Obama the Thinker? - WSJ.com

Obama the Thinker? - WSJ.com: "Occam's razor suggests that Obama is a mere conformist--someone who absorbed every left-wing platitude he encountered in college and never seems to have seriously questioned any of them. Kloppenberg characterizes Obama as a skeptic, not a true believer. We're not sure he has an active enough mind to be either one."

Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’ | CNSnews.com

Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’ | CNSnews.com

'Nuff said.

One Year After Obama Wins Nobel, World Looks for Signs of Peace - ABC News

One Year After Obama Wins Nobel, World Looks for Signs of Peace - ABC News: "One year after the Nobel prize jury made its controversial decision to award President Obama the prize for world peace, a larger jury is still waiting for the president to live up to those lofty expectations. 

Even some of Obama's allies -- like former Nobel laureates Al Gore and Jimmy Carter -- declined to assess his performance in fulfilling what the peace prize citation said was his 'vision' of world harmony.

The one year anniversary of Obama's prize comes as fighting is escalating in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq continues to smolder and Obama struggles to keep fledgling Middle East peace talks from collapsing. Drones are firing missiles in unprecedened numbers and confrontations with Iran and North Korea are hotter than ever.

In addition, wars rage in Somalia, Africa, Asia and South America, fueled by religion, tribal hatreds, poverty and piracy."

'nuff said

The Pot Calls the Kettle Black

Obama backs off charge that foreign money is funding Chamber ads | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "President Obama on Sunday stepped back from categorical charges he made earlier this week that foreign money was funding conservative TV campaign ads, telling a rally in Philadelphia only that such a scenario was possible.

The softening of Obama’s language reflects the impact of a Saturday report on the issue by the New York Times, which concluded that charges originally made by a blog run by a Democratic-aligned think tank were baseless."

While Obama's charges were baseless, it is a fact that the Obama campaign made no effort to identify or exclude illegal foreign contributions during the 2008 campaign. More Alinksy-style "accuse your opponents of your own transgressions" propaganda.

Enviro-Hysteria? Unheard of...

One third of 'extinct' animals turn up again | Mail Online: "Conservationists are overestimating the number of species that have been driven to extinction, scientists have said.

A study has found that a third of all mammal species declared extinct in the past few centuries have turned up alive and well."

UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT!!! Bloomberg: Obama ‘not particularly interested in business’ |

Bloomberg: Obama ‘not particularly interested in business’ | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday gave a mixed but decidedly negative review of President Obama’s economic policies, saying that the reason for joblessness is uncertainty in the private sector caused by government and that the president is uninterested in business."

You can say that again, and again, and again.

OK, I Didn't Expect to Be Saying This...

I wish the President would heed Leonid Breznev's advice when it comes to the economy:

"'The fundamental problem we face is that we can only distribute and consume what is actually produced.' Leonid Breznev, Communist Party Congress, 1972."

Inspiring the Country, One Voter at a Time

Check out the guy behind him, too.

Remember Those Quaint Old Nixon Days When Presidents Just Sponsored "Dirty Tricks?"

Obama Linked To Houston Voter Fraud Scandal (Wizbang): "Oh, my. The voter fraud situation in Houston -- which may have started with the burning of voting machines, but now has developed into a full-fledged ACORN-esque mess of fraudulent voter registrations -- and it looks like it goes all the way up to President Obama himself.

The fraudulent voter registrations were the product of a group called Houston Votes, an ACORN Lite. Houston Votes volunteers were recruited through President Obama's web site, www.barackobama.com. (He doesn't actively run it, but turned it over to his campaign staff after the election, now operating as 'Organizing For America.') And one of the chief recruiters was a local Democratic activist (a very active one) named Maria Isabel.

To call Isabel 'active' would be like describing Jeffrey Dahmer as 'a man of interesting appetites.' She once brought a friend and fellow organizer for www.barackobama.com to a health care town hall hosted by crazy whackjob Representative Sheila Jackson Lee. The friend stood up and said that she, as a doctor, backed ObamaCare. But the friend was about as much of a doctor as I am"

I am missing Nixon's high integrity in the Oval Office

Lying About Lying

Obama: GOP hasn't been honest with Americans - Yahoo! News: "Arguing doggedly against returning Republicans to power, President Barack Obama told Iowa voters Wednesday that the GOP has been dishonest about what needs to be done to revive the economy and restore middle-class dreams.
'We can't pretend that there are shortcuts,' the president said, addressing about 70 voters in a grassy backyard.
'When you look at the choice we face in this election coming up,' Obama said, 'the other side, what it's really offering is the same policies that from 2001 to 2009 put off hard problems and didn't really speak honestly to the American people about how we're gonna get this country on track over the long term.'"

Right out of Alinsky - accuse your opponent of doing what you yourself in fact are doing. This guys is so not serious.

Warm Words From the Great Uniter

Review & Outlook: Blaming the Voters - WSJ.com: "This week President Obama chimed in with another uplifting message about the American electorate. Mr. Obama told Rolling Stone that the tea party movement is financed and directed by 'powerful, special-interest lobbies.' But this doesn't mean that tea party groups are composed entirely of corporate puppets. Mr. Obama graciously implied that a small subset of the movement is simply motivated by bigotry.

The President said 'there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the President.' The tea party is now supported by a third of the country in some polls."

So which are you, a corporate puppet or a knuckle-dragging bigot? Or both?

Let the Mudslinging Begin!

Democrats Unleash Ads Focusing on Rivals’ Pasts - NYTimes.com: "Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their Congressional majority."

When you can't defend your policies, your record or your ideas, all you have left are ad hominem attacks.

Study: Obama adminstration underestimated moratorium job loss | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

Study: Obama adminstration underestimated moratorium job loss | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "An interagency report released last week by the Obama administration underestimated the number of jobs lost because of the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico by about half, according to a study released Tuesday by the American Energy Alliance.

The study, conducted by Dr. Joseph Mason, endowed chair of banking at Louisiana State University, found that the moratorium has cost the Gulf region 19,536 jobs, not the 8,000 to 12,000 jobs estimated by the Department of Commerce report."

Thank goodness Obama is not beholden to any "special interests," like the environmental lobby. I think it's better to be safe (i.e. put 19,000 people out of work) than sorry (risk another oil spill).

Hats Off to the Washington Post for at Least Noticing...

President Obama picks Elizabeth Warren ... and thumbs his nose at the Senate: "President Obama picks Elizabeth Warren ... and thumbs his nose at the Senate"

Constitution, What Constitution?

Review & Outlook: Elizabeth III - WSJ.com: "We have here another end-run around Constitutional niceties so Team Obama can invest huge authority in an unelected official who is unable to withstand a public vetting. So a bureau inside an agency (the Fed) that it doesn't report to, with a budget not subject to Congressional control, now gets a leader not subject to Senate confirmation. If Dick Cheney had tried this, he'd have been accused of staging a coup."

Frankly, the amount of power vested in executive branch officials by recent abominations like TARP, Dudd-Frank, and ObamaCare is scary enough. But now, the Executive doesn't even deem it reasonable to subject these officials to confirmation by the legislative branch. How does that oath of office go, "I solemnly swear to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States..."?

And of course, the deafening silence of the MSM goes without saying...

Defend It, Don't Mend It

You can do a lot with 59 Senate votes, and that was certainly clear this week as Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats slammed the door on a bipartisan attempt to repeal ObamaCare's new 1099 reporting requirement on small business. 

The Democrats, unable to sell ObamaCare to their consituents, have resorted to saying:  "it's not perfect, but it's a start, and we will fix the problems with it over time."  Well, the issue of the 1099 reporting requirements shows how empty that promise is.  Virtually everyone, including the IRS' own Taxpayer Advocate,  agrees that the new 1099 reporting requirements are an abomination:

The office of the National Taxpayer Advocate within the IRS estimates that this provision will affect 40 million businesses. In July, they issued a harsh report on the consequences of the 1099 provision. They noted that small businesses in particular will be harmed by the new reporting requirements.

They state that the new burden on businesses would be disproportionate compared the actual revenue gained. For a relatively small increase in revenue, small businesses across the country would need to purchase new software and accounting services to handle the new paperwork.

Well, the opportunity to fix this clearly flawed provision of ObamaCare came up this week, with a bipartisan majority of senators supporting it.  But Harry Reid made sure it didn't pass.  If the Democrats can't mend this provision, they can't mend any provision of ObamaCare.   They intend to defend it, not mend it.

Crippling Our Economy for the Sake of Green Myths

 

John Stossel: Going "green" | Washington Examiner

Awesome Article on Fallacies of Green Thinking. Some Highlights:

Al Gore's group, Repower America, claims we can replace all our dirty energy with clean, carbon-free renewables. Gore says we can do it within 10 years...

"It's simply not possible," says Robert Bryce, author of "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy." "Nine out of 10 units of power that we consume are produced by hydrocarbons -- coal, oil and natural gas. Any transition away from those sources is going to be a decades-long, maybe even a century-long process. ... The world consumes 200 billion barrels of hydrocarbons per day. We would have to find the energy equivalent of 23 Saudi Arabias."...

How about wind power?

"Wind does not replace oil. This is one of the great fallacies, and it's one that the wind energy business continues to promote," Bryce said....

The media rave about Denmark, which gets some power from wind. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says, "If only we could be as energy smart as Denmark. "Friedman doesn't fundamentally understand what he's talking about," Bryce said. Bryce's book shows that Denmark uses eight times more coal and 25 times more oil than wind.(emphasis added)

"One nuclear power plant in Texas covers about 19 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Manhattan. To produce the same amount of power from wind turbines would require an area the size of Rhode Island. This is energy sprawl." To produce the same amount of energy with ethanol, another "green" fuel, it would take 24 Rhode Islands to grow enough corn. (emphasis added)

Thank goodness we now have an administration that makes decisions based on science, not superstition or ideology!

An Environment Catastrophe In the Gulf But ANWAR is Safe

Monday, May 31, 2010

Oil spill culprits run deep | obama, oil, deep - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Here's my question: Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place? Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we've had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Krauthammer implies there is a downside to banning offshore drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Alaskan wilderness. Doesn't he know that leftist policies have no downsides? The Left has repealed the laws of nature, they can:

- hobble the economy by cutting off energy resources and LOWER unemployment (thanks to all those windmill and solar panel jobs - ask Spain how that's working out for them)
- raise taxes to confiscatory levels on the most productive in our society without sapping their incentives to create wealth for the society
- give everyone in the nation access to free healthcare but not create massive shortages and rationing
- SPEND their way out of a debt crisis

Come on, Krauthammer, your thinking is so 19th century!

Don't Flush MY Money Down The Greek Toilet

This is from a free email newsletter by John Mauldin.  An incredible resource on economics and finance:

Should the US Bail Out European Banks?

The obvious answer to the above question, at least on this side of the Atlantic, is no. But that is the plan being foisted on US tax-payers by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF wants to create a $250 billion dollar bailout fund for Greece, Portugal, et al that the US will contribute roughly 20% to. This fund will loan money and that IMG debt will be subordinate (junior!) to regular Greek debt, so when Greece does default, and they will, the IMF is the last in line to get paid.
Where will the money go? It will buy mostly Greek rollover debt from European banks getting out of their Greek debt. It is a back door bailout for German and French banks. The US Senate voted 94-0 that the US should not fund any such debt if the Treasury cannot certify the probability of getting repayment. If the Obama administration allows this funding to go through, the hue and cry will be large. It is bad enough that we have to pay for Freddie and Fannie (already $400 billion and counting!). Not meaning to be churlish, but the French and Germans can bail out their own banks.

Don't let them tell you we are bailing out the Greeks - we are once again bailing out the big bankers (didn't Pres Obama refer to them as "Fat Cats?") but this time FRENCH and GERMAN FAT CATS.  And the sad fact is that this bailout has no chance of saving the Greeks - it's just money down the toilet.

Obama's Answer To Devastating Critiques of His Plan - Dismiss them as "Talking Points"

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/IBDEditorials.aspx?p=1#: "But [few in the mainstream media] notie Obama's conspicuous non-rebuttal to Rep. Paul Ryan.

It was the Wisconsin congressman who made the most pointed remarks about Obama's reform proposal. For example:

• 'This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.'

• 'The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion.'

• 'The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that's really reserved for Social Security. So either we're double-counting them or we don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits.'

• 'The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets.'

• 'The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.'

• 'The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries.'

• 'Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.'

• 'When you strip out the double-counting and ... gimmicks, the full 10-year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit.'

• 'The 'doc fix' (restoring cuts in Medicare reimbursements) costs $371 billion ... a price tag (that) made the score look bad. (So) that provision was taken out, and (put) in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending.'

• 'Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up? If you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we're bending it up. He's claiming that we're going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have.'

In response to all this, Obama basically talked up the benefits of Medicare Advantage. Call us sticklers, but we expected something a little more, uh, professorial."

You'd think in 7 hours, over two of which the President himself filibustered, he' have had a chance to refute one of these devastating points by Rep Ryan.