Stealth Care Nationalization

Barack Obama promised to lower taxes on 95% of all Americans. Those of us who weren't drinking the Kool-Aid understood that he was lying, and now we see it play out. The House just passed the S-CHIP expansion bill, which is the first step toward nationalizing the American health care system. Observe Steve King speaking about the costs and problems in the bill that just passed:

A full list of those who voted for and against this bill can be found here. Some warnings from Michelle Malkin:

Take heed: President Obama said at the signing that this is just the “first step.”

For once, a moment of pure ideological candor.

Also: Obama’s praise for the provision loosening of eligibility for legal immigrants and their children (a “first step” toward allowing illegal aliens to partake of the bounty) garnered the most applause from the audience and members of Congress.

This is very, very bad news, and it leads us into yet another of the poisonous nooks of the Generational Theft Act/Porkapalooza bill currently being debated in the Senate. You see, the Theft/Pork bill also contains the same sort of skeleton that the S-CHIP bill does: nationalized health care. Here's what is contained within the 'stimulus' package:

If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they've pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. "What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus]," says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, "is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector."

It began one week after the swearing-in, when Nancy Pelosi whipped through a big expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The Schip bill was Democrats' first stab at stealth expansion, unveiled in 2007, though vetoed by George W. Bush.

Initially designed for children of working-poor families, this new Super-Schip will be double in size, and even kids whose parents make $65,000 a year will be eligible. The program will also now cover pregnant women and automatically enroll their new arrivals. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 2.4 million individuals will drop their private coverage for the public program.

Under "stimulus," Medicaid is now on offer not to just poor Americans, but Americans who have lost their jobs. And not just Americans who have lost their jobs, but their spouses and their children. And not Americans who recently lost their jobs, but those who lost jobs, say, early last year. And not just Americans who already lost their jobs, but those who will lose their jobs up to 2011. The federal government is graciously footing the whole bill. The legislation also forbids states to apply income tests in most cases.

So, the S-CHIP program -- which was at its inception a viable and common sense program to provide medical care for low-income children -- is now going to include essentially everyone in the country. As always with liberals, it gets worse:

And here's the kicker: Whereas employees were previously responsible for paying their health premiums while on Cobra, now the feds will pay 65%. CBO estimates? Seven million Americans will have the feds mostly pay their insurance bills in 2009.

The bill even takes a whack at the private market. Under the guise of money for "health technology," the legislation makes the government the national coordinator for electronic health records, able to certify what platforms are acceptable. This is an attempt to squelch a growing private market that is competing to improve transparency and let consumers compare providers and costs. In liberal-world, only government should be publishing (and setting) health-care prices.

Add it up, and Democrats may move 10 million more Americans under the federal health umbrella -- in just four weeks! Good luck ever cutting off that money.

The Democrats are shielding this effort to nationalize health care under the guise of nationalizing the economy. That's one of the major, major reasons that this Theft/Pork bill needs to be killed outright in the Senate. There's simply too much at risk if it becomes law.

We've explored the dangers of nationalized health care numerous times on this blog, but for those of you who are newer readers, these excerpts of further analysis will summarize nicely for you:

The consequences of the bill's health provisions will be two-fold: First, it will increase subsidies for health coverage, and, second, it will give government more control over the use of a variety of technologies used by health care professionals.

And...

The stimulus legislation would create a council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. This is about medicine but not about healing the economy. The CER would identify (this is language from the draft report on the legislation) medical "items, procedures, and interventions" that it deems insufficiently effective or excessively expensive. They "will no longer be prescribed" by federal health programs. The [council's] recommendations "would have teeth": Congress could restrict the tax exclusion for private health insurance to "insurance that complies with the Board's recommendation."

And...

And how do the Democrats plan to make this work? They want to kill the one part of the program that actually receives payments. Medicare Advantage is exactly the kind of public/private partnership that could rescue Medicare, where recipients buy supplemental coverage to make Medicare work for them better and extend the bargaining power to reduce costs at the same time. Democrats want to kill that program and force all MA patients back to the poor coverage Medicare alone provides.

This demonstrates what a disaster this stimulus bill is, and what a disaster Democratic rule in Washington will be over the next two years. It’s hard to believe one could credibly say this, but I long for the honesty of the Clintons.

And...

Once a panel of government experts decides what is and what is not cost-effective by their definition, the government will stop paying for treatments, medicines, therapies or devices that fall into the latter category. Initially, this will limit access to very expensive treatments for federal employees, veterans, the elderly, members of the military and their dependents and others who rely on the feds to pay for their health care. But since this would place nearly half of health care dollars off limits for such treatments, the demand for and further development of such treatments would likely dry up.

Mind you, they are not simply looking to exclude treatments that don't work, but to exclude treatments that are effective, but whose cost, in their opinion, does not justify their use. You, the patient, and your physician don't get a vote. This would make the federal government the single most important decision-maker regarding health care for every patient in America.

That last one is the most important. When the government decides what medical care you -- or your children or other loved ones -- can or can't get, you've just lost the most important decision in your lives. How do you watch your son or daughter waste away from a completely treatable condition simply because some bureaucrat thinks the procedure is 'too expensive'? This is not a scare tactic - it happens every day around the world where nationalized health care has already been implemented. In fact, while Obama and the Democrats are looking to throw America down this hideous path, most other countries are struggling to get off of it and back to a free market system like what we already have!

It's not a stretch to say that this bill, if passed into law, could literally kill you or your loved ones. Just ask anyone from Britain, Canada, France, or any other place that already has government-controlled health care.

Are you dialing your Senators yet?

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123327719403931465.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/074nsbzs.asp
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/the_responsibilities_of_the_op.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/30/the-stealth-health-care-nationalization-in-the-stimulus/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/how_the_stimulus_bill_could_ki.html

The American Disarmament

I mentioned this in a post yesterday, but I wanted to highlight it again because it's so critically important. Via Gateway Pundit:

"I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. And I will institute an independent "Defense Priorities Board" to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending. Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals."

Barack Obama
22 October 22, 2007

Here's the video:


Obama wasn't kidding.
It looks like his 2007 promises are about to come true.
The Times Online reported today that Barack Obama will cut America's nuclear arsenal by 80% and renege on the promised missile defense systems for our allies in Europe:

President Obama will convene the most ambitious arms reduction talks with Russia for a generation, aiming to slash each country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 80 per cent.

The radical treaty would cut the number of nuclear warheads to 1,000 each, The Times has learnt. Key to the initiative is a review of the Bush Administration’s plan for a US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, a project fiercely opposed by Moscow.

Mr Obama is to establish a non-proliferation office at the White House to oversee the talks, expected to be headed by Gary Samore, a non-proliferation negotiator in the Clinton Administration. The talks will be driven by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

No final decision on the defence shield has been taken by Mr Obama. Yet merely delaying the placement of US missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic — which if deployed would cost the US $4 billion annually — removes what has been a major impediment to Russian co-operation on arms reduction.

Obama's college thesis at Columbia was reportedly on Soviet nuclear disarmament.
Isn't it about time someone dug that up?

World Net Daily has more on Obama's feckless move.

This is probably the one thing which concerns me more than what he's trying to do to our economy. Without every weapon at our disposal, Americans will be at greater risk in a world with many nations who would like to see us brought low. Obama is willingly volunteering to put a loaded gun at the head of our great nation, begging for someone else to pull the trigger.

This has got to stop before America is attacked again.

There's my two cents.

The Big Mo

This sounds promising:

On Capitol Hill, you can feel the Republicans' growing sense of confidence. They've scored a lot of hits on the stimulus bill, and now they're aiming higher. "We'll try to make the bill better," Sen. Jim DeMint said a few moments ago, "but this bill is so bad…you can't fix it by tweaking around the edges…The best thing to happen would be for President Obama to lead, to call a time out." Several Republicans now want to throw the whole bill out and replace it with a package that is nearly all tax cuts — "twice the jobs at half the price."

After the Republican news conference, I asked DeMint how many Republican senators oppose the bill — and how many might be won over by a minimum number of changes stripping the bill of its notorious spending provisions, rather than demanding a complete overhaul of the bill. "I think we've got nearly 100 percent of Republicans who are going to vote against this bill unless it is fundamentally changed to include real economic stimulus," DeMint said. "I think just about every Republican has come around to the realization that this is a massive spending bill, it's a grab bag full of the Democrats' wish lists, and they're shamefully using the economic troubles we're having as a country as an excuse to pass their wish list of spending. I think as that grows on people, it makes them more and more outraged."

With that growing sense of GOP confidence comes ramped-up pushback from President Obama. "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," Obama said at the Treasury Department today. "I reject that theory, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change." Look for Obama and his allies to push the argument that the Republican plan is one-dimensional and insufficient. If the roof is leaking, they'll say, Republicans prescribe a tax cut. If the car is stalled, they prescribe a tax cut. If the house is on fire, they prescribe a tax cut. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.

Meanwhile, farther on the left, there's a sense of urgency — I wouldn't yet call it panic — that mirrors the growth of Republican confidence. In the past hour, I've gotten two emails from liberal groups that give off a whiff of…concern.

"Conservatives Are Beating Us 100 To 1!" was the headline of a mailing from the liberal activist group Campaign for America's Future. "We've gotten word from our progressive friends on Capitol Hill that for every one hundred phone calls to Congress from conservatives trying to obstruct change, there is only one phone call from a citizen demanding passage of President Obama's economic recovery bill," the mailing says.

"They're demanding that billions be cut from a plan that, if anything, is already to small, and that more be diverted to top-end tax cuts," the note continues. "We can't allow this partisan posturing in the midst of a national crisis. Progressives need to pick up the phone now to counter the onslaught of calls pouring into the Senate from conservatives."

Meanwhile, MoveOn.org is asking you to write an "emergency letter to the editor" supporting the stimulus. "Conservative talking points are dominating the media's coverage, and there's a lot of misinformation around," the letter says. "Can you write a letter to the editor of your local paper about how the stimulus will affect real people?" Just to make it easy for you, MoveOn provides talking points of its own, plus a link to its handy letter-to-the-editor website.

When the groups on the left are saying that, you know Republicans have some real momentum at this moment.

If this momentum continues, it's actually possible that we could kill the porkapalooza bill. It's a big IF, but it's within the realm of possibility. Just keep calling and making your voices heard! It's working, but it's not over until the votes are counted...

There's my two cents.

Dumb And Dumber (All In One)

Nancy Pelosi, the driving force behind the House's version of the Generational Theft Act/Porkapalooza bill, had this to say about the urgency of the 'stimulus' package:

Yep, you heard that right - she said we're losing 500 million American jobs each month until this stimulus package is put into place!

Of course, there are actually only 300 million or so Americans currently alive today, but who's counting...?

The best comment I've seen on this verbal stumble is this:

"500 million lost jobs! Holy cow the recession must have spread to all 57 states."

You just can't make this stuff up!

But don't worry, she also said this before the Theft Act/Porkapalooza bill was passed:

She's like Dumb and Dumber, all rolled into one person. God help us if something ever happens to both Obama and Biden and dimbulb here becomes President...!

There's my two cents.

Generational Theft Act (Porkapalooza Bill) Update #6

If you're looking for the latest on the Generational Theft Act/Porkapalooza Bill, you've come to the right place.  Dig in...

Barack Obama is calling for Republicans to not let politics get in the way of passing this urgent 'stimulus' legislation.  That's a joke - as has been well documented on this blog already, this is not a 'stimulus' so much as a partisan Democrat wish list fulfillment bill.  You'll see even more evidence of that in a moment.  Obama is also saying that economists have a consensus that this needs to happen, but that's not true, either:

People like Robert Reich, who try to back up the claims of President Obama and Vice President Biden that "economic advisers across the political spectrum support Obama's plan," have managed to come up with two names of economists who support the stimulus plan and would not be regarded as left of center: Martin Feldstein of Harvard, a former top economic adviser to President Reagan, and Mark Zandi of Moody's, who was an adviser to John McCain last fall. And now the Washington Post has blown both of those names out of the water. Leaving — by my count — exactly zero libertarian or conservative economists on that much-touted spectrum. As the Post notes this morning:

Democrats lost Feldstein on Thursday when the Harvard professor published a Washington Post op-ed declaring the House bill "an $800 billion mistake" laden with ineffective provisions.

...Post reporter Shailagh Murray actually asked Zandi about his politics.

"I'm a registered Democrat," he acknowledged.

He signed up with McCain when Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the candidate's chief economic aide and a longtime friend, asked him to join the campaign's diverse economic advisory team. "My policy is I will help any policymaker who asks, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat," Zandi said.

So . . . the count of Republican or conservative or libertarian economists who support Obama's biggest-spending-bill-in-world-history stands at . . . zero. And hundreds of economists have declared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and other papers that they don't support the plan. It's time for politicians, pundits, and journalists to stop making this claim.

Ironically, France -- a genuinely socialist country -- just rejected a bill that wasn't nearly as bad as what Obama is proposing for America.  That's a bad sign!

So let's look again at this beast.

One of Obama's campaign promises was to have 40% of this 'stimulus' in the form of tax cuts.  Aside from the fact that when he says 'tax cuts' he really means 'redistribution', he didn't even deliver that:

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office scored the bill passed out of the House last week. It contains only $182.3 billion of tax cuts, or about 22 percent of the total cost. A previous CBO review of the bill, when it was introduced days earlier in the House, had a slightly larger figure for tax cuts, $211.8 billion, or about 26 percent. A week before that, on January 15, the top tax writer in the House, Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, announced that the stimulus bill would include $275 billion in tax cuts. This is what mathematicians, accountants and your local dive bar bookie would call a trend: 300 --> 275 --> 212 --> 182.

Here at 2Cents, we call that liberalism creep.

Another fun detail -- and another instance of where liberals screw up and accidentally tell the truth about themselves -- would be this:

Pelosi's spokesman Brendan Daly, on why eleven Democrat House members voted against the stimulus:

The speaker has said many times that the members are representative of their district . . . Many of the districts are more conservative, and they campaigned on fiscal responsibility, and we understand that.

Surely he did not mean to imply that the stimulus bill was fiscally irresponsible.

Oops.

Ace of Spades offers this concern and perspective:

Given that the spendulus is rapidly declining in popular appeal, and that a plurality prefer a tax-cut only version of the bill, will Republicans hold out for a good deal or fold like lawn furniture the moment The One makes the smallest concession?

Perspective: If you spent a million a day since the day of Christ's birth, you still wouldn't spend as much as Obama and the liberals want to spend in 3-4 years.

With most of that spending coming after the recession, incidentally, and at least $200 billion ongoing and on-growing until the Messiah comes back the second time. (Or the first time, for our Jewish friends.)

All humor aside, as the truth gets out more and more about this monstrosity, the support for the 'stimulus' plan really has plummeted, and now half the country say it's likely to make things worse.  Some recent Gallup numbers:

"Just 17% say the plan would make the economy a lot better, while another 47% say it would make the economy a little better. Seventeen percent (including more than a third of Republicans) go so far as to say the plan would make the economy worse."

"[O]nly 10% of Americans say the economy will get better this year as a result of Obama's stimulus plan."

"Only 44% of Americans say the plan will make their families' situations at least a little better, while the majority of 53% say the plan will not have an effect at all, or will actually make their financial situations worse."

In terms of outright support/opposition, here's the situation from Rasmussen:

Rasmussen Reports will release new survey data showing that a plurality of Americans now oppose the stimulus package (37-43%); two weeks ago, support for the legislation stood at 45-34%. There is now greater support for a plan that includes tax cuts only than for the Democratic package. And fully 50% of those polled say the plan that emerges from Congress may end up doing more harm than good. The longer the plan sits out there, the more support sags.

Right.  That's because the American people aren't stupid, and can tell when they're being screwed...if the truth gets reported to them.  The more details leak out about this, the more apparent it's becoming to millions of Americans that this isn't much of a 'stimulus'.  Want some more examples?

- up to $18 billion to crush brand new cars (yes, literally crush them - SUVs and trucks)
- $5 billion for ACORN
- $500,000 for dog parks
- $4.5 million for butterfly gardens
- $6 million for water slides
- $886,000 for a disc golf course
- $20 million "for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers." (whatever those are...)
- $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails
- $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce headquarters
- $70 million to "Support Supercomputing Activities" for climate research
- $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Dept. of Energy defunded last year because the project was inefficient
- $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film (this has already been killed, but I thought you should know they wanted it)
- $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship)
- $448 million for constructing the Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters
- $248 million for furniture at the new Dept. of Homeland Security headquarters
- $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees
- $400 million for the CDC to screen and prevent STD's
- $1.4 billion for a rural waste disposal programs
- $125 million for the Washington, D.C. sewer system
- $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities
- $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion
- $75 million for "smoking cessation activities"
- $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges
- $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI
- $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction
- $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River
- $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas
- $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings
- $500 million for state and local fire stations
- $650 million for wildland fire management on Forest Service lands
- $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities
- $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs
- $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service
- $412 million for CDC buildings and property
- $500 million for building and repairing NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
- $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service
- $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the VA "National Cemetery Administration"
- $850 million for Amtrak
- $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint
- $75M to construct a new "security training" facility for State Dept Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies
- $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems
- $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations
- unspecified millions to illegal immigrants (in the form of 'rebate' checks)

Now, let's think about this for a moment...if this is an economic 'stimulus' package, what will most of these do to 'stimulate' the economy?

Nothing.  Zip.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.

One of the more odious (and less publicized) clauses in here is a virtual unleashing of welfare:

Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.

The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the amount of federal cash that can be sent to states each year for welfare payments.

But, thanks to the simple phrase slipped into the legislation, the new "stimulus" bill abolishes the limits on the amount of federal money for the so-called Emergency Fund, which ships welfare cash to states.

"Out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary for payment to the Emergency Fund," Democrats wrote in Section 2101 on Page 354 of the $819 billion bill. In other words, the only limit on welfare payments would be the Treasury itself.

Those of us on the Right have often suggested that Obama wants to 're-make America' (his words) into a nanny state where the government provides everything to everyone.  That suggestion seems to have a great deal of substance in the light of this clause, don't you think?

Another poisonous clause in here deals with health care, but I'll cover that in another post later.

Fortunately, there are some conservatives in the Senate who are working hard to strip out as much of the garbage as possible.  Tom Coburn, in particular, is offering amendments to do the following:

1. Require that all money in the bill given to states be a loan that must be repaid.

2. Strike $246 million "Hollywood earmark" for the purchase of motion picture film. (passed last night)

3. Strike "biggest earmark of all time" – $2 billion for FutureGen clean coal power plant.

4. Sense of the Senate that the Congress should support President Obama's "Plan for Restoring Fiscal Discipline." (Specifically relating to cutting costs and inefficiencies of government.)

5. No funds shall be used for casinos, aquariums, zoos, museums, golf courses, or swimming pools (mirror House language).

6. No more than $1 billion may be spent on projects for federal agencies inside the beltway.

7. Require that any contract that is awarded must be competitively bid.

8. Convert $9 billion for broadband into loans for internet service providers/telecom companies to build infrastructure in market-sustainable areas.

9. Prohibit any Corps construction funds appropriated in this Act from being used for initial construction projects until all unfinished Corps projects have been completed.

10. No funds from the Federal Building Fund may be used to construct new federal buildings until the government reduces its inventory of surplus/excess real property by 50 percent as of the date of bill passage.

11. None of the funds made available for the National Park Service may be expended unless such funding directly reduces the deferred maintenance backlog.

12. Strike authority for the Director of Indian Health Service to spend all health information technology funds ($85 million) at his discretion, regardless of current law (competitive awards, bidding, etc).

13. Cut $3.25 billion in funding for Workforce Investment Act programs since WIA has not been reauthorized and GAO has found duplicative job-training programs across 8 different federal agencies.

14. No funds in the Act may go to a public or private institution of high education that has an endowment of more than $15 billion and/or spends more than $100,000 on lobbying annually.

15. Make the "making work pay" tax credit non-refundable (the plan to give $500 or $1,000 checks of every family).

It's progress, but they all have to be passed before they'll be taken out, and it's still possible for them to get added back in the House/Senate committee.  But, for the Democrats to even be considering dropping some of these things is a good sign that they know the GOP isn't going to completely roll over.  Personally, I'd say that if you have to strip out 90% of a bill, you might as well kill the whole thing and start over, but that's just me.

My concern is that some of these will pass, giving a handful of Republicans just enough cover to sign on with the bulk of it, thus providing Obama the bipartisan cover he needs to escape what is certain to be the disastrous effects of this bill in the next couple years.  This bill is so bad that it needs to go away entirely - there's no way it'll get gutted enough to make it worthwhile.  I'm seeing a very mixed bag of reactions from all sides, so I'm still not sure how this one will go down, although it seems that the opposition is generally increasing, as the polls above indicate.

I think we need to encourage our Senators more than ever to hold the line on the core principle of fiscal responsibility, and that means that this bill needs to be killed.

Keep calling.  The truth is getting out and the tide is turning, so kick it up another notch.  For the first time, I'm beginning to think we might pull this off, but we've got to have the GOP hold the line unanimously in order to make it happen.  When you call and e-mail your Senators, be clear that you don't want a handful of reductions in this thing, but rather the entire thing should be killed outright.  Suggest that we need proven methods of economic stimulus like tax cuts (real ones, not Obama's redistribution).  I'll have another post in the next day or two with some real solutions that are outstanding.  Stay tuned.

Until then, keep up the pressure...!

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
The Case For No Stimulus
Inmates In Charge Of The Asylum In DC
The House's Pig Pen
Generational Theft Act (Porkapalooza Bill) Update #5
Generational Theft Act (Porkapalooza Bill) Update #4
Generational Theft Act (Porkapalooza Bill) Update #3
Generational Theft Act (Porkapalooza Bill) Update #2
Generational Theft Act (Porkapalooza Bill) Update #1
It's Not Stimulus If It Doesn't Stimulate
The Bailout List



Sources:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/50_say_stimulus_plan_likely_to_make_things_worse
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/generational-theft-act-includes-water.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/02/kristol_new_poll_shows_stimulu.asp
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/04/sen-coburn-obamas-stimulus-is-morally-reprehensible-and-the-worst-act-of-generational-theft-in-our-nation%E2%80%99s-history/
http://minx.cc/?post=282313
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/03/generational-theft-act-fun-facts-from-sen-coburns-office/
http://patterico.com/2009/02/03/france-rejects-obama-style-stimulus/
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTg1NGYzNDMxNzgyZGRlOTZhMzU4ODMwYWRhYzcyNzA
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/02/obama_asked_for_300_billion_in_1.asp
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2IyY2MxNzliNmVmYzJjOGUzZTJjOTUxZGYxYTUzYTk
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/unreal-stimulus-includes-government.html
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/30/stimulus-slush-fund-for-the-housing-entitlement-mob/
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/31/obama-we-cannot-let-politics-get-in-the-way-of-passing-this-crap-sandwich/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/01/the_welfare_stimulus.asp
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/figures-dems-crap-sandwich-gives-cash.html
http://minx.cc/?post=282332
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/02/03/economists-across-the-spectrum-continue-to-flee-stimulus-bill/

More Evidence Of Democrat In-Fighting?

Fox News reports on some more insider dirty laundry:

Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat from Tennessee, told a liberal radio network on Monday that the Obama White House encouraged him to defy House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.

"Well, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I actually got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks for what I'm doing," said Cooper, one of only 11 Democrats to vote against the economic stimulus plan that passed the House last week.

"They know it's a messy bill and they wanted a clean bill," he said. "Now, I got in terrible trouble with our leadership because they don't care what's in the bill, they just want it to pass and they want it to be unanimous."

Cooper, whose startling admission came on Liberadio, was one of about 55 House Democrats to sign a letter criticizing Pelosi for suspending debate and committee rules on the fiscal package, politico.com reported.

"They don't mind the partisan fighting cause that's what they are used to. In fact, they're really good at it -- and they're a little bit worried about what a post-partisan future might look like," Cooper said during the radio interview. "If members actually had to read the bills and figure out whether they are any good or not. We're just told how to vote. We're treated like mushrooms most of the time."

An early supporter of President Obama, Cooper is a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats.

How about that!  Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't exactly jive with the Democrats' promise of the bipartisanship, does it?

Even more interestingly, this seems to back up the suggestion that there is a considerable amount of fracturing going on in the Democrat party.  Not only does President Obama not have control of his own party, but he doesn't even have the respect of the other Democrat leaders!  Now it appears that the Democrat old guard in Congress is doing whatever they feel like doing, and Obama has been reduced to some quiet begging on the side.

Another thing to point out: according to Cooper, Pelosi and the Democrats have no problem with partisan fighting.  In fact, they rely on it.  If the rank-and-file Democrats in Congress had time to read and evaluate bills on their own merits, Pelosi and the radical Democrat leadership wouldn't survive for long.  This is what I mean when I ask all you Democrat readers out there if you realize your party has been hijacked.  Cooper seems to think so, though he didn't go so far as to say it.

This also backs up my assertion that those same radically Leftist Democrat leaders like to ram monster-sized bills through with an absolute minimum of examination and debate because they know that if the truth comes out, their support will shed faster than a snakeskin.

Hope!  Change!  UNITY!

There's my two cents.

Around The World With The Obamessiah

How's President Barack Obama doing on the foreign policy front?  Let's take a look:

Russia
Obama surrenders to Russia on missile defense in Eastern Europe, hurting relationships w/ allies there:

Russia has dropped plans to install missiles near Poland after the Obama administration signalled a change in US attitude to the region, a Moscow military official has reportedly said.

The official suggested that Mr Obama's White House had made clear it would not prioritise executing the Bush administration's plan to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In November, Polish President Lech Kaczynski's office said Obama pledged to go ahead with plans to build part of a US missile defence system in Poland.

Also in November, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Obama that Russia would deploy short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe unless Obama scrapped the plan.

Obama abandoned our Polish allies and officially surrendered this week.

India

New Delhi has warned Barack Obama that he is "barking up the wrong tree" if he tries to broker a deal between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

MK Narayanan, India's national security adviser, said the new US president was in danger of dredging up outdated Clinton-era strategies in an effort to improve ties between the nuclear armed neighbours.

"I do think that we could make President Obama understand, if he does nurse any such view, that he is barking up the wrong tree. I think Kashmir today has become one of the quieter and safer places in this part of the world," Mr Narayanan said in an interview with CNBC TV18.

"It's possible that at this time there are elements, -perhaps in the administration who are harking back to the pre-2000 era."

Apparently, New Delhi didn't get the memo that Obama brings HOPE! and CHANGE!

Iran

Iran said it had launched a domestically made satellite into orbit for the first time on Tuesday, prompting further concern among Western powers and in Israel over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran said the launch of the Omid (Hope) research and telecom satellite was a major step in its space technology timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah.

The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit could also be used for launching warheads

North Korea is getting ready to test similar missile that could hit the U.S., too.  Yippee.

Canada
Part of Obama's Generational Theft Act/Porkapalooza Bill is a 'buy American' clause.  While that sounds great, it's disastrous in implementation.  Basically, it hikes taxes on imports.  The problem with that is, of course, that our foreign trade partners will end up hiking their prices to us, thus forcing Americans to pay more for everything.  If this sounds familiar, it should:

The president of the US Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue, warned in a statement that "in 1930, when Congress approved the Smoot-Hawley tariffs," which raised duties on 20,000 imported goods to record levels, "other countries responded by closing their markets" to American products.

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Let us not make the same mistakes again, especially now," Donohue said in his statement opposing the "buy American" requirements.

[I]n the case of Canada, Obama has the authority to waive the "buy American" provision on the ground that it violates pre-existing US trade obligations to Ottawa under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

While this would be good news for Canada, it will hurt just about everyone else, including America.

Europe

The European Union warned the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting a planned "Buy American" policy, intensifying fears of a trade war.

The EU threatened to retaliate if the US Congress went ahead with sweeping measures in its $800 billion (£554 billion) stimulus plan to restrict spending to American goods and services. …

Last night Mr Obama gave a strong signal that he would remove the most provocative passages from the Bill.

Two points here.  First, I find it ironic that the E.U. wanted Obama's brand of socialism to infect the U.S., but now that they got their wish, they've finally figured out it's not exactly a good thing.  Second, what does it say about Obama that he got bullied by a bunch of sissy countries who don't even have their own army (because they've been protected by ours for so long)?  While it's good that he isn't replaying one of the worst contributors to the Great Depression, it's yet another sign of his inherent weakness and lack of leadership.

Kyrgyzstan

As a major diplomatic victory for Moscow and Beijing, the former Soviet Central Asian republic Kyrgyzstan has decided to close US Gansi airbase on its soil.

He explained the decision was made due to economic considerations and the negative public opinion.

Manas airport in the capital Bishkek has been home to a thousand-strong American airbase since 2001 after Kyrgyzstan joined the anti-terror coalition set up in the wake of 9/11.

Named after the New York Fire Department chief Peter Gansi, who died in rescue operation after the terror strike on World Trade Centre twin towers, the US base is situated 90-minute away from the war zone in Afghanistan and in the initial period became a main hub for moving men, equipment and supplies to US and allied forces.

This is just great.  One of Obama's talking points during the campaign was that we need to get out of Iraq and get into Afghanistan.  Now that this base is closed, our efforts in Afghanistan will become much more difficult.  My guess is this is related to the fact that Obama surrendered to Russia (see above).

Gitmo

In May 2006, Saudi Arabia announced that 56 of the top 58 most wanted al-Qaeda linked terrorists in the Kingdom had been killed or captured.

Since 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were Saudis, this was good news for the US, too.

But, that was before they started dumping Gitmo detainees back on the streets.
The AP reported:

The Saudi government acknowledged Wednesday that 11 men on the country's most wanted list are former Guantanamo prisoners who went through rehabilitation, raising doubts about a program intended to counter extremist religious ideology.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order closing down the prison in Cuba on Jan. 22 — his second day in office — leaving nations scrambling over what to do with a potential flood of released detainees.

I guess those 300 foreign policy advisers aren't pulling their weight.  That's a whole lot of people to throw under the bus, but if anyone can manage the task, it's the Obamessiah.

On the flip side...Iran, Syria, Hamas, North Korea, and Venezuela all think he's doing a terrific job.

There's my two cents.

Obama Admits Error On Daschle, Reinforces Hypocrisy

Hm...interesting:

"Did I screw up in this situation? Absolutely. I'm willing to take my lumps," Obama said in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, one of five interviews he conducted Tuesday. In interview after interview with network anchors, Obama said there are "not two sets of rules" for people — and said that average taxpayers deserve to have public officials who pay their taxes on time.

With all due respect, I don't believe Obama when he says this.  Why not?  I'm glad you asked that question (thought I suspect that you, my intelligent and beautiful readers, already know the answer).

If there are not "two sets of rules" at play here, then why is Geithner still the Treasury Secretary?  If Obama was serious about putting all of his people on the same playing field as all the rest of us, he would immediately fire Geithner.  Think about it: of all the people who should be removed for not paying taxes, wouldn't the most appropriate one be the guy now in charge of collecting taxes?

Then, if Obama was really going to be consistent, he would also put loud and public pressure on Congress to throw out Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, and all the other Congressional Democrats who are involved in similar illegal financial self-enrichment schemes.

When do you think any of that will happen?  Right: never.

No, the truth is that "two sets of rules" is the standard of operations in the Democrat party.

There's my two cents.

The GOP's Great Failure...And Opportunity

Two polls give us a startling glance into something that can be considered one of the GOP's greatest failures, as well as one of its greatest opportunities.

Ronald Reagan isn’t just a Republican thing anymore.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of U.S. voters say the Republican Party should return to the views and values of the iconic 40th president of the United States to be successful, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republican voters believe a return to the two-term president’s views and values are the road to success. Just eight percent (8%) disagree.

Among unaffiliated voters, 61% say the Republican Party should return to Reagan, while 23% think the party should move away from those values.

Even 29% of Democrats think Reagan is a good role model for the modern Republican Party...

Now, consider this:

Ten days into his presidency as the details of his historic economic rescue plan become clearer, Barack Obama still enjoys the confidence of a majority of voters that he knows how to handle the struggling U.S. economy.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of voters give Obama good or excellent marks – 29% say excellent – for his dealing with the economy so far. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 25% rate the President’s handling of the economy as poor.

So, what are we to make of these two polls? The first one indicates that Ronald Reagan is highly regarded, even by a significant minority of Democrats. Many people believe that getting back to Reagan is a good thing. The second poll, then, reveals that a majority of the country thinks that Obama's current economic proposals are the correct thing to bring us out of this recession.

Problem is, Obama's economic proposals are directly contrary to what Reagan did.

Reagan believed that government was the problem, not the solution. He believed that the way to solve problems was to get government out of the way and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of the free market. Obama's policy proposals are just the opposite - they penalize success and the free market, providing only layer after layer of oppressive government regulation, government intervention, and government control. Obama is proposing precisely the same things that Carter implemented...the same things that Reagan was elected to correct.

This, then, is the GOP's greatest failure: America remembers and loves Ronald Reagan, but they don't know why. For so many people to have so completely forgotten the things that made Reagan's presidency so successful is an indicator of how badly the GOP failed to follow in his footsteps.

The opportunity, then, is just as great: America already loves him, and just need to be reminded of why. It's far easier to restore knowledge that has been forgotten than to create new knowledge. If the GOP can restore the message of Reagan and the policies that made him so successful and beloved, they have success waiting just around the corner.

There's my two cents.


Sources:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics2/majority_see_reagan_as_republicans_way_back_to_power
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/january_2009/majority_remain_confident_in_obama_s_economic_moves

Ethical Challenges

This is no big surprise to anyone who's been paying attention for the past few months, but it's important enough to specifically point out:

During almost two years on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to slay the demons of Washington, bar lobbyists from his administration and usher in what he would later call in his Inaugural Address a "new era of responsibility." What he did not talk much about were the asterisks.

The exceptions that went unmentioned now include a pair of cabinet nominees who did not pay all of their taxes. Then there is the lobbyist for a military contractor who is now slated to become the No. 2 official in the Pentagon. And there are the others brought into government from the influence industry even if not formally registered as lobbyists.

President Barack Obama said Monday that he was "absolutely" standing behind former Senator Tom Daschle, his nominee for health and human services secretary, and Daschle, who met late in the day with leading senators in an effort to keep his confirmation on track, said he had "no excuse" and wanted to "deeply apologize" for his failure to pay $128,000 in U.S. taxes. [Update: he then threw Daschle under the bus.]

But the episode has already shown how, when faced with the perennial clash between campaign rhetoric and Washington reality, Obama has proved willing to compromise.

Every four or eight years a new president arrives in town, declares his determination to cleanse a dirty process and invariably winds up trying to reconcile the clear ideals of electioneering with the muddy business of governing. Obama on his first day in office imposed perhaps the toughest ethics rules of any president in modern times, and since then he and his advisers have been trying to explain why they do not cover this case or that case.

"This is a big problem for Obama, especially because it was such a major, major promise," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "He harped on it, time after time, and he created a sense of expectation around the country. This is exactly why people are skeptical of politicians, because change we can believe in is not the same thing as business as usual."

Yeah, some would call that hypocrisy, especially if Obama intended to mislead people during the campaign. So, is Obama dealing with these obvious deficiencies? Decide for yourself:

Despite the tax problems faced by high-level nominees, and the exceptions made to the no-lobbyists pledge, President Barack Obama's spokesman is defending the administration's ethical standards.

Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday, "The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set."

During a briefing filled with questions about Tom Daschle's decision to withdraw from consideration to be Health and Human Services secretary, Gibbs pointed to experts who describe the administration's ethics rules as the strongest in history.

He also said those experts recognized that Obama would need to make exceptions to his pledge to run an administration free of former lobbyists.

Sure, he may have set the toughest ethical standards in history...but then he promptly turns around and ignores them. What good are ethics if you don't pay any attention to them?




There's my two cents.

Dems In Chaos?

Here's some interesting information that indicates all is not well in Democrat-happy-land:

Congress just started the 111th Session just four weeks ago, and already some Democrats have had enough of Nancy Pelosi’s ham-handed tactics. A rebellion has begun to brew among moderates in Pelosi’s caucus that wants a return to “regular order”, in which the committees return to their normal process of crafting and modifying legislation instead of a select group of elites ramming it down their throats. They may draft Steny Hoyer, the Majority Leader, as their savior:

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution” and see that the House returns to a “regular order” process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year. …

Wow, for the Democrats to lose it after just a couple weeks of having a supermajority is a very bad sign (for them...for the rest of us, it's great news). Ultimately, it all comes back to the utter lack of intelligent and principled leadership by Nancy Pelosi. It's still something that can be controlled and defused at this point, but if Pelosi doesn't do something quickly, she could have much bigger problems to worry about soon.

This is an especially unstable situation because it appears that Congressional Democrats more or less have control over Obama:

Obama may soon face a more ominous problem than any perception of incompetence arising from the botched nominations -- the perception of weakness. Events have conspired to make economic stimulus legislation the first major substantive issue Obama faces as president, and it's obviously a critical one. So far, it is painfully apparent (1) that the congressional Democrats, not the president, are in control of this issue and (2) that congressional Democrats are running amok. Obama is reduced to pleading with the Dems to show restraint, while trying to induce Republicans to provide him cover by signing on to the boondoggle. His failure (so far) to succeed with Dems ensures his failure to succeed with Republicans. And Obama cannot play the "I won" trump card with the Democrats. They also won, and thus feel entitled to the spoils.

Desperate people do desperate things; is Pelosi getting desperate yet?

In other gloomy news, Obama's popularity is slipping:

In today's Rasmussen survey, President Obama's approval rating is down to 61 percent. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's nothing special about it, either. It's in line with what most Presidents have experienced near the beginning of their terms; slightly lower, actually, than George W. Bush's approval rating in the Gallup poll 60 days into his first term, notwithstanding the acrimony surrounding the 2000 election.

Obama's decline was inevitable once he actually started making decisions. His approval rating will probably fall further as more voters learn details about the Democrats' pork bill, as foreign policy setbacks continue, and as he continues to govern like a traditional Democrat. Again, there is nothing particularly wrong with this. But there seems to be a myth inside the Beltway that Obama enjoys some sort of super-popularity that makes his policies difficult to challenge. That is simply untrue.

Once again: Republicans need to hang tough! As for you and me, we need to keep calling them and providing the spine they lack.

There's my two cents.

Reps: Hang Tough!

Good news from Powerline:

The Democrats have been taking a beating on a number of fronts lately, but the most important relates to their pork bill. House Republicans opposed it unanimously, and the public noticed. In today's Rasmussen survey, the Republicans have closed the gap on the generic Congressional preference poll to four points--down from seven points a week earlier.

Rasmussen attributes the GOP surge to "the unanimous Republican opposition to the economic stimulus bill proposed by House Democrats." The pork bill needs to be hung around the necks of the Democrats, not attributed generally to "Congress." The biggest danger now is that a group of Republican Senators could make a bad deal, agreeing to minor changes in the Dems' bill while selling out their party by allowing the Dems to claim that the pork bill has bipartisan support. The Senate needs to hang tough, like the House, and either bring about fundamental reform in the government's approach to economic conditions, or else vote No. Unanimously.

UPDATE: This is the kind of thing that scares me. [Note: two RINO Senators are meeting with Obama today.]

Your calls to your Senators are more important now than ever. Kick it up a notch.

There's my two cents.

This Wouldn't Be Inexperience, Would It?

Inexperience was one of the most legitimate criticisms of Barack Obama from the campaign trail - he hasn't done anything significant, he has no major accomplishments, and he's too green to properly understand what it means to be President. Unfortunately, now that Obama is President, we're already starting to see evidence that those assertions of inexperience were correct.

For starters, it appears that the Obamas are already tired of the hustle and bustle of the White House:

On the rockiest day of his young administration, President Barack Obama did what surely made him happy for a while. He left.

With little notice, the president and first lady Michelle Obama bolted the gated compound of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their tank of a limousine on Tuesday. They ended up at a Washington public school, greeted by children who could not care less about the collapse of a Cabinet secretary nomination.

“We were just tired of being in the White House,” the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.

“We got out! They let us out!” Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed.

So...when things get a little tough, he runs away. Great.

I'm afraid this is a sign of Obama's inner strength. Mainly, that he doesn't have any. If he can't handle a couple of failed nominations, how is he going to react to a deepening economic crisis (once it actually reaches the level of a crisis)? How is he going to handle the next terrorist attack? What will he do if Russia invades Ukraine, or if Iran launches missiles at Israel?

Is it just going to be too much for him to handle? Will he run and hide then, too? Will he man up when American lives are on the line?

I'm afraid we're going to find out before too long, and it won't be the right answer.

His wife clearly isn't used to the responsibility that comes with being the First Lady, either.

Yesterday, Michelle Obama, prominent mother of two Sidwell Friends students, gave the first remarks on her listening tour of federal agencies at the Education Department, detailing her commitment to public schools.

She entered the room to loud applause, working a long receiving line before she began her remarks. Her speech included the standard promises to "invest" in public schools, of which she counts herself a product. She touted her husband's stimulus plan as a way to inject millions into the education system. She also showed a glimpse of the distinct lack of grace the normally disciplined Obamas sometimes betray.

While thanking the loud crowd for its enthusiasm, she added an aside:

I am -- I am honored to be here this afternoon. First let me tell you that you couldn't be luckier than to have as your leader this guy by the name of Arne Duncan. (Applause.) Barack and I, my brother, my family, we've known Arne for a very long time, and we've seen his growth, his leadership develop over the years. And he is someone who is committed, hardworking, passionate. But he's someone who is fair, who is honest, who is decent, and who knows that getting to any goal means you have to build a team from within, from the bottom up. And I know he's already beginning to do this.

This kind of turnout and enthusiasm is sort of for me, but, you know, you're behind -- (laughter) -- but I know you're also excited about your new secretary.

Wow, what class. Mary Katherine Ham offers the following analysis and suggestions:

Memo to Michelle: You're a very important woman. People are almost always going to cheer for you, and pay attention to you, as they should. In acknowledging such attention, remember this simple rule. Self-deprecation: Good. Self-congratulation: Bad.

Ham also recounts the ways Michelle has been...well, let's say...less than classy:

Michelle is more prone to the occasional mean-spirited or pompous soundbite than her husband, which is why part of her heralded campaign-trail makeover last year entailed not speaking so much. She once famously called America "downright mean," and declared that the campaign was the first time she'd been proud of her country. She also once derided Bush's $600 stimulus checks because they would allow women to buy little more than a "pair of earrings," doing nothing to help the Obamas' reputation for elitism.

But both Obamas have been occasionally heavy-handed in their dealings with D.C. denizens since Obama's inauguration, usually to their detriment. Barack's "I won" advocacy for his stimulus package didn't win any supporters among House Republicans. His attack on Rush Limbaugh, meant as an admonition to Republicans, got even political writers in San Francisco chiding Obama for his "first tactical error" in elevating Limbaugh. His insensitive joke about pop star Jessica Simpson's weight this week got him frowned upon even in the notoriously unkind world of celebrity blog comment sections.

Update: And, how could I forget Obama dubbing the people of D.C. weather wimps on his first week here? His comments about bringing some "flinty Chicago toughness" to the city triggered an angry response from local callers to radio shows and local press. Always wise to move to a new city and promptly insult all of its residents on national TV.

We're off to a great start, don't you think?

There's my two cents.

Link Roundup

Here we go again...

At home in the USofA:

• GOP Governors opposing the 'stimulus' package.
  
• All you young people: go for permanent government jobs instead.
  
• Can we question their patriotism now?
  
• Bush's farewell speech.
  
• An elephant never forgets.
  
• More Flight 93 memorial madness.
• It's not that men are stupid, it's that women are really confusing!
• Confirmations matter, too.
  
• Most presidents don't win twice.
  
• Islamic expert defends free speech.
  
• Bipartisanship is unethical.
• Some interesting re-election numbers.
  

Economy:

• How about a rich liberal windfall tax?
  
• Profit is not a dirty word.
  
• Ridiculous foreclosure story.
  
• Broadband to nowhere.
  
• It's really a recession, but nowhere near as bad as the Great Depression.
  

Obamessiah Madness:

• Signs of weakness already appearing.
  
• Obamessiah replaces 'Hail to the Chief' by U.S. Marine Band with 'Desert Rose' on the piano (how's that for change?).
  
• Union pandering begins.
  
• Students forced to pledge to the Obamessiah.
• Chef hypocrisy.
  
• Partial list of lobbyists banned from working at the White House.
  
• Plans meeting with socialist dictator Chavez. ... here's why Chavez is bad news.
  
• Obamessiah met with Iran, Syria before the election...!
• Obama surrenders to Russia after just one week in office.
  
• Obama signals that freedom movement is dead.
  
• Will Obama support the Bush witch hunt?
  

Around the world:

• Iran launches missile with satellite (too bad Obama is dismantling our missile defense plan).
  
• Britain awakens, protests gun control laws.
  
• Hamas is killing civilians. And torturing.
  
• $10 notebook being sold in India (watch out...has anyone read Tsar by Ted Bell?).

Now you're caught up!

Quotes To Ponder

Just read and think about how these apply to what we're living right now:

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
-- Thomas Jefferson --

"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."
-- Thomas Jefferson --

"[P]eople do not ask for socialism because they know that socialism will improve their conditions, and they do not reject capitalism because they know that it is a system prejudicial to their interests. They are socialists because they believe that socialism will improve their conditions, and they hate capitalism because they believe that it harms them. They are socialists because they are blinded by envy and ignorance."
-- economist Ludwig von Mises --

Wise words.  We would do well to keep them in mind as the economic future of this great nation hangs in the balance.

There's my two cents.