The energizer oil spill

Now that we are in the middle of "Recovery Summer" watching poor jobs numbers spill out (like today's ADP unemployment figures), we can watch as the Obama administration keeps trying to get the oil clean up right. My guess is that we are moving towards "Spotless September" which will be celebrated by finding every beach from Brownsville to Cape Hatteras fouled with a major oil spill. The disconnect between Obama's words and deeds has become so great that one has to wonder if the folks at the White House are all delusional. Do they really think that by calling it recovery summer that the American people will not notice that things are getting worse rather than better? After celebrating the supposed "huge" rise in jobs in May which was 95% temporary census workers, will Obama now explain away the coming decline in the June figures as layoffs of the same temporary workers? Americans are notorious for paying little attention to the government and the news in most cases. Not this one! Too many folks are directly affected by unemployment and fear of unemployment to miss the fact that Obama has done more to destroy jobs than to create them. The oil spill mess has led Obama to wipe out the drilling industry and much of the economy along the Gulf. The inability to clean up in a timely fashion has destroyed the fishing industry and dealt a mortal blow to the tourism industry. something like 25% of the Louisiana economy has been wiped out by this; a competent response could have kept the damage much, much smaller. And the oil spill just keeps coming. Obama has waited for months before allowing new ideas to be tried -- look at the aid from other countries that he blocked for 9 weeks. My guess is that now that the foreign aid is coming, there will be some new roadblock from the feds that will stop it.

Doesn't the USA deserve a competent president? I think so. Obama has got to go!

And it only took 71 days

President Obama today decided to accept help from 12 countries in connection with the gulf oil gusher. That's great. We can use all the help we can get. so here's the question: why did it take Obama 71 days to accept this help? How can Obama possibly be this disorganized that he cannot get around to accepting the help that is being offered?

Stock of the month for July

For July, the stock of the month is slightly changed to the trade of the month. The stock in question is American Capital (symbol ACAS). The trade is to buy the stock and write the November 5 straddle. Current prices are $4.89 for the stock and 80 cents for the call and 90 cents for the put. If the stock is above $5.00 in November, you will sell the stock for $5 and keep the $1.70 that you get for selling the straddle. This is a return at a rate of about 110%. If the stock is below $5, you will have to buy more for a net price of $3.30.

ACAS just completed a deal under which it is completely recapitalized. It no longer has a risk of default, and it has a lot of new money to invest in its role as a business development company. ACAS also made a profit in recent months so that it will have to pay a dividend under the requirements of the tax law. The book value is much greater than the present market price. There is a risk in connection with the European business which the company owns; however, this is minimal. In short, ACAS should be worth much more than $5 in November. If it is not, however, it will be worth holding into the future since it will rise to at least twice that amount in the next three years.

Congrats to Chris Christie

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has done it. The NJ Legislature passed his budget that cuts 11 billion dollars out of the state's expenditures. It raises no taxes, although there are some increases in use fees. The cuts are spread around with every state department affected. There is also a minimum level for collective bargaining agreements for public employees who will be required to contribute at least 1.5% of their income towards health insurance and pension benefits. Christie calls this changing to a contribution model from an entitlement model.

This is earth shaking. As long as I can recall, state governments have "cut" by slowing the rate of increase. An actual major cut is unheard of. Christie accomplished this in the face of a huge onslaught of commercials from the unions and a neverending round of criticism from the usual liberal sources. The fact that in blue New Jersey this could happen is proof of the sea change in American politics that has happened in the last two years.

Christie is also a warm, engaging, good natured guy who seems to be quite well spoken. He would make a great Vice Presidential choice on the Republican ticket in 2012. Needless to say, that is very premature, but it is still true.

Afghan exit -- another Gitmo?

General Petraeus said today that the date set by Obama for leaving Afghanistan is just a target. As the AP put it: "Petraeus reminded the Senate Armed Services Committee that the president has said the plan to bring some forces home in July 2011 isn't a rush for the exits. In his opening remarks, Petraeus did not explicitly endorse the withdrawal plan, although he has done so before. He said the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan is 'enduring,' and that it will be years before the Afghan security forces can fully take over."

Is this another Obama backpedal? Will this deadline be like all those in the fight over the healthcare bill -- slipping further and further back. Or will it be more like the Gitmo closing date that Obama set, a date which comes and goes and is conveniently ignored by all?

I wonder why Obama even bothers to set these dates.

What if the facts change?

In an earlier post this morning, I wrote about the apparent lack of an actual policy by the Obama administration with regard to the Iranian nuclear program. Blather is not policy!

This brings us to the next question: what will Obama do if the Israelis protect themselves and attack the Iranian nukes. There have already been articles appearing to the effect that the Saudis have authorized the Israeli Air Force to fly over that country in order to attack the Iranians. The response has been predictable: the Israelis refuse to comment and the Saudis deny the articles are accurate. Unfortunately, this tells us nothing as the response is the same one that would have followed an accurate or an incorrect article.

But let's say the Israeli do attack; what will the USA do? If the attack has reasonable success, the Iranians will feel the need to strike back hard, or they will be revealed as weak, a fatal blow to that regime. Most likely Iran will unleash Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel. The Iranians may also get their client Syria to attack. The Iranians may also launch missiles against Israel as well. but that will not be the end of it. I think it most likely that the Iranians will close the Straits of Hormuz to international traffic and strangle the world oil market. If nothing else, the Iranians will attack US, UK and other shipping in the Persian Gulf. They will also step up attacks on US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Once Iran reacts, there will hopefully be some US response. Given the Obama track record, I suppose he will give a speech calling for calm and he will castigate the Israelis for what they have done. After this meaningless speech, we will see the true nature of US policy. I just hope the US actually has thought this through already. I have little confidence in this though.

A non-policy policy

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen is quoted today as saying that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would be "incredibly destabilizing". He also says that the CIA's evaluation that Iran has enough nuclear material for two bombs seems accurate. He also says that there is no reason to think that Iran is telling the truth when it says that it is not building nuclear weapons or to believe that sanctions will deter Iran from doing so. Finally, he says that Israel and the USA are "in sync" with regard to their policies.

This leads to a fair question: What policy? The US thinks that Iran is building nukes and lying about it, and it futher concludes that the sanctions imposed on Iran will not work. That is a policy? An attack would be destablizing? That is a policy? NO! It seems that we are paying now for Obama's belief that what he says is somehow more important than what Iran does. Can't we get to the point where someone says that an attack is destablizing but it is less (or more) destabilizing than an Iranian nuke? Is that too hard of an assessment to make? Is there a reason that Obama cannot make a decision and then tell us about it? Must we have massive hemming and hawing as a plan of action?

Let's be clear. A nuclear armed Iran is about the most destabilizing thing that could happen to the Middle East. The Saudis would be sufficiently scared of the mullahs power that they would necessarily want nukes of their own. Turkey would never let the Persians and the Arabs have nukes without getting them too. Syria is already trying for nukes and would continue. So we would see a bunch of unstable, half crazy regimes with nukes in short order. One of them would either lose control of its nukes or would give some to the terrorists. After Tel Aviv gets nuked and the Israelis retaliate with their own nukes, what will stop the world from having a full scale nuclear war? Even with a country as small as Israel, it has managed to disperse sufficient numbers of nukes to carry out a retaliatory strike of major magnitude. If ten or twenty cities in the area are incinerated, the world wide chaos that would result would be a whole lot worse than any riots or other events following a strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities. It is a terrible thing for the US that we have such a naive and incompetent president at such a critical juncture.

When did Paul Krugman's brain die?

Paul Krugman has lost his mind. This sad fact is clear from his column today in which he claims that the US is in a third depresion and that it is a result of too little spending by the government. What will he do next? Will Krugman swing from the chandeliers in some large public space while yodeling some old Swiss favorite?

Krugman's point is that the economy needs more stimulus to keep from collapsing. He never addresses the complete failure of the Obamacrats to focus the stimulus on items that would actually stimuluate growth. Apparently, that is too detailed for Mr. Krugman. He never addresses the coming failure of the US to be able to borrow more to keep up the spending frenzy. He never address why the torrent of spending has produced essentially no growth in the last year. At some point someone must have taught Krugman that "spending is good". That seems to be his whole analysis.

I know that Krugman purports to be a learned economist. I just want to know what it was that he learned. It certainly wasn't economics.

Robert Byrd

The death last evening of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia is a turning point in the Senate. Byrd is the last of the old line southern Democrats. He fought against the Civil Rights act in 1964 and was actually a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in his earlier days. Many people today do not even know that the opposition to the civil rights movement came from Democrats, not Republicans.

With Byrd gone, it will be interesting to see who gets appointed to replace him. West Virginia has a Democrat governor, so there should be no party change. It may take a while until the new senator is sworn in,however; so there will be one less vote in the waning days of this session for Obama's programs. In fact, there may now not be enough votes in the senate to pass the conference committee's bill on financial reform.

Bad News if true

YNET is a news group that reports from Israel. They are now reporting some really terrible news:

"A senior Hamas figure said Friday that official and unofficial US sources have asked the Islamist group to refrain from making any statements regarding contacts with Washington, this following reports that a senior American official is due to arrive in an Arab country in the coming days to relay a telegram from the Obama Administration.

The Hamas figure told the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that the Americans fear discussing the talks publicly would "rouse the Jewish lobby and other pressure groups in the US and cause them to pressure the administration to suspend all talks with Hamas."

The Hamas figure, who is close to Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the government in Gaza, added, "This is a sensitive subject. The Americans don't want anyone to comment on it because this would catch the attention of pressure groups (in the US) and cause problems."

He said Hamas' exiled leadership in Damascus is overseeing the contacts behind closed doors.

On Wednesday a Washington-based Arabic newspaper quoted a senior official as saying that an American envoy is scheduled to meet with Hamas representatives in an Arab country and hand them a letter from the Obama Administration.

According to the report, the official said Washington has no choice but to work with Hamas due to its influence in the Arab and Islamic world."


It is possible that this is just disinformation from Hamas or the YNET got the story wrong. If it is true, however, it marks a terrible decision by Obama to negotiate with terrorists who are sworn to fight against by th Israel and the USA.

Eleanor Clift -- Clueless as usual

In a piece in Newsweek (remember that - it used to be a news magazine), Eleanor Clift asks whether Obama will be able to take a bold initiative and bring unemployment down. The article is actually hilarious in its idiocy. Clift comments that unemployment will decline because unemployment benefits will expire (due to the evil congress) and those people will leave the unemployment rolls. For someone who purports to be a national reporter, Clift seems actually to believe that only those on unemployment benefits count as unemployed. Next Clift wonders if Obama will be able to get a bold job creation idea through the Congress without first getting the upper hand over those evil deficit hawks. Again, another howler! This Congress has created the most massive spending and deficit increase in history, but when the appetite for still more is lessened, they become "deficit hawks". Perhaps, the most instructive part of Clift's piece is this: nowhere does Clift mention what the bold initiative would be that would cut unemployment. She is certain that it will include massive deficit spending, but she really has no clue what it will be. She mentions a TVA like authority to oversee Gulf reconstruction to deal with the effects of the oil spill (again ridiculous) but that is about it. The Gulf Coast reconstruction assumes that there has been devastation on land in that area. All that has happened is that the undeveloped wetlands and the beaches have been fouled with oil. Fishing areas at sea have been polluted. so tell me what needs to be built? Is she suggesting that the marshes be drained and developed? Will there be underwater cities? The truth is that some liberal thought that if the TVA was good for FDR, why shouldn't Obama have his own.

I do wonder why claptrap like this gets published by Newsweek. I do not think it has become a humor magazine, but it seems to be trying for that audience.

CNN

Used to be called the Clinton News Network. Now it stands for the "Client Nine Network."

Spitzer's show will be a change for him: he'll now be getting paid for an hour.

Hat tip to Steve Brill.

Once again riots at the G-20

Riots hit the streets of Toronto today during the meeting of the G-20 leaders. funny, isn't it, that every time there is one of these meetings, there are violent leftist protesters in the streets outside. Funnier still that the US media give little coverage to these protests (even when they were in Pittsburgh), but they nearly went crazy when normal everyday Americans went to town hall meetings last summer and strongly told their views to their congressmen and senators.

Financial "reform " not enough

Obama today celebrated the progress in congress of the financial "reform" package which may make major changes in the US financial system (although the people in Congress are not really sure what those changes will be). Another 2000 page mystery law is not enough for Obama, however. Now he is pushing for a tax on the largest banks and hedge funds. The tax will serve well to lower the pace of economic growth through reduced lending and investment. It is another move by the Obamacrats which will have the likely effect of reducing job growth, hurting the private sector and slowing any recovery from the recession.

It never fails to amaze me that the Obamacrats do exactly the wrong thing. They want to raise taxes. So do they levy a broad based tax? NO! They push for a tax which will most directly and exclusively hit the engines of economic growth in this country. Sometimes I think that Obama's economic team used to work for Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Tom Foley and a bunch of nothing

Tom Foley got a bunch of bad news yesterday. The Hartford Courant published an article about two arrests in Foley's history from many years ago. In one case, Foley and his wife were arrested for disturbing the peace. In another, Foley was arrested for hitting someone else's car as he was leaving a gathering. In both cases, the charges were dropped within a day. The events are about 30 years old. Foley was completely forthcoming when the Courant reported asked him about the matter.

Normally, that would put an end to the matter. Instead, foley's opponents in the Republican primary for governor are getting crazy about this history. Griebel is saying that foley was charged with domestic violence (which is just untrue). Fedele calls on Foley to come clean (which he already has done -- and which he did before Fedele ever heard of the matter.)

I have no problem with a full investigation of the past of every candidate. Minor stuff like this from thirty years ago only tells me that Foley has a temper. Beyond that, I do not care. I know too many people in high places who had problems thirty years ago. The issue is not what they did thirty years ago; it is what would they do now.

Good News for once

There are reports today that Iran has backed away from its plan to send ships to accompany another "peace" flotilla to Gaza. After the "activists" attacked the Israelis enforcing the blockade and nine people were killed in the ensuing battle, the Iranians announced that they would send ships with troops to accompany the next group of "activists". for its part Israel announced and officially informed the UN that any presence of Iranian ships in Israeli waters would be considered an act of war and would lead to full scale hostilities. Today, the Iranians announced that due to the intransigence of the Israelis, Iran was giving up its plans to go to Gaza.

This is wonderful news. It shows that the Iranians are basically wimps with big mouths. No one did anything against Iran, but they ran from the confrontation. Indeed, it is interesting to see how quickly the Iranians retreated once Israel stood firm. This is very similar to the Iranian reaction when the Iraqi government took on the Mahdi Army in Iraq a few years back. The Mahdi Armi is the Shia Militia supported by the Iranians which was causing all sorts of problems in Iraq. Iran did nothing to help that militia when government troops came to their strongholds.

This should be a lesson to President Obama. For the last year and a half, he has been trying to be nice to the Iranians. The US has allowed Iranians to aid the Taliban and to help the few insurgents remaining in Iraq. The Us has allowed the Iranians to work towards nuclear weapons with little meaningful opposition. the US has settled for sanctions from the UN so weak that they cannot achieve anything. Indeed, Obama has lately been trying to get Congress to weaken the proposed unilateral US sanctions on Iran. This nice guy policy has not worked at all. Talking has achieved only more talking.

On the other hand, one strong move by Israel or the Iraqi government has led to a full retreat by the Iranians. The mullahs realize how weak and vulnerable they really are. They will not risk a true confrontation that could lead to their ouster from power.

Obama, are you paying attention? I hope so!

The new financial regulatory bill

Once again, we see the Democrats decide that the way to a better world is for more government intervention in the economy. this time it is the banking and finance sector that gets the intrusion. Sadly, it seems that no one got the actual message of the last melt down. The problems that led to the recession were not so much a lack of regulation as a lack of enforcement of those regulations. There was not too little intrusion by government in the key areas; rather, there was too much. Let's start with the amount of intrusion. Beginning in the 1990's there was a push by the federal government to increase home ownership levels in the USA. This was a good idea that went bad. The government pushed banks to make more and more loans to those whose credit was worse and worse. The servants of the federal government at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought up riskier and riskier mortgages with the result that banks who made risky loans were taken off the hook for the risk. This led to enormous numbers of new buyers with shaky credit getting into the housing market and prices rising in a bubble like atmosphere. Indeed, we have the nonsense of some lefties blaming "predatory" lending for the eventual collapse. Imagine the evil bankers forcing money on those who could not likely repay the loans. Those evil bankers set themselves up for massive losses. How clearly predatory. It is as if Bill Gates gave away half his fortune and then got called predatory for not giving away the rest.

As the quality of mortgages declined, no one in the federal bureaucracy halted the idiocy at Fanny and Freddie that could have stopped the bubble and led to a much smaller correction. When President Bush tried to get the oversight agency to intervene, he was voted down by Congress with Barney Frank in the lead. that, of course, is the same Barney Frank who has been so instrumental in this latest bill. He was totally wrong before, so how does it make sense to let him lead on the new bill?

Once again, we get another 2000 page bill that essentially no one has read. I have not even been able to get the text of the final bill yet on line. Obviously, the congressmen and Senators have not read it. Who knows what evil this will do? We will only know after the bill gets passed and we all have to face the consequences.

Let me put it another way. There is strong agreement that something needs to be done to prevent another financial melt down. I agree. The problem, however, is not the need for action; it is the definition of what that action should be. Congress should not be gambling on the hope that the methods which have never worked will suddenly start working.

Obamacrats kill investment

The economic recovery in the US is being threatened by the attack of the Obamacrats on the rationale for investment. Much of the economy functions on the back of consumer demnd. The purchases by the public drive demand and keep output flowing through the system. But over the longer term, it is new investment that drives increases in output, thereby keeping prices low, employment rising and even tax revenues growing. Think of it this way: If I go out and buy 1000 dollars of clothing, the impact of that transaction ends once it is completed. Alternatively, if I go out and invest $1000 in a machine that makes clothing, then there will be ongoing purchases of cloth and thread as well as the employment of a person who will operate the machine; the resulting economic activity continues for years.

The Obamacrats have done all they can to discourage investment. First came the healthcare bill which made it much more costly for a business to function. Next came the refusal to keep capital gains taxes at their current levels. These taxes are now scheduled to rise by 50% over the next few years. Third is the attack on energy costs; the Obamacrats have done all they can to drive energy prices higher. This price rise makes it less profitable to invest and therefore less appealing to the investor. Fourth, is the nationalization of many industries like banking and automobiles. Why invest if you have to compete with the government or if you might face a government takeover. Fifth is the general hostility to corporate America that emanates from the White House.

The statistics show what has happened. Mostly due to the stimulus, consumer spending has actually grown by almost 1% after inflation since 2008. By contrast, private investment during the same period fell 18% in real terms. That means that once the stimulus ends, consumption will fall and there will be no growth from investment to drive the economy. Since the USA cannot continue to pay out trillions of dollars each year, there will be no way to sustain economic growth.

Obama has managed to really hurt the economy while still spending like a drunken sailor.

Did they use self-hypnosis?

The New York Times is reporting that although things look bad overall for the Obamacrats in November, there are glimmers of hope which come from the faster economic recovery in Pennsylvania, new York and Ohio where many of the most contested seats are located. I think that the reported was either in a hypnotic trance or else on drugs. Let's look at the details:

First is Pennsylvania, the state with more contested House seats than any other. The economy in Pa is doing better than the national average for one reason only, the boom in natural gas drilling that covers three quarters of the state. By election day, there should be over 100,000 job created in the state since the start of the recession solely due to the drilling. It is probably safe to say that the folks in these jobs and their families will be interested in maintaining the health of this new industry. Of course, the Obamacrats in PA are the ones who are trying to raise major obstacles to the drilling on environmental grounds. Indeed, the candidates for governor in PA have split on the issue: Corbett, the Republican, supports continued drilling and economic growth. The Democrats wants to study the issue further (which is a careful way to say that he wants to stop the drilling.)

In NY, there is near total dependence on Wall Street to fund the state. While the economy may be recovering, Wall street is under attack. Also, the state government which is Democrat central is still spending and taxing like there is no end in sight. It will be interesting to see how well the Dems fare in the Empire state.

Ohio is completely another story. Here we have the traditional manufacturing economy which has declined and which is not doing that well. Yes, it is true that Ohio is doing better than many other parts of the country. But Ohio, like Michigan, has seen sufficient job losses even before the recession so that a few more jobs now will not change things for the Democrats.

Reuters, the biased AP

I keep writing about the bias shown in stories put out by the AP. Then I read a Reuters story and see what total bias is. My favorite today is this sentence in the Reuters story about how the Federal court refused to stay its decision overturning the ban on underwater drilling.

"Feldman's latest ruling was more unwelcome news for the administration, which has been on the defensive over what critics call a slow and ineffective response to the 66-day-old spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

Only critics call it slow and ineffective? Why not just say that the response is slow and ineffective? Everyone knows it is and acknowledges this to be the truth. Only the most die hard spin doctor of the Obamacrats would say that only critics (who are probably unfair, you know how htose critics are) call the response slow and ineffective.

Why cover it up?

In a vote today, a House committee refused to issue a subpoena to the White House to turn over the documents relevant to the job offers made to Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff. Since the job offers may well have been federal crimes committed by someone in the White House, it is rather stupid for the Democrats to have voted against the subpoena. If nothing improper happened, the best way to deal with it would be to put forward all the facts instead of looking like an attempted cover up. There cannot be many relevant documents. It would probably take the White House an hour or so to furnish the documents and put the matter to bed. Unless.... Was there more to the story than the Clinton offer to Sestak? Was Rahm swimming in the Ses-pool? Did the president take part in this effort? It sure looks suspicious.

Harry Reid

The choice of Sharon Angle as the Republican candidate in Nevada to run against Harry Reid has led to numberous stories about how Reid can now win re-election. Not so fast! A new poll out today puts Angle in the lead at 48-41%. Obviously, there are many months left in the campaign. The key, however, is that Reid has never polled about 42% in the last eight months of polls in Nevada against all opponents including Angle. Everyone in Nevada knows Reid, but only 40% or so will admit to voting for him. That usually means the end of the career for an incumbent. If Harry cannot beat a relative unknown like Angle at this point, the voters are voting against Reid and not for Angle. Assuming Angle does not start foaming at the mouth and claiming she was abducted by aliens, Reid is toast in my opinion.

Is this real?

John Harris, the chief of staff for Rod Blagojevich, testified in court that Obama was aware of Blago's offer to swap the appointment of Valerie Jarrett to the senate for the appointment of Blago to the cabinet. If this is true, it means that the White House and Obama lied when it was claimed that Obama had no knowledge of the sale of the seat by Blago. I tend not to believe Harris, however, since it would be so tawdry for the president elect to swap a cabinet seat like that. I do not like Obama, but I have never seen evidence that he is an out and out crook. Still, headlines like these can do Obama no good. Indeed, this may explain why Obama has seemed so distracted in recent months.

maybe it was sunspots or the full moon

The news that Al Gore is being investigated on a complaint of "unwanted sexual touching" is perhaps the weirdest news in a weird week. Certainly, it is not odd that a woman would consider any advance by Al to be unwanted. I mean, just consider the man for a moment. Still, Al is so wooden that it is surprising that he would make advances on anyone. He is also so concerned about his image at all times that it is again surprising that he would ever chance such a thing. I guess after seeing Bill Clinton in action and seeing Clinton's current status, Gore must have figured he could get away with this.

Speaking of Clinton, I think it was Jay Leno the other night who pointed to the picture of Bill at the last World Cup game of the US team and said that he understands that Clinton had gone to see the World Cup because he heard that there was not enough scoring by the US.

Can't they ever get it correct?

The British budget unveiled by the Tory-Liberal coalition calls for cuttinig 25% of nearly all expenditures in the UK together with tax increases to close the deficit. The reports on the budget in the New York Times contrasts the deficit reduction in the UK with the course that Prsident Obama wants in the US, namely: more spending. The Guardian, a Labor paper in the UK puts it this way: "The Cameron-Osborne plan puts Britain on a fiscal trajectory diametrically the opposite of the one Obama prefers for the US. Obama wants more stimulus spending (whether he'll get it or not is another question). Traditional economics supports the Obama view. The Times story notes that 'the sharp reductions defy conventional economic wisdom, which holds that governments should increase spending to stimulate growth when the private sector is weak.'"

Why can't these papers get it right? Taditional economics does not support the Obama view. Under a normal Keynesian analysis (which the papers are now calling traditional economics), the way to get out of a recession would be spending by the government on things that promote growth. For example, building a new port or a bridge would be encouraged. On the other hand, expenditures that do not promote growth are not part of the Keynesian analysis. Thus, spending nearly $200 billion to support public sector jobs does not promote growth and will not lead to any push out of a recession. The Obama stimulus bill and the new one he is currently pushing have very little in the way of spending that meets the test of a true Keynesian analysis. Payoffs to Democrat special interests are not going to get the country out of recession. Indeed, the resulting debt will actually prolong the recession and slow any recovery.

It really bothers me when we get this half assed analysis from people who should know better. I am sure that the New York Times can understand the difference between the two types of expenditures. It is ridiculous that the Times feels that it has to print nonsense of this sort as "economic analysis" just so that it can support Obama in his schemes.

Sunspots

the Washington Post is reporting today about the prolonged reduction in the number of sunspots and the resulting effect on the climate of the Earth. (the article can be reached by clicking on the title to this post.)

According to the article, we may be entering a period of low sunspot activity of the sort which last time caused marked global cooling of between 1 and 2 degrees celsius. Such a mini-ice age would seem to put to bed the worries of global warming.

Personally, I am waiting for the speech by Al gore about how the dearth of sunspots is caused by human activity.

Line of the day

Ann Coulter describing Cap and Trade:

Cap and Trade, or as it's formally known, "The Huge New Tax on Everything Under the Sun Act of 2010."

Wouldn't it be nice

Now that McChrystal is out as commander in Afghanistan, wouldn't it be nice if he were to resign his commission and speak out freely about the conduct of the war under commander in chief Obama. I would like his unvarnished views about the lengthy delay regarding the troop deployments. I would like to hear about whether or not there is interference from Washington in how the war is being conducted. This is a chance we rarely get since generals are not allowed to comment on things like this (hence McChrystal's removal from command). It would be truly wonderful to hear how Obama has been doing.

I guess it was not bad enough

Here is the latest news from the Gulf: "The containment system capturing oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill had to be removed Wednesday, leaving the gusher unchecked after a collision involving a robotic submarine, US officials said."

In English that means that there is now 100,000 barrels of oil flowing unchecked into the Gulf. It is hard to imagine anything that could get worse for the handling of this disaster.

Nice job Obama!

Now it's official

CNN has confirmed the Spitzer Parker show. Another new low in journalism. I would like to see a reaction from Bill O'reilly, but that is unlikely.

More journalistic integrity from CNN

CNN has been promoting itself for its journalistic integrity compared to Fox and MSNBC. In its latest move, CNN is rumored to be starting a daily show each evening featuring Kathleen Parker and Elliott Spitzer. My prediction is that we will soon see Parker bravely standing besides Spitzer when he admits to having paid to appear on other talk shows.

Seriously, Spitzer is a low life bit of scum who does not deserve a forum on tv. Even though no one will watch him on CNN, there is no excuse for Time Warner which owns CNN to put someone like this on the air. Parker is just another idiot who is along for the ride. Nevertheless, unless Spitzer starts appearing in nothing but black socks, the show will have no appeal. Indeed, once the freak show curiosity is gone, this will get cancelled. It is hard to imagine that CNN could find something that would appeal less than Campbell Brown, but they have done so.

Nice work by the government

It was revealed today that about 1300 prison inmates received tax credits for being first time home buyers last year. Obviously, the inmates did not buy homes, but they claimed the credits nonetheless and got them. Over 14,000 people received over 26 million dollars of credits improperly. One house was found that was used by 67 different taxpayers to claim the credit.

Nice work IRS. Wouldn't it be easier to just put the money in bags and hide it around the country. That would give everyone an even chance to find the cash, not just the crooks.

Obama loses more allies

The Business Roundtable is a group of CEO's of large corporations that have generally supported the Obama administration in its endeavors. For example, they supported Obamacare, although there were some provisions that they did not like.

Now things have just gone too far and the Business roundtable is bailing on Obama. Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that the obamacrats are following policies the slow economic growth and "harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S."

"In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore," Seidenberg said in a lunchtime speech to the Economic Club of Washington. "By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses."

How can anyone with half a brain be surprised by this. We have an administration which is hostile to the private sector where job creation takes place. They follow the true voodoo economics. Money just gets shoveled out the door to friends and cronies of the obamacrats and this is called stimulus instead of graft and corruption. Each act that congress passes seems to place new restrictions on commerce. Energy independence and environmentalism are used as excuses to shut off the flow of energy that powers this country.

November cannot come soon enough. The Obamacrats need to be dumped out on their asses. Unfortunately, we still have two and a half years of Obama and his traveling Socialist Circus.

the Empire Strikes Back

Yesterday a federal judge enjoined the government from enforcing the ban on offshore drilling. Now, the governemnt has announced that it will put out a new ban and it has also ordered the dredging of sand to create sand berms to stop. These berms are the sand walls that governor Jindal of Louisiana asked to build during the first week of the oil spill. The Obamacrats took a month and a half to get back to Jindal and then approved six of 24 requested berms. Now even these six are to be stopped while they are only partially built and while they do not serve their intended purpose. The feds want the state to start over two miles further out to sea. that means that the feds want to throw away millions of dollars of work already done and start again now that we are almost two and a half months from the start of the spill.

I have a question that I think must be on the tip of the tongues of the American people. Does the White House use writers to come up with this stuff? It is slapstick, but it is not funny. What better example of "Bureaucrats Run Wild" could one see. There is no one in charge. How could the feds approve the berms and three weeks later change their mind.

In my lifetime, the government has done some truly boneheaded things. this move, however, is either the worst, or right up there in the top three. Someone ought to be fired for this. Instead, Obama will focus on what General McChrystal said in Rolling Stone. After all, why would nayone expect Obama to be concerned with the "small" people in Louisiana?

For this they move quickly

In the wake of the judge's decision ending the government's ban on offshore drilling, the Obama administration has announced that it will issue a new "moratorium" on drilling. In other words, the judge strikes down the ban as improper, so the administration just issues it again. It is the first time that the Obamacrats have moved quickly with regard to anything that has to do with the oil spill. wouldn't it be nice if they had devoted even one tenth the effort to cleaning up the oil that they have to shutting down the oil industry.

the judge's decision

Yesterday I wrote about the lawsuit seeking to enjoin the federal government from banning any further offshore drilling. Today, the decision came down issuing a preliminary injunction. I have not yet been able to read the full decision, but the excerpts that I have read indicate that the judge found the federal government action to be arbitrary and capricious. The feds cannot take away people's livelihoods in such a manner. It would seem that the decision is correct.

Here we go again

I have written often about how it seems that the Obamacrats are more interested in what gets said than in what gets done. Well, here we go again. General McChrystal, the Obama appointed US commander in Afghanistan has been summoned back to Washington to explain the quotes attributed to him in an upcoming Rolling Stone article. Imagine, McChrystal allegedly told the reporter that he was disappointed with his first meeting with Obama. That meeting was about troop levels for the war. It took place months after McChrystal made his first informal request for more troops and was told by the White House to hold up sending in a formal request. In Rolling Stone, McChrystal is also quoted as asking, in jest, who Joe Biden is, criticizing the US ambassador for leaking cables that will give him the ability to say I told you so if the mission fails, and of allowing a subordinate to describe the National Security Adviser as stuck in 1985.

I agree that McChrystal should not publicly criticize those above him in the chain of command. The amazing thing to me, however, is the rapidity with which Obama has acted. It took Obama months to review the troop request after first delaying that request for more months through the back channel. It took Obama six months in office to meet with the commander of this war which Obama has called necessary. It is taking Obama a day to get the General to Washington to be fired after McChrystal is quoted in Rolling Stone. Let's see..in the war young Americans are dying day after day, but in Rolling Stone, McChrystal said he was disappointed with Obama. I can see why Obama moved so fast here and so slow with regard to the war. when he weighs the balance between the lives of soldiers and his own sensitivity to criticism, we can see which is more important to him. Obama is commander in chief. He is supposed to do what is needed to protect Americans, including the military. How can a few off handed comments be so much more important that the war.

Indeed, we have all seen how quickly Obama moved after the gulf oil spill where he laughably claims to have been fully engaged since day one. That affected millions of folks along the gulf shores. McChrystal only affects Obama's ego.

The truth is that we need a president who understands that actions are more important than words. Speeches and teleprompters are not the most important results of a presidency. Words are important, but they do not come close to accomplishments, but, of course, accomplishments are not things that Obama would know anything about. He has yet to have any that are positive.

Obama has got to go!

More Astonishment

I just watched the video of Labor Secrtary Solis' public service announcement calling upon all workers who do not get paid the full amount they are owed to contact the labor department for assistance. Amazing! the video can be reached by clicking on the title to this post.

Solis actually says that the Department of Labor will help get full payment for all workers "whether documented or not". Let's translate that into English: It is illegal for any employer in the USA to hire or employ an undocumented worker. Each employer is required to get forms completed by each new hire attesting to either citizenship or the legal right to residency in the country. So hiring an illegal is a crime and likewise it is a crime as an illegal to falsify the documents which prove legal status. That means that each instance where an illegal does or does not get full pay is a crime. Solis is now saying that the government will help those committing the crime to get the full fruits of that crime.

I would call that a new low for the Obamacrats, but that would be overstating it. It will be hard to imagine any obamacrat beating the Obama foreign, economic or oil spill policies as a new low. They are trying, however.

Who would believe Obama?

The video of Arizona senator John Kyl telling a town hall meeting that president Obama had told him that the border would only be secured as part of comprehensive immigration reform and not before, is making the rounds on the web. In the video Kyl tell the audience that during a private, one-on-one meeting with Obama, the President told him, regarding securing the southern border with Mexico, “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” Sen. Kyl also said he reminded President Obama that the President and the Congress have an obligation, a duty, to secure the border.

Now the White House spokesman is out with a statement saying Kyl lied. Of course, the spokesman was not there, and Obama has not said anything himself. Maybe in a year when he has his next press conference, someone could ask him about it.

I cannot see why anyone would believe the president. Here is a man who never met a lie that he did not like. He has blatantly lied about the healthcare law (my favorite is "If you like your present plan you can keep it" (so long as it is not one of the 51% of all plans that will need to be replaced.) He lied about the Oil spill (the White House was on top of this since day one! -- sure, you were). He lied about job creation (20,000 new private sector jobs in May was an outstanding sign of recovery). He lies about foreign policy (the legal removal by the Supreme Court of Honduras of the Honduran president for violation of that country's constitution was, per Obama, and illegal coup d-etat). He lies about the Sestak job offer. He lies about .. well the list goes on.

It is a sad day when the president feels that his only out in dealing with an issue as important as border security is to lie about what he said previously.

Interesting lawsuit

There was a hearing today in the suit brought to enjoin the federal government from imposing a six month ban on off shore drilling. The suit was brought by oil service and other drilling-related businesses who livelihood will dry up during the ban. These companies contend that the government arbitrarily imposed the ban without any factual basis to show that the activities on the other wells (beside the leaking one) were dangerous. The state of Louisiana has joined with the plaintiffs inseeking to enjoin the ban.

Government lawyers said the Interior Department has demonstrated that industry regulators need more time to study the risks of deepwater drilling and identify ways to make it safer. "There is a lot the department does not know, and that's precisely why it's important to conduct these studies and learn more," said Justice Department attorney Guillermo Montero.

When the judge asked why this spill engendered a ban when the Exxon Valdez and other events did not, he was told, "The Deepwater Horizon blowout was a game-changer. It really illustrates the risks that are inherent in deepwater drilling."

It will be intereting to see how the judge rules. His decision is due by Wednesday. On the one hand, there are literally thousands of people who have nothing to do with the Horizon well who will lose their livelihoods as a result of the government ban. Can they be deprived of their ability to make a living without due process of law? Doesn't the government need some rational connection between the ban and the likelihood of additional danger? On the other hand, this is an emergency and the government has great power in such situations.

My hope is that the ban will be enjoined. The government does not have unfettered power in all instances. It certainly could refuse to issue new permits for a time, a move that would eventually have the effect of stopping the offshore drilling. for the government to just shut down wells that are already being drilled, however, is clearly a taking of property under the constitutional definition. A need for experts to study a situation is not a sufficient basis for a constitutional taking in my opinion.

surpirse in texas

The winner of the Democrat primary in tom Delay's old Congressional seat in Texas is a Lyndon Larouche supporter who want to impeach president Obama. that's correct, the Democrat running for congress in this district wants to impeach Obama. Kesha Rogers was immediately cut off by the Texas Democrats on the purported basis of "racist" views. That may be problematical since Ms. Rogers is black. the truth is that a victory by a Larouche supporter in a Democrat primary, even in a conservative district, is a sign of real trouble for the Obamacrats. Sure, they were never going to recapture this seat this year (they lost last time by 53-45%), but to have a Larouche supporter win who wants to impeach Obama? Wow!

quote of the day

From Michael Barone's column in the Washington Examiner:

Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. That inspired blogger Rand Simberg to write a blog post he dated June 1, 1940: "The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport."

Rahm going?

Drudge is highlighting an article that speculates that Rahm Emmanuel is leaving the White House right after the mid term elections. My guess is that this means that Obama does not want Rahm there once the Republicans get back in power in the House and can issue subpoenas and demand answers about things like the job offer to Sestak and the one to Romanoff. the best way to keep the scandal out of the White House is to get rid of the guy who allegedly committed the crime.

That really worked well!

Obama's new concilliatory foreign policy in which the US apologizes for everything that has ever happened in the history of the world, cozies up to its enemies, and pushes its allies away, seems to have had no effect on Al Qaeda's views. Today, a spokeman for the terrorist group described Obama as "a devious, evasive and serpentine American president with a Muslim name."

You can tell. They really love him. So the USA loses allies but gains no friends. Is this the dumbest foreign policy ever? You bet it is!

A Suggestion for New York

The impending deal between governor Patterson of New York and the Democrat leaders of the Asembly and the State Senate includes a further increase in cigarette taxes of $1.60 per pack. That will make the cost of a pack of cigarettes more than $10. It will also raise $440 million to help close a budget gap of over $9 billion. Clearly, the huge cigarette tax will not do enough to enable the state to keep spending without cuts. Perhaps the Democrats in the Governor's office and Legislature are thinking too small. Maybe they should consider simply executing anyone who smokes and having all of the victim's assets go to the state. This might raise sufficient funds for a year or two to close the budget deficit. Of course, after all the smokers are gone, there would have to be cut backs, so they could move on to those who drink, are overweight or have inappropriate political views.

When will these people learn that they have to cut spending?

What is going on?

Patrik Jonsson is reporting in the Christian Science Monitor that the Coast Guard has called in oil skimming vessels from the Netherlands, Norway and elsewhere in an effort to get ahead of the oil spill in the Gulf. In the same article, the reports are that the Jones Act has not been waived -- which would make the use of these skimming ships illegal. Texas Senator Hutchinson has introduced a bill in Congress to temporarily rescind the Jones Act so that foreign ships can be used. Such legislation owuld not be necessary is Obama would just use his power to waive the act.

It is hard to imagine that nine weeks after the spill, it is still impossible to know if these additional skimmers are actually on their way to the Gulf. Couldn't someone from the White House make an announcement? We don't need a speech from the Oval Office. We don't even need a press briefing by Propagndist in chief Robert Gibbs. How about just a written press release. wouldn't that be nice! don't the boneheads in Washington think that the rest of the American people deserve to know how the spill is being handled?

This has to be the single most incompetent administration in modern times. Maybe James Buchanan was worse, but it is a close call.

Obama blames the Republicans for hurting the unemployed

This weekend, Obama has been blaming the Republicans for hurting the unemployed when they voted against the latest spending bill in the senate. Republicans refused to allow a vote on the bill until there was a source of funds other than borrowing for the hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent.

Is it too much to ask that the president of the United States tell the truth? The bill that did not pass is not one that "helps" the unemployed. That would be a bill that helped to create jobs. This is a bill whose single biggest component is to funnel money to states so that they do not have to live within their revenues. The bill will give the states more time to spend more money they do not have so that when the inevitable contraction comes in state spending, it will be all that more severe. Obama is trying to push the state and local spending bubble even bigger. It seems that Obama and the Obamacrats want the state employees to stay on the payroll at least through November so that they can all go out and vote for their benefactors.

The Republicans have not opposed this spending as such, but rather have insisted that the federal government actually have the new money that it spends. No more borrowing just so that the bubble can get bigger. While it makes sense to spend what we have and not what we do not have, it is crazy to keep on subsidizing out of control spending at the state level.

Perhaps the best example here is New Jersey. Governor Christie is in the process of cutting state spending by about 25%. Many of the cuts are already in place, and there has been no noticeable decline in essential state services. Teachers who ranted and raved about actually having to pay for some of their own healthcare like every other worker in America, are still teaching. Police and firemen are still on the streets. And taxes will not be raised in NJ for the 152d time in four years.

I guess that Obama can't come out and blame Republicans for not allowing the passage of a bill that is basically designed to help the Democrats in the fall, but it has little to do with helping to solve unemployment. The extension of unemployment benefits could pass in a flash if the Dems took the rest of the crap out of the bill. They know this. We know this.

So why don't we just tell Obama to cut the crap

Intelligence or Idiocy

The White House is on the Sunday shows again today reaffirming the start date for the Afghan pull out. Why must they do this. Hasn't Obama yet learned that phony deadlines are not a good idea. Here in the USA we saw the long list of deadlines for passage of heathcare come and go. Each time the deadline passed without action, obama just looked a bit less in control and a bit more ineffectual. We have heard that cap and trade wold be passed this year for sure and then that it was dead. The same is true of comprehensive immigration "reform". And we all remember the absolute deadline for the closure of Gitmo. That deadline passed almost six months ago and gitmo is still going strong. In other words, Americans have come to realize that Obama's deadlines have about the same finality as when a two year old stamps his foot and says "NO!", only to change his mind a milisecond later.

The problem with Obama's phony deadlines is that the rest of the world does not know Obama the way we do. They think that when the President of the United States sets a deadline, he means it. So when Obama says again and again that US forces will begin leaving Afghanistan next summer, overseas observers take him at his word. Don't like the US presence in Afghanistan? No problem, just wait a year and they will go. Don't think that your cause is hopeless in the face of US resolve, just wait another year and the US will leave. Thinking of supporting the US side in the fighting? Better not, since in a year it will just be you against the Taliban with no US backup. Trying to decide which side your country should support, if any? since you cannot rely on the US which is leaving in the middle of the fight, you better not side with the USA.

The point is a simple one: whether or not the US intends to start leaving next year, it is crazy to announce that now. Obama is playing to the lefties among his base who want out of Afghanistan, and it is hurting the US cause. If Obama does not think Afghanistan is worth the fight, we should be out now. On the other hand, if he does believe that we need to win there, then he should commit to victory and not just to a one year deadly photo op.

This is the time that the country needs a true leader. It is terrible that we do not have one. Obama has got to go!

Your tax dollars at work

I could not let today pass without commenting on the money from the stimulus package that went to the tribe that owns the Mohegan Sun. These folks own one of the highest grossing casinos in the world. Even in the slower economy, they each get well in excess of $30,000 per person in dividends from the casino every year on top of whatever else they earn. The casino has been highly profitable and has had no problem obtaining loans when needed for expansion. The news this week that the federal government used stimulus funds to get $70 million to the tribe for use in connection with the casino seems to me to be yet another insult to the intelligence of America. The money for the tribe was supported by nearly all of the Connecticut congressional delegation. So what! Why is the federal government sending money to a rich casino that could easily borrow the money elsewhere? That is not stimulus; it is just a gift to a group of political supporters. The claim from the Obamacrats has been that the stimulus created jobs or"saved" them. There is no way that this $70 million did either. This is an outrageous travesty.

Don't they get it?

CNN has announced that it will air a two hour telethon this week to raise money to benefit those hurt by the gulf oil spill. How dumb is that? Sure, no one wants to see anyone hurt by the oil spill, but isn't the way to do the most for those at risk to get the clean up going full blast rather than trying to raise a few million dollars? What if CNN ran a two hour show on what the Dutch skimmers could do if they were put to work in the Gulf? My understanding is that these skimmers have the capacity to remove about half of the oil that flows into the gulf each day. If that capacity got added to the ships already there, we would see a marked improvement in conditions. But the white House and the EPA do not want to use these skimmers. Each time the White House gets asked about whether or not it will waive the Jones Act, it gives the response that there has been no request for a waiver. How obscene is that response? NO REQUEST FOR A WAIVER!!!!!!!!! Maybe it is up to the President to realize that he is the one who needs to make a decision. Maybe it is up to Obama to get off his ass and take the necessary help from the Netherlands. Maybe it is up to Obama to stop with the photo ops and the trips to the gulf and to do somthing that will actually help the people and the habitat down there instead of trying only to help his political standing.

The EPA is against the skimmers because they funtion by taking about 99% of the oil out of the water and putting the rest back. That means that 1% of the oil goes back into the water and would "pollute" the Gulf. Are these people brain dead??? They do not want to ake out 99% of the oil because it would leave 1% so they just keep going leaving 100% in place.

CNN ought to do a show about that. So should Fox, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS. Wouldn't it be nice if the media actually held the White House's feet to the fire. What if some reporter actually asked Robert Gibbs to explain why there needed to be a waiver request for Obama to waive the Jones Act. there is no such requirement in the statute. It is time to tell the bozos in the White House to cut the crap and clean up this mess!!!!!!

Shaky road ahead.

The economic signals have been mixed at best in the last few weeks. Unemployment numbers have been disappointing. Except for the masters of spin, it is hard to find good news in the creation of census jobs. The manufacturing indicies have been slowing. The Gulf disaster will surely slow the economy in that area. Nothing is being done by the government to help job creation in the private sector -- essentially all job growth since the depth of the recession has been in government jobs. And down the road, there is a massive tax increase that keeps getting closer. Beginning next January, income tax rates will rise for the majority of Americans. Estate taxes will reappear at levels not seen since 2001. When the new taxes from Obamacare are included, the amount of cash sucked out of the economy will be many hundreds of billions of dollars. The net effect of this tax increase will be to slow economic activity even more.

On top of the looming tax increase, the USA is facing another major difficulty, namely that monetary policy cannot help this time to soften the blow to the economy. At the moment, short term interest rates are about as close to zero as they can get. The federal reserve cannot lower rates any further in a way that will have any impact on the economy and growth. it has already arranged interest rates so that in real terms funds are being transferred from those with fixed income investments like certificates of deposit and bonds, and moved to borrowers who hopefully are using the funds to increase economic activity. Little is said of teh plight of retirees who use the income from their investments to supplement social security. Monetary policy has stripped away nearly all of the supplemental income and moved these folks towards poverty.

The likelihood of a new fiscal policy is non-existant unless the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress and get Obama to go along with a restructuring of the tax code. While there is a chance that Republicans can take over Congress -- although it is not likely -- the chance of convincing Obama to sign a tax bill is essentially zero in my opinion. Obama actually believes that by taking more from the wealthy and middle class, the government will have more revenue and can spend even more on new programs. The sad reality, however, is that the impending tax increase will just act to depress economic activity. We will see no major rise in government revenues, but rather will see a decline in economic activity. This will increase costs for unemployment benefits and other social programs while reducing the resources available to pay for these programs. But the history of tax increases like this does not interest Obama. He has his ideology and it triumphs over reality.

I only hope that in November the defeat of the Democrats is so severe that Obama is awaken from his ideological stupor. Maybe he will actually bow to the will of the people. It may be our only chance to avoid a severe double dip recession.

Thanks

So far in the month of June, visits to this site are up 23% from May. Since May was already the most active month for this site to date, Connecticut Comments is on its way to its best month ever. Thanks to you all for the many visits.

Jeff

Sane political discourse

I have been reading websites like Salon and the others which form the nucleus of the Obama cheerleading squad. The strange thing to me is how distorted their view of reality is. Obviously, I disagree with their political views, but I still find amazing their conclusions and even their facts.

For example, Joan Walsh, the grand poobah of Salon wrote a piece yesterday about how this past week was one of Obama's best weeks ever. while she did acknowledge that his speech was weak, she pointed to the poor performance of the BP CEO before Congress and the apology of Representative Barton as reasons why Obama had such a good week. Wow! Obama supporters are now cheering that Obama is not as bad as BP. That should be good for a big bump in the polls. Also, some Republican from a district in Texas shoot himself in the foot and that makes it a good week for Obama. By that reasoning, we need to throw in the Democrat from North Carolina who assaulted the kid on the school project who asked the congressman if he supported Obama's agenda. My point is that Obama's cheerleaders apparently are either blatant liars or they cannot perceive reality.

In the last week, oil has continued to gush into the gulf. More important, however, is that in the last week oil has continued to foul the beaches, marshes and other habitats of the Gulf Coast. Plugging the well is very technical and needs expertise that the federal government cannot improve. Cleaning up the oil, however, is something that can be done provided competent management and sufficient resources are thrown at the problem. In other words, the federal government could improve the clean up dramatically, but all Obama wants to do is have photo ops and make statements about how the feds will stand behind the people in the Gulf.

Mr. President, about a week ago, you said you needed to know whose ass to kick. Here's the answer: Kick your own ass into action. Shut your mouth and actually do something. It's called "leadership". Without it, there is no hope and no change.

Stand up for freedom – 2

For my entire life, the United States has stood for individual freedom and liberty in the world. We fought against totalitarianism for decades until we finally saw the defeat of Communism with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. When Kuwait was overrun by Iraq, we undertook the liberation of that country and, together with many other nations, liberated the Kuwaitis from Iraq. After 9-11, we moved forward with a plan to liberate millions of those who were oppressed by both secular and religious dictators in the Middle East. As a result, nearly 40 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq are now mostly free. I say “mostly” since the fight for freedom continues. Iraq no longer menaces its neighbors. Afghanistan no longer provides safe haven for terrorists who want to destroy all those who do not agree with them. Indeed, until this administration, we have always stood by the cause of freedom and helped our friends who agreed with that cause.
Now, under Obama, the USA is abandoning those principles. Dictatorial ideologues like Chavez in Venezuela are courted by Obama. When the Honduran democracy took legal steps to remove the president of that country, a leftist protégé of Chavez, we amazingly stood with the legally ousted president and against the congress and supreme court of Honduras which was clearly upholding the Honduran Constitution. Democracy and Rule of law was put aside in favor of helping a leftist who was seeking to overturn the Honduran constitution.
When Argentina threatened the Falkland Islands as it had in the 1980’s, we no longer sided with the UK. Indeed, we ignored the votes of the Falklands’ residents in which they declared that they wanted to remain part of the UK. Instead, we suggested negotiations to the Brits. Wisely, the British ignored us, but they realized that the USA was no longer an ally upon whom they could count for support.
Then there is the issue of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. This agreement was signed with Colombia in the last year of the Bush administration. The Democrats in the senate, however, would not vote to ratify the agreement. When one looks to see why that is, one finds that Chavez in Venezuela strongly opposes anything that will strengthen the Colombian democracy. Instead, Chavez supports rebels who seek to overthrow the Colombian government. The Venezuelans got friends I the American labor movement to bad mouth the Colombian agreement and it got held up indefinitely in the Senate – to this day.
Next came Obama throwing the Poles, Czechs and Slovenes under the bus to placate the Vladimir Putin and the Russians. Obama agreed not to install a missile defense that would shield Europe from a few renegade missiles launched from Iran or some other rogue state because the Russians wanted no defense to missiles in Europe. The democratic governments in Poland, the Czech Republic and elsewhere went out on a limb to accept these missile installations and in one quick move Obama just pulled out. Obama supported the Russian dictator rather than the Eastern European democracies.

Of course, we have the Israelis and the disgusting way that Obama has treated them. Obama has worried more about whether democratic Israel is building homes for Jews in Jerusalem than whether or not Iran is building nukes. Every dispute involving the Israelis starts with the Obamacrats slanting towards the other side. Indeed, Obama even seems to favor terrorists over Israel.
The strange thing is that Obama is supposed to be well educated. One thing that we all should know from history is that dictators are not placated when they are appeased. When one give in to dictators, be they religious, secular or just crazy (like in North Korea), the dictators break into that song from Oliver. I can hear them all screaming for MORE!
Obama is not only rewarding those who undermine freedom and liberty around the world, he is hurting those who support such causes. No one could name an ally of the USA who has prospered at the hand of Obama – there simply are none. No one could name a place where Obama’s policy has led to the advance of democracy or liberty. Freedom is receding around the globe, and this will continue so long as we do not take a stand against the illegitimate foreign policy of the USA. We need to stand up and support freedom. We need to stand up and support liberty. We need to stand up and move forward with the fight against tyranny.

Almost Bushlike in the polls

Today's Rasmussen poll regarding President Obama's job approval numbers are so low that it is approaching the terrible lows recorded by George W Bush in his last years in office. The latest numbers are 58% disapprove and only 41% approve. Since these are likely voters and since Obama got about 53% of the vote in 2008, that means that he has lost the approval of over 20% of those who voted for him in the last election. Numbers that poor are stunning. Among Republicans and independents, Obama has virtually no support at all. Only among his core constituency of Democrats does Obama still retain approval. Even there, however, the numbers are slipping. I guess we can say that the oil spill made this a slippery slope.

If Obama keeps bleeding approval like this, he will poison the well for all Democrats in November.

Obama must mean incompetence in some language

Drudge is highlighting a report from Louisiana describing how the Coast Guard ordered state barges to stop vacuuming up the oil that was getting into the marshes there. The barges were put into action by the Governor Jindal when the federal government was unable to get into motion to clean up the oil and to prevent more from getting into the fragile marshes. According to the report, the reason for the stoppage was that the coast guard had to verify that the barges had life vests and fire extinguishers on them. Rather than just having an inspector look for the vests and extinguishers during the cleanup, the coast guard ordered the barges to stop work. Then no inspector showed up. When Governor Jindal hear of this he went ballistic and tried to contact the Coast Guard and the White House. No one at either location would take responsibility to get the barges up and running again. After two days of pushing by Jindal, he finally won approval for the barges to start up again.

This is clear evidence of the total incompetence of Obama and his people. How can there be no one who can respond to a governor about a critical item like this? How many more gallons of crude is now in the marshes than would have been had these barges been at work? How many more animals will die? How much longer will it take for the area to recover. Why does Obama not have someone in charge on location? And last, but not least, who got fired for stopping the clean up over life vests which could just have been brought to the barges even without an inspection if there was any doubt.

Stand up for freedom - 1

For the last two years I have watched as the individual freedom that we take for granted in this country has been reduced in dramatic ways. Axioms that defined the USA are no longer true. Our method of government has shifted. Freedoms that are guaranteed by the Constitution are in jeopardy. Unless something is done quickly, the American way of life may be changed forever.
I realize that this sounds like an alarmist rant, but unfortunately, it is all accurate. Let me explain.
First, it was always a pillar of the USA that we had, to use Lincoln’s structure, government of the people by the people and for the people. Simply put, the people are in charge, not Washington. Those in the government were public servants; the public were not servants of the government. This is being turned on its head.
This began in earnest with the TARP bill. This was sold both to the American people and Congress as a plan under which funds would be set aside to buy so-called troubled assets to get those assets off the balance sheets of shaky banks. The federal government would buy the mortgages and mortgage backed securities at issue and then hold them to maturity and collect what they could from the underlying assets. The TARP bill was passed in a crisis atmosphere during the 2008 election campaign.
Of course, almost immediately after the bill became law and three quarters of a billion dollars was set aside to fund it, it was completely changed by the executive branch. Instead of buying troubled assets, as the name of the bill suggests, the government began buying the banks themselves. A big chunk of the banking industry was nationalized without there even being so much as a vote in congress to authorize it. A bill that was never intended to authorize the takeover of banks was twisted by the president into a use that Congress would never have authorized.
Right after Obama took office, we got the first assault from his team. The stimulus was sold to the public as funding of a bunch of shovel ready jobs and some other programs to create jobs. It too was rushed through in the euphoria that surrounded the Obama inauguration with little care about the enormous cost and little attention paid to the details. Instead of creating jobs, however, this was a payoff to the main constituencies of the Democrat party. Public employees had their salaries and benefits guaranteed. Academics got funding for all sorts of quack studies. Few, if any jobs were created.
Next came the first Obama budget. Again, the money flowed through Washington more quickly than anyone could ever imagine. Debt was followed by more debt. But no one paid any attention to the desires of the people to slow down the orgy of spending.
After some other events, we got to the birth of the Tea Parties. These were just ordinary Americans who wanted to express their concern at the out-of-control spending in Washington. For their efforts, these folks were demonized as right wing nut jobs. They were Nazis according to Pelosi. They were evil mongers according to Reid. They were dangerous according to the liberal media. The government that is supposed to represent the people spent its time trying to stamp out the people’s movement.
When Healthcare became the main issue, there was no question where the people stood. Poll after poll showed large majorities opposing Obamacare. Scott Brown even took Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts. Did that stop Obama and the Obamacrats? Did they listen to the will of the public? We all know the answer. Government for the people was abolished in favor of government that “knows better than the people.” If you oppose Obamacare, you are labeled a racist. If you oppose Obamacare, you are a troglodyte. If you oppose Obamacare, you are to be ignored or suppressed.
But that is not where the problem stopped. The people clearly did not want the Gitmo terrorists brought to the USA. So what did Obama do? He ordered just what the people did not want.
The people clearly want something done to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Obama ignores this.
The people want the dignity of the United States preserved. Obama instead abases the USA and apologizes for things that never happened. He throws allies like the UK, Honduras, Poland, the Czech Republic and Israel under the bus. He cozies up to enemies like Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and China. And while he gets nothing for his efforts, he does great damage to the USA. And he ignores the will of the people.
Now we have the oil spill. Obama is now at the point where he has some problems getting things through the Congress. So what does he do? He now ignores Congress as well as the people. Just yesterday Obama demanded an escrow fund and a payout mechanism for claims from BP. He then announces the result as a completed agreement.
Obama forgets that only Congress can pass a law. Only congress can set up a compensation mechanism for claims. Only congress can move forward with this entire scheme. But Obama does not care. No longer is it government of the people. Indeed, it is not even representative government. Now it is just a dictatorship by the president.

We cannot allow our republic to be subverted by Obama, Bush or any other president. There has to be both the rule of law and the rule of the people. We need to take back the government. We need to oust those who ignore the will of the people. We need to rid our government of those officials who think that they are the government and not just representatives of the American people. We need to get rid of those who think they are in Washington to amass power and wealth rather than carrying out the people’s business. We need to start anew with a new group in power.

This is not a call for a Republican victory in November. Certainly, the Pelosi-Reid – Obama group have to go. That is without question. This is, rather, a call for the election of a new kind of representative—or more precisely the old kind of representative, one who listened to constituents and then followed the will of the people. The stakes are simply too high to ignore this any longer.

more straw men from AP

The AP is out with an article trying to explain away the 58% of americans who support the Arizona immigration law according to the Washington Post/ABC poll. According to the AP, this support is undermined since only 46% of respondents thought that states should be able to make their own border policies. Liz Goodwin, the "national affairs writer" who put out this piece for AP is truly an idiot. The Arizona law does not make a separate border policy for Arizona, it enforces the national policy set by Washington (which the feds are not enforcing even though it is the law.) The two questions in the poll conflict only if you first assume that all the respondents are idiots and that they do not understand the Arizona law. Of course, that does not stop Liz from setting up the second question as a straw man that can be used to knock the Arizona law.

The point of the poll is that even with the constant asault from the media and the Obamacrats, just under 60% of all respondents said they favor the Arizona law. That means that about two thirds of those with opinions favor the law (leaving out those who said they had no opinion). This is a losing issue for the Obamacrats and I think they are starting to understand this. There have been very few anti - Arizona statements and articles out of the DNC talking points recently. Before long, I expect Obama to endorse the Arizona law after doing a "full review" of it.

Unemployment numbers

This week's unemployment claims numbers came out this morning. The numbers were terrible, much worse than expected. Are these the first people put out of work on the Gulf due to Obama's drilling freeze? Are these just the biginning wave in a double dip recession (let's hope not). No one knows for sure why the numbers were so bad. Let's hope that they turn out to be an aberration. Still, this is more bad news for Obama at a point when he surely does not need it.

Things are so bad that Robert Gibbs may soon try to turn the conversation back to a discussion of Joe Sestak's job offer since it will not hurt Obama as much as the current mess.

Feinberg Followup

I got an e-mail from an irate reader this morning who complained about my post regarding the appointment of Kenneth Feinberg as administrator of the BP trust fund for victims of the spill. The reader complained that I had maligned Mr. Feinberg, a fair and decent man.

Let me first say that I said nothing negative about Mr. Feinberg and have no reason to do so. He is reported to have done a fair job handling the 9-11 compensation funds, and I have no reason to doubt that. The point of my post, however, was that Obama had lied in his televised address to the nation. According to Obama he was appointing an independent third party to run the BP compensation fund. Then, the next morning Obama announces that his pay czar, Ken Feinberg will handle the fund. so Obama's independent third party is someone already working for the governement as obama's pay czar. Why claim that the administrator will be and independent third party when you know that he will be an Obama employee who is anything but an independent third party.

Dutch skimmers

A report in the Hartford Courant says that the US government is reconsidering the use of the Dutch skimmers to remove the oil from the Gulf. These skimmers vacuum up sea water and oil mixed together in the ocean and dump the mix into a tanker at the scene of the spill. After the mixture separates so that the oil floats to the surface, the water is pumped back into the ocean with about 99% of the oil removed. the process is repeated with the result that the skimmers can remove 20 thousand tons of sludge per day per unit. The skimmers offered by the Dutch at the start of the leak would have been sufficient to handle all the flow out of the well, even at the current estimate of 60,000 barrels per day.

According to the article in the Courant, the feds rejected the skimmers because they pump water mixed with some oil back into the ocean. I would like to meet the idiot who made that decision. These skimmers could remove 99% of all of the oil and leave us with only 1% to clean up. The environmental purist who made the determination that they were not adequate for use left things instead where 100% of the oil stayed in the water to foul beaches and kill wildlife instead of removing 99% so that only 1% was left to hit beaches and wildlife. this is another example of the government not being able to do anything correctly. Only a total fool would have made the decision which was the government's choice at the start of the spill.

Just think, once the government reverses itself, we will be in a situation where due to the incompetence of the Obama administration some 6 million tons of petroleum that could have been removed had someone had the sense to accept the skimmers at the start of this mess will instead have washed up on the shores, killed the fish, destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people and ... well you get the picture.

BP and the airheads

One of the most bizarre things to come out of the Gulf oil spill is the move to boycott BP. I wonder if anyone participating in the boycott actually understands what they are doing. First of all, the boycott against BP gas stations may hurt BP in a very small way, but more likely it will hurt the owners of the BP stations themselves and the employees at those stations. BP does not own each of the gas stations that carry the BP name; most are franchises. Second, much of the oil produced by BP is sold at gas stations that operate under other names like Sunoco, Mobil, Exxon and the like. If BP produces crude oil and sells it to another refiner, there is no way of knowing where that oil ends up. Second, even for oil refined by BP, there is a big likelihood that the bulk of the production goes to stations that are not called by the BP name. The business is just too intertwined for consumers to figure out which product actually comes from BP. Much of the output from BP refineries ends up at other companies' stations.

So a boycott of BP will hurt American small businessmen and their employees and it will leave BP virtually unharmed. congratulations to the geniuses who thought that one up.

Independent?

Last night Obama said that he would get an escrow fund from BP that would be doled out by an independent administrator. Today word come that the head of the fund will be Ken Feinberg who is the pay czar in the administration. While Feinberg is a respected individual (rare for an Obama czar), he is certainly not independent. why must Obama make statements in speeches that he contradicts on the very next day? Can't they update what is on the teleprompter?

President Biden

Things have reached such a terrible nadir that I think it is time to start a movement calling upon Obama to resign so that Joe Biden can become president. While Biden certainly would be a poor president, at least he would not be Obama. It cannot get any worse.

Does AP ever read what it writes?

In today's news is an article headlined Unemployment bill defeated in test vote. As usual, the AP has slanted its coverage so far that no one could actually recognize the truth after reading it.

The bill in question covers a long list of things. It accomplishes the doctor fix; this is the raise in compensation for doctors under medicare which was stripped out of the healthcare bill so that the Obamacrats could say it was revenue neutral. the bill also raises taxes on mangers of investment funds. It levies further taxes on oil produced in the USA. It sends aid to state and local governments. It has some tax breaks for small businesses. Lastly, it extends unemployment benefits for those out of work for over six months and keeps the temporary $25 per week raise in this compensation that Congress established on a temporary basis some months back. Less than ten percent of the bill deals with unemployment.

Despite the actual facts, AP writes about the bill as if those voting against it were in favor of hurting the unemployed. this really gets old fast. Unfortunately for the AP, there are few Americans left who believe the crap that AP calls news.

The most interesting thing about the vote is that over 20% of the senate democrats voted against the bill. Obama has lost his touch.

This must be stopped

Word is now out that the US government under Obama is seeking to deport Mosab Yousef to the Palestinian authority. Yousef is the son of a leader of Hamas who acted as a spy for years; he gave important information about planned Hamas activities to the Israelis and other countries working against terror. Now the Obamacrats want to deport him back to the West Bank and to his certain death. Have they lost their mind? The US government wants to send to his death someone who helped us in the war against terror. And they want to do so on the grounds that he helped support Hamas? This needs to be stopped. Maybe the Obamacrats are too dense to realize what a travesty this is, but Congress can get into the act. Everyone should contact his or her representative to get involved here.

The right question

For about two weeks, Sean Hannity -- or, as I like to call him, the Repeater -- has been going on and on and on about how the Obamacrats turned down skimmers offered by the Dutch on day three of the oil spill and how those skimmers could remove 20,000 tons of sludge a day from the water. Enough already. We get the point: Obama blew it.

Now it is time to ask the correct question. Why is it that nine weeks later the US has still not accepted the offer of help. Maybe there was an oversight when the oil was supposedly flowing at 1000 - 2000 barrels a day. Now that we know that the flow is more like 60,000 barrels a day, why in the world is the US government refusing any offer of help? No speech by Obama can explain this. he needs to get of his photo op and do something.

Obama Running Empty

The speech by President Obama tonight was amazing for how little he really said. To use the old line, there was no there there. According to Obama everything is under control. He reminded me of the guard in The Wizard of Oz who assures the populace of the Emerald City not to be concerned about the wicked witch of the West -- not very reassuring and not very believable. We still do not know the real plan for cleaning up the mess -- if indeed there is such a plan yet.

I was surprised to see that my reaction to this fiasco of a speech was replicated on -- of all places -- MSNBC. Olbermann and Matthews were a chorus of condemnation for the speech. Olbermann said something like he did not think the president aimed too low, he thought Obama had not aimed at all.

Obama is the first president to make me nostalgic for the good old days when Jimmy Carter was president.

Obama has got to go!

Laurie David -- report of affair untrue

Laurie David, ex wife of Larry David and reportedly (according to the Star) having an affair with Al Gore, says that the report is completely untrue. I have to say that this certainly makes sense. How could any woman have an affair with Gore without falling asleep constantly?

Bad News for the Dems

According to a new poll done by NPR, voters in the 70 districts likely to determine the control of the House in November prefer Republicans over Democrats by 49-41. The poll looked at open seats in possibly contested districts as well as seats held by Democrats that voted for McCain or held by Republicans but which voted for Obama. Further bad news for the Dems is that in these districts, Obama's job approval number is just 40%, many points lower than the national average. this means that those who approve Obama's performance are bunched into a relatively small number of districts and the remainder have high disapproval numbers. the third leg of the Republican trifecta is that among voters in these districts who are very interested in the election and most likely to vote, the Republicans are up 53-39.

Much can happen before November rolls around, but if these numbers hold, there will be a Republican House starting in January of 2011.

Speech or no speech, the Obama breakdown

The wall of red tape put in place by the Obama team to stop progress in cleaning up the oil spill is beginning to splinter. First Governor Jindal or Louisiana decided to go ahead with state plans for a clean up without prior federal approval. Now the commissioners of Okaloosa County in Florida have voted unanimously to give their emergency management team the power to take whatever action it deems necessary to prevent oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from entering Choctawhatchee Bay. The commissioners state that they realize they are possibly going to be criminally liable for keeping the waters clean, but they refuse to let federal red tape stop the necessary actions. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of the shot heard round the world. Obama and his big government goons will soon be swallowed up by a wave of anger coming from local officials who are desperately trying to salvage as much of the local ecosystems as possible.

It will be interesting to see how Obama spins this one as Bush's fault. My guess is that the hold up in approving the local plans for clean up until after the oil hits the fragile areas (and even longer) will be discovered to be the result of something that Bush did in failing to keep the bureaucrats in top form.

We are getting to the point where patience is gone and anger is mounting. Obama has to do something or else get out of the way and let the adults take over.

Obama has got to go!

The Dream Team

Recent columns speculate that Obama will not reun for re-election in 2012. while I doubt that, I can now tell you on good information that the Dems are coalescing around their Dream Team for 2012: It will be a combination of Alvin Greene and Congressman Etheridge. With Greene's arrest for pornography and Etheridge's assault on the student seeking to question him for a school project, the campaign slogan for the ticket is perfect: Get Crime off the streets and keep it in the White House!

Laurie David????

The Star is reporting that Al Gore and Laurie David are having an affair and that this is the reason for the Gore divorce. I find this hard to believe. Laurie David is a reasonably good looking woman who must be quite wealthy after her divorce from Larry David. She is an environmental "activist", but other than that, what could possibly lead her to hook up with Al Gore? Gore is the single most colorless man in the Western World. Here is a man who lost the presidency on the strength of his lack of a personality. How could she like him? It boggles the mind.

Poor Tipper. Imagine after putting up with Al Gore for forty years she does not even get combat pay. I bet after spending all that time with Al, she is being treated for post traumatic stress disorder.

further update on teh nut job from NC

I also checked to see if cites like the Huffington Post ran the story. They did and I give them a hat tip for running it even though Etheridge is a Democrat. It is a sad day when the Hufpo is a better journalistic source than CBS, NBC and ABC combined.

Not surprising results -- Nut job from North Carolina

I just checked to see if either the original attack by Etheridge on the student or Etheridge's response made its way into the mainstream media. Here are the results: CBS -- NO; ABC -- NO, but the is an obscure link to a blog from the Hill that has mention of the incident; MSNBC -- NO; CNN - NO, but again there is a blog link. Only Fox News has carried the story. A congressman attacks a student and then issues a formal apology and the mainstream media thinks it is not newsworthy. Needless to say, Etheridge is a Democrat. Just imagine what would have happened if he were a Republican!

The Nut Job strikes back

Representative Etheridge of North Carolina is out with a statement in response to the video of his attack on the student who asked him a question on the street. The response is as follows:

“I have seen the video posted on several blogs. I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction and I apologize to all involved. Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. No matter how intrusive and partisan our politics can become, this does not justify a poor response. I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse.”

The response is a nice one, but it does not excuse the attack. How can we have people in government who go on the attack literally when they are asked a question. The student did not say anything threatening or critical. the student just asked "Do you support President Obama's entire agenda?" This is a lot like the question asked of Helen Thomas: "Any thoughts on Israel?"

No sane person cold think that either question was an attack or an affront. These were citizens asking for someone's views in a normal conversational manner. Thomas ranted and raved but without malice towards the questioner. Etheridge, however, physically attacked the student who asked the question and would not let him go even when asked to do so.

Etheridge needs to resign from Congress now. He needs help. I would suggest anger management. Maybe jack Nicholson is available.

Isn't is good that Obama wants to be friends with Cuba?

since becoming president, Obama has been trying to improve US relations with Cuba. Today, the Cuban legation in Geneva released a statement from their former fearless leader fidel Castro in which he claims that Israel wants to send all Palestinians to death camps like those used by the Nazis. Forgetting for the moment the outrageous nature of Castro's statement, this should serve as a reminder why there are certain governments and countries around the world who are not friends of the USA. for Castro to use the slaughter of Jews as a weapon against that same people is something that no moral or honest person could do. Castro deserves a special place in Hell for this and his other acts. Obama must start conducting foreign policy based upon reality and not simply statements of what he would like to see.

Obama has got to go!

Obama to speak about cap and trade

Tomorrow night, President Obama is to give an address on the oil spill in the Gulf. According to White House sources, the centerpiece of the address will be a push for cap and trade legislation. In other words, Obama's response to an oil spill is new taxes, fewer jobs and a stagnant economy. Can he really be serious?

On the same subject, Alabama governor Riley, a Republican, took strong issue with the way that the federal government is handling the clean up. According to Riley, decisions are stalled because each government agency included in the "unified command" running the response has a veto on decisions advanced by other government agencies. Riley cited a Coast Guard plan for protecting the Alabama shoreline that has been held up for 45 days because another member of the committee is reviewing it. Obama needs to get someone to take charge and make decisions. That would do a lot more good than talking about cap and trade.

Another nut job in congress

The video is on the net today showing congressman Etheridge of North Carolina assaulting a student journalist who asked him "Do you support the complete Obama agenda?" They met on the street and the student said good morning and asked his question. The congressman grabbed the student and kept saying "Who are you?" Since Etheridge is a Democrat, it will be interesting to see if this gets any play in the media. It is linked on Drudge, but I bet it does not show up on ABC, CBS or NBC. I hope I am wrong.

Where do they find these nut jobs to sit in Congress? there is no way that Etheridage could have taken offense at the questioning. It is all on video, so it will be hard for Etheridage to spin this one away. He should not be in congress.

If you want to see the video, click on the title to this post.