Now he tells us:
In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: “We are out of money.”
C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.
SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now.
Ok, Barry, follow through on that thought – you might figure out that its time to control spending.
From Rasmussen:
The Rasmussen Investor Index dropped 15 points on Friday, the largest single day decline ever recorded in its seven-year history. The drop caps a week of extreme volatility for the Index and now shows investor confidence at the lowest level in two months.
The culprit—both for the volatility and the current low level of confidence—is shifting perceptions on where the economy is heading next. Today, just 24% of investors say the economy is getting better while 47% say it is getting worse. A couple of days ago, the outlook was much less pessimistic: 34% better and 40% worse.
It can’t get better until we start creating wealth and just as long as Obamunism is running the show, so long will our economy continue to deteriorate. Obama is just moving fiat money around – moving, that is, pretend money in the hopes that some how, some way, real money will result. Its a fool’s hope.
The reality of the situation:
If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. – Richard B. Cheney
Tip of the hat to some of my home town gun nuts:
Nevada is an “open carry” state. That is to say, while state and local governments impose certain unconstitutional restrictions on the God-given (and constitutionally guaranteed) right to carry a weapon concealed, there is no state law barring Nevadans from going about with a sidearm openly holstered on the hip.
While this right to openly carry is exercised with some regularity in Northern Nevada, Metro and other Las Vegas Valley police officers seem to be under the mistaken impression that it’s some kind of a “crime” for an adult of sound mind to go about openly armed. In fact, there have actually been cases where Metro officers have killed otherwise law-abiding citizens for this imagined “offense” — universally getting away with it when there is no contradicting testimony (the other party being conveniently dead) to the officer’s well-rehearsed tale (usually told to a carefully selected coroner’s jury), that the decedent “made a furtive movement toward his waistband,” or even simply “failed to stop and disarm when so ordered.”
Thus, it takes some courage — some would say foolhardiness — to openly exercise this constitutional right.
Now comes one Billy Logan, who signs himself “NRA Member, GONV Member, Staunch Libertarian, Proud Gun Owner and 2nd Amendment Advocate” and who has e-mailed me that “A bunch of law abiding gun owners” plan to convene at the Buffalo Wild Wings located at 190 West Craig Rd in North Las Vegas, at 11a.m., Sunday May 17th, then around 12:30 p.m. we’re going to head over to East Lake Mead Blvd and North Bruce St., right next to the NLVPD,” to pick up trash in the vacant lot there.
“Nobody is formally ‘in charge’ of the event,” my correspondent insists, “It’s just a bunch of law abiding gun owners meeting to help the public and the police become aware and possibly educated on firearms and open carrying…
It shouldn’t be a big nothing – just armed American citizens going about their business. Only in the modern world where the State has decided that guns are too tricky for the citizenry has this become an issue. But now that the US Supreme Court has ruled that the right to bear arms is, indeed, an individual right, it is time to start testing the limits and getting government – and especially law enforcement – used to honest citizens being armed in the normal course of the day.
The key to good law enforcement is not some officer driving around at night and trying to figure out if the shadowy figure down the alley is a criminal he should be stopping or just an honest citizen about his business – there should never be a need for a cop to say that he shot someone because he moved towards his waistband, furtively or otherwise. The police are not supposed to be the heroes riding to the rescue, nor are they really supposed to be an investigative agency – they are there to keep the peace, which means patrolling in such a manner that people ill disposed have as few chances as possible to carry out their nefarious plans. True, there will always be that aspect of police work – hero and investigator…but mostly the job of the police is negative: to make it so things don’t happen, thus obviating the need for heroics or investigations.
It is impossible for a cop on a motorcycle or in a car to get a genuine feel for the neighborhood he’s patrolling – only if he’s out on the street and walking around will he learn who is supposed to be there and what the likelihood is that the figure dashing through the yard is a burglar or just someone trying to find the cat. Part of the way the police can do this is by using the manpower available to them – the armed citizens who can be induced to volunteer to watch, listen and learn about their neighborhoods, and keep the police informed of anything out of the ordinary. And not by calling the cops and getting an anonymous dispatcher, but by flagging down the beat cop who also knows the area and pointing out the reason for suspicion. Meanwhile, the fact that honest citizens are openly armed will in and of itself discourage criminals. It won’t stop crime, but the more careful we have to make criminals the less crimes they’ll be able to commit.
Armed police, armed citizens – together we can return America to that time when a murder was a shocking thing, even in big cities. Let’s hope that Sunday’s experiment goes off without a hitch, and that the police draw the proper conclusions.
Its very hard not to believe this story:
Two days before President Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame, I was at the White House for one of the meetings that he spoke about. About twenty of us with differing views on abortion were brought in to find “common ground.” But the most important point that came from the meeting was perhaps a slip from an Obama aide.
It revealed that what many people believe — including high-profile pro-life leaders who support Obama — is sorely wrong…
…I noted that there are three main ways the administration can reach its goals: by what it funds, its messages from the bully pulpit, and by what it restricts. It is universally agreed that the role of parents is crucial, so government should not deny parents the ability to be involved in vital decisions. The goals need to be clear; the amount of funding spent to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions is not a goal. The U.S. spends nearly $2 billion each year on contraception programs — programs which began in the 1970s — and they’ve clearly failed. We need to take an honest look at why they are not working.
Melody testily interrupted to state that she had to correct me. “It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.”
The room was silent.
The goal, she insisted, is to “reduce the need for abortions.”
Well, this raises a lot of questions.
Yeah, it does – mostly because “need” and “number” are very different things. While “number” is a concrete, measurable thing, “need” is entirely subjective. Its much like Obama’s pledge to “create or save” x millions of jobs – “save” is subjective and not measurable. Neither is “need” – abortions could skyrocket and Obama and Co. could still claim that they’ve reduced the “need”, given that their view is that the “need” is generated by lack of government spending. Obama massively increases spending and come 2012 he can tell us he made the hard choices necessary to reduce the need for abortions in America – it’ll make a great campaign commercial and, as an added benefit, it will be entirely meaningless.
I don’t believe that this correction by Melody actually comes straight from Obama – but I do believe that he’s got an Administration just shot through with pro-abortion fanatics who are determined to use Obama as cover for turning America – in their view – decisively and permanently towards the Culture of Death. As to just why they would want to do this – one may as well ask why someone wants to view pornography. There’s really no answer to such a question – they are doing something wrong, something they know is wrong and they are determined that their guilty conscience never confront these facts. As America becomes ever more pro-life in outlook, the pro-abortion people are getting desperate and realize that the sand is rapidly running out on them – make us Culture of Death now, or never.
The trick for us on the pro-life side is to use pressure on Obama, himself, to short-circuit the pro-abortion people in his Administration. Remember, for all the left’s talk about the pro-life position costing the GOP votes, the plain fact of the matter is that the defense of Roe is an albatross around the Democrats’ neck – which is why they don’t overtly defend it, in the sense of talking up the pro-abortion concept of federally funded abortion on demand. People like Obama dance around it and hope that no one notices the depth of pro-abortion support they have – our job is to scare Obama away from the pro-abortion forces and make him, by default, push for as much Culture of Life as we can get. Even the smallest pro-life victories in the Obama era will be wonderful because any time spent by Obama doing anything pro-life is that much less time spent by Obama’s Administration pushing the Culture of Death…we have to make the pro-aborts fight for Obama’s support, as it were.
In what we hope will be the final chapter in the overwhelmingly pathetic Plame Kerfuffle:
CREW learned today that the Obama administration is opposing our request that the Supreme Court reconsider the dismissal of the lawsuit, Wilson v. Libby, et al. In that case, the district court had dismissed the claims of Joe and Valerie Wilson against former Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage for their gross violations of the Wilsons’ constitutional rights.
Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argues the Wilsons have no legitimate grounds to sue. It is surprising that the first time the Obama administration has been required to take a public position on this matter, the administration is so closely aligning itself with the Bush administration’s views.
In fact, the Obama administration has gone one step further, suggesting Mr. Wilson failed to provide any evidence that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby harmed him.
In the Plame Kerfuffle, the only people we know for certain lied are Valerie Plame (about whether or not she suggested her husband) and Joe Wilson (who lied about what he found in Niger) – other than that, all other statements regarding the issue by every single person in the case have proven correct. I offer my thanks to President Obama for agreeing that this issue is a distraction and that people like Plame/Wilson should just go away.
HAT TIP: Gay Patriot
Well, that is how I read it:
Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters nationwide favor federal bailout funds for states like California that are encountering “serious financial problems.” The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% are opposed to such bailouts.
I do wonder about this poll – I mean, I doubt that I’d find one in a thousand people who would want to shell out for California’s problems.
Just as I and all others with any economic sense at all said:
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said prices may rise 2.5 percent in 2011, a rate well above central bankers’ preferred range, and cautioned against complacency on inflation.
“The economy may be at greater risk of inflation than the conventional wisdom indicates,” Plosser said in a speech yesterday in New York. “While inflation expectations appear to remain anchored, we should not become sanguine about our credibility. It can be easily lost.”
The bank president’s inflation forecast for 2011 exceeds central bank officials’ long-run preferred range of 1.7 percent to 2 percent, and contrasts with the concerns of some officials and economists that the economic slump may provoke a broad decline in prices.
It’ll be higher than that – you can’t print trillions of dollars without a massive devaluation of the currency already held, and that means inflation. I converted my investments yesterday just in line with this. Have you?
UPDATE: And the dollar drops like a rock.
Another reason for us to love her:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Thursday vetoed $80 million from appropriation bills, including $28.6 million from the federal stimulus funds for energy efficiency.
Despite pressure from some lawmakers and others to accept the federal money, the Republican governor said she won’t accept funds tied to adoption of building codes by local governments.
“Alaskans and our communities have a long history of independence and opposing many mandates from Washington, D.C.,” Palin said in a statement announcing the veto. “This principle of maximum self-government for local communities is also set out in our constitution. There isn’t a lot of support for the federal government to coerce Alaska communities to adopt building codes, but lawmakers can always exercise checks and balances by overriding my veto.”
Its hard for States to reject any of the funds, of course – and, in the end, almost all the funds set for the States will be spent by the States…but as a matter of principle, it is good to see Governor Palin taking a stand here. There is no need for DC to even be remotely interested in local building codes – no need, and no constitutional warrant. When you invite in federal money, it comes with federal strings and for far too long our States have acted as mere transmission belts for orders from DC…its time they started acting like the sovereign States they are.
Next time you see some kook leftists shouting about how they are fighting for the people:
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. – Edmund Burke
