016, the smallest share since the 1930s. The decline presumes
a much safer world. If the world doesn't cooperate, deficits would
grow.

The gap between Obama rhetoric and Obama reality transcends the
budget, as do the consequences. In 2009, the stock market has declined
23.78% (through March 5), says Wilshire Associates. The Wall Street
Journal's editorial page blames Obama's policies for all the fall.
That's unfair; the economy's deterioration was a big cause. Still,
Obama isn't blameless.

Confidence (too little) and uncertainty (too much) define this crisis.
Obama's double talk reduces the first and raises the second.

He says he's focused on reviving the economy, but he's also using the
crisis to advance an ambitious long-term agenda. The two sometimes
collide. The $787 billion "stimulus" is weaker than necessary, because
almost $200 billion for extended projects (high-speed rail,
computerized medical records) take effect after 2010.

When Congress debates Obama's sweeping health care and energy
proposals, industries, regions and governmental philosophies will
clash. Will this improve confidence? Reduce uncertainty?

A prudent president would have made a "tough choice" — concentrating
on the economy and deferring his more contentious agenda.

Similarly, Obama claims to seek bipartisanship but, in reality,
doesn't. His bipartisanship consists of including a few Republicans in
his Cabinet and inviting some Republican congressmen to the White
House for the Super Bowl.

It does not consist of fashioning proposals that would attract
bipartisan support on their merits. Instead, he clings to dubious,
partisan policies (mortgage cram-down, union checkoff) that arouse
fierce opposition.

Obama thinks he can ignore these blatant inconsistencies. Like many
smart people, he believes he can talk his way around problems. Maybe.
He's helped by much of the media, who seem so enthralled with him that
they don't see glaring contradictions.

During the campaign, Obama said he would change Washington's petty
partisanship; he also advocated a highly partisan agenda. Both claims
could not be true. The media barely noticed; the same obliviousness
persists. But Obama still runs a risk: that his overworked rhetoric
loses its power and boomerangs on him.

© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=321238251738795

[Pig]

Obama is in trouble

POSTED March 6, 2009 | 5:13 PM

Did you feel it? The political ground shifting beneath President
Barack Obama since his speech last week to Congress? It's been
downhill since and I'm not referring mainly to the Dow Jones record-
setting dive. The pivot point of the shift was the speech, or rather
what the speech did to the evolving public narrative of Obama.

Let's review:

* Since the first of the year, Rush Limbaugh's audience has exploded ,
according to Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, even as his daily
assaults on Obama have intensified. The conservative Talk Radio
maestro has become quite possibly the most listened-to radio
personality in America since before Paul Harvey (God rest his soul).

Demand for his air time hs suddenly become so intense, Limbaugh told
The Examiner's Byron York earlier today, that his network sold 80
percent as much advertising in January 2009 as it did in all of 2008,
and expects to sell-out the year by the end of March. That was before
Obama and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel launched an explicit
counter-attack against Limbaugh that seems only to be making him
bigger.

* Glenn Beck's eminently forgettable presence on CNN has been
transformed, according to The Los Angeles Times, by his move to Fox
News where his main theme has been variations on this question - Wake
Up! Wake UP! What in Heaven's name does Barack Obama think he is doing
to America? Beck has a tough time slot from which to win big ratings
because he's in the middle of evening drive-time. Even so, in a very
short period of time at Fox, his audience has grown to the point that
it is now exceeded only by those of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

* Obama remains personally popular with the public, but worries and
even outright opposition to some of his cornerstone proposals are
growing. Democrats in Congress are even beginning to express in public
print their worries that Obama has reached too far with the $787
billion economic stimulus package, the $410 billion omnibus spending
bill and the $3.6 trillion budget proposal (and the trillions more
senior aides whisper are coming in further bailouts, loan guarantees,
"tax cuts" that are really just grants, and other spending
accountrements of Leviathan Unleashed.)

* Paralleling these developments, a potentially devastatng
conservative case against Obama is coming together rapidly. Two
influential columns this week tell the tale: On Thursday, Daniel
Henninger offers this crucial observation in a WSJ piece otherwise
devoted to asking why Republicans aren't more eagerly and quickly
taking advantage of the fact the Obama Democrats have all but declared
war on the 75 percent of the U.S. economy that is private and
therefore productive of the nation's wealth:

"Beyond the stock market, there is a reason why, despite much goodwill
toward his presidency, the Obama response to the faltering economy has
left many feeling undone. There isn't much in his plan to stir the
national soul. It's about 'sacrifice' now so that we can live for a
future of small electric cars and windmills. This may move the
Democratic Party's faith communities, but it cannot revive a great
nation. If the Democrats want to embrace market failure as a basis for
their ideology, let them have it. As politics, it's a downer."

The second column appeared today in The Washington Post and was
written by Charles Krauthammer. Obama's mastery of public speaking has
heretofore served to deflect attention away from the details of what
he is actually proposing. And there is in those details, according to
Krauthammer, a fundamental deception: Obama summons visions of
catastrophe that are the result of too little government regulation of
the financial markets and he offers as a solution vastly more
government regulation of .... health care, energy and education.

"The 'day of reckoning' has now arrived. And because 'it is only by
understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift
ourselves out of this predicament,' Obama has come to redeem us with
his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care;
a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education
with universal access to college as the goal.

"Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this
is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive
destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is
perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American
people," Krauthammer said.

In other words, Krauthammer said, Obama tries to have it both ways,
with the alleged errors of deregulation being compounded into the
worst economic crisis since the Great Depression by America's failure
to nationalize health care, shift our economy to alternative energy
sources and give everybody a free pass to college. Obama is trying to
make the cause and the cure synonymous. "Clever politics, but
intellectually dishonest to the core," Krauthammer said.

I would only disagree that the Obama deception represents a clever
political strategy. The deception proceeds from the fundamental
contradiction in the Obama strategy - talking like Ronald Reagan but
walking like the second coming of Norman Thomas - and indeed that of
all Washington liberals. Sensing the political fragility of the
moment, they are racing to enact as much of their statist agenda as
possible before the 2010 election puts the brakes on what, God
willing, will ultimately be seen as an unfortunate interregnum between
Republican Bush and a genuinely conservative regime to come.

Again, the speech to Congress was the pivot point. Before the speech,
Obama was protected by a kind of political equivalent of the Star Trek
Shield. His symbolizing of an historic milestone, which alone moved
millions of white voters to his column, combined with his soaring
rhetoric, which negated criticism from John McCain and other
Republicans of the substance of Obama's proposals, to protect him
through election day and into the transition.

But the magnetism of his historic moment began fading once the
economic stimulus, the omnibus and the budget were on the table. As
people focused more on the details and how they didn't square with
what they thought he had promised during the campaign, the soaring
rhetoric lost much of its power. It may even now be approaching a net
negative because it throws so much more light on the inaequacies of
the policies.

And so the ground has shifted and the essential narrative is changing.
Before, supporting Obama was an act of personal and national
affirmation made all the more pleasant and attractive by the seeming
reasonableness of his policy proposals and the winsomeness of his
public personality . He succeeded admirably in making himself a
comfortable and reassuring choice, thus making it not merely "safe" to
vote for him, but positively compelling.

Now, though, the mask is off and the disconnect between rhetoric and
reality is emerging as the dominant driver of the Obama narrative. The
contrast is no longer between the young, personable, historic
candidate Obama and a creaky, cranky old Republican White Guy, it's
between what America thought it was getting in a President Obama
(cool, reasonable and beyond partisanship) and what it now sees as the
reality of a President Obama (government spending out of control, an
uncertain hand on foreign policy, broken promises, more bureaucrats,
etc. etc.).

Put another way - what we see now is neither what we were promised,
nor what we expected.

Forgive me, please for saying so, but, if you read my Valentine's Day
column on why Obama seemed locked in on a strategy that was likely to
make him a one-term occupant of the White House, none of the above
would come as a surprise to you. My only surprise today is that the
shift has begun so quickly.

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Obama-is-in-trouble-40864502.html

[honeybee]

And the capper is that Bob Brinker, who just a couple of weeks ago was
bashing "RUSSSHHHH" and "those people" for not giving the bamster a
chance, just bashed the bamster up the side of the head. Of course,
Brinker hasn't (AND WON'T EVER) called the bamster by any pejorative,
demeaning little nicknames yet like he does everyone else.

Neither has he EVER used BHO's middle name, like he did Hilary Diane
Evita Rodham Clinton.



.

> http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Obama-is-in...

[Pig]

Neither Moderate Nor Centrist

Peter Robinson, 03.06.09, 12:00 AM EST

How Buckley, Gergen and Brooks finally realized Barack Obama's left
leanings.

"To see what is in front of one's nose," George Orwell famously
asserted, "needs a constant struggle."

Congratulations this week to three journalists who have finally taken
up that constant struggle: Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David
Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of
centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive
expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has
recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken.

A humorist--and, I should disclose, an old friend--Christopher Buckley
exercised his acute comic sense during the presidential campaign,
judging John McCain so thoroughly risible that the nation could hardly
do worse by electing Barack Obama. Now Buckley has developed a sense
of the tragic. In electing Obama, he admits, we may indeed have done
worse--a lot worse.

"The strange thing," Buckley wrote last week after listening to Obama
address Congress, "is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining
negative thoughts about Mr. Obama's grand plan. ... One thing is
certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger.
Just remember ... that a government that is big enough to give you
everything you want is also big enough to take it all away."

"Just remember"? Coming from someone who just remembered, the
exhortation might strike a lot of people as rich. But never mind.

Now a commentator for CNN, David Gergen served in a number of
administrations, first working in the White House all the way back in
the 1970s. To the extent that he possesses any coherent ideological
outlook--a fine question to ask of someone who took jobs from both
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton--Gergen seems to share Alexander
Hamilton's view that the federal government requires, as Hamilton
expressed it, "energy in the executive."

During the campaign, Gergen praised Obama as a man of action. Now
Gergen argues that Obama is displaying a little too much action.
Comment On This Story

"We are in the midst of a global crisis ... that demands intense focus
and daily leadership by the president ...," Gergen wrote this past
week. "But ... [Obama's] ... ambition for reforms in other areas do
not allow him to give the economy his full attention." The financial
industry is reeling, Gergen asserted, "because there is still no
clearcut set of policies about how the government will rescue banks."
And "it is stunning that [Treasury] Secretary Tim Geithner does not
yet have a deputy secretary or any undersecretaries named, much less
on the job."

Energy in the executive is one matter. Zealotry in the executive is
another.

Two personalities inhabit New York Times columnist David Brooks, who,
like Christopher Buckley, is a friend. One personality is that of the
idealist. On Inauguration Day, the idealist in Brooks claimed that
Barack Obama was "a pragmatist, an empiricist" who intended "to
realize the end-of-ideology politics. ..." The other personality
inhabiting Brooks is that of the realist. It takes a lot to rouse the
realist. Trillions of dollars, in fact.

"There is evidence," Brooks wrote last week about Obama's $3.6
trillion budget, "of a party swept up in its own revolutionary
fervor. ... We end up with deficits that are $1 trillion a year and
stretch as far as the eye can see. ... [F]ederal spending as a share
of GDP is zooming from its modern norm of 20% to an unacknowledged
level somewhere far beyond

"Those of us who consider ourselves moderates--moderate-conservative,
in my case--are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is
not who we thought he was."

A couple of implications here are worth noting. The first is that a
deep, recurring pattern of American life has asserted itself yet
again: the cluelessness of the elite.

Buckley, Gergen and Brooks all attended expensive private
universities, then spent their careers moving among the wealthy and
powerful who inhabit the seaboard corridor running from Washington to
Boston. If any of the three strolled uninvited into a cocktail party
in Georgetown, Cambridge or New Haven, the hostess would emit yelps of
delight. Yet all three originally got Obama wrong.

Contrast Buckley, Gergen and Brooks with, let us say, Rush Limbaugh,
whose appearance at any chic cocktail party would cause the hostess to
faint dead away, or with Thomas Sowell, who occupies probably the most
unfashionable position in the country, that of a black conservative.

Limbaugh and Sowell both got Obama right from the very get-go. "Just
what evidence do you have," Sowell replied when I asked, shortly
before the election, whether he considered Obama a centrist, "that
he's anything but a hard-left ideologue?"

The elite journalists, I repeat, got Obama wrong. The troglodytes got
him right. As our national drama continues to unfold, bear that in
mind.

The second implication? That there remains at least a small chance
Congress will refuse to enact Obama's budget. In the House of
Representatives, Democrats hold a majority of 79 seats. Will enough
voters in enough Democratic districts become so disenchanted with
Obama that they force 40 House Democrats to vote against the
president's budget?

If even Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks can at last
see what is in front of their noses, one may hope.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/05/buckley-gergen-brooks-opinions-columnists-obama-liberal.html

[Pig]

GEESH..........even the terrorists are seeing what TRASH is really
made of!

Guantanamo prison worse since Obama election - ex-detainee

From correspondents in London | March 08, 2009
Article from: Agence France-Presse

A FREED Guantanamo Bay prisoner claims conditions at the US detention
camp in Cuba have worsened since President Barack Obama was elected,
claiming guards wanted to "take their last revenge".

Binyam Mohamed, who became the first detainee to be transferred out of
Guantanamo since President Obama took office, also said British agents
"sold me out" by cooperating with his alleged torturers.

In his first interview since being released, Mr Mohamed, a 30-year-old
Ethiopian-born former UK resident, gave further details of what he
called the "medieval" torture he faced in Pakistan, Morocco,
Guantanamo and a secret CIA prison in Kabul.

"The result of my experience is that I feel emotionally dead," he told
the Mail on Sunday.

President Obama had promised during his campaign to shut down the
Guantanamo prison and two days after taking office announced it would
close this year.

"Since the (US) election it's got harsher," Mr Mohamed said.

"The guards would say, 'yes, this place is going to close down,' but
it was like they wanted to take their last revenge."

Mr Mohamed said he was beaten at Guantanamo and while he was held in
Morocco his chest and penis were slashed with razors.

In Afghanistan he lived in constant darkness and "came close to
insanity" after being forced to listen to the same album by rapper
Eminem at top volume for a solid month.

He flew back to the UK last month, tasting freedom for the first time
since 2002 when he was arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of attending
an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and plotting to build a
radioactive "dirty bomb".

The US never charged him, and British police who questioned him on his
return let him go free.

Mr Mohamed also claimed that British officials had colluded in his
alleged torture.

He said while he was in Morocco in 2002, his Moroccan interrogators
"started bringing British files to the interrogations... it was
obvious the British were feeding them questions about people in
London".

He said he subsequently made false confessions about a plot to build a
"dirty" nuclear bomb and one to blow up apartments in New York linked
to alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Looking to the future, Mr Mohamed is undergoing therapy and wants to
stay in the UK.

"It's the only place I can call home," he said.

"I want to live a normal life, to find a wife, get married, have a
family, a job.

"Meanwhile, I'll do whatever I can to get the other innocent prisoners
out of Guantanamo."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25155379-12335,00.html

[Pig]

"In three months Obama has accomplished what some thought was
impossible. He has made us nostalgic for George W. Bush.""

"Now let’s look at the future. No other President in the history of
the nation has lost the confidence of the people as swiftly as Obama.
Forget the polls. Ask your friends, family and co-workers. That’s the
best poll.

There will always be true believers for whom reality never intrudes,
but it has not escaped anyone’s attention that even the worshipful
media is beginning to ask why things are going so badly. so fast, and
beginning to blame Obama. "

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


Obama is a pathological narcissist and dedicated socialist

Forcing Out Obama

By Alan Caruba Sunday, March 8, 2009

Permit me to indulge in a bit of wishful thinking. Not quite a
prediction, but a possible scenario that would remove President Obama
from office before he does further damage to the nation. History
provides a template.

Americans survived the Great Depression despite the fact that the
successive Roosevelt administrations did exactly what the present-day
Obama administration is doing; prolonging it by raising taxes,
increasing the deficit, and spending wildly on social programs.

The difference in the 1930s was that the only news Americans could get
was their daily newspaper—as liberal then as they are today. News
magazines were still a relatively new concept. The radio was a primary
source and the Movietone News in the form of newsreels if you went to
the movies. There was, of course, no television.

As a result, Roosevelt with his “fireside chats”, all carefully
scripted in the same way Obama will not speak publicly without his
TelePrompter, was able to convince people that expanding government
and the fact that the economy just never really recovered, was just a
passing phase.

In the meantime, the FDR administration sponsored all manner of make-
work projects in addition to some useful infrastructure ones. The
problem then as now is that all those projects had to be paid for with
taxes. That meant Americans had less money to spend on their own
needs, to start new businesses or expand existing ones. Insanely,
industries were required by law to collude to set prices and one could
actually go to jail for offering a product or service for less!

Roosevelt was not a fan of Wall Street or corporate executives whom he
frequently called economic “malefactors.” In his personal life, all of
his business schemes lost money and, although he had acquired a law
degree, he wasn’t good at that profession. Politics was his métier and
he was very good at that. Not until World War II came along was the
American economy able to dig itself out of the same deep hole in which
we find ourselves today.

As this is being written, joblessness has hit a 25 year high. The Dow
is plunging and neither Obama nor Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can
open their mouths without making it go lower. There’s one sure sign of
distress and distrust; few people want to join the top ranks of his
administration.

Thanks to the Watergate scandal, in August 1974 Sen. Barry Goldwater
and a delegation of Washington politicos paid a visit to then-
President Richard M. Nixon and in effect handed him a letter of
resignation to sign. Nixon was gone in days. He avoided impeachment.

Jerry Ford took over and was then replaced by the very toothy Jimmy
Carter. It took Carter a bit longer to lose the confidence of the
American people, but it was thorough and complete by the time he was
defeated by Ronald Reagan. Carter was an idiot, but he wasn’t
deliberately trying to destroy the economy.

Bill Clinton managed to avoid being impeached and still skates by with
all that Bubba charm, but it might well be that senators didn’t want
to have to deal with a “President Gore” if Clinton was removed from
office.

Now let’s look at the future. No other President in the history of the
nation has lost the confidence of the people as swiftly as Obama.
Forget the polls. Ask your friends, family and co-workers. That’s the
best poll.

There will always be true believers for whom reality never intrudes,
but it has not escaped anyone’s attention that even the worshipful
media is beginning to ask why things are going so badly. so fast, and
beginning to blame Obama.

The answer for the swift decline is that Obama is a pathological
narcissist and dedicated socialist who has surrounded himself for the
most part with former Clinton operatives. Obama is, plainly speaking,
a liar. Increasingly, the adoration heaped upon him by his supporters
is beginning to resemble the same as that in the 1930s which led the
Germans down the path to war, ruin, and the abomination of the
Holocaust.

The key factor, however, is that these are not the 1930s. These are
times in which everyone is connected to each other, the blogosphere,
and a broad range of news media. The national mood coalesces in weeks,
not months or years as in the past.

Obama is running out of time. Politically, the 2010 midterm elections
are just around the corner and Democrats in the House and those in the
Senate up for reelection know that Obama will put them all in the
ranks of the unemployed. The anger directed at Congress is palpable.
The White House will see increasing desertions as congressmen and
women refuse to goosestep off the cliff for him

So here’s my wishful thinking. At some point early in 2010 a
delegation of Congress critters will to show up in the Oval Office and
hand the resident lunatic a resignation letter to sign. Some plausible
excuse would be made to cover his exit. No doubt it would be hastened
if Obama was confronted with evidence of misdeeds from the Chicago
political cesspool in which he thrived.

If they don’t force his departure, the 2010 elections will likely
repeat the 1994 turnover of Congress as voters of all descriptions
elect any Republican candidate on the ticket.

In three months Obama has accomplished what some thought was
impossible. He has made us nostalgic for George W. Bush.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9144

[Pig]

Next shoe to drop for U.S. job seekers: lower wages

By Nick Zieminski - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With "no end in sight" for U.S. job losses amid a
recession that could stretch into 2010, American workers will soon
have to contend with another blow to their confidence: stagnant, or
even falling wages.

Job seekers -- already coping with the highest unemployment rate in a
quarter century, their savings mugged by a plunging stock market --
can also expect lower pay once they land a new job, labor market
experts say, because the current downturn shows no signs of turning
around anytime soon.

"There's no end in sight," said Tig Gilliam, chief executive of Adecco
Group North America, the third-largest U.S. employer behind Wal-Mart
Stores and the postal service.

"March is going to be the same, and I don't see anything that will
make April better."

Lower wages, in turn, could further erode the outlook for the U.S.
economy by hurting consumers' spending power.

The government's February employment report showed 651,000 jobs
eliminated outside the farm sector, while losses in the previous two
months were revised upward. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.1
percent, highest since 1983.

Job losses in professional services categories are accelerating, and
temporary payrolls -- typically a leading indicator -- show no signs
of improving, Gilliam said.

The temp sector, where losses preceded the decline in the wider labor
market by a year, must stabilize before any hint of a wider jobs
recovery.

Temporary workers as a percentage of the total workforce are down to
1.42 percent, a level not seen since May 1994. The bottoming of this
metric typically correlates with the end of recession, said BMO
Capital Markets analyst Jeffrey Silber in a research note.

"Unfortunately, we're not there yet," Silber said.

TEMP PAYROLLS DOWN

Temp payrolls are down by a quarter from a year ago, and have declined
for 26 months in a row. In the recession of the 1980s -- the one many
economists say most compares to the current situation -- temp
employment fell by a third from peak to trough.

To be sure, job openings still exist. Adecco cited engineering and
technical job postings, as well as legal and finance positions,
including in the mortgage business where a pickup in refinancing
activity has spurred demand for sales and processing professionals.

But while job openings remain, employers are increasingly able to keep
a lid on wages, further stretching consumers. The latest jobs report
showed wage growth slowed in January and February from its pace at the
end of last year.

According to Adecco, many clients are looking to hire people at lower
rates than in the past, with the biggest wage pressure at the lower
end of the pay scale, he said, among people earning around $10 or $12
per hour. Continued...

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5254SS20090306

[Pig]

Analysis: Obama recovery plans sowing some unease

By TOM RAUM – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama offered his domestic-policy
proposals as a "break from a troubled past." But the economic outlook
now is more troubled than it was even in January, despite Obama's bold
rhetoric and commitment of more trillions of dollars.

And while his personal popularity remains high, some economists and
lawmakers are beginning to question whether Obama's agenda of
increased government activism is helping, or hurting, by sowing
uncertainty among businesses, investors and consumers that could
prolong the recession.

Although the administration likes to say it "inherited" the recession
and trillion-dollar deficits, the economic wreckage has worsened on
Obama's still-young watch.

Every day, the economy is becoming more and more an Obama economy.

More than 4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in
December 2007 — roughly half in the past three months.

Stocks have tumbled to levels not seen since 1997. They are down more
than 50 percent from their 2007 highs and 20 percent since Obama's
inauguration.

The president's suggestion that it was a good time for investors with
"a long-term perspective" to buy stocks may have been intended to help
lift battered markets. But a big sell-off followed.

Presidents usually don't talk about the stock market. But the dynamics
are different now.

A higher percentage of people have more direct exposure to stocks —
including through 401(k) and other retirement plans — than ever.

So a tumbling stock market is adding to the national angst as
households see the value of their investments and homes plunge as job
losses keep rising.

Some once mighty companies such as General Motors and Citigroup are
little more than penny stocks.

Many health care stocks are down because of fears of new government
restrictions and mandates as part a health care overhaul. Private
student loan providers were pounded because of the increased
government lending role proposed by Obama. Industries that use oil and
other carbon-based fuels are being shunned, apparently in part because
of Obama's proposal for fees on greenhouse-gas polluters.

Makers of heavy road-building and other construction equipment have
taken a hit, partly because of expectations of fewer public works jobs
here and globally than first anticipated.

"We've got a lot of scared investors and business people. I think the
uncertainty is a real killer here," said Chris Edwards, director of
fiscal policy for the libertarian Cato Institute.

Some Democrats, worried over where Obama is headed, are suggesting he
has yet to match his call for "bold action and big ideas" with deeds.

In particular, they point to bumpy efforts to fix the financial system
under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Obama may have contributed to the national anxiety by first warning of
"catastrophe" if his stimulus plan was not passed and in setting high
expectations for Geithner. Instead, Geithner's public performance has
been halting and he's been challenged by lawmakers of both parties.

Republicans and even some top Democrats, including Rep. Charles
Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, have
questioned the wisdom of Obama's proposal to limit tax deductions for
higher-income people on mortgage interest and charitable
contributions.

Charities have strongly protested, saying times already are tough
enough for them. The administration suggests it might back off that
one.

Even White House claims that its policies will "create" or "save" 3.5
million jobs have been questioned by Democratic supporters.

"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," the chairman of
the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, told
Geithner last week.

"If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can
say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million
jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus
said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be
wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look
correct."

Republicans assert that Obama's proposals, including the "cap and
trade" fees on polluters to combat global warming, would raise taxes
during a recession that could touch everyone. "Herbert Hoover tried
it, and we all know where that led," says House Republican leader John
Boehner of Ohio.

The administration argues its tax increases for the households earning
over $250,000 a year and fees on carbon polluters contained in its
budget won't kick in until 2011-2012, when it forecasts the economy
will have fully recovered.

But even those assumptions are challenged as too rosy by many private
forecasters and some Democratic lawmakers.

Many deficit hawks also worry that the trillions of federal dollars
being doled out by the administration, Congress and the Federal
Reserve could sow the seeds of inflation down the road, whether the
measures succeed in taming the recession or not. The money includes
Obama's $3.6 trillion budget and the $837 billion stimulus package he
signed last month.

Polls show that Obama's personal approval ratings, generally holding
in the high 60s, remain greater than support for his specific
policies.

"He still has a fair amount of political capital, so the public is
willing to cut him some slack and go along with him for a while," said
pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "But the
public will have to get some sense that the kinds of things he's
proposing are going to work, or are showing some signs that they are
working."

Allan Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics, a Boston-
area consulting firm, said the complexity and enormity of the crisis
make it hard to solve.

"There's no way to get it all right, regardless of which president is
making policy," Sinai said. "The problem is the sickness got too far.
The actions taken, medicine applied, were mainly the wrong actions. So
it's just worse, and it gets harder to deal with. At this stage, there
is no easy answer, no easy way out. It's a question of how we fumble
through."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hzxMIm4EJQJddvV_ZHPkN1pw8nJwD96P7RC80

[Pig]

Barack sings the blues
By John Browne Sunday, March 8, 2009

In the run-up to the election, Barack Obama was "playing our song."
His inaugural message of hope set the stage for the restoration of
confidence vital to economic recovery. But now that he is president,
many Americans are horrified with the details of his budget.

The massive entitlements plan for non-infrastructure spending and an
unprecedented $1.7 trillion budget deficit are causing feelings of
alarm that, far from economic restructuring, the result will be
further destruction and a painful fall in the living standards of most
Americans.

During the election campaign, Obama promised to stop torture and
secret imprisonment, to close the illegal prison at Guantanamo and to
withdraw troops from Iraq.

Even Republicans flocked to support him. They were inspired by his
assurances to halt the abuse of taxpayers and to spend massively on
infrastructure to create real, wealth-creating jobs. The stage was set
for a much-needed resurgence of American wealth creation, power and
influence.

However, even before taking office, it was clear that President Obama
would inherit a can of worms in terms of economics and defense.

Obama's main power base and fundraising sources were generated by
Democrat liberals and socialists. Furthermore, Obama faced a Democrat
Congress, where the core culture was the purchasing of votes by
offering an ever-increasing series of debt-and-debased-currency-
financed entitlements. It was the same political philosophy that had
transformed America from a producer economy to one dominated by
consumers and which has drastically depleted America's prized national
wealth.

True to his election promises, Obama opened his presidency in
Churchillian form. Like Churchill offering his country nothing but
blood, sweat, tears and toil, Obama warned of pending economic
catastrophe. He pleaded for a concerted national effort to rebuild a
healthy economy. This introductory overture appealed to millions of
Americans.

However, seeing the effects of deleveraging, Democrat politicians, the
grass roots and some in the left-wing media soon began to complain in
high octaves. Pressure was brought on Obama to change his tune and
return to the singsong politics of obfuscation and socialist
entitlement.

Obama had been in office for only a matter of days when he was
outflanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who faced him with her own
socialist version of a stimulus package. Unable to find patriotic
support from Republicans, Obama was forced to bow to the power of his
original socialist power base.

Today, America faces a desperate battle for survival as an economic
superpower. Economic revival must of necessity be America's most
urgent priority. Immediate action is required to restructure the
economy to generate real wealth and reduce a ballooning debt. Many
agree about the urgency, but differ fundamentally over how the crucial
aim can be achieved.

There is little wrong with debt as long as it can be serviced and,
most importantly, is used properly. In most debt issues, it is the
"use of proceeds" that is of crucial long-term influence on a
financier's decision to invest, be it in a loan or a bond. It is the
entitlement use of proceeds that causes people to shudder at Obama's
new lyrics.

Having incurred tens of trillions of wasteful debt under Bush-
Greenspan, Republican protests about debt levels now carry little
moral weight.

Furthermore, it is not the size of Obama's budgeted debt that causes
the most immediate concern. It is the use of proceeds.

Tax reductions would leave money in the pockets of individual
consumers. The spending of $100 billion on infrastructure would create
some 3.5 million new, wealth-creating jobs. But Obama chose
entitlements, which create largely wealth-consuming jobs.

While few would deny the need for good health care and education, now
the overriding priority is to concentrate spending exclusively on
infrastructure that will create wealth-creating jobs and the
productivity that is crucial to national economic survival.

Obama's budget not only is wrongly targeted but also is alarmingly
large, increasing the government's share of the economy by two-thirds
to 34 percent of GDP. Government debt now will account for some 67
percent of total public debt, crowding out American businesses and
consumers. It is a recipe for disaster threatening to force recession
into depression and even economic catastrophe.

Obama has changed the words of his song. He now calls for entitlements
financed by an enormous socialist-style budget deficit, based on
unrealistic estimates of economic growth.

The American economy stands to be crippled, much like what happened in
the former Soviet Union and is currently transpiring in the United
Kingdom. This should make any freedom-seeking, achievement-motivated
and wealth-creating American sit up, listen to the music and question
the lyrics.

Facing economic catastrophe, Obama has been deserted by his power base
and is denied Republican support. Under such circumstances, what's a
guy to do?

On Inauguration Day, most Americans and millions throughout the world
believed that President Obama was playing their song. But now, the
lyrics give them pause. Hopefully, in coming days, the current budget
blues will be drowned out by Obama's original melody that might linger
on.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/features/s_614886.html