Obama: Economic Policy = Economic War

Obama's economic policy equates to a war on American business.

For example, look at energy. It's not just coal that he's pledged to bankrupt, and it's not just oil production that he's acted to prevent...he's also killed nuclear energy, now, too.

One must ask how his policies have worked out so far. Take a look:

Wall Street tumbled to new lows on Thursday and shares of Citigroup, once the largest bank on Wall Street, dropped briefly below $1 as deepening worries about the financial sector and General Motors sent investors running for cover.

Shares of Bank of America fell more than 11 percent while Citigroup skidded 9 percent to close at $1.02 a share. JPMorgan Chase was down 14 percent, and Wells Fargo lost 17 percent.

Strangely enough, all of those companies have been bailed out (some more than once) by the Obamessiah. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that whole bailout thing supposed to have fixed those companies? Hmmm...

Throughout the market-wide losses, guess who's been doing quite well? Wal-Mart. They've easily surpassed their expectations with a gain of over 5%. That's got to really chap the libs, huh? I guess low prices aren't quite so out of touch as the liberals like to say, are they?

Anyway, at long last, it appears that the Senate GOP has gotten a clue and grown a spine, all at the same time. At least a little bit, anyway:

Some encouraging news breaking tonight: Senate Republicans forced a delay on consideration of the $410 billion omni-pork spending bill. Harry Reid canceled the vote after confessing that he was one vote short of the 60 needed to shut off debate and move forward.

A Hill friend says Reid had to walk out 20 minutes after the scheduled vote and end the quorum call because he couldn’t close the cloture deal.

It all came down to a combination of some parliamentary procedures and some genuine stones:

Sen. David Vitter (R, La.) just objected to a unanimous consent request, and has promised to object to everything unless he gets a vote on his amendment. The effect will be to delay the cloture vote on the omnibus. It now appears that it will not pass tonight, staffers tell me.

Vitter's amendment would force members and senators to vote for every pay increase they receive, instead of having member pay increase each year on "auto-pilot."

Given the vote counts on both sides, this is about the last best hope of the GOP for stopping this madness, so kudos to them for using all available methods. Most of the amendments being offered by the GOP are intended to strip pork out of the spending bill, and the Democrats will never allow them to pass. But, forcing a vote will require the Dems to go on record strenuously in favor of earmarks. It's a savvy move, and that's why the Dems are doing everything possible they can to prevent it from succeeding.

But it's not just the Reps that they're targeting. Liberal Democrat Jim Cramer has recently been in the crosshairs of the Obama administration, too, adding another private citizen to the list of targets and proving that the cannibalism of the Left is stronger than ever. Why has he been under fire?

CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer says if he’s on the administration’s enemies list he’s in good company because President Obama’s agenda “is crushing nest eggs around the country.”

Cramer, who says he used to make “six figure” donations to Democrats before his media contract prohibited it, described talk host Rush Limbaugh as “a genius of the medium.”

On Wednesday, Limbaugh said he and Cramer were on the White House enemies list, and predicted the administration “was going to shut Cramer up pretty soon, too, but he’ll go down with a fight.”

Limbaugh, Cramer says, was “dead right.”

“I was on my hackles when I heard White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ answer to a question about my pointed criticism of the president,” Cramer wrote in a column posted Thursday on Mainstreet.com.

Cramer has been a strong critic of Obama’s, suggesting his budgetary problems have been destroying wealth by hurting the stock market.

On Wednesday, Gibbs said: “I’m not entirely sure what he’s pointing to, to make some of the statements. And you can go back and look at any number of statements he’s made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the backup for those are, too.”

Cramer’s response to the blatant slam on Thursday: “Obama has undeniably made things worse by creating an atmosphere of fear and panic rather than an atmosphere of calm and hope.”

Cramer said he personally agrees with Obama’s agenda, but says that in the current economic circumstances it is “radical,” and should be put on hold until the business climate improves.

Fear and panic? Where have we heard that before? It's an awfully easy case to make, and more people are continuing to make it.

Powerline:

There's a school of thought that the Obama administration is deliberately damaging the economy and gutting the stock market, on the theory that doing so will make more people dependent on the government and pave the way for a far-left regime. Doug Ross makes the argument:

Consider that, in the teeth of a devastating recession, Obama has:

• Raised taxes on small businesses, the engines of entrepreneurship and job growth

• Raised the capital gains tax

• Lied about "tax cuts for 95% of Americans", offering instead $13 a week, achieved not through tax cuts, but by changing the federal withholding tables!

• Destroyed charitable giving by axing the tax breaks for 26% of all giving (or $81 billion in 2006)

• Proposed a carbon cap-and-trading scheme designed to punish oil companies and further tax consumers

Why would Obama inflict these destructive policies while the economy is collapsing? Simple. Each step strengthens the role of government in people's lives.

• Squelching the stock market kills its attractiveness as a parking lot for private capital. Combined with an increase in the capital gains tax, investors will swarm to bonds -- tax-free vehicles like municipal bonds, which benefit the growth of state and local government. And unions, of course.

• Carbon cap-and-tax will raise taxes on all Americans as the cost of goods and services will increase to address a non-existent threat.

• True tax cuts would grow the economy, which is why, of course, Obama shuns them. The last major recession was Jimmy Carter's malaise. It consisted of of double-digit inflation and unemployment. It was finally licked by across-the-board tax cuts for everyone (even the despised rich), which touched off a twenty-plus year run of prosperity.

• Charities reduce the role of government assistance for those in need. That, in Obama's world, can not be tolerated. That is why charities must be choked off and allowed to die. Especially faith-based institutions.

The only plausible explanation is that Obama's destruction of the economy is intentional.

It is based on a failed ideology that has never -- and can never -- succeed.

It is, I admit, an intriguing theory, but I don't buy it. Obama can't possibly want to be a one-term failure. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter, and Obama must know that it will happen to him, too, if his policies are perceived as dragging down the economy.

More likely the explanation is that Obama is an economic illiterate, and subscribes to the idea--which I think is rather common among Democrats--that what the government does has little impact on the economy. Obama likely believes that the economy will recover on its own, and in the meantime--in Rahm Emanuel's immortal words--he shouldn't let the crisis go to waste. So he enacts every left-wing measure that he wanted to do anyway, expecting that when the economy eventually recovers he can take credit for it, even though his policies, if anything, retarded and weakened the recovery.

That's a cynical strategy, although not quite as cynical as destroying the economy on purpose; the difference is that it may well work.

Larry Kudlow (emphasis mine):

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s address to Congress and budget. He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds. That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama’s left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements. Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spending program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next ten years.

This is nearly double the government-spending low-point reached during the late 1990s by the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton administration. While not quite as high as spending levels in Western Europe, we regrettably will be gaining on this statist-planning approach.

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

And as far as middle-class tax cuts are concerned, Obama’s cap-and-trade program will be a huge tax increase on all blue-collar workers, including unionized workers. Industrial production is plunging, and new carbon taxes will prevent production from ever recovering. While the country wants more fuel and power, cap-and-trade will deliver less.

Obama’s tax hikes will generate fewer revenues and lower economic growth. Yes, the economy will recover. But Obama’s rosy scenario of 4 percent recovery growth in the out years of his budget is not likely to occur. The combination of easy money from the Fed and below-potential economic growth is a prescription for stagflation. That’s one of the messages of the falling stock market.

Essentially, the Obama economic policies represent a major Democratic party relapse into Great Society social spending and taxing. It is a return to the LBJ/Nixon era, and a move away from the Reagan/Clinton period. House Republicans, fortunately, are 90 days sober, as they are putting up a valiant fight to stop the big-government onslaught and move the GOP back to first principles.

Noteworthy up here on Wall Street, a great many Obama supporters — especially hedge-fund types who voted for “change” — are becoming disillusioned with the performances of Obama and Treasury man Geithner. There is a growing sense of buyer’s remorse. Well then, do conservatives dare say: We told you so?

Glenn Beck:

To recap:

Talk about a crisis...
14% of small businesses fear they are going to close their doors in the next 12 months because of the Democratic policies.
It could be even higher than that.

The 2.3 trillion dollars Democrat spent to stimulate the economy not one dime has gone to small businesses so far.
100% of that 2.3 trillion dollars so far has gone to the top 1% of American companies.
Small businesses are, of course, the engine of the economy.
Small businesses have been virtually ignored by the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress (they aren't big Dem donors). As a result of the crisis, 14% of small businesses are likely to shut their doors in the next year.
** 97% of all new jobs are created by small businesses.
** 70% of our economy is created by small businesses.

Obama's economic policy equates to a war on American business, and the proof is in the pudding. Just as a reminder:



There's my two cents.

One Of The Few Outstanding Ones Left

This is incredible, an absolute must-watch:

This is Tom Coburn, one of the few outstanding Senators left. He illuminates a whole bunch of the problems in the Senate.

If only there were more like him.

There's my two cents.

Link Roundup

It's link roundup time again...

Here in the USof[soon-to-be-socialist]A:

• Cheese sandwiches and entitlement.
  
• Online news sources seen as more reliable than local papers.
  
• Who is Barney Frank?
  
• Sex slavery in America.
• Is the House GOP finally getting a clue?
  
• Re-writing mortgages.
• Even FDR's Treasury Secretary said spending was a mistake.
  
• Debunking that American imperialist notion.
  
• Absolute foreclosure madness.
  

Obamessiah news:

• Will there be a global New Deal?!
  
• Loss of control, education edition.
  
• Obama's Surgeon General nominee withdraws name...
  
• ...So do more Treasury nominations...what gives??
• High flying hypocrisy.
  
• Krauthammer on cap-n-trade and Russia.
  
• More Obama pay-offs.
• Diplomacy failure.
  
• Obama lied, the economy died.
• The Barack Obama economy.
  

Economic news:

• Economy becomes voters' number one issue.
  
• The formula of doom.
  
• Real business owners share their thoughts on Obama's policies.
  
• Head of Fidelity slams FDR, Obama hard.
  

Around the world:

• The Mexican border is a war zone, so the Dems want to take away Americans' guns.
  
• Chavez assumes control of American food plant.
• Rosanne Barr: Israel is firing rockets at itself (why does anyone listen to her, anyway?).
• Potential for new American base in Kyrgyzstan.

Have a happy Friday!

More From Uncle Jay

I've posted a video from Uncle Jay before - if you haven't watched it, you've got to check it out! Anyway, here's another instant classic:

The best thing about Uncle Jay is that he explains this stuff in terms simple enough for a child to understand. Maybe we should send his videos to our members of Congress. They could learn a lot.

There's my two cents.

On The Subject Of Distraction

Despite the rhetoric and fawning reports to the contrary, Obama's popularity is slipping.  He's already bitten off a whole lot of controversy, spending the next couple of generations' worth of taxes before those generations even become adults, releasing terrorists, furthering the culture of death, pandering uselessly to our enemies, and violating all sorts of campaign promises.  Thought Americans seem generally disposed to giving him a loose leash for a while, that will only allow further erosion of the American way of life.

Most recently, the Obama administration targeted Rush Limbaugh personally.  While it is unprecedented for the full force of the federal government to put pressure on a private citizen (before 2008), this is standard practice for Obama.  Remember Joe the Plumber?  How about Barbara West?  Rush is just the latest...but he has the resources and the platform to fight back.  Still, it looks like the attacks on Rush may serve another purpose, too: distraction.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today released the following statement on attempts by the Obama Administration to divert attention away from the economy and its massive spending spree:

 

"Political operatives in the White House are trying to divert attention away from the challenges facing our economy, the sinking stock market, and the irresponsible spending binge they are presiding over.  This diversionary tactic will not  create a single job or help a single family struggling in today's economic crisis.  That's where our focus should be.  President Obama has said we must change the way Washington operates in order to address the challenges we are facing.  In the midst of a deepening recession, White House staff should have higher priorities than this cynical strategy."

RNC Chair Michael Steele -- someone who is also caught up in a mess with Rush Limbaugh -- calls out the Democrats on it:

"I just want to make one thing very clear. Folks need to understand what's happening here, Sean. You've already talked about it. This is a systematic effort, I think, very well planned out to distract. They're saying, "Oh, yeah, prices are going up for everything you have to pay for. Oh, let's talk about Rush... Your 401K just dropped. Let's talk about Rush... The stock market it tanking. Let's talk about Rush..." We get it. We've figured it out now what the game plan is."

One particular issue on which Obama likely wishes to avoid attention is his mortgage bailout:

The Obama administration kicked off a new program Wednesday that's designed to help up to 9 million borrowers stay in their homes through refinanced mortgages or loans that are modified to lower monthly payments.

The Treasury Department released detailed guidelines designed to let the lending industry know how to enroll borrowers in the program announced last month.

"It is imperative that we continue to move with speed to help make housing more affordable and help arrest the damaging spiral in our housing markets," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.

The administration, launching what it calls the "Making Home Affordable" initiative, said that borrowers will have to provide their most recent tax return and two pay stubs, as well as an "affidavit of financial hardship" to qualify for the $75 billion loan modification program, which runs through 2012.

They want the exposure to this to stay relatively low because most Americans -- by almost two to one -- think it's a load of crap.

Even worse, we now see a previously unnoticed provision that means taxpayers will be on the hook for people's equity second mortgages, too.  That's right, those HELOCs that so many people use to draw on their home equity to buy cars, vacations, home improvements, pay off credit cards, and spend on who knows what else.  Well isn't that speeeeecial?!

Another very good reason to play the distraction card is the utter failure of Obama's push for unity.  Obviously, he gave up the idea of unity with the GOP from moment one (the non-bipartisan "I won" remark), but now he's in danger of losing Democrats, too.  Several Democrats in the House voted against his Theft/Pork bill, some Democrats are wavering on his promised card check union payback, some big name Dems are getting a big frustrated that Obama isn't honoring his pledge to fight earmarks, and he's getting some significant pushback from Dems on his proposal to cap charitable deductions.  Is something happening to that legendary Democrat lock-step?  Maybe, maybe not.  Either way, it's not exactly a vote of confidence for the Great Uniter he promised he would be.

While Obama bludgeons this country into a hard swerve to the radical Left, many Americans are still being generous (or are oblivious) at this point.  But, enacting program after program that suffers from two to one opposition by the American people will eventually snowball to the point where Obama and the Democrats pay a severe price at the polls.  I just hope that happens sooner rather than later.  The country can't afford much more Leftist distraction and destruction from its own President.

There's my two cents.

Is This An Example Of Creating Jobs, Or Saving Them?

From Interactive Investor (h/t The Jawa Report):

Alliant Energy Corp's Interstate Power and Light Co on Thursday said it canceled plans to construct the proposed 649-megawatt Sutherland 4 coal-fired power plant in Iowa. The Madison, Wisconsin-based company said in a release it canceled the project based on several factors including the current economic and financial climate, increasing uncertainty regarding regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and the terms placed on the plant by regulators.

"When combined with ... Wisconsin's denial of the proposed expansion of ... Nelson Dewey last December, the decision not to move forward with Sutherland 4 removes the option of adding new coal-based capacity to meet future energy needs," said Bill Harvey, Chairman, President, and CEO of Alliant.

The company planned to start construction of the estimated $1.8 billion Sutherland 4 in the first quarter of 2009 with commercial operation seen in 2013.

Power producers have canceled more than 90 coal-fired projects totaling more than 55,000 MW of capacity for various reasons, over the past few years, according to data from the Sierra Club. There are still about 70 coal plants under construction or in development in the United States.

The company believed Sutherland 4 was the most cost effective option to meet growing customer demand and help the environment, a spokesman for Alliant said.

To meet the need for base load power, the company would now likely have to turn to natural gas, the spokesman said noting gas is more expensive and volatile than coal.

Sutherland 4 would have allowed Alliant to reduce its environmental impact by retiring and/or reducing the usage of older plants, the spokesman said.

It also would have allowed Alliant to reduce power purchases from other generating companies. The company currently buys about a third of the power it delivers, which helps keep customer costs higher than some neighboring states with whom it competes for industrial customers.

So, Wisconsin is running out of power, and Alliant wants to build a new coal plant to fill that need.  The United States is, of course, the 'Saudi Arabia of coal', meaning we have coal running out of our ears and can utilize it to power our nation for decades -- if not centuries -- to come.  But, with the federal government taking aim at energy production (remember, Obama pledged to bankrupt the coal industry) and looking to implement a crippling cap-and-trade system that will drive supply down and prices up, it just isn't going to happen.

Thank you, President Obama.  Tell us, if you please...is this an example of your policies creating jobs, or saving them?  Because I can't tell.  Seems to me this is actually preventing them from being created, but what do I know?

Unfortunately, we should expect to see a whole lot more of this happening in the coming months.

There's my two cents.

Wonderboy Disappoints

From Michelle Malkin:

They said he was uniquely qualified. A wunderkind. The Man with the Plan. Too big to fail.

Now we learn from the on-the-ball MSM that tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is flailing about and in over his head.

Who's shocked?

For five weeks, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has battled the worst economic crisis in generations with no key deputies in place. That's made for a rocky debut for the man President Barack Obama put in charge of addressing the financial crisis.

With an awkward first television appearance, a bank rescue plan that lacked promised specifics and two restructured bailouts that raised taxpayer risk, Geithner has failed to calm financial markets desperate for answers.

Critics say part of the problem is that Geithner is flying solo: Not one of his top 17 deputies has been named, let alone confirmed. And without senior leadership, lower-level Treasury employees can't make decisions or represent the government in crucial conversations with banks and others.

As Geithner strives to address the financial crisis, advance Obama's agenda and work with foreign leaders to stave off economic disaster, he's assembled a 50-person "shadow cabinet" of would-be appointees. Those people have received hall passes and can advise Geithner, but they lack any authority.

"Everyone would think it's a travesty if the Defense Department didn't have a lot of their people in place, because you're in a crisis fighting a couple of wars," said Tony Fratto, who was a Treasury spokesman under President George W. Bush. "But Tim Geithner is fighting wars on a few fronts himself, and he doesn't have the generals there to help him."

So, he's chasing after international tax avoiders by himself.

And now, the tax cheat is assailing oil and gas companies for taking advantage of tax loopholes. No wonder he can't get anyone to staff up underneath him. Everything he does is a punchline:

U.S. oil and natural gas producing companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday.

It was one of the sharpest attacks yet on the oil and gas industry by a top Obama administration official, reinforcing the White House stance that new U.S. energy policy will focus on promoting renewable energy sources like wind and solar power and rely less on traditional fossil fuels like oil as America tackles climate change.

"We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don't think that's good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country," Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House's proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.

The Obama administration's budget would levy an excise tax on oil and natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, raising $5.3 billion in revenue from 2011 to 2019.

This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf would only affect those companies enjoying a loophole that allows them to avoid paying royalties on the energy supplies they drill

A punchline, and a giant, blinking, neon warning sign for the economic problem train that is about to flatten this country.

Hope!  Change!

On a related note, despite (*cough* because of *cough*) the Obamessiah's and Wonderboy's best efforts, the DJIA plunged another 281 points today.

There's my two cents.

Out Of Control And Powerless

Never thought you'd hear those words describing Barack Obama, huh? Nevertheless, that looks to be the case:

Eli Lake reports in the Washington Times that the White House never approved the appointment of Chas Freeman:

“Nor did Mr. Blair seek the White House's approval before he announced the appointment of Mr. Freeman, said Mr. Blair's spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi.

"The director did not seek the White House's approval," Ms. Morigi said. "In addition to his formal background security investigation, we expect that the White House will undertake the typical vetting associated with senior administration assignments."

This is pretty amazing. One has to wonder how relations are these days between Rahm Emanuel and Blair. Jennifer Rubin writes that now that we know he wasn't even vetted it will be even easier for Obama to dump Freeman. What's taking so long?

There's a very good reason that Obama didn't resoundingly endorse this guy - he's so bad that there's bipartisan opposition to him already! After all, look at this Fox report:

So far this story has been largely confined to the blogs and op-ed pages, but today the Wall Street Journal ran a straight news piece on Hoekstra's letter to Blair. I expect some major developments on Freeman's appointment tomorrow, developments which should prompt the New York Times and Washington Post to actually report on the one Obama appointment that's so egregious it's precipitated bipartisan opposition. This story is building, not receding.

Couldn't be inexperience or incompetence, could it? Nah, not for the Obamessiah. Here's a much more detailed report that provides the icing on the cake:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that the Inspector General at the Office of National Intelligence has already begun his investigation into Chas Freeman's financial ties to Saudi Arabia and China. Eli Lake reports today in an extremely thorough piece for the Washington Times that those ties "could oblige [Freeman] to recuse himself from some matters regarding China as well as Myanmar." Freeman might also be asked to recuse himself from matters involving the Saudis, who largely underwrote his Middle East Policy Council.

Perhaps the most stunning revelation in Lake's report is that the White House never vetted Freeman. The White House was never even made aware of Blair's pick to head the National Intelligence Council according to spokesman Wendy Morigi. "The director did not seek the White House's approval," Morigi said. She added that "In addition to his formal background security investigation, we expect that the White House will undertake the typical vetting associated with senior administration assignments." This would explain why Robert Gibbs pleaded ignorance of the whole matter when questioned by Jake Tapper earlier this week about Freeman's financial ties and controversial views.

It's not clear that Freeman has even passed the background checks and received the security clearances necessary to hold the post he's been offered, but what does seem clear is that were he not a political appointee, Freeman would struggle to obtain the necessary clearances. His financial ties to unsavory regimes are too many and too large. Also, as the editors at the Washington Times write today in a piece tied to Lake's reporting, "Freeman would not enjoy the trust of our key allies in the Middle East and Asia." There are very real concerns that his appointment could stymie the flow of intelligence between the United States and states like Israel and Taiwan.

Lake also points out the undeniable hypocrisy of an Obama administration appointment with such close ties to CNOOC, the Chinese state-owned oil company. Before the election, the Obama campaign targeted Charlie Black, a senior adviser to the McCain campaign, for taking on CNOOC as a client. It was the firm's investments in Iran that prompted a press release titled "What McCain Won't Tell You About Iran" and stated that "many of his top advisors lobbied for companies doing business with Iran or otherwise have a vested interest in Iran." That company was CNOOC and at the time Chas Freeman was serving on its international advisory board. Just last year, with Freeman still serving on that board, the Treasury Department issued sanctions on Burma that implicated CNOOC for its links to individuals involved in drug trafficking and clashes with workers in that country. And in 2007, CNOOC's chief financial officer responded to calls for a boycott of Burma military junta by telling the Wall Street Journal the firm would increase its investments because, "If we pull out, then we can't successfully invest our money in terms of exploration success."

So far the Washington Post and the New York Times have failed to run a single news story on the controversy surrounding Freeman's appointment to a key intelligence post. The AP is busy writing about Sasha and Malia's new swing set. Perhaps an official investigation, launched with bipartisan support in Congress and involving a steaming pile of political hypocrisy, will be enough to warrant a report.

So what do you imagine the call between Dennis Blair and Rahm Emanuel was like when Rahm finally learned of this appointment and what kind of embarassment it was going to cause the White House?

Out of control and powerless? Looking a bit that way, don't you think? I'm guessing the delay in dumping Freeman is due to the Obama administration figuring out the least damaging way to spin this debacle. Stay tuned.

There's my two cents.

Oh, This Could Be It

I posted earlier this week about the stark difference in reception from groups of soldiers when visited by President Bush and President Obama. I wrote the following in that post:

Maybe it's because Democrat Presidents (at least all the recent ones) rarely do anything but talk down the military and cut their budget. Maybe it's because of Obama's pledges to disarm America and have tea and crumpets with the very same thug dictators who are sending out suicide bombers to kill them. Maybe it's because Democrats try to keep military ballots out of every election.

Regardless, the difference is stark.

This might be another reason:

I guess they just don't like and trust their current CommanderInsulter-in-chief.

There's my two cents.

Happy Happy Joy Joy Cap-n-Trade Madness

Why do I continue to hammer away at this topic? Because it's that important to the future of our country, at least if we want it to be healthy and prosperous. Read on for more on this disastrous component of the Obamessiah's plans for America:

Our calculations suggest that consumption under the constraints posed by Lieberman-Warner's cap-and-trade regime is equivalent to a constant (in percentage terms) consumption decrease of around 0.8%-1% each year, starting today and continuing to 2050. At first glance, a consumption decrease of one percent may appear trivial. However, as the 1% per year decreases compound, the welfare losses are substantial in the aggregate. ...

We find that a mitigation path consistent with Lieberman-Warner's provisions is equivalent to a permanent tax increase for the average American household. This increase is projected to amount to an additional $1100 in taxes in 2008. Moreover, this cap-and-trade "tax" increases over time in real terms from about $1400 to $2000 during 2015-2030 and approximately $2000 to $3000 in 2030-2050. The de facto tax increase becomes quite significant when one considers the average American household spends about $2500 on food annually....

Cap-and-trade will burden households with higher gasoline prices. Table 8 shows the percent difference between the baseline gasoline price and the cap-and-trade adjusted price. All models and scenarios demonstrate that Lieberman-Warner will increase the price of gasoline above the reference scenario price but with large amounts of variation. The CRA predicts that gas prices rise 145% above the reference scenario in 2015. ...

The assumptions driving the price of carbon allowances also affect employment. A higher predicted carbon allowance price gives producers a tighter margin and they are forced to shed jobs to maintain profit levels. The estimates of job losses range from hundreds of thousands to millions.

Powerline adds this:

The harmful consequences of the Democrats' cap and trade legislation are especially tragic in view of the fact that it will have no perceptible impact on the world's climate. Here are a few facts about the "pollutant" carbon dioxide--the only "pollutant," to my knowledge, that is necessary to human, animal and plant life:

First, do you know that carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere is
Þ only slightly more than 1/3rd of 1/10th of 1 percent?
Þ just recovering from the lowest level in the history of the earth?
Þ the source of carbon for all life forms, on land or in the sea?
Þ only slightly above the suffocation level for green plants?
Þ a fraction of the level for which evolution designed plants?
Þ so low as to cause some people breathing problems?
Þ increased by 130 times and more when administered to sick patients?
Þ considered, thanks to Al Gore, a pollutant by the U.S. Supreme Court?

The other component here is that, even if the U.S. implements every piece of what the wackos insist, it will still be negligible. Furthermore, even if the U.S. slays itself in the name of green-ness, India and China have made it clear they have no intention of doing so; if you're one of those who believes climate change is caused by man, those are your problem countries, not us. We're very clean in our processing of fossil fuels; they're not.

I want to re-emphasize the most important piece of this legislation: it will shrink the economy. As Hot Air says:

Loss of GDP means a retracting economy, less opportunity, fewer jobs, and a decline in living standards. The Marshall Institute offers the question of whether the US wants that as a tradeoff for the questionable effects of limiting carbon-dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the present administration and its backers won’t acknowledge that as the choice before us, preferring to paint rosy pictures of increased living standards and prosperity while the government chokes off energy production, a contradiction they claim to solve with an explosion of “green energy” from sources that don’t exist at the moment.

How do we know that? Even Europe, which led the “green” movement, has discovered that stopping conventional energy production doesn’t magically produce realistic, mass-production alternatives.

But the bad news gets worse. Not only will the GDP drop over both the short and long terms, but the increased price of energy will result in substantial costs to all Americans — not just Obama’s 5% at the top

Bottom line: YOU WILL BE HIT HARD BY THIS!

Spread the word, and never let it be said that this is anything other than an Obama/Democrat plan.

There's my two cents.

Another Smoking Ban Issue

This is a post especially for local readers.  Even for those living outside Liberty, though, there's a greater point at stake, so don't think this doesn't apply to you, too.  It's only a matter of time.  Anyway, here's a message from a local business owner that a friend sent me to share:

Many of you are aware that the Liberty City Counsel has been debating an important issue over the last two years regarding a Smoking Ban.

The City Counsel has a few different proposals. My concern as a business owner is the prohibition of smoking in Bars and Restaurants. This will affect only few businesses in Liberty. However, the effect will be dramatic.

This could put small businesses out of business and find several employees out of work, employees that have families that depend on them to provide a sustainable living. When non-smoking advocates speak of the yearning for bars and restaurants to be non-smoking, they assume that those same businesses will still be there. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen.

Use Kansas City as an example; several small businesses have closed their doors and have lost everything they have work so hard to create. Big corporate companies have continued, but many small businesses have shut down.

As a consumer I have choices of where I spend my money. I do not need government deciding that for me.

City Counsel is days away from making a decision that will impact our community dramatically. Next Monday this comes to a vote and we will have a Smoking Ordinance. The impact will be determined by the extent of the ordinance.

Please take a couple of minutes out of your busy schedule and send Mayor Steinkamp and the City Counsel an email. Let them know how you feel. We need as much support as possible.

I've blogged on this very topic before, but it bears recapping again.  I'm not a smoker.  I don't like being around smoke.  I don't generally go to restaurants where smoking is allowed.  But I emphatically believe that restaurant owners should be able to allow smoking in their establishments.

It's not an issue of public health because this is private property.  Since when does the government get to dictate what a private citizen does on his or her private property?  And don't run down the trail of is-everything-legal-just-because-it's-on-private-property...that's a completely different argument.  If smoking was actually illegal, that would be a valid argument (one I would agree with).  If smoking is so bad, then it should be outlawed altogether, like meth or cocaine...but since it's not, any efforts to impose smoking ordinances on private property are completely unacceptable.  This is nanny state-ism at its thuggish ugliest, and it cannot be allowed.  The government can't legislate stupid or risky decisions.

If a restaurant owner wants to prohibit smoking in his establishment, that's his decision to make.  He'll lose smoking customers, but he'll probably gain non-smoking customers.  The opposite is also true.  That's the beauty of freedom - the restaurant owner can make whichever decision is in the best interest of his own business.  Government should keep its nose completely out of it.  No one is forcing any person to visit that restaurant, so everyone who goes there does so by choice.  Thus, they really don't have much grounds for complaints about the smoke.

So, please do take a moment to contact the Mayor and City Council on this, and feel free to do so even if you don't live here - e-mail addresses for all of them can be found here.  If you're not sure what to say, feel free to copy from the message above and my blog.  I don't mind at all if you use my words, and I would doubt the business owner would, either.  This is important because there's a bigger principle at stake: nothing less than the concept of individual freedom and responsibility.

The particular issue may be something you don't condone or do yourself today -- like smoking -- but once the mentality of legislating stupid or risky decisions sets in, nothing will be safe.  If you don't think it can happen, you'll wake up one day to find out that it already has, and it will then be too late to stop it for the thing you do condone and do yourself.

There's my two cents.

Claire McCaskill: Tax Cheat???

While it's no surprise that there's another tax cheat close to Obama, it is a bit surprising that the latest one revealed is Missouri's own Claire McCaskill. Hillbuzz:

Claire McCaskill is, bar none, the absolute worst United States Senator we’ve had in at least a generation.

That’s really saying something.

Because, in recent years, we’ve had Senators who’ve embarrassed themselves in bathrooms, ridiculed American tourists to Washington as “smelly”, been blackmailed by rent boys, gotten caught in prostitution stings, and been indicted for various and sundry things too myriad to recount. And that’s not even mentioning the senior Senator from Massachusetts, who thinks Oldsmobiles are boats.

And yet, somehow, Missouri’s own Claire Bear still manages to be the most terrible person in a body that truly sets a new standard for terrible, on a regular and daily basis (especially when its members vote on Trillions in spending without bothering to read or understand what they’re actually voting Yes on).

McCaskill’s been outed as a tax cheat.

And not a very smart one at that, considering she just co-sponsored Carl Levin’s legislation to close tax shelters in Switzerland and the Bahamas to US companies, when McCaskill herself has been hiding up to a million dollars in one such Bahamian tax shelter, deliberately avoiding taxes.

While serving as a United States Senator.

Passing laws that apply to other people, but not her.

The Kansas City Star exposed this hypocrisy, and the abject stupidity of McCaskill (of which volumes could be written), whose zeal for attention in co-sponsoring legislation eclipsed any common sense this woman presumably possesses (and that’s a major presumption indeed).

Why do gleeful Obama supporters have so many tax problems?

Why are they so fascinated with hiding their money in places like the Bahamas instead of paying taxes on their public salaries?

Why does the voting public in Missouri hate itself so much by electing Claire “my kids bugged me to do it” McCaskill to represent them?

Show Me State, tell us the answer to that.

Hillbuzz, let's just say that not everyone in the Show Me State voted for her!!! While she's not as bad as some Democrats (for example, she just voted in favor of an amendment to strip all earmarks out of the Omnibus spending bill; she's also fairly strong on illegal immigration), she's a full-fledged Kool-Aid drinking Obot.

Thus the tax cheating, apparently. I wonder what Cabinet post she was going to be nominated for?

There's my two cents.

Economic Update

Some disturbing news from Special Guests via Gateway Pundit:

Has the US reached the tipping point from a Recession to a Depression?

According to the latest poll, The New York Daily News reports that 55% say yes or are unsure and 45% of Americans say no.

But like in any election or poll you have a certain block of 'undecideds’ and with this poll there are 17% say who said they are not sure but a whopping 38% said: YES, that we are already in a Depression—and the numbers keep skewing toward additional yeses with each passing day.

So, what does this all mean? Are these mere numbers? What impact will the current daily onslaught of negative financial headlines have on the economy?

Many economists say there is one single word that drives the economy and that word is: CONFIDENCE.

The question is: Do Americans have confidence that the economy has bottomed out or do they believe it is about to get worse? And if worse, how much worse?

While the numbers aren't good, they're certainly not to the level of the Great Depression. So, the fact that 55% of Americans believe we're in one or are unsure is startling. Or is it? The obvious question, of course, is where are all those Americans getting the idea of already being in a Depression? Hmmm...

But don't worry...the Obamessiah will still save the day! Remember his campaign pledge to go 'line by line' through the budget and cut wasteful spending? Well, he's finally getting started on that:

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the U.S. government was paying too much for things it did not need and ordered a crackdown on spending "plagued by massive cost overruns and outright fraud."

The Democrat, under fire from Republicans for the $3.5 trillion price tag for his 2010 budget plan, also took aim at predecessor George W. Bush and noted the cost of government contracts had doubled to more than half a trillion dollars over the past eight years.

...

"The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over," Obama told reporters in a briefing on his reforms.

Whew! It's a good thing he's getting tough on those eeeeevil pork projects! That's right...let's cut that wasteful defense budget to shreds! Ace of Spades really nailed it when he said that "[w]e can spend millions on studying the correlation between estrus and flatulence in bi-curious gophers but talk about building an F-22 and suddenly it's 'wasteful.'"

But, that's just the beginning of the recovery plan. Also included is the disastrous cap-and-trade plan to force energy prices higher by punishing oil companies for the hoax of global warming:

Arctic sea ice growth finished the year in 2008 at the same level as 1979.
The oceans have been cooling since 2003.
Sea ice is growing at the fastest pace on record.
Greenland's glaciers are stabilizing.
There are growing fears of a coming freeze worse than the ice age.
Alaskan Sea Glaciers are advancing for the first time in 250 years.
And, for the second straight year the Earth is, in fact, cooling... not warming.
This US Climate Map October 2007-November 2008 showed that temperatures were well below normal throughout the US in 2008.

It looks like Al Gore was a bit off in his prediction that North Pole will be completely gone in 5 years.

But, it doesn't matter to the Obama Administration...
Today tax cheat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced the Obama Administration intends to punish oil companies for non-existent global warming.

"We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don't think that's good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country," Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House's proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.

And, of course, there's the overall stimulus plan to consider. Well, maybe you'd better not consider that, because Obama's own Congressional Budget Office is saying that his stimulus plan will reduce output in the long run. All told, the Democrats are rapidly bankrupting this country, a feat unmatched in American history:

Even with two wars, 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Clinton Recession, Bush couldn't do that.
But, it took Democrats less than 40 days to blow over a trillion dollars.
That's some work.

Hey, he's the Obamessiah - he has superhuman powers! Apparently, one of them is spending money that doesn't yet exist in copious amounts that defy true comprehension.

Hope! Change!

Actually, I think we can hope that he'll leave us with more than a little change.

There's my two cents.

What Happens When Government Runs Banks?

The Heritage Foundation offers this analysis that I think is worth passing along:

The Obama Administration finally seems to have noticed that all of their policy announcements so far have only fueled economic despair, not alleviated it. So President Barack Obama took the rare opportunity yesterday of offering some investment advice to the American people: "What you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal, if you've got a long-term perspective on it." In other words, Obama wants Americans to Buy! Buy! Buy!

But before you rush out and follow President Obama's investment advice, consider this: last week Obama's Treasury Department announced that the government would take a 36% stake in Citigroup by converting $25 billion of its preferred shares into common stock. The Treasury paid $3.25 a share for the stock last week, which after a weekend's worth of government nationalization rumors fell to $1.20 by Monday. So to recap, President Obama managed to lose billions of taxpayer invested dollars in just a few days. But that's not even the worst part. So far the government has poured $50 billion into Citigroup. Meanwhile, Citi's market capitalization is only $6.54 billion. In other words, taxpayers could have bought Citi eight times over already for all the money they have thrown at it.

We are in no way suggesting that President Obama should have, or should now nationalize Citigroup. What the Citi story does highlight though, are the perils and conflicts that make massive and intrusive government intervention in the economy a disaster for all involved. Congress has no idea how to run a bank, and that is why all the political posturing in the House and Senate is completely undermining the stabilization of the banking sector. Meanwhile, the private sector has no incentive to create jobs since they are facing a $1.3 trillion tax hike in the coming decade. Then there is the $646 billion tax hike every American will see in their energy bills from President Obama's promised carbon capping plans. It is no wonder that nobody is taking Obama's investment advice.

The only sector of the economy that is sure to grow under Obama is the public sector. Our own Center for Data Analysis estimates that President Obama's budget will require over 250,000 new government employees. Other expert estimates put the number at 100,000. Another big winner under Obama's big government: lobbyists. Democratic staffers are now commanding $350,000 to $450,000 salaries at prestigious K Street lobbying firms. At least somebody is benefiting from this Obama economy.

The key to economic recovery is the banking industry.  Unfortunately for America, Obama is aiming squarely to take over that industry.  He's already got a huge stake in Citi, the largest financial institution in the country, and hooks into hundreds of other banks that have taken TARP or bailout money.  Once these companies and banks give the federal government control over their operations and assets, one of the biggest moves in socializing the country will be complete through control of the flow of money.

Heritage's illustration above is what has been said on this blog several times - government will run these companies according to political whims rather than business calculations, and that means it will be run very, very poorly.  After all, the federal government has spent $50 billion on a company that is currently worth less than $7 billion, and it still has only a 36% ownership share!  Incompetence at its political finest.

So, the question is: how is this good for business?  If it's not good for business, then it's not good for either the employees or the customers.

And that's what we're facing in all manner of companies and industries now, if Obama gets his way.

There's my two cents.

Layoffs in the Senate

Comic gold from The Endive (minor language warning)...some excerpts:

Deep in debt and facing a multi-trillion dollar deficit, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced today that the United States Senate will lay off 41 of its 100 members.

"We're so deep in debt that we just can't afford all of this staff anymore," said Reid, "It's irresponsible to keep Senators here from inconsequential states like Georgia, Alabama or Arizona when we have to start worrying about closing up shop altogether. We wish them all best of luck on their future endeavors."

Many of the laid off senators took the news in stride, looking forward to other opportunities.

"I've always wanted to try my hand at driving a forklift," said Judd Gregg, former senator from New Hampshire, "Maybe I'll be a roofer. I love heights."

...

Reid did not give any indications as to whether or not the former Senators could hope to get their jobs back when things improved.

"I'm not sure if we'll be able to hire them back," said Reid, "First we need to find a few trillion dollars, but if we're making money when we have fewer employees, I don't know that we'll need to hire them back."

"I commend the Senate on doing something as difficult as making layoffs," said President Barack Obama, "Hopefully the House of Representatives will also consider running leaner in order to urge our country back to profitability. I think the senators who got laid off are good, albeit unessential, people and they will find jobs thanks to my stimulus package. As a matter of fact, we allocated millions of dollars towards habitats for sexually confused panda bears. Those habitats will need building and cleaning up on a regular basis. Sexually confused pandas are a messy bunch, so there's no shortage of work. We've had 30,000 job applications already, so get in line, guys."

The only thing that's not funny about this is that I think the Democrats would actually do this if they thought they could get away with it.

There's my two cents.

Hilarity Ensues

Michael Ramirez in a political cartoonist of the highest degree. I've posted his cartoons several times before, but here are a few more recent ones that I got a kick out of:









Check out his archive here.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Ramirez's word count is off the charts.

There's my two cents.

Russian Update

Obama is still trying to surrender to Russia:

Days after the November election Russia threatened to deploy short-range missiles near Poland and the Czech Republic if the US did not scrap missile defense system agreements with the two allies ...

Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev warned Wednesday, setting a combative tone that clashed with global goodwill over Barack Obama's election -AP.

Today the Obama Administration scrapped the missile defense agreements with US allies Poland and the Czech Republic.
Ria Novosti reported:

Washington has told Moscow that Russian help in resolving Iran's nuclear program would make its missile shield plans for Europe unnecessary, a Russian daily said on Monday, citing White House sources.

U.S. President Barack Obama made the proposal on Iran in a letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, Kommersant said, referring to unidentified U.S. officials.

Iran's controversial nuclear program was cited by the U.S. as one of the reasons behind its plans to deploy a missile base in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic. The missile shield has been strongly opposed by Russia, which views it as a threat to its national security. The dispute has strained relations between the former Cold War rivals, already tense over a host of other differences.

The leaders have exchanged letters and had a telephone conversation since Obama was sworn into office in January, Kommersant said. The first high-level Russia-U.S. meeting will take place later this week, when Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Geneva.

I guess this is an example of what we can expect from that 'tough diplomacy' of the Obama administration. Ace of Spades comments:

Um, among other problems:

1) Iran wants its nukes as pretty much its highest national priority and "diplomacy" in such a context is entirely futile. It's like someone offering Israelis some really nice water-processing plants if only they'll give up on the state of Israel.

2) Because Obama is determined to let Iran have its nukes, it will have its nukes, and hence he just gave away a critical part of defending against its nukes.

And remember, if Iran doesn't respond to Obama's tough diplomacy, they'll face some even more tough diplomacy from him.

Some other problems:

(1) Abandoning missile defense for Europe will change long-standing U.S. policy toward NATO which held that the European and North American members of the alliance should have the same defense capability; i.e., Poland, Germany, and Britain should have the same defense shield as the United States and Canada. Does Obama wish to send the message that we sell out allies for diplomatic concessions? Perhaps that's what counts as progressive nowadays.

(2) Russia has already responded by offering to assist Iran increase its gasoline exports; i.e., make itself less vulnerable to financial pressure. “Nothing is worse than the tendency among many activist-journalists, for example at the Associated Press, now to only report half the story.”

This would be a major problem, except that Russia said no thanks:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that it was "not productive" to link talks over a US missile defense system in Europe with Iran's suspected nuclear program as proposed by Washington.

Well, DUH!!!

This whole thing shows yet again the naivete and dangerous incompetence of Barack Obama when it comes to foreign policy. He simply doesn't have a clue what he's doing, or he wouldn't have even thought of offering to dismantle our allies' missile defense system for an outcome that our enemies refuse to accept.

Hope and change, everyone. Hope and change.

There's my two cents.

Do The Debate! Do The Debate!

Politico:

Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House.

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.

Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.

In response, Limbaugh has now offered to debate Obama -- one of the best orators of our time, mind you -- about any topic of his choice. If Obama wins in such a forum, of course, he will have eliminated his biggest opposition. Limbaugh has even offered to pay for the entire event so that taxpayers won't have to foot the bill (transcript will be posted later).

Oh, come on come on come one...DO THE DEBATE!!! :)

Yeah, right. But wouldn't it be fun if Obama actually did?

There's my two cents.

School Voucher Tight Spot

William McGurn highlights something I blogged about a couple days ago: school vouchers in Washington, DC. Looks like it's getting personal for the President:

Dick Durbin has a nasty surprise for two of Sasha and Malia Obama's new schoolmates. And it puts the president in an awkward position.

The children are Sarah and James Parker. Like the Obama girls, Sarah and James attend the Sidwell Friends School in our nation's capital. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford the school without the $7,500 voucher they receive from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Unfortunately, a spending bill the Senate takes up this week includes a poison pill that would kill this program -- and with it perhaps the Parker children's hopes for a Sidwell diploma.

Sarah and James Parker attend Sidwell Friends School with the president's daughters, thanks to a voucher program Sen. Dick Durbin wants to end.

Known as the "Durbin language" after the Illinois Democrat who came up with it last year, the provision mandates that the scholarship program ends after the next school year unless Congress reauthorizes it and the District of Columbia approves. The beauty of this language is that it allows opponents to kill the program simply by doing nothing. Just the sort of sneaky maneuver that's so handy when you don't want inner-city moms and dads to catch on that you are cutting one of their lifelines.

Deborah Parker says such a move would be devastating for her kids. "I once took Sarah to Roosevelt High School to see its metal detectors and security guards," she says. "I wanted to scare her into appreciation for what she has at Sidwell." It's not just safety, either. According to the latest test scores, fewer than half of Roosevelt's students are proficient in reading or math.

That's the reality that the Parkers and 1,700 other low-income students face if Sen. Durbin and his allies get their way. And it points to perhaps the most odious of double standards in American life today: the way some of our loudest champions of public education vote to keep other people's children -- mostly inner-city blacks and Latinos -- trapped in schools where they'd never let their own kids set foot.

This double standard is largely unchallenged by either the teachers' unions or the press corps. For the teachers' unions, it's a fairly cold-blooded calculation. They're willing to look the other way at lawmakers who chose private or parochial schools for their own kids -- so long as these lawmakers vote in ways that keep the union grip on the public schools intact and an escape hatch like vouchers bolted.

As for the press, complaints tend to be limited to the odd column or editorial. That's one reason it was so startling back in 2000 when Time magazine's Tamala Edwards, during a live televised debate at Harlem's Apollo Theater, asked Al Gore about the propriety of sending his own son to private school while opposing any effort to extend the same choice to African-Americans without his financial wherewithal. As CNN's Jeff Greenfield would note later in the same debate, Mr. Gore "bristled" when Ms. Edward's put the question to him.

Virginia Walden-Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, wouldn't mind making a few more politicians bristle. "I'd like to see a reporter stand up at one of those nationally televised press conferences and ask President Obama what he thinks about what his own party is doing to keep two innocent kids from attending the same school where he sends his?"

As for Sidwell, the school has welcomed the Opportunity Scholarship program. Though headmaster Bruce Stewart declines to get into either politics or the Obamas, he says that a program that gives parents more educational options for their children is not only good for their kids, it's good for the community. Plainly he's not doing it for the money: Even the full D.C. voucher covers only a small fraction of Sidwell's actual costs.

All of which leaves the First Parent with a decision to make: Will he stand up for those like his own children's schoolmates -- or stand in front of the Sidwell door with Mr. Durbin? It's hard to imagine white congressional Democrats going up against him if he called them out on an issue where they have put him in this embarrassing position. This, after all, is a man who has written of the "anger" he felt as a community organizer, when his attempts to improve things for Chicago school kids ran up against an "uncomfortable fact."

"The biggest source of resistance [to reform]," he said, "was rarely talked about . . . namely, the uncomfortable fact that every one of our churches was filled with teachers, principals, and district superintendents. Few of these educators sent their own children to public schools; they knew too much for that. But they would defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before."

Let's just say that Sarah and James Parker -- and thousands just like them -- could use some of that same Obama anger right about now.

Though it would be a tragic outcome, somehow I'm guessing that the Parkers will have to join the crowd of people who have been thrown under the bus for suddenly becoming politically inconvenient to the Obamessiah. This should be an interesting one to watch.

There's my two cents.

Hope-n-Change Hypocrisy: Taxes

There's my two cents.