Dems Too Liberal

A recent Gallup poll at Ace of Spades:

Previously, just in time for the ridonculous 2008 elections, a majority of Americans had thought them "about right" as far as ideology. Now that figure is down to 42%.

Note that in 1994 or thereabouts -- when Republicans swept them out of power in Congress -- 50% felt they were too liberal and 37% thought they were "about right:"

We're not there yet, but we just saw a 15% net change in their too liberal/about right rating.

And that's in just 5 months!

I can't imagine it would have anything to do with the quadrupling of the national debt, threats and promises of tax increase after tax increase, and a constant flip-flop between rampant apologizing and strenuous backpedaling on national security...can you? Nah, surely not.

There's my two cents.

NY Dems Classin' The Place Up

This is disgusting:

Gateway Pundit points out that this is representative of the Democrat leadership:


Oh, and we're not supposed to question their patriotism. Except...I already did. It's good to know I was right.

There's my two cents.

Obama Is For Democracy, Except When He's Not

This is great stuff from Michael Goldfarb at Weekly Standard:

From Obama's presser today with Uribe:

Over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don't always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable to the United States -- and that is a tradition we want to continue.

Forget Iran, since the left will make the ludicrous case that Obama was standing with democracy -- just very quietly, so as not to undermine the protests (which have since been ruthlessly crushed by a regime crackdown). Let's revisit Obama's AIPAC speech from last summer -- before he threw Israel under the bus:

We must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations. That is why I opposed holding elections in 2006 with Hamas on the ballot. The Israelis and the Palestinian Authority warned us at the time against holding these elections. But this administration pressed ahead, and the result is a Gaza controlled by Hamas, with rockets raining down on Israel.

So Obama is for democracy always, no matter the result, unless he can score cheap political points. And of course, Obama was for the Gaza election ("Part of the opportunity here with this upcoming election is to consolidate behind a single government with a single authority that can then negotiate as a reliable partner with Israel.") before he was against it.

Doublethink at its finest.  You know what concerns me the most?  It seems like it used to be just a few politicians who employed such blatant doublethink, but it was mostly found in the realm of the wacko far Left.  Now, unfortunately, it seems to be common practice throughout the Democrat political class.

There's my two cents.

The New Leader Of The Free World Truly Is France

Or someone else...the point is that it's clearly no longer the American President.  This is one of the worst abrogations yet of that traditional position in the world:

Barack Obama insisted that he could not interfere in Iranian affairs while the regime "debated" its election results by cracking heads and shooting women dead on the street.
He didn't want to be seen as "meddling" in the internal politics of the "sovereign government of Iran."
But, that didn't stop him from inserting himself into Honduran affairs where he worked in recent days to prevent Leftist President Manuel Zelaya's ouster.

Today, Barack Obama joined Marxist tyrants Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez to rally around ousted Leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
Reuters reported:

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a "terrible precedent" of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup on Sunday after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

The short version of what happened is that Zelaya is a thug who wanted to remain President past the Honduran constitution's limits.  Both the (Honduran equivalent of our) Supreme Court and the (Honduran equivalent of our) Congress told him that was unconstitutional and that it wouldn't fly.  He flipped them the bird and began taking steps to cement his power.  The SC and Congress then directed the military to remove him.  As Rush Limbaugh put it, the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress actually prevented a coup by Zelaya.

What's truly amazing is that several regional Marxist dictators (like Hugo Chavez) are loudly supporting Zelaya's quest for lingering power...along with Barack Obama.

Michael Ramirez, as usual, illustrates it beautifully:

It's hideous what he's done to America's standing in the world.  For all of the vicious smearing that Bush took, it should say something that Bush is revered in Africa for his work on AIDS and other diseases and two different Middle Eastern countries for liberating tens of millions of oppressed people.  His policies kept America safe from terrorism for the past eight years and spurred several years of incredible economic growth, and provided continued protection for allies around the world, as America has done for decades.  Ironically, it is Barack Obama -- the man everyone was certain would 'heal the wounds' inflicted by the eeeeevil Bush -- and his limp-wristed, indecisive, and confused foreign policy that has prompted Communist countries to offer economic advice, human rights violators to offer condemnations of American 'torture', allow North Korea and Iran to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs, and made America a laughingstock on the international stage...all in just five short months.

I'm not sure how much more hope-n-change America can handle and still survive.

There's my two cents.

Summing Up Obama's Foreign Policy

It ain't pretty:

Matthew Cunningham, over at Red County, has a post worth reading about Barack Obama’s disastrous foreign policy.

We need to pay attention to Obama’s foreign policy. It is shaping up to be fatal to American interests.

He has given only tepid support to democratic protestors in Iran — and only after much needling and pushing by Republicans.

He has burned bridges with the French, something no one thought possible.

He has insulted the British and refuses to embrace the idea of it being our strongest alliance.

He refuses to take on the North Koreans despite their intentions to launch a missile toward Hawaii.

And now Barack Obama is standing with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and a host of communist regimes and sympathizers in Central and South America on the issue of Honduras.

To recap: The Honduran President decided, like Hugo Chavez, to have an “election” in order to keep himself in office longer than the law allowed.

The Honduran Constitution requires that Presidents serve one term. Given Latin American history, it is a good thing. The Constitution also requires that referenda be approved by the Honduran Congress.

The President of Honduras decided to have a referendum on giving him more time in office, which the Congress blocked. He went ahead anyway. The Honduran Supreme Court told him to stop. He ignored them.

So the Congress and the Supreme Court ordered the military to remove the President of Honduras. It was no coup. It was an attempt by two co-equal branches of government from preventing the third co-equal branch from becoming a dictator.

Nonetheless, Barack Obama sees it differently. He is supporting the democratically ousted President of Honduras. He joins Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

Meanwhile, people are still dying on the streets of Iran.

Now do you see why we on the Right have been predicting disaster? But don't worry...we've got HOPE! and CHANGE! to keep us safe.

There's my two cents.

Press Corps Laughs At Gibbs' Lame Tax Increase Dodge

Interesting:

You know it's bad when the media laughs at your lame dodge.

There's my two cents.

Local KC Audio On Cap-N-TradeTax

KC radio host Chris Stigall had a couple of great interviews late last week, just before the cap-n-tax bill was passed in the House. I know this is over and done with in the House, but it has yet to come to the Senate, so I'm going to continue to post about this until the Senate vote is done, too. So, take a listen to these two interviews chock full of terrific information and kick it around a bit between now and the Senate's vote.

Stigall with Chuck Kaisley at KCP&L:

Drop.io

Stigall with Congressman Sam Graves:

Drop.io

This bill absolutely MUST be stopped. It is nothing more than an attempt to deliberately drive up the cost of essentially everything in the country. It will kill jobs, raise costs, and generally make life much, much harder for every man, woman, and child in the nation.

Start calling your Senators now. There is no Senate bill yet, but start laying the groundwork right away. This is an economy killer if it goes through, so we must not take any chances.

There's my two cents.

About That Iraq War Thing...

We've won, and it's over. Officially.

Today is major milestone in the battle for Iraq and not too many people seem to notice or care. At least that's the case here in the US. Understandably, Iraqis are pretty excited.

Iraqi government TV has been playing patriotic music to celebrate the U.S. military withdrawal from cities, towns and villages across the country, officially set to be completed by Tuesday June 30th.

Iraqi military vehicles were also covered with flowers to celebrate the event, and military parades, complete with band music, were organized in Diyala and Diwania provinces.

The government declared a "Day of National Sovereignty" to mark the event, and has invited ordinary citizens to join evening celebrations at Baghdad's Zawra Park for a festival of music and poetry.

Interior Minister Jawad Boulani told journalists the U.S. withdrawal is almost complete and Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining order across the country.

He says he believes Iraq's security situation is under control. "I do not think we need to declare a curfew," he insisted.

There's been an uptick in bombings, some causing substantial Iraqi casualties but that's not going to impact implementation of the security handover agreement. From the safety of my desk, I'd say that's the right thing. Any transition point is going to be an opportunity for the deadenders to do their thing (kill and maim) no matter when it happens. We all knew at some point the Iraqis were going to have to take on this responsibility. According to General Odierno, the Iraqis are ready and now is the moment.

In fact, the transfer has already taken place ahead of schedule.

"It's time for this partnership to have an Iraqi lead, it's time for this partnership to have the Iraqis out in front."

Odierno said U.S. troops still will be training and advising Iraqi forces and Americans will be conducting operations outside Iraqi cities after the deadline. U.S. forces are expected to withdraw from the country by the end of 2010 as part of a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.

People always asked what victory in Iraq would look like, well this is another piece of that image. Two and half years ago a lot of people wanted to give up on Iraq and this kind of progress was thought impossible by many if not most. Yet, here it is.

We should never forget the hundreds of thousands of Americans who left their homes to remove a dangerous regime and then fight a bloody minded insurgency led by terrorists. Tens of thousands of them were wounded and to date, over 4,200 died in this effort.

Good luck to the people of Iraq, hopefully they will build a nation worthy of and their and America's sacrifices.

I'm shocked -- SHOCKED -- that the media here in the U.S. isn't running front-page headlines about the war that we've just won, not to mention giving credit to George W. Bush for standing strong against tremendous opposition. Remember:

Or, Nancy "The Iraq War Is Not a War to Win" Pelosi.

Or, cold-blooded John "We Can't Win" Murtha.

Or, the Cut-&-Run Democratic Party.

Or, Barack "Surge Won't Work" Obama.

Or, Joe "We are not now winning the war..." Biden.

Or, how about these classics:

John Kerry: "If you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Congressman John Murtha: "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Senator Dick Durbin: "If I read this to you and didn't tell you it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have happened by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime, Pol Pot or others that had no concern for human beings."

Senator Chuck Schumer: "And let me be clear. The violence in Anbar has gone down in spite of the Surge, not because of the Surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from Al Qaeda said to these tribes, "We have to fight Al Qaeda ourselves."

Senator Edward Kennedy: "We now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management."

And, of course, my favorite:

Congratulations, Mr. Bush, and congratulations men and women (and families) of the United States military. This is a job well done.

There's my two cents.

HOPE! CHANGE! TAX INCREASES! Uh...Wait A Second...

Yep, here they come, and this time they're not even disguised as health care reform, 'stimulus', global warming legislation, or anything else at all:

One of Barack Obama's often repeated promises made on the campaign trail was that he would not raise taxes on the midddle class:

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

He repeatedly vowed "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."

Some Obama critics have charged that by signing a law last spring that raised the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, the president broke his promise. That tax hits the middle-class and the poor especially hard since most smokers fall in one of those categories. Obama apologists argued that the number of smokers is rapidly declining, and the tax only falls on those who engage in a practice which harms themselves, so it really doesn't affect the majority of the middle class.

Let's see them spin their way out of this one:

The White House seems to be retreating from President Barack Obama's campaign promise that he would not raise taxes on families making less than $250,000.

Under persistent questioning from ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod declined to restate the vow and left open the possibility that the president might sign health care reform legislation that taxes high-cost, employer-provided insurance plans which some middle-class families currently receive tax free.

ABC "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos:

I pressed Axelrod on whether Obama will draw a line in the sand and veto any bill that funds health care reform with tax hikes for people making under $250,000 a year — despite a pledge Barack Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on the poor and middle-class.

"One of the problems we've had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other. And you don't get anything done. That's not the way the president approaches us. He is very cognizant of protecting people — middle class people, hard-working people who are trying to get along in a very difficult economy. And he will continue to represent them in these talks," Axelrod said.

"But they're also dealing with punishing health care costs, and that's something that we have to deal with."

Translation: Obama lied.

As Jim Geraghty so presciently observed back in November:

All Barack Obama Statements Come With an Expiration Date. All Of Them.

Translation: He lies.

After all, he won. In the view of the Obama apologists, his election victory was a mandate to urinate on the legs of all Americans and tell them that it's raining.

You were warned.  Now you're going to get screwed, courtesy of Barack Obama.  Enjoy the hope-n-change.

There's my two cents.

A Real Cure For Cancer...?

This is an incredibly important development:

Australian scientists have developed a "trojan horse" therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs.

The "trojan horse" therapy has the potential to directly target cancer cells with chemotherapy, rather than the current treatment that sees chemotherapy drugs injected into a cancer patient and attacking both cancer and healthy cells.

Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the "trojan horse" therapy in the past two years.

Read the article for all the details on how this works, if you're interested.

I think this is an incredible breakthrough, and I truly hope these people succeed in the upcoming human trials.  Think about how many families are affected in some way by cancer...to develop a 100% effective treatment is truly amazing, and could save literally millions of lives every year.

One last note - from a read-through of this article, I don't see any mention of state-controlled health care being responsible for this new treatment.  In fact, if I'm not mistaken, this research is taking place solely in the private sector from independent companies.

Hmmm...

There's my two cents.

Bolstering Confidence In The One

Oh, you just gotta love this:

With public confidence in the stimulus package showing signs of ebbing, the Obama administration is continuing to sell its impact with nation-wide events and press appearances.

Today brings this explanation, from Christina Romer, the chairman of the president's Council on Economic Advisers: Stimulus spending, Romer told the Financial Times, is "going to ramp up strongly through the summer and the fall." 

"We always knew we were not going to get all that much fiscal impact during the first five to six months. The big impact starts to hit from about now onwards," Romer said.

We've known for some time that the money takes a while to get out the door.

Given that this is an ABC report, you'd expect some serious boot-licking and groveling to commence, but Rick Klein apparently decided to do the job of a real journalist and actually check some facts:

But top Obama advisers haven't always been so cautious in predicting how the long the stimulus would take to be felt.

Back in February, with Congress moving swiftly to approve President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, White House budget director Peter Orszag said the benefits of the stimulus would be "take weeks to months" to be felt.

Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council, was even more optimistic: "You'll see the effects begin almost immediately," Summers told CNN in February. 

Just last month, Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden's top economic adviser, joined administration officials in asserting that the stimulus was already working, despite rising unemployment rates. 

Kudos to Klein for stepping out of the mold.  And crap-os to Obama & Co. for lying through their teeth to the American people.

Here's another great example of the confidence inspired by the One's policies and personnel.  In an interview with Obama's 'energy czar' Carol Browner, Steve Doocy brings us this exchange:

STEVE DOOCY: "[I] know the bill is over 1,000 pages long. Have you have read it?"

CAROL BROWNER: "Oh, I'm very familiar with this bill."

DOOCY: "Have you have read it?"

BROWNER: "We have obviously been watching this for a very long time. I am very …"

DOOCY: "I'm sure you've got an idea of it, but you have read it?"

BROWNER: "I've read major portions of it, absolutely."

DOOCY: "So the answer no you haven't read it. But you've read a big chunk of it."

BROWNER: "No, no, no that's not fair. That's absolutely not fair."

DOOCY: "No, I'm just asking you if you read the thousand pages."

BROWNER: "I've read vast portions of it."

Nice.  I wish Doocy had asked for the number of pages Browner has read.  Does 'vast' mean 300 of the 1500+ total pages?  600? 1,000?  How many did she actually read?  Regardless, 'vast portions' just gives you that warm fuzzy feeling of complete confidence and competence, doesn't it?  Hot Air adds this:

Vast portions? That would put her ahead of the Congressional curve, where 219 people — including eight Republicans who made the difference — voted for it without reading it at all. We know that because the House never produced a complete, up-to-date, and integrated copy of the bill to its members before the vote took place.

Yep, you read that right - the House passed the energy/destroy-the-American-economy bill last Friday without an actual bill.  And you thought it couldn't get any worse than voting on something they hadn't read...now they're voting on things that don't even exist!

Unbelievable.  And yet, completely unsurprising.

There's my two cents.

Supreme Court Smacks Down Sotomayor...Again

Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be his first Supreme Court appointment.  She's a complete Leftist hack and racist, and has openly admitted that she believes judges should write law from the bench (which is expressly unconstitutional) and rule on the basis of fairness preferences rather than the law (which is also expressly unconstitutional).  In other words, she's the perfect nominee for Barack Obama.  You can see previous posts on her here and here.

In addition to all that, her decisions have been overturned over 60% of the time, meaning her judgments are suspect at best.  One of the biggest examples of her suspect judgment was a fairly recent example in which a group of firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut took a test to determine promotions.  Of all who scored high enough on the test to earn the promotion, not one was black.  The test results were thrown out, then, since it was clearly a racist test (but only racist against blacks...there were some Hispanics who passed, too).  Of course, the firefighters disagreed and sued for discrimination.  When the case reached Sotomayor on the appeals circuit, she basically threw it out without even digging into it.  Now, the Supreme Court has reversed her ruling in a 5-4 decision (though in reality, not a single Justice agreed with Sotomayor's initial ruling).

You may be wondering why this matters.  It's simple: if this woman is placed on the Supreme Court, she will have a dramatic effect on your life in the years to come.  Woe to you if you aren't a member of a minority, or if you happen to think the law should be applied fairly to every American, because you are up a creek without a paddle in her book!

Here are some important pieces of analysis of this decision that really illustrate this fact.

Ace of Spades:

Here's Justice Kennedy warning of what the Court absolutely must avoid:

A minimal standard could cause employers to discard the results of lawful and beneficial promotional examinations even where there is little if any evidence of disparate-impact discrimination. That would amount to a de facto quota system, in which a "focus on statistics . . . could put undue pressure on employers to adopt inappropriate prophylactic measures." Watson, 487
U. S., at 992 (plurality opinion). Even worse, an employer could discard test results (or other employment practices) with the intent of obtaining the employer's preferred racial balance.

And here's Justice Ginsburg on her preferred outcome:

By order of this Court, New Haven, a city in which African-Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of the population, must today be served—as it was in the days of undisguised discrimination—by a fire department in which members of racial and ethnic minorities are rarely seen in command positions.

[...]

It is indeed regrettable that the City's noncertification decision would have required all candidates to go through another selection process. But it would have been more regrettable to rely on flawed exams to shut out candidates who may well have the command presence and other qualities needed to excel as fire officers.

"Command presence and other qualities" is Justice Ginsburg's euphemism for candidates with the right race.

Wendy Long at the Judicial Confirmation Network via Michelle Malkin:

"Frank Ricci finally got his day in court, despite the judging of Sonia Sotomayor, which all nine Justices of U.S. Supreme Court have now confirmed was in error.

"Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession.

"What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.

"The firefighters in New Haven who protect the public safety and worked hard for their promotions did not deserve to become victims of racial quotas, and the Supreme Court has now confirmed that they did not deserve to have their claims buried and thrown out by Judge Sotomayor."

Hot Air:

This creates a big problem for Obama and the Democrats in Congress.  They certainly have the votes to confirm Sotomayor, but their big sell — that she was one of the appellate court's most brilliant minds — just took a body blow on this decision.  Most people want to move past the old arguments on race and hiring, feeling that forty years of affirmative-action policies have run their course.  Having to defend a jurist who attempted to impose them in a court case will not make Sotomayor seem moderate or reasonable at all, but extreme and perhaps less than competent.

Still no word on the Senate GOP having enough spine to oppose her nomination, but this ruling provides at least a bit of hope that they might find some political willpower hiding in a corner somewhere.  In case they're having trouble finding it (or even bothering to look for it), you might consider calling your Senators and telling them what you think of this whole situation.

There's my two cents.

Monster Debt And Coming Stagflation

More wonderful economic news:

From the Washington Times comes this eye-opener for a Monday morning:

As recently as 1996, America's net debtor status was minus $456 billion. Since 1996, it has increased by more than $3 trillion, or 660 percent, as America's 12-year cumulative trade deficit soared by $5.7 trillion.

Scary. Here's more: Our net indebtedness spiked by well over a trillion bucks in a single year:

At the end of 2008, America's net international investment position was minus $3.47 trillion, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That represents the difference between the value of U.S. assets owned by foreigners ($23.36 trillion) and the value of foreign assets owned by Americans ($19.89 trillion).

At the end of 2007, the U.S. net international investment position was minus $2.14 trillion. Thus, America's net indebtedness with the rest of the world increased by $1.33 trillion, or 62 percent, during 2008. It was by far the biggest annual increase in data that go back to 1976.

The bottom line:

Foreigners now hold nearly 50 percent of the federal government's publicly held debt. If foreign investors significantly reduce their purchase of future U.S. Treasury debt securities, without even dumping their current holdings, U.S. interest rates could soar and the dollar could collapse, analysts fear. At minus $3.47 trillion, America's net debtor status with foreigners represents nearly 25 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, the highest level in history. "Three decades of massive [trade] deficits have converted the United States from the world's banker - able to 'pay any price and bear any burden in the cause of freedom' - to the world's largest debtor, utterly dependent on China and other foreign interests," said Charles McMillion, chief economist of Washington-based MBG Information Services.

And that's when the deficit was under $200 billion.  These numbers did not include Obama's policies or actions!  Disaster is not far away, I think.  Maybe like this from David Burton:

Both the money supply and federal spending have increased at breathtaking rates over the past year, unprecedented in peacetime. The policy decisions made by the Federal Reserve Board and Congress virtually assure we will enter a period of 1970s-like stagflation.

The recovery, when it comes, will combine slow economic growth, unusually long un- and underemployment, stagnating real incomes, rising interest rates and inflation. There is little that policymakers, having made colossal mistakes, can do to prevent such an outcome.

Here's the bottom line:

An economic train wreck is coming. Its cause is simple and straightforward: the breathtakingly bad monetary and fiscal policy during the past six to nine months - in other words, too much money and too much federal spending.

Burton offers some suggestions for lessening that train wreck:

The first thing policymakers need to do is to stop doing harm. The Fed needs to immediately raise the federal funds target interest rate and slow money growth to normal levels. Congress needs to return federal spending to a more normal 19 percent to 23 percent of gross domestic product. It should reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate, currently the second-highest rate among industrialized nations, and, if possible, reform the tax system to promote work, savings and investment. Finally, it needs to control rather than exacerbate federal entitlement spending.

Naturally, of course, Barack Obama is moving in the opposite direction:

...the Obama administration seems bent on doubling down and making a bad situation even worse with massive increases in business and individual taxes, nationalizing or taking control of major industries (including automakers, banks, insurance and health care), hidden but huge energy-cost increases in pursuit of the chimera of global warming and ever greater entitlement spending.

And here's my favorite part - Obama is pondering another stimulus bill:

A second stimulus? As risible as it sounds, Pres. Barack Obama entertains the idea. When asked at a press conference Tuesday if another stimulus bill might be necessary, Obama replied, "Not yet." How about not ever? People seem to forget that the $787 billion stimulus package enacted last February was the second stimulus — the Bush administration enacted a $168 billion stimulus bill in February of 2008. Neither the Republican stimulus (weighted toward tax rebates) nor Democratic one (weighted toward spending) has delivered anything like the promised results.

Above all, it is important to remember that Obama's stimulus was not designed to maximize job creation. The administration's primary goal was to give frustrated Democrats an all-purpose vehicle for pent-up spending desires that the Bush administration had repressed. Obama removed the lid and out came $87 billion in additional funds for Medicaid, $15 billion for Pell Grant scholarships, $3 billion for public-housing improvements, and $2 billion for renewable-energy research.

A second stimulus? A plurality of Americans think this one should be canceled.

Remember, he's not attempting to heal the economy.  He's attempting to secure as much control over as much of America as possible in his quest to 're-make' the nation into what he believes is a more 'fair' society - socialism, with permanent Democrat control.  That means first destroying the prosperity of the private sector, allowing him to swoop in and take over those 'failures' with the government.

The longer Obama runs his agenda unchecked, the worse this is going to get.

There's my two cents.

Doublethink Alert: Cap-N-TradeTax Edition

This is incredible, even for a doublethink master like Barack Obama!

Saturday, in preparation for the cap-n-tax bill heading to the Senate, President Obama said this:

"My call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this," he said. "We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don't believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth."

Hmmm...very interesting. When he says 'misinformation' that suggests clean energy investment and economic growth don't go together, I wonder if he's referring to this:

...or this:

Maybe someone should ask him who exactly it is that's spreading around these vicious, vicious rumors...

There's my two cents.

Boehner Questions Dems' Plans

This is a great message (h/t Gateway Pundit):

These points need to be repeated constantly between now and the 2010 election, and the Democrats need to be held accountable for their actions.

There's my two cents.

Weekend Roundup

Here are a few things that happened over the weekend that might interest you...

More cap-n-Tax fallout

• Warren Buffett: it's a 'huge', 'regressive' tax
  
• Final votes correlate to 2008 election results
  
• The GOP should cut off the 8 yes-voters
  
• Twelve vulnerable Dems who are in GOP-heavy areas but who voted for cap-n-tax anyway
  
• Cap-n-tax bill prompts new round of tea parties
  

Other notable events:

• Honduran dictator ousted, Obama feels it's okay to meddle
  
• Violence and mayhem continue in Iran, Obama feels it's not okay to meddle
  
• New report shows polar bears are more plentiful than ever (dammit)!
  
• VP Joe Biden unleashed, promptly gaffes, is leashed again
  
• Dems literally fight -- shouting and shoving -- over earmarks
  

Here's to another fun-filled week of socialism-in-progress! Got your dialing fingers handy? :)

There's my two cents.

Fun & Frivolity: Bathroom Pranks

I've had a crappy week at work. In honor of that, well, roll tape...

It just seemed appropriate somehow. :)

Have a great weekend!

Obama's Latest Late Friday Sucker Punch

Barack Obama has a tendency to sign executive orders that do things that might stir controversy late on Friday night so people don't really notice it. No one watches the weekend news shows, so the networks can run it once or twice and say they 'covered' it, and then move on to other things by Monday when people are paying attention again.

One example of this tactic was when he revoked Bush's Mexico City policy and once again began funding abortions in other countries with American taxpayer dollars. This was a measure that a large majority of the country opposed...thus, the late Friday signing to avoid scrutiny. Naturally, that hacked off the Right.

Now, he's again trying to avoid scrutiny, but this time he's hacking off the Left. Remember this?

But, as with all promises made by Obama, there is an expiration date. For this particular promise, that expiration date is today (h/t Weekly Standard):

President Obama signed the $106 billion war-spending bill into law Friday, but not without taking a page from his predecessor and ignoring a few elements in legislation.

Obama included a five-paragraph signing statement with the bill, including a final paragraph that outlined his objections to at least four areas of the bill.

HOPE! CHANGE!

And loads of doublethink, too.

There's my two cents.

Cap-N-TradeTax Wrap-Up

Here are some interesting bits of wrap-up that I thought were interesting.

Nature itself was apparently unhappy about the passage of this bill:

A few minutes ago, just after the House narrowly approved a massive new federal energy tax, there was a nasty hail storm over Washington, D.C.

Could it be a sign from above that the cap and trade bill that just barely passed the House (219 to 212) is a terrible idea?

Here are the eight Reps who betrayed their party and the American people, and who voted for this monstrosity:

Mary Bono-Mack (California), Mike Castle (Delaware), Mark Kirk (Illinois), Leonard Lance (New Jersey), Frank LoBiondo (New Jersey), John McHugh (New York), Dave Reichert (Washington), and Chris Smith (New Jersey).

Republican Minority Leader John Boehner:

“Today, in what will be remembered as the defining vote of the 111th Congress, House Democrats passed a 1,500-page national energy tax bill that no one even had the chance to read. The American people have the right to know what is in this legislation and, more importantly, what impact it will have on middle-class families and small businesses. In just an hour, we raised serious questions about the true consequences of this legislation for Americans’ jobs and all of our economy.

“Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax is a bureaucratic nightmare that will cost families more than ever for electricity, gasoline, food, and other products, and cost millions of American workers their jobs. This is a tax on anyone who drives a car, buys an American-made product, or flips on a light switch. It will drive up energy costs, send millions of jobs overseas to countries like China and India, and place an especially heavy burden on rural America. Republicans believe there is a better way. Our American Energy Act is the fastest route to a cleaner, more reliable energy future. By increasing environmentally-safe energy production, promoting alternatives like nuclear and clean-coal technologies, and encouraging increased efficiency, this alternative legislation will create more jobs, lower energy costs, and clean up our air and water.

“There’s a big difference between the heartland and San Francisco when it comes to Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax. Today, House Democrats made the decision to stand with left-wing special interests rather than with families and small businesses in their districts that will lose so much because of this national energy tax. The American people will not forget this vote.”

Damn straight.

Finally, from a GOP staffer:

"Tonight, 50 Democrats lost their jobs and this bill is dead in the Senate."

We can only hope. Oh, and those eight Reps...they'll be going home, too.

Bet on it.

I wonder how many Senators are going to volunteer for retirement, too? We'll find out soon...

There's my two cents.


***UPDATE***
Via Michelle Malkin:

The two Republicans who didn’t vote: Jeff Flake (AZ) and John Sullivan (OK).

Here’s why: Flake had a family conflict and Sullivan is undergoing alcohol treatment. As I noted earlier today, Dem. Rep. Patrick Kennedy was pulled out of rehab to cast his vote.

Dems Muscle Through: Suicidal Energy Tax Passes House

Whew! Now House members can safely fly off on their extended July 4th weekends (yes, I know, but they work sooooo hard that they get really, really long 'weekends'). After all kinds of shenanigans from the Dems -- cutting debate short, rejecting essentially all amendments, slipping in a 300-page modification at 3am this morning -- as well as some really creative tactics from the GOP -- Boehner performing a pseudo-filibuster when a filibuster doesn't exist in the House -- the House took a final vote on the cap-n-tax bill and it passed, 219-212.

Some things to note...
- 44 Dems opposed this bill - that's great!
- 8 Reps supported it - WHAT?!
- 2 Reps didn't vote - WHATWHAT?!?!

Those 10 GOP votes pushed the bill through, prompting the completely legitimate question of: what was their price? What will they now receive in return for their votes? I'm guessing they're betting on the bill to die in the Senate, giving them their desired result while still netting them their payoff...but still, the public deserves to know of the deals they cut.

Now the bill shifts over to the Senate, where the margins are much, much slimmer. Harry Reid is going to have to marshal literally every Dem and pick off at least a couple Reps if he wants to get past the 60 vote mark. Given the level of division in the Democrat House, this is not going to be an easy task. It is reasonable to assume at least a few Dems will oppose this, so he'll have to pick up more Reps than usual. Adding to his problem is the fact that this furor in the House has raised awareness in the GOP base, and I suspect the call volume to the Senate will be even higher when the time comes. Some people appear to be quite confident that it'll die in the Senate; some others appear quite confident it'll pass. We'll find out soon enough...either way, it'll be covered here.

Bottom line: this is the next step in America's march toward economic suicide, and it has been brought to you by the Democrat party (with a few RINO Reps, of course). Never forget that, and be free with your remembrances to the people around you.

More analysis later, as the professionals get around to it.

There's my two cents.

Do You Trust Him?

This was mentioned earlier, but here's a bit more info on the 'placeholder' provision in this bill:

This is a red flag. On the House floor this afternoon, Barney Frank explained the “placeholder” in the cap and trade bill that apparently will deal with regulations of financial derivatives market associated with reducing carbon emissions.

Frank says he is confident a “good system will be in place.”

In other words: Trust him.

Hello?

Trust him?

Are you ready for a sub-prime carbon market?

You absolutely MUST check out these links! Barney Frank is a one-man economic wrecking crew...if you're not familiar with him, spend a minute or two at each of the links above to become enlightened. I'm pretty certain that after that, you'll trust him about as far as you can throw him.

Perhaps more important is this question: do you trust any of them?

My vote is NO.

There's my two cents.

Buying Votes Real-Time!

Here's how the Democrats operate:

Iain Murray echoes Rep. Barton's observation:

Well, I suppose this form of vote buying on the House floor is at least transparent...

Indeed. But isn't that kind of arrogance an even worse sign of how they're running the show?

There's my two cents.

More Cap-N-Trade Tax Information, Part 8

Two more quick updates.

Michelle Malkin's continuing coverage:

4:48pm: GOP Rep. Tom Price asks for moment of silence for all those who will lose their jobs under cap and trade. Heh. Request denied.

Rep. Pence: We can stop this bill. We can do better. And we must!

4:53pm: GOP Rep. Barton refers to suppressed EPA Carlin report. "The science is not there."

Barton cites Spain's green jobs boondoggle. Costs 2.2 regular jobs for every green job. "That's not a revolution I want to be a part of."

5:17pm: Connie Hair reports from top GOP sources that Dems have pulled Patrick Kennedy out of rehab to vote.

Yes, it's that close.

The Hill:

Republicans are playing into the hands of the Iranian regime and the Saudi Arabian kingdom, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued Friday.

Weiner said that Republicans' opposition to the climate change bill scheduled for a vote this afternoon benefits the oil-rich companies, which have been accused of funneling some of that money to terrorist groups.

"Ahmadinejad, the Saudi Kingdom — they want exactly what my Republican friends are advocating," Weiner said on the floor during the debate ahead of this afternoon's vote.

"We can't come to the floor and say I'm outraged at what's going on in Iran…and then come to the floor and continue the policies that are paying for them!" Weiner added.

This guy is a complete idiot.  This bill will hike domestic energy prices, thus forcing oil companies to close down domestic production facilities.  That, in turn, will cause America to import even more oil than we are now!  That's what Republicans are fighting against, and what he himself is fighting for!  This moron is completely backwards...can he even hear himself speak??  If he was so interested in preventing dependence upon foreign oil and spending less with Iran, he'd be agreeing with Republicans about opening up vast new domestic supplies of oil.

I think he's just been told to holler and scream and make Republicans look bad however he can, and he just got a little too enthusiastic about it to keep his wits about him.  Isn't it good to know the country is in such able hands?

There's my two cents.

More Cap-N-Trade Tax Information, Part 7

Good stuff from Kimberley Strassel at the WSJ - so much for the science being settled (emphasis mine):

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

And we all know how liberals do in an actual debate over facts: they lose.

Strassel goes on to cite example after example of people who have turned away from man-made global warming, including this gem:

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.

I believe that climate summary is one of the driving forces behind the current cap-n-tax bill.  These are also worth mentioning:

Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled.

So what's causing all of this defection?  A little thing that liberals just can't stand: reality.

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Back in Australia, several prominent national leaders are hitting global warming policy hard:

Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.

The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.

Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.

This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.

Isn't it ironic that at the same time when the entire world -- and especially the American people -- are turning away from the hyped-up hoax of man-made global warming, the radical Leftist Democrats running the country are attempting to strong-arm crippling legislation into law?

This is why the American people absolutely must engage NOW!  If we can kill this bill right now, it will very likely go away.  The world is skeptical of the whole thing again, especially as the results -- enormous cost for essentially zero benefit -- of such legislation are becoming more and more clear.  If there ever was a time to get involved, this is it.

There's my two cents.

More Cap-N-Trade Tax Information, Part 6

Two more studies that hammer cap-n-tax:

The Beacon Hill Institute, the economics pros at Suffolk University in Boston (Go Sawx!), have hit Waxman-Markey (and the like) hard here late in the game. First on "green" jobs, in which they critique three studies that trumpet those beneficial byproducts of global warming reduction initiatives:

"Contrary to the claims made in these studies, we found that the green job initiatives reviewed in each actually causes greater harm than good to the American economy and will cause growth to slow," reported Paul Bachman, Director of Research at the Beacon Hill Institute, one of the report's authors….

The authors of the BHI critique identified a fundamental error in each of these studies, specifically "counting the creation of a green job as a benefit and rationale for its proposed program in and of itself."

The BHI study also stresses that "Jobs -- green or otherwise -- are not benefits but are instead costs. If the green job is a net benefit it has to be because the value the job produces for consumers is greater than the cost of performing the job. This argument is never made in any of these three green jobs studies."

And today comes their look at Waxman-Markey:

Cutting CO2 emissions by 83% over four decades – as proposed in the Waxman-Markey Discussion draft – might appear to be an easy goal, but the results indicate otherwise. The first point to note is that such cutbacks, whether done by the U.S. alone or in concert with others, would all be more expensive than doing nothing at all.

If the United States were to cut emissions alone, with no cutbacks (relative to trend) by other countries, it would bear the full cost of abatement (PV = $3.85 trillion) while reaping only about $0.27 trillion in benefits. This represents a net cost, relative to doing nothing, of $3.42 trillion. It would cost the United States $154 billion by 2020 and $1.318 trillion by 2050.

By 2045, the tax on carbon would need to rise to $714 per metric ton of carbon (equivalent to $195 per metric ton of CO2) to induce consumers to make the necessary cutbacks; from Table 1 we see that this would add $1.73/gallon to the cost of gasoline (in 2005 dollars) and 6.7 to 14.9 cents to a kWh of electricity – essential doubling the retail price of electricity.

The benefits are modest because by 2050 the U.S. would account for less than a sixth of world emissions of CO2; reducing U.S. emissions by 83% (relative to the 2005 level) by then would cut global emissions by just 11%, which would have a modest effect on climate, moderating the increase in global temperature by 2100 from 3.30ºC (the baseline no-controls case) to 3.12º.

As I've said over and over again: all cost, no benefit. All but a few House members have probably made up their minds on this already, but the Senate still has to address it.

All cost, no benefit.  Boy, if that doesn't sum up the Obama administration thus far, nothing does.

There's my two cents.

More Cap-N-Trade Tax Information, Part 5

Here's a revealing update from Michelle Malkin's live-blogging of the House debate from this afternoon:

At approx. 2:35pm Eastern, GOP Rep. Joe Barton announced that there is now a placeholder in the bill to be determined later.

Barton notes that this is unprecedented. He can't recall any final passage of a bill that has a placeholder in it.

What the hell is going on?

This is deliberation? This is transparency?

Barton continues: "If you haven't made your deal yet, come on down to the floor." Waxman is making deals to pass the cap and trade bill right on the House floor.

Barton: "This is unprecedented…At least he's doing it out in the open now."

2:49pm: Corruptocrat Rangel chastises Republicans and praises horse-trading, deal-trading on the floor. "This vote will be remembered by the world."

Right...the day the American Congress doomed America.  Another unbelievable exchange:

4:02pm: Barney Frank on the floor. The placeholder has to do with regulating financial derivatives related to reducing carbon emissions. Says he's confident they'll have a good system in place.

Trust Barney Frank?
Criiiiikey.

4:05pm: Excellent exchange between chair and GOP Rep. Louis Gohmert. He asks for a physical copy of the 300-page-plus late-night amendment filed out of public view. Chair cannot tell him where one is. Rules him out of order for not making parliamentary inquiry. Chair stumped.

Barton asks chair if there is any rule requiring copy of bill being voted on to be nearby. Chair: Not that I'm aware of.

Barton asks if official copy is necessary to be at desk for final vote.

Chair says it's at the desk. Barton says it's not the official copy. Markey tells him to go to the cloakroom and look it up on the web.

Markey says the full bill and manager's amendment is on the desk.

Chair rules that all the piles of paper at the desk "in effect" are an "official copy."

WHO'S ON FIRST?

By the way, the manager's amendment is in PDF form here.

By the way, there are a number of newspapers that have also come out against this cap-n-tax bill.  Here are a couple summaries:

The Washington Post, Editorial: "Waxman-Markey… is this the best we can hope for?...During the campaign, President Obama supported the cleanest variation of this mechanism: selling all emission allowances at auction. This week he abandoned that sensible stance with a full-throated endorsement of Waxman-Markey, which gives away 85 percent of the pollution credits in the first years of the program and provides many avenues potentially to evade compliance…we think it's too soon to settle for something that falls so far short of ideal." (6/26/09)

The Wall Street Journal, Editorial: "The Cap and Tax Fiction… House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House... It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done... The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars… Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won't pinch wallets, behind the scenes they've acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming… Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality." (6/26/09)

Investor's Business Daily, Editorial: "'Waxman-Markey: Man-Made Disaster... Not since a misguided piece of legislation imposed tariffs that turned a recession into a depression has there been a piece of legislation as bad as Waxman-Markey… Its centerpiece is a "cap and trade" provision that has been rightfully derided as "cap and tax." It is in fact a tax on energy everywhere it is consumed on everything it is used to make or provide. It is the largest tax increase in American history… Consumers would pay through the nose as electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, as President Obama once put it, by 90% adjusted for inflation… Hit hardest by all this would be the "95% of working families" Obama keeps mentioning as being protected from increased taxation." (6/25/09)

There are 14 at this link.  I suspect there are more around the country.

Have you called your Rep yet??

There's my two cents.