Americans Aren't Brain Dead part XLVIII

Poll: Stimulus not helping Americans personally - Austin Business Journal:: "More than three-quarters of Americans say the economic stimulus is not helping their financial situation and another 57 percent say it is not helping the overall economy, according to a new poll.

Sixty-eight percent of those questioned in a survey of 1,010 adults by the Gallup Inc. for the USA Today newspaper said the Obama administration’s stimulus has not impacted their personal finances, while 13 percent said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has hurt. Eighteen percent said federal economic efforts have made things better."

Starting out your administration by hawking and signing a $787B fraud is not a good way to build trust.

I Have a Rule I Live By

I have a rule I have lived by my entire adult life - I don't make important decisions with a gun held to my head. If the great deal or the great job can't wait for me to carefully consider my decision, then by default, I pass it up. This has saved me from many a timeshare sales pitch, overpriced autos, unsuitable jobs, and bad investments.

Congress and the American people would do well to heed my rule in the face of the President's high pressure sales tactics. Our healthcare system is too important to radically change it in such a rush that we don't even have time to know what we're getting, much less consider whether we want it or not.

Further, Americans should ask themselves why the President and Nancy Pelosi want to do this in such a big hurry. Most of those high pressure salesmen I disappointed over the years had only one reason for giving me a deadline - they knew that if I had walked away from the emotion of the moment and studied the deal they were offering, I wouldn't have taken it.

I suspect the motivation is the same with health care. The President and his party know that, given time to understand and dispassionately consider their plan, most Americans would opt against it.

Let's Misprepresent What's Going On In Mexico to Prop Up Our Anti-Gun Agenda at Home

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- The Guns Of Calderon:

"Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of 'assault rifles' that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

'These kinds of guns — the auto versions of these guns — they are not coming from El Paso,' Head told Fox News. 'They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S.'"

This canard (repeated mantra-like by the administration) that 90% of the guns used by drug criminals in Mexico comes from the US really galls me. We can have a debate on assault rifles, but stop using the crisis in Mexico to drive your misinformation campaign.