The Truth About Obamunism

Via NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.), formerly President Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary and the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, just castigated Obama over his budget proposal in a press conference on Capitol Hill.

“This translates to a debt-to-GDP ratio that we have not seen in this country since the end of World War II, when we were trying to pay off war debt,” he said. “If you take all of the presidents from George Washington to George Bush, and add up all of the debt they put on the books of the American people, President Obama’s plan adds more debt than that.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, standing with Gregg, warned Democrats against passing the budget along party lines and using budget reconciliation to pass sweeping new programs. “If you do it with no bipartisan buy-in at all, then you own the whole thing.”

Its an amazingly stupid thing, this Obama plan – and it seems to be what you get when you have a Chief Executive who is a mere sock puppet while his minions are a dog’s breakfast of hacks, has-beens and wheeler-dealers…you get plans divorced from reality, but chock full of corruption. These fools are playing around with American power and wealth and they haven’t the foggiest notion that their little scams are going to eventually be paid for in American blood and treasure. They just don’t get it.

Governor Patterson (D-NY) Popularity Craters

Geesh:

Gov. Paterson’s job performance ratings have crashed thorough the floor, with less than one in five New Yorkers saying he’s doing well, a new poll shows.

Just 19% of those polled gave him a positive rating, while 78% turned thumbs down, the Siena College poll found. That’s down from 51% positive and 45% negative in the same poll just two months ago.

How bad have things gone for a governor?

New York’s first black governor trails Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 55-22% among black voters in a potential 2010 primary.

If Patterson doesn’t read the writing on the wall, watch for the Democrat Powers That Be to try and force him out – Patterson on the ticket means an almost-certain GOP victory in the 2010 gubernatorial contest.

Its getting rather dicey out there for Democrats – polls show the GOP pulling even with Democrats in the “generic” Congressional ballot, independents swinging GOP, Patterson, Dodd and other Democrats in deep electoral trouble. Democrats better pray that Obama’s program works, because if things aren’t a lot better by September of next year, Democrats will be blown out at the polls.

As an aside: Obama’s program won’t work.

Rahm Emanuel and AIG

The thus far untold part of this story:

“Right now, you get the feeling this is all about protecting [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel,” says a former Treasury Department lawyer, who worked in that department’s counsel’s office on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) before joining a D.C.-based law firm in February. “At the time, we were led to believe there were basically three or four people from the Administration at the table when the final deals were cut and one of them was Emanuel.”

Informal advisers to Geithner are growing increasingly frustrated, they say, that Geithner is being held up as the straw man for the public anger over the bonuses. “Just over the weekend you saw a new guy added to the target list, [White House economics adviser Larry] Summers,” says a longtime Geithner colleague at the New York Fed. “You have Dodd, Geithner, Summers, but there were other, more senior political people involved in this mess, and their names aren’t being mentioned. Why isn’t anyone asking Rahm Emanuel, ‘What meetings were you in?’ ‘What did you and the President know and when did you know it?’ Tim has some culpability, but he’s not the guy who signed off on the Dodd language. He wasn’t that empowered to do something like that.”

They have to protect Emanuel because the fall of Emanuel would be the domino closest to Obama, and it would be hard to keep Obama clean in the AIG mess if Emanuel was forced out over the scandal. The circumstantial evidence is already very strong that the sign-off on the AIG bonuses was the result of “pay for play”, Chicago-style politics; Obama can’t afford “what did the President know and when did he know it” questions about AIG. But this means that, at least for a while, Emanuel has to survive…thus the apparent tossing of Geithner and Summers under the bus.

We must keep in mind the depth upon depth of corruption we’re going to have here – we have a hopelessly corrupt Democratic party leadership which feels that an Obama Administration means a free pass. They aren’t worried about the Justice Department coming down on them, they know they can stymie any Congressional ethics probes and they figure the MSM has gotten itself too highly invested in Obama to really play the role of investigative watchdog. But the lynch pin of all this is Obama – as long as he’s safe and popular, everything else comes together, and so they have to keep the muck as far away from him as possible.

Monday Morning Open Thread

Sorry guys, just can’t think of anything to write worth reading. Have at it.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: At a loss for words today myself. So, I would like to call your attention to Parcbench…P op culture without the liberal bias. It launched today, so be sure to check it out.

Has the Economic News Got You Down?

Remember, its not really that important:

Only the light of God can overcome the great “darkness” present in “many parts of our world,” the evil represented by wars and tribal violence, but also by the egoism of men who exploit other men, leading to that hedonism which is at the source of escape into drugs, “sexual irresponsibility,” destruction of families and innocent human lives through abortion. Benedict XVI today addressed an invitation to reconciliation and hope to all of Africa, from the esplanade of Cimangola, in Luanda, Angola, where a million people gathered to participate in the great celebration…

If a million people – most of whom no doubt live in what Americans would consider impossible poverty – can gather to hear a message of hope, then we should put our financial crisis into proper perspective. It is the hope of the world – the Light of God – which will clear away the darkness of our times, and in our lives.

Fear God and nothing else in this world, my friends.

Hope This Changes

The news story:

California’s jobless rate surged in February to the highest level since 1983 while unemployment in Oregon and Nevada climbed above 10 percent for the first time in more than two decades.

Unemployment in California rose to 10.5 percent from 10.1 percent in January, its Employment Development Department reported today in Sacramento. Neighboring Oregon’s jobless rate rose a full percentage point to 10.8 percent, and Nevada’s increased to 10.1 percent.

“The West Coast is more heavily dependent on real estate and the decline there has been more pronounced” than in the rest of the U.S., said Sung Won-Sohn, an economics professor at California State University-Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. “We are not seeing any signs of stabilization in the job market.”

Unemployment across the nation may top 9 percent by the end of the year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, and it could go higher.

I’m guessing it will top out at 12-15% nationally, but for my Nevada I wouldn’t be surprised if 20% unemployment comes our way…tourism is down, gambling is down, Yucca Mountain has been shut down, there’s less and less demand for the products of Nevada’s mines. As for California – they seem bent in Sacramento in killing whatever golden geese are left. Tax increases when you’re bankrupt is stupid…but the Govinator and the CA legislature seem bent on it. Nary a thought given to genuine budget cuts…while the attempts of Nevada’s governor to cut the budget are being met with the usual “little, old ladies and children will die!!!!” nonsense from the usual suspects if we dare cut a penny from the budget.

It’d be nice if the Federal government was rational, but Obama and his Democrats seem determined that spending and tax increases are just what the economic doctor ordered…that plus the prospect of a massive carbon tax to fight mythical anthropogenic global warming. I’m hopeful it will change, of course – but I don’t see that happening until after the 2010 elections.

The American Tea Party, Part 7 (Bumped)

Its just spreading and spreading:

They carried signs, chanted slogans, urged motorists to honk horns. There was even a folk singer urging the audience to “take back” the country.

Sounds like your average protest, right?

The difference here: many of the protesters were political conservatives who had never felt it necessary to take to the streets before.

And yet there they were, about 300 strong, lining both sides of Main Street in front of Ballard Park on Saturday for a “Tea Party” protest against President Barack Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget and the government’s effort to “stimulate” the sagging national economy through spending.

“The primary focus is a concern over the direction the policies of the current administration are taking us,” said Andrew “Skip” March, a Ridgefield resident who helped organize the protest, news of which spread like wildfire on the Web.

“We were pleased and a little surprised by the number. We thought we’d have 100, maybe a little more,” March said…

…they urged the country to embrace the conservative principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.

“The stimulus package, the spending bills, they have not been handled well. There is too much pork,” said Brian Blackman, 50, a tech support trainer from Ridgefield taking part in his first-ever protest.

Blackman said Barack Obama has proven himself to be just another politician who will say anything to get elected.

“He was supposed to bring positive change and he most certainly did not,” Blackman said. “If anything, he is making things worse and my kids are in serious trouble right now. The economy was in trouble before, but now we’re in serious trouble. I don’t see a bright spot and I’m worried about the future.”

Now, had you liberals actually run on a tax and spend policy instead of hiding behind rhetoric about deficit reduction and tax cuts, you might not have this problem of people having a sense of betrayal by The One…of course, had you run on that then we might be hearing of Senator Obama making speeches denouncing President McCain’s policies. But now you’ve lied in front of everyone, and the lie is being noted – and anger is growing.

UPDATE: In Connecticut, 300 show up to protest Dodd and Obama, 40 to protest AIG executives. I think we’re winning this debate.

UPDATE II: More than 4,000 showed up in Orlando!

Singer Lloyd Marcus told the crowd assembled in Lake Eola Park on Saturday that he was going to give them his take on the first days of the Obama administration.

Then he shrieked.

That pretty much summed up the mood in the park Saturday afternoon, when more than 4,000 people attended the Orlando Tea Party, a conservative rally aimed at expressing discontent with Washington.

“This is maybe the greatest single gathering of God-fearing patriots in the history of Orlando, Florida,” local conservative radio host Bud Hedinger, who emceed the event, told the crowd.

The attendees, many of whom said they’d heard about the rally on Hedinger’s radio show, brandished flags and homemade signs bearing slogans such as “Repeal the pork or our bacon is cooked” and “Obama lied, liberty died.”

“We’re really scared about what’s happening in our country,” said Debby Whisenand, 71, of Largo in Pinellas County. She waved a sign that read “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” on one side, and “You can’t blame Bush anymore” on the other.

"Dodd takes care of the rich who've taken care of him"

The disgusting tale of Dodd gets worse by the day – read this and weep, fellow Americans…and then ask the question:

How is it that we’ve tolerated this nonsense for so long?

We must put an end to this corruption, once and for all.

Congratulations, Americans: You're Now Poorer

Courtesy of the United States Federal Reserve:

The dollar dropped the most against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners since the Plaza Accord almost a quarter-century ago as the Federal Reserve’s plan to purchase Treasuries spurred speculation that it’s debasing the greenback.

“What it introduces is the problem of the currency to the extent that the Fed is buying what isn’t desired by foreign holders,” said Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., in an interview on Bloomberg Television on March 19. “The Fed can keep interest rates where they want to keep them, at least for a 6- to 12- to 18-month period of time, but it will have consequences down the road.”

The U.S. currency weakened beyond $1.37 per euro this week for the first time since January as the central bank’s decision to increase its balance sheet by $1.15 trillion lowered yields, making American assets less attractive. The Norwegian krone and the New Zealand dollar rallied as the Fed’s move spurred advances in commodities.

The dollar depreciated 4.8 percent to $1.3582 per euro yesterday, from $1.2928 on March 13.

We can’t spend money we don’t have – all the Fed has done is go into our pockets and lift out some of our wealth and they’ll now use that money to buy up the toxic assets, which will then become property of we, the people of the United States of America…meanwhile, the corporate fat cats and corrupt politicians who brought this mess upon us will not only get off scot free, they’ll also be able to start ripping us of, again, with new scams now that their previous swindle has been passed on to the American taxpayer.

Enough is enough – time to start taking back our country; and one of the places we can start is by doing away with the Federal Reserve and returning our currency to the gold standard. Its not that gold is superior, but that gold can’t be easily manipulated like fiat currency can. Sure, Uncle Sam can still fire up the printing presses if we are based on gold, but that means the paper dollars will lose value, not the gold dollars; hold your money in gold, and you know its safe from government pick pockets.

How do we do it? Well, as it turns out, since the time the Federal Reserve was established, our currency has lost approximately 99% of its value. This means that a penny in 1909 is worth about a dollar in 2009. We re-mint and re-print our currency and turn in our current money for the new money at a 100-1 ratio. Have $100 fiat dollars, you’ll get $1 gold dollar. Get paid $20 per hour, you’ll get paid 20 cents per hour (which, for an 8 hour day, works out to $1.60 per day…were you working 12 hours a day, as they did 100 years ago, you’ll make $2.40 per day and that, dear friends, tells you how much working class income has really increased over the past 100 years…but where that $1 in 1909 wasn’t taxed directly at all, your $2.40 is still going to get hit with about 30 cents in direct taxes in 2009). A $400,000 house is now $4,000. And so on and on. The government would be required by law to keep at least $1 dollar in gold for each $10 in paper currency in circulation, so our dollars will be stable (though, of course, having greenbacks will still amount to a zero interest loan to the government).

Discuss.

Support for Victory in Afghanistan

At 61%, according to Rasmussen:

Sixty-one percent (61%) of U.S. voters agree with President Obama’s decision to put more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Twenty-five percent (25%) are opposed to putting more troops in the war-torn country, and 14% are not sure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Republicans are more supportive of the president’s action than are members of his own party. Seventy-two percent (72%) of GOP voters support the decision to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, compared to 54% of Democrats. Sixty percent (60%) of voters not affiliated with either party agree.

There is a window of opportunity here for Obama to go strong for victory in Afghanistan – and what will destroy popular support is not casualties, but any perception that we are not fighting for victory. As long as the goal is to win, the people will broadly support the effort. The test for Obama will come when we have our first high-casualty action and/or when there is the first incident of large numbers of non-combatants killed (the enemy will be working diligently to set up civilian deaths) – at that point, Obama can double down and go forward to victory, as President Bush did, or he can wither under the MSM/leftwing attacks on the Afghan effort.

Time will tell how Obama does here.