Tag: Obama

I have come to a conclusion about the President

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That he is either abysmally ignorant or grossly naive.

The reason I say this, is because now, Obama is now saying that he is shocked SHOCKED that there would be any uproar over him calling the police dept “Stupid” for how they handled race-baiter and general stupid idiot, Henry Gates.

ABC News reports:  (Please,be sure and watch the video, please, I cannot embed it here)

President Obama today stood by his comments that the Cambridge, Mass., police department acted “stupidly” in its arrest of Henry Louis Gates, telling ABC News that the Harvard University professor should not have been arrested.

“I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home,” Obama said.

In an exclusive interview with ABC’s Terry Moran to air on “Nightline” tonight, Obama said it doesn’t make sense to him that the situation escalated to the point that Gates was arrested.

“I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do,” the president told Moran. “And my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed. That’s my suspicion.”

The president said he understands the sergeant who arrested Gates is an “outstanding police officer.” But he added that with all that’s going on in the country with health care and the economy and the wars abroad, “it doesn’t make sense to arrest a guy in his own home if he’s not causing a serious disturbance.”

It is quite obvious that Obama is biased in this situation, because he is black. So much for a Post-Racial President! The man still clings to the past racial nonsense of the 1960’s. I guess his Communist mentor in Hawaii had more influence than we thought.

What really perplexes  me, is how Obama is going directly against the Police union:

Crowley and his union slammed the president today for his comments about the incident at Gates’ house last week.

Obama “was dead wrong to malign this police officer specifically and the department in general,” Alan McDonald, the lawyer for the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, told ABC News today.

Crowley also chimed in, saying that the president’s characterization was “way off base. … I acted appropriately,” Crowley told WBZ Radio in Boston Thursday.

“I support the president of the United States 110 percent,” Crowley told WBZ. “I think he’s way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts, as he himself stated before he made that comment.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that the president was not calling the Cambridge police officer stupid when he criticized his actions in the Gates incident.

On whether the president regrets the use of his words, Gibbs said: “No. He was not calling the officer stupid. The situation got out of hand.”

Gibbs said he was not aware whether the president had spoken to Gates.

This is part that makes me wonder if the President is dealing with a full deck —- or not. Why I say this is; does the President have any remote clue, how stupid it is to insult a union worker? The Police do have a union, does Obama even know this or realize the implications of crossing the police union? I mean, Obama may as well have called the United Auto Workers, a bunch of lazy bums!  Obama has basically gone against his own base! I mean, does not Obama release that this union is, as are all Union affiliated with the A.F.L-C.I.O; and that these organizations communicate with one another? There is an old saying when it comes to progressive politics; and anything else for that matter, and that is; you just do not bite the hand that feeds you. Obama has just bitten one the biggest hands in progressive politics!

Something tells me, that Obama is going to be doing some serious kissing up here in the next few weeks or else he can forget about running in 2012. Because you just do not stab the unions in the back and expect to be reelected. You would think that Obama, being quite the progressive that he is, would know something like this.I may now be a Conservative; but I do know the inner workings of progressive politics and Unions are a big part of it. Obama might find this out, when it is time for him to be reelected come 2012.

When you have lost the unions, you have basically lost your base and your chances of being reelected.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: No Healthcare Vote Before August Recess

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A victory, albeit a minor one:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today that the Senate would not attempt to pass sweeping health care reform until after returning from the August recess.

“It’s better to get a product that’s based on quality and thoughtfulness than on trying to just get something through,” Reid told reporters.

Reid said the Senate would try to complete a package in the fall.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin said Wednesday that he expected that a bill would not be passed before the upper chamber breaks for recess on August 7.

“All this is no surprise to anyone,” Reid said.

Reid also said that the Senate Finance Committee’s long-awaited markup would be completed before the August 7 date.

Reid said Republicans, who have shown intense resistance to President Obama’s push for health care reform, had asked for more time to work out a package.

“We will do what we can to make sure their concerns are not buried,” Reid said.

via Reid: Health care won’t happen before recess – Politico.com.

So, it looks like the President’s little dog and pony show last night was all for naught. Instead of forcing the hand of Congress; Obama succeeded in making himself look like quite the jackass, in front of the American people. Instead of Obama pushing his Healthcare plan; Obama just played the game of trying to reassure the American people. Which, in this writers opinion failed; because he simply dealt in generalities, instead of specifics.

Seems to me that President Obama believes that the entire Democratic Party is just going to roll over and allow this Healthcare bill to pass unchallenged. It just does not work that way. The entire Democratic Party, is just not sold on the idea of President Obama’s far left socialism. The Blue-Dogs as they are called, still believe in free market values. They are just not going to swallow Obama’s agenda; just because he is black.  This was the fatal flaw in the Obama strategy, thinking that he was going to get his way; and if anyone tried to block it, he would play the race card. It worked during the campaign, but it will not work in Washington D.C.; because the Blog Dogs just are not that stupid.

If the Blue Dogs are going to be convinced to pass something like this, they will have to be told how, in very specific terms, this Healthcare program is going to be paid for. So far, Obama has not given that. Only simple generalities; that will not fly with the Blue Dog Democrats at all.

I will continue to cover this interesting little story. Because I want to see what strategy that the Obama Administration employs. I can tell you, that if the Obama Administration tries to employ the “race card”, there could be some backlash from that as well. Because some in the Democratic Party just do not buy into that whole, “Play the card, if you’re losing the argument” strategy. It could cost Obama in poll numbers and possibly in 2012, should he decide to run again.

Update: You can read the round up of opinions on Memeornadum

Open Thread: Obama’s Healthcare presser

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So, what do you all think about the Press Conference thing tonight on Healthcare?

Some notes:

  1. Steven Green and Dr. Melissa Clouthier live Blogged about it.
  2. I watched Bill OReilly’s reaction to it, it was as I expected. Bill did not understand any of it.
  3. Some in Congress are saying that there will be no vote before summer recess.
  4. Pelosi says that Congress should work till it is passed.
  5. Obama feels that the Blue Dog Democrats are going to ruin his Presidency.
  6. Some feel the Healthcare bill is better than nothing at all.

My take: I watched the presser myself. All I heard were generalities, no details. Mostly talking points and bluster.

So, what do you all think about his Presser?

The more things change…..

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The more they stay the same….

Reporting from Washington — Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.

The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the “presidential communications privilege.”

via White House declines to disclose visits by health industry executives – Los Angeles Times.

Hope! Change!

Yeah, Right!

Just another lying Politician, like the rest of them. No Change, at all.

Updated to Add: I did not want to say too much here. Because my shoulder was hurting me pretty bad. It is a little batter and plus, I do want people to come to my blog. This whole thing stinks to high heaven, and even the Liberals are pissed about it; and rightly so. Barack Obama and the other Democratic Party candidates  railed against the Bush Administration for this same very thing during the 2008 election. So, what does Obama do, once he is in the White House? The very same damned thing. President Barack Obama promised total transparency when he was elected and what does he do? Lies out his rather large ass, that’s what! I tend to believe that Obama is going to face a very large backlash here and this one might be his undoing come 2012.

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Bobby Jindal makes a good argument against Socialized Medicine.

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Some very good points made here…:

In Washington, it seems history always repeats itself. That’s what’s happening now with health-care reform. This is an unfortunate turn of events for Americans who are legitimately concerned about the skyrocketing cost of a basic human need.

In 1993 and 1994, Hillary Clinton’s health-care reform proposal failed because it was concocted in secret without the guiding hand of public consensus-building, and because it was a philosophical over-reach. Today President Barack Obama is repeating these mistakes.

The reason is plain: The left in Washington has concluded that honesty will not yield its desired policy result. So it resorts to a fundamentally dishonest approach to reform. I say this because the marketing of the Democrats’ plans as presented in the House of Representatives and endorsed heartily by President Obama rests on three falsehoods.

First, Mr. Obama doggedly promises that if you like your (private) health-care coverage now, you can keep it. That promise is hollow, because the Democrats’ reforms are designed to push an ever-increasing number of Americans into a government-run health-care plan.

If a so-called public option is part of health-care reform, the Lewin Group study estimates over 100 million Americans may leave private plans for government-run health care. Any government plan will benefit from taxpayer subsidies and be able to operate at a financial loss—competing unfairly in the marketplace until private plans are driven out of business. The government plan will become so large that it will set, rather than negotiate, prices. This will inevitably lead to monopoly, with a resulting threat to the quality of our health care

via Bobby Jindal’s Bipartisan Health-Care Reform – WSJ.com.

Of course, when Bobby Jindal makes this Argument:

Second, the Democrats disingenuously argue their reforms will not diminish the quality of our health care even as government involvement in the delivery of that health care increases massively. For all of us who have seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to hurricanes, this contention is laughable on its face.

Zendar The Stupid writes:

On number 2, I see Bobby still hasn’t learned the lesson of the difference between “There are things the government can and should provide” and “Let’s underfund these services, they waste money.” You get no cred talking about FEMA as a Republican, because your state didn’t exactly pick up the slack there after Katrina, Bob.

This argument is so damn stupid, that it is absolutely pathetic. Hence the name of this idiot’s blog. In case Mr. Stupid has forgotten, Bobby Jindal was NOT the Governor during Katrina.  Kathleen Blanco; a Democrat, was in office. A Democrat who did not have a damn clue as to how to run a State. To cover for her blatant inability to run a State Government, she tried to blame BUSH for the failures during the Katrina Disaster. Nice try at spin there buddy, but this Blogger clearly remembers that whole little incident and how the Liberal Media tried to use it to slime Bush.

Funny how when the Liberals begin to lose an argument they have to resort to Ad-Hominem attacks and straw man arguments. Losing the Healthcare debate? Blame Bush! Economy in the toilet? Stimulus not working? Blame Bush! It is quite lame, but very humorous to watch.

Here we go again — Bitter and Clingy Part II

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First the Video via Verum Serum:

John sums it up quite nicely:

You begin to get the idea that, underneath all his efforts to talk to people like adults, he thinks there are really just two camps: Courageous progressives, e.g. himself and people who agree with him, and backward bumpkins who huddle around failure because they’re too afraid to be more like…him.

It must be an empowering way to see the world. It’s also arrogant, elitist and false. But I wonder if any of that can compare to the psychic kick of seeing oneself as a superhero among benighted mortals.

Rough translation:  President Barack Obama thinks the following: “‘Dem stupid Conservative honkey Hillbillies don’t know what good for ‘da Country; I do. ‘Cause I’m black and I’m down with ‘da struggle and chit…”

Ed Morrissey, who is much more refined that me, sums it up nicely as well:

Remember when Obama scoffed at the notion that he was an elitist during the campaign? I wrote at the time that Obama was deliberately confusing “elites” and “elitism”, and that having a sitting US Senator attempting to deny his elite status was a little odd anyway. This is a perfect display of elitism — someone telling people that they don’t know how to calculate their own self-interest and declaring that a few people in Washington can figure that out for them better than they can themselves. It’s patronizing, condescending, and in fact is the very kind of attitude that created the impulse for our separation from the paternalistic monarchy that refused to allow for the notion that the colonies should have a say in their own governance.

NYT Headline: HotAir’s Ed Morrissey calls for a Revolution against the Government! :rotfl: 😉

I kid, I kid! 😀 :-)) :laugh: :rotfl:

This above is another reason why I will never, ever vote for another Democrat for as long as I live. Because they snivel at the common class people; who disagree with them.  Janeane Garofalo proved this to me, which she uttered these works on Keith Olbermann’s show:

Which was when I decided that I no longer wanted to listen to what Mr. Olbermann had to say any longer.  You see, I am nowhere near to the far, far right that some of my fellow Conservatives are. I have always considered myself to be a bit of a moderate, in the sense that I just do not believe that the Republican Party has all of the answers. However, when I see a liberal Democrat actress getting on National TV; who is most likely not hurting for money, and sit there and call average working Americans rednecks and racists —- all because they happen to disagree with the President’s politics; there is something abysmally wrong with the politics that she represents.

The real kicker is the fact that these were the same group of people, that moaned to the high heavens about how the Conservatives were being “meanies” for saying that the Liberals were being Anti-American for not supporting George W. Bush and his policies. Albeit idiotic as some of them were; it still seems quite hypocritical to this writer, that the Liberals are engaging in some of the idiotic behavior that liberal Blogs and Media lambasted when the Republicans were holding the ball, so to speak.

But this is really nothing new really. I am sure this sort of nonsense has went on for years. It just has been become much noticeable to me. Because I have been paying attention to politics since running this blog. The overreach that has been taking place, so far; during the Obama Administration is classic, it happened during Clinton’s era, During Carter’s era. It even happened during both the Reagan and both Bush Administrations as well. Politicians always overreach, make promises they cannot keep, it is nothing new at all.

The tragic thing is this, Obama made a great deal of promises to many people that had never voted before. Many of thee people are not old enough to remember many of the previous Administration’s overreaches and hallow promises.   This could hurt Obama greatly come 2010, in the form of rejection of his Democratic Senators and Congressman and hurt him, should he decide to run in 2012.

The Wall Street Journal’s shocking Discovery: "Obama is not Post-Partisan"

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You mean, they are just now figuring this out? Raised Eyebrow

Only last summer we were told that Barack Obama’s political appeal rested on his vision for a “post-partisan future.” The post-partisan future was one of the press corps’ favorite phrases. It served as shorthand for the candidate’s repeated references to “unity of purpose,” looking beyond a red or blue America, and so on.

Six months into the president’s term, you don’t read much about this post-partisan future anymore. It may be because on almost every big-ticket legislative item (the stimulus, climate change, and now health care), Mr. Obama has been pushing a highly ideological agenda with little (and in some cases zero) support from across the aisle. Yet far from stating the obvious—that sitting in the Oval Office is a very partisan president—the press corps is allowing Mr. Obama to evade the issue by coming up with novel redefinitions.

via Let’s Face It: Obama Is No Post-Partisan – WSJ.com.

You know, if I were one of those uncouth types; I would say something along the lines of, “Well, Duh!”  But that would be unbecoming of a blogger of my caliber. Now if you will pardon me, I need to adjust my top head and tails. Smug

Seriously folks, you mean to tell me the Rupert’s people up at the WSJ are just now figuring this out? I mean, did not the whole “I won” sniveling line to the Republicans, give them any clue at all that Obama did not intend to bend an ear to the Republicans?

But of course Obama is not a Post-Partisan; He is going to ride this ever-rapidly-decreasing wave of support to get his agenda through, while he still has the sixty-seat majority in the Congress; to pass his agenda. Well, that is if the “Blue Dog” Democrats do not derail it. Which most likely will happen. I mean, I ridicule the Democrats quite a bit. But the Conservative wing of the Democratic Party; small as it might be, is still there and I just do not believe that they are just going to bend and allow Obama to bowl them over.

I just cannot believe that WSJ is just now figuring this out. They seriously need to hire me. I mean, I could told them this eons ago. Big Grin

The A.D.H.D. of the Conservative blogsphere

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I cannot believe I am using that title, seeing I have A.D.H.D. and take meds for it daily.

I hate to always be the wolf to break away from the pack. But sometimes common sense has to start somewhere…. Many of my fellow right wing Bloggers are howling about this one:

In a reflection of a legislative strategy that has left no stone unturned, President Barack Obama on Monday called on like-minded bloggers to help his administration keep the heat on lawmakers to pass health care reform.

“It is important just to keep the pressure on members of Congress because what happens is there is a default position of inertia here in Washington,” the president said during an invitation-only conference call. “And pushing against that, making sure that people feel that the desperation that ordinary families are feeling all across the country, every single day, when they are worrying about whether they can pay their premiums or not… People have to feel that in a visceral way. And you guys can help deliver that better than just about anybody.

via HuffPo: Obama Calls On Bloggers To Keep Health Care Pressure On Congress (AUDIO).

Some of the Republican/Conservative Bloggers have some seriously short memories or something.  Because Bush did the same thing, when he was in office. See here, here, here, and here. So, while it might be cool to attack Obama for his policies, it just seems mighty silly to attack Obama for something that the Bush Administration did themselves.

Nice try guys, but this one is a bit silly IMHO.


David Brooks writes a whopper

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No, I am not talking about Burger King. :giggle:

I am referring to his Op-Ed in the New York Times Today:

It was interesting to watch the Republican Party lose touch with America. You had a party led by conservative Southerners who neither understood nor sympathized with moderates or representatives from swing districts.

They brought in pollsters to their party conferences to persuade their members that the country was fervently behind them. They were supported by their interest groups and cheered on by their activists and the partisan press. They spent federal money in an effort to buy support but ended up disgusting the country instead.

It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.

This ideological overreach won’t be any more successful than the last one. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday confirms what other polls have found. Most Americans love Barack Obama personally, but support for Democratic policies is already sliding fast.

It is truly an interesting article to read and I ask that you click on the link and go read it for yourself. I also notice that many Conservatives are taking issue with it as well.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier, whom I gently ribbed once this week already; writes something rather intelligent this time around:

So, President Bush talked God with a cowboy dialect but his actions were all moderation. Hello? AIDs spending in Africa? School reform with Teddy Kennedy? Amnesty? And all these things made the federal government bigger (or would have), more powerful and invasive. The Bush presidency wasn’t about restraint and limiting government power–traits I associate with conservatism.

David Brooks and the Beltway elites are delusional. If President Bush governed conservatively, then David Brooks would put nearly every conservative person I know into the Right Wing Extreme camp. No wonder Barack Obama sounded good to him. Obama moderate? Is he insane?

Good point!  Bush was about as Conservative, as I am a damned Communist. Especially when it came to Foreign Policy; The man was a Wilsonian to the core. (That, is what Liberals call a Neo-Con) Iraq proved that. Bush could have cared less about the WMD’s. He just wanted to take out Saddam and finish the job his daddy started, that is what that war was all about. (Some Conservatives and or Republicans deny this, but it is the damned truth…..) The problem was, that he had that serial fuck up; Donald Rumsfield running the damn Defense Department! The Liberals are on a witch hunt to put persons related to the Iraq War in Jail. Well, they can start with Rumsfield. He’s the fucking tool that caused the problems in Iraq.  It took Rumsfield being ousted and Robert Gates being put in; for that little situation to be fixed properly. Too bad it took 4000+ of our finest men to finally get someone’s attention in the beltway, that Rumsfield had to go. The damned idiots. :pissedoff: :reallypissed:

As for Obama being a moderate. Yeah, and I am a Russian Communist. 🙄 I suppose Brooks considers Taxing us into a damned hole that we might never get out off; Moderate. Like hell Obama is. I suppose that David Brooks would consider me a “Right Wing Extremist”.

Dan Riehl Says:

This is all great. But if Brooks is so smart, where the hell was he during the campaign when the rubes knew what to expect?

Dan, David Brooks was too busy giving Obama a Blowjob in he back of his limo slobbering all over himself at the fact that a black man was going to actually be President. Barack Obama was seen as a novelty item, by the Conservative establishment in the beltway. Not to mention the media. However, as we have all seen, that novelty is quickly wearing off and many people; from the Right to the far left are beginning to see this man for what he really is. Just another lying politician.

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The Sadly Obligatory “Birther yells at G.O.P. Congressman” Video

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I post this, because I am such a hits whore. It has gone viral; so, I guess I’ll just bask in the whoredom as well.

The commenters at HotAir have a very valid point; why not just release the damn thing and end all of this stupidity, once and for all?

The thing that tweaks me off, is where this silly little rumor got started. On a white Nationalist website; that’s the part the tweaks me off. Because I believe the rumor is steeped in a deeply racist notion that Obama is a secret Muslim. It is all quite silly. But Obama could kill it, if he wanted to.

Exit Question: Does Obama actually want to release it? Could it be that Obama has a secret agreement with Joe Farah not to release it? After all, conspiracy theory is big business. Just ask Alex Jones; he is not hurting for money. 😀

(H/T HotAir)

The White House is trying to avoid the ugly truth…

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The Economy is in the crapper, the Nation is up to it’s eyeballs in debt, and the White House is scared:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update – usually scheduled for mid-July – has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the “chances are high” of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.

“Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare,” Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. “There are some things that can’t be escaped.”

The administration earlier this year predicted that unemployment would peak at about 9 percent without a big stimulus package and 8 percent with one. Congress did pass a $787 billion two-year stimulus measure, yet unemployment soared to 9.5 percent in June and appears headed for double digits.

Obama’s current forecast anticipates 3.2 percent growth next year, then 4 percent or higher growth from 2011 to 2013. Private forecasts are less optimistic, especially for next year.

via My Way News – White House putting off release of budget update.

Hope! Change! Obfuscation! Numbers Fixing! Just another day in Obama-land folks…..

2010 is looking mighty good for the Republican Party right now.

America cannot say that they were not warned; Fox News Channel, Every Conservative Blogger; including myself, warned the folks. If you elect this guy, he will ruin America and will worsen our Economy. But did America listen? Nope! They elected him anyhow. It is indeed the late 1970’s and early 1980’s all over again. Barack Obama’s Administration is Jimmy Carter 2.0. It will be interesting to watch and see, just how much this country will be “In the hole” and for how long.

Somewhere, John McCain is smiling. 🙂

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Obama Poll numbers are slipping on Healthcare and other issues.

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Conservatives Rejoice! 😀

happy-elephant

Because “The One”‘s Poll numbers are dropping like a rock!

The Story via The Washington Post:

Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama’s stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Obama’s approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern about spending and continuing worries about the economy combine to challenge his administration. Barely more than half approve of the way he is handling unemployment, which now tops 10 percent in 15 states and the District.

The president’s overall approval rating remains higher than his marks on particular domestic issues, with 59 percent giving him positive reviews and 37 percent disapproving. But this is the first time in his presidency that Obama has fallen under 60 percent in Post-ABC polling, and the rating is six percentage points lower than it was a month ago.

Obama has taken on a series of major problems during his young presidency, but he faces a particularly difficult fight over his effort to encourage Congress to pass an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system.

The legislation has run into problems in the House and Senate, as lawmakers struggle to contain spiraling costs and avoid ballooning the deficit.

Since April, approval of Obama’s handling of health care has dropped from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent. Obama still maintains a large advantage over congressional Republicans in terms of public trust on the issue, even as the GOP has closed the gap.

The erosion in Obama’s overall rating on health care is particularly notable among political independents: While positive in their assessments of his handling of health-care reform at the 100-day mark of his presidency (53 percent approved and 30 percent disapproved), independents now are divided at 44 percent positive and 49 percent negative.

The biggest reason that the poll numbers are dropping is because of this:

On health care, the poll, conducted by telephone Wednesday through Saturday, found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) approve of the outlines of the legislation now heading toward floor action. The measure would institute new individual and employer insurance mandates and create a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Its costs would be paid in part through new taxes on high-income earners.

There are sharp differences in support for this basic package based on income, as well as a deep divide along party lines. Three-quarters of Democrats back the plan, as do nearly six in 10 independents. More than three-quarters of Republicans are opposed. About two-thirds of those with household incomes below $50,000 favor the plan, and a slim majority (52 percent) of those with higher incomes are against it. The income divide is even starker among independents.

Now some people, like Ed over at HotAir say that the poll was tilted to make it show that the Independents were the ones turning against the President. But you can rest assured that it is the majority of the country. Which is made of a small business owners; like myself, and those who just do not feel that we should be taxing the rich to pay for social programs.

Plus too, I believe that the people just have a perception program with this whole Health-care and really with the Democrats. Of course, Obama is not exactly helping with situation, but, anyhow:

Nearly a quarter of moderate and conservative Democrats (22 percent) now see Obama as an “old-style tax-and-spend Democrat,” up from 4 percent in March. Among all Americans, 52 percent consider Obama a “new-style Democrat who will be careful with the public’s money.” That is down from 58 percent a month ago and 62 percent in March, to about where President Bill Clinton was on that question in the summer of 1993.

Concerns about the federal account balance are also reflected in views about another round of stimulus spending. In the new poll, more than six in 10 oppose spending beyond the $787 billion already allocated to boost the economy. Most Democrats support more spending; big majorities of Republicans and independents are against the idea.

Support for new spending is tempered by flagging confidence on Obama’s plan for the economy. Fifty-six percent are confident that his programs will reap benefits, but that is down from 64 percent in March and from 72 percent just before he took office six months ago. More now say they have no confidence in the plan than say they are very confident it will work. Among independents and Republicans, confidence has decreased by 20 or more points; it has dropped seven points among Democrats.

Approval of Obama’s handling of the overall economy stands at 52 percent, with 46 percent disapproving, and, for the first time in his presidency, more Americans strongly disapprove of his performance on the economy than strongly approve. Last month, 56 percent gave him positive marks on this issue.

More than three-quarters of all Americans say they are worried about the direction of the economy over the next few years, down only marginally since Obama’s inauguration. Concerns about personal finances have also abated only moderately since January.

That is because he is a “Tax and Spend” Democrat and his attempt to shore up the economy is being countered by the ramming through of this Healthcare bill.

The Bottom line is this: Americans elected Obama, because they thought he could fix the economy and make America great again in the World. But it seems that so far. Obama is not done this, and further more, is trying to push a bill through that will mire the Country further into debt. Instead of emphasizing the greatness of America; President Obama has been going on apology tours and bowing to Saudi kings.  The American people see this and resent it, they also resent their taxes being raised to pay for and fund socialist programs that will bankrupt this country.

Others Covering: , Commentary,  Michelle Malkin, Hot Air,, Riehl World View, Macsmind, , Scared Monkeys,  Stop The ACLU, , Say Anything,  Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall Blog, Pundit & Pundette, Chicago Tribune,  and The Strata-Sphere

Quote of the Day

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As the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, proceeded last week, one man could not understand why not one of the seven Republican senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee would question Sotomayor about her criminal activities. It’s understandable no Democrat would ask Sotomayor to explain herself since each and every Democrat in the U.S. Senate is so ethically bankrupt, they would seat Satan on the high court if it would further their agenda. Their only concern for a justice on the highest court in the land is gender and ethnicity; these pusillanimous hucksters go for future votes. The law and truth be damned.

But, the silence by Sessions, Graham, Coburn and the others is beyond perplexing. Bill O’Reilly remarked last week at the end of the hearings that the Republicans will vote to confirm Sotomayor possibly to “garner favor” with Latino voters for the next election. Sounds like a good excuse as any for their cowardice in not taking Sotomayor to the box on Dr. Cordero’s evidence.

I first became aware of Dr. Richard Cordero’s documentation a week ago. As with any other investigation, one has to spend a great deal of time studying all the evidence and Dr. Cordero has it. It took about nine hours of reading to get through his evidence, i.e., this 236 pages laying out the fraud. This humble man is like so many other Americans who believe in the rule of law, only to find out that some are above the law due to their political clout. In my email exchanges with Dr. Cordero, and when he was a guest on my radio show last week, I could detect no political bias, only a desire to stop the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor.

President Bambi Teleprompter’s Commerce Secretary: United States should pay for China’s Pollution

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This my friends is unreal: (H/T to HotAir)

With the U.S. secretaries of energy and commerce in China this week, much of the attention focused on the standoff over emissions reductions or small breakthroughs in clean-tech cooperation.

But yesterday, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said something amazing—U.S. consumers should pay for part of Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions. From Reuters:

“It’s important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America — and it’s our own consumption activity that’s causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for that,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

The idea that rich-country consumers should pick up the tab for some of China’s industrial emissions has been gaining currency lately—but not from within the Obama administration. The argument is that many of China’s factories churn out cheap stuff for the West, not for domestic consumption, so those consumers are actually responsible for the emissions. China, of course, loves the idea.

This could just be another area for trade tensions with China over the environment. The House climate bill includes a provision for mandatory “carbon tariffs” on dirty imports from countries such as China, which might be illegal under international trade law and which have riled up Beijing. President Obama and Senate leaders have frowned on hardline trade measures.

But Secretary Locke’s statement could open up a new can of worms—right when China’s actions on energy and the environment are proving so crucial to mustering support among wavering senators for the administration’s big cap-and-trade bill.

via Commerce Secretary: Americans ‘Need to Pay’ for Chinese Emissions – Environmental Capital – WSJ.

Of course, when the Wall Street Journal brought this to light the Secretary’s staff tried to backpedal:

“Secretary Locke has been very clear on emphasizing the importance of fair trade as a part of the United States’ relationship with China. He believes U.S. companies should not be disadvantaged by Chinese imports not bound by responsible policies to reduce carbon emissions. China and the US must work together to ensure a level playing field and reduce our carbon footprints. The Secretary’s trip to China demonstrated his commitment to fair trade and his belief that both the United States and China can benefit from shared investments and cooperation in clean energy that will lead to commercial and environmental benefits for both countries.”

Yeah, sure he does. It should also be noted that Locke is also Chinese-American. You ask, “What does that have to do with anything?” Quite a bit. First it was with John Yoo, who was South Korean, now this guy here. Does anyone else see this damned pattern; besides me? It is worse than when America was hit in 1941 by the Communist Japanese. Except this time, they’ve come from within. Because of our generous open door immigration policy, we have allowed the communists in the front door.

Communists are communists and the damn Democratic Party has made a deal with the devil and that devil is communism. This socialist Government is going to destroy freedoms, bankrupt our Country and put us on the path to destruction.

Others: Right Pundits and Gateway Pundit

President Barack Obama — A Grievance-Monger President

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I knew that this would happen, if he were elected. Sorry to say; but it appears that I was absolutely correct.

Read more here.

Money Quote:

What we celebrate tonight is not simply the journey the NAACP has traveled, but the journey that we, as Americans, have traveled over the past one hundred years ….

And yet, even as we celebrate the remarkable achievements of the past one hundred years; even as we inherit extraordinary progress that cannot be denied; even as we marvel at the courage and determination of so many plain folks – we know that too many barriers still remain.

We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African dem_party_sealAmericans are out of work more than just about anyone else – a gap that’s widening here in New York City, as detailed in a report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson.

We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anyone else.

We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African-American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a jail.

And we know that even as the scourge of HIV/AIDS devastates nations abroad, particularly in Africa, it is devastating the African-American community here at home with disproportionate force.

These are some of the barriers of our time. They’re very different from the barriers faced by earlier generations. They’re very different from the ones faced when fire hoses and dogs were being turned on young marchers; when Charles Hamilton Houston and a group of young Howard lawyers were dismantling segregation.

But what is required to overcome today’s barriers is the same as was needed then. The same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice. The same willingness to do our part for ourselves and one another that has always defined America at its best.

The question, then, is where do we direct our efforts? What steps do we take to overcome these barriers? How do we move forward in the next one hundred years?

The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a blackdemsealproblem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there’s probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today.

But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.

Rough translation? “Waaaaah! Them mean assed honkeys treated us really really mean over 300 years ago! Waaaah! Them mean ol’ Crackas treated us bad in the south before 1964! Waah Waah Waah!

Seriously people, Slavery was outlawed over 300 years ago and Segregation was outlawed in 1964. For the sake of Almighty God, Mr. President; GET THE FUCK OVER IT!

Others: QandO,  American Power

Rationing Healthcare? They already do! It’s called Health Insurance.

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I saw this today on the Meme tracker and I wanted to really avoid it. Because I just do not feel that I cannot speak on Healthcare in a objective form, because it is quite the personal issue with me.

I have no healthcare insurance at all. :-((

Anyone this is in the New York Times Magazine:

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn’t going to be good. But suppose it’s not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man — and everyone else like him — with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone’s life? If there is any point at which you say, “No, an extra six months isn’t worth that much,” then you think that health care should be rationed.

In the current U.S. debate over health care reform, “rationing” has become a dirty word. Meeting last month with five governors, President Obama urged them to avoid using the term, apparently for fear of evoking the hostile response that sank the Clintons’ attempt to achieve reform. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published at the end of last year with the headline “Obama Will Ration Your Health Care,” Sally Pipes, C.E.O. of the conservative Pacific Research Institute, described how in Britain the national health service does not pay for drugs that are regarded as not offering good value for money, and added, “Americans will not put up with such limits, nor will our elected representatives.” And the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, told CNSNews in April, “There is no rationing of health care at all” in the proposed reform.

Remember the joke about the man who asks a woman if she would have sex with him for a million dollars? She reflects for a few moments and then answers that she would. “So,” he says, “would you have sex with me for $50?” Indignantly, she exclaims, “What kind of a woman do you think I am?” He replies: “We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling about the price.” The man’s response implies that if a woman will sell herself at any price, she is a prostitute. The way we regard rationing in health care seems to rest on a similar assumption, that it’s immoral to apply monetary considerations to saving lives — but is that stance tenable?

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.

The case for explicit health care rationing in the United States starts with the difficulty of thinking of any other way in which we can continue to provide adequate health care to people on Medicaid and Medicare, let alone extend coverage to those who do not now have it. Health-insurance premiums have more than doubled in a decade, rising four times faster than wages. In May, Medicare’s trustees warned that the program’s biggest fund is heading for insolvency in just eight years. Health care now absorbs about one dollar in every six the nation spends, a figure that far exceeds the share spent by any other nation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it is on track to double by 2035.

Now the Right Wing Blogs are doing some seriously loud howling about this right here. I guess that I break away from that pack. I tend to be a bit more clearer thinking about it. Hence my Moderate label. For some better perspective, Riverdaughter over at The Confluence, who is a Moderate Democrat; puts some of this in perspective:

Peter Singer is an ethicist who espouses a utilitarian view of ethics, meaning that his interpretation of general welfare extends to an economic calculation of costs versus benefits. For example, he proposes that it is acceptable to identify specific measures of when a treatment is effective enough to warrant the cost of providing such treatment.

[….]

First, it is critical to note that healthcare is already “rationed” in our country. It is “rationed” each and every day when the uninsured or under-insured are denied the same high quality treatments afforded to those without financial constraints. Anyone who has seen Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” saw through this film the soulless rationing of treatment in our country such as how the poor and indigent were treated by a for-profit hospital that dumped them on a street corner after providing only minimal care. I will never forget the morning I broke down in tears after reading about a man in our community who had cancer, lost his job and with it his health insurance. His statement “I’m just waiting to die because I cannot afford the chemotherapy drugs” exposed the unimaginable truth that our society is willing to allow people to die with little protest from its citizens.  If this is already unacceptable, why would we want to factor such a strategy into any plan we devise?

Now, I have a great deal of respect for Peter Singer and his general view of the world, but his utilitarian ethical approach to healthcare reform in our country is one I cannot embrace; and the reason I cannot embrace it is because our political leaders do not use a utilitarian view when dealing with banks, Wall Street barons, and corporations. How does a society continue to exist when those who have little are turned away from life saving treatments while the wealthy live in a world where money is no object? There is something inherently wrong with standing before a nation and acting as though there is no limit to the funds our country should expend so that banks and Wall Street traders are allowed to continue to feed at the trough of excess, yet a discussion over saving the lives of our fellow citizens erodes into debate over cutting costs. Yet this is exactly what our legislators and president are doing to us on a daily basis — on both sides of the political aisle.

I agree with on all point, except when it comes to Michael Moore. Michael Moore, In my humble opinion; is a socialist Propaganda maker. Who yowls about the evils of a capitalistic society —- All the whole driving around in a limousine himself.  Moore is the perfect example of a Limousine Liberal; kind of like John Kerry.  However, she is correct about the whole Health-care issue. If you have good insurance, you get good care, if you have none. You get treated and released most usually.

Like I said; I do not have any sort of health insurance at all. But I just cannot get up and cheer madly about something ran by our Federal Government. I just cannot. Because this is same Government that allowed the Siege at the Waco Compound to happen; of which I have never forgiven Bill Clinton for, nor will I ever.  Also Ruby Ridge and the list goes on and on. Not to mention the Medicare and Medicaid systems, how screwed up they are.

However, the Compassionate side of me, that sees the suffering and poor getting stiffed; wants to see a better system. So far, from what I have read. Obama’s plan is STILL going to leave many people uninsured. So, what is the big change? There is not really going to be any change, of great importance anyhow. The far left and special interest people are figuring this out.

So, anyhow, hopefully I did not lose any Conservative credo in this posting. 😀 :-/

Others: Don Surber, Tammy Bruce, Say Anything, The Strata-Sphere, Winds of Change.NET, PoliGazette, Sweetness & Light and The Rhetorican

Congress Delivers a Healthcare Bill

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You can read about it here.

You can read the details here. (Adobe Reader Required)

Commentary up the wazoo here.

A couple of rubs:

The proposal would also impose a “play-or-pay” requirement on employers, who would either have to offer qualifying insurance to their employees and contribute  a substantial share toward the premiums, or pay a fee to the federal government that would generally equal 8 percent of their payroll. Small employers (those with an annual payroll of less than $250,000) would be exempt from those requirements. As a rule, full-time employees with a qualifying offer of coverage from their employer would not be eligible to obtain subsidies via the exchanges, but an exception to that “firewall” would be allowed for workers who had to pay more than 11 percent of their income for their employer’s insurance. In that case, the employers would have to pay an amount equal to the per-worker fee due for firms subject to the “play-or-pay” penalty. Firms with relatively few employees and relatively low average wages would also be eligible for tax credits to cover up  to half of their contributions toward health insurance premiums.

Comment on the underlined part: Which would of course, run some Businesses out of business. Either you play along or pay taxes out the nose. The small Employers part is nice. But this would put the squeeze on the Medium to large businesses.

Of course, you’ve got your “Let’s Cover our backsides” Caveats:

Important Caveats Regarding This Preliminary Analysis

There are several reasons why the preliminary analysis that is provided in this
letter and its attachments does not constitute a comprehensive cost estimate for
the coverage provisions of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act:

• First, our analysis was based on specifications regarding insurance coverage that were provided by the tri-committee group and that differ in important ways from the “discussion draft” version of legislative language that was
released on June 19, 2009. The specifications that we analyzed are supposed to be reflected in the draft language released by the three committees today, but we have not yet been able to analyze that language to determine whether it conforms to those specifications. Our review of that language could have a significant effect on our analysis. More generally, as our understanding of the specifications improves, that also could affect our future estimates.

• Second, some effects of the proposal have not yet been fully captured in our analysis. In particular, we have not yet estimated the administrative costs to the federal government of implementing the specified policies, nor have we
accounted for all of the proposal’s likely effects on spending for other federal programs. We expect to include those effects in the near future, but we also  expect that they will not have a sizable impact on our analysis.

• Third, the budgetary information shown in the attached table reflects many of the major cash flows that would affect the federal budget as a result of implementing the specified policies, and it provides our preliminary assessment of the proposal’s net effects on the federal budget deficit (subject  to the caveats listed above). Some additional cash flows would appear in the budget—either as outlays and offsetting receipts or outlays and revenues—but would net to zero and thus would not affect the deficit. CBO and the JCT staff have not yet estimated all of those cash flows but expect to do so in the near future.2 Those additional cash flows would include the premiums collected by the public plan and its outlays as well as risk-adjustment transfers from plans with relatively healthy enrollees to plans with relatively unhealthy enrollees.

The Requirements:

The proposal’s major provisions—including the establishment of an individual mandate to obtain insurance, an expansion of eligibility for the Medicaid program, and the creation of new insurance exchanges through which certain people could purchase subsidized coverage—would be implemented beginning in 2013.

All legal residents would be required to enroll in a health insurance plan meeting certain minimum standards or face a tax penalty (described below). Individuals not required to file a tax return would be exempt from the penalty; exemptions for hardship and other  reasons would be determined by a new and independent federal agency overseeing the health insurance exchanges (also described below).

The penalty assessed on people who would be subject to the mandate but did not obtain insurance would equal 2.5 percent of the difference between their adjusted gross income (modified to include tax-exempt interest and certain other sources of income) and the tax filing threshold. The amount of the penalty could not exceed the national average
premium for plans offered in the exchanges.

New health insurance policies sold in the individual and group insurance markets would be subject to several requirements regarding their availability and benefits. Insurers would be required to issue policies to all applicants and could not limit coverage for people with preexisting medical conditions. In addition, premiums for a given plan could not vary because of enrollees’ health but could vary because of their age by a factor of two (under a system known as adjusted community rating). Individual policies that were purchased before 2013 and maintained continuously thereafter would be “grandfathered,” meaning that they would not have to conform to the new rules but would still fulfill the individual mandate. Existing group policies would have to conform to the new rules by
2017.

In order to fulfill the individual mandate, policies that were not grandfathered would have to cover a broadly specified minimum benefit package (which was assumed to have the same scope of benefits as seen in a typical employer-sponsored plan) and would have to have a minimum actuarial value of 70 percent and a limit on out-of-pocket costs no
greater than $5,000 for individual coverage and $10,000 for family coverage. (A health insurance plan’s actuarial value reflects the share of costs for covered services paid by the plan.) After 2013, the maximum levels of those out-of-pocket caps would be indexed to general inflation.

The proposal would establish a national exchange through which certain individuals and employers could purchase health insurance; states could also opt to operate their own exchanges (either one per state or one covering several states). All insurance plans sold  through an exchange would be required to cover the “basic” benefit package described above. “Enhanced” plans would have an actuarial value of 85 percent, and “premium” plans would have an actuarial value of 95 percent.

Except as specified below, individuals and families who enroll in exchange plans and have income between 133 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) would be eligible for premium subsidies and cost-sharing subsidies (see table below).

Federal premium subsidies in a given area would be tied to the average premium of the three lowest-cost plans providing basic coverage in the exchange in that area. The subsidies would limit an enrollee’s contribution to a percentage of income ranging from 1.5 percent to 11.0 percent (see table); those caps would not be indexed over time. The federal government would fully fund cost-sharing subsidies, which would increase the actuarial value of enrollees’ coverage to specified tiers based on income.

Say goodbye to your freedoms folks. Because in a socialist society. You have none, at all.

Besides all that, how the hell are we going to pay for all this? Seeing our Economy is in the toilet and all. Stupid is, stupid does, I guess. :struggle: :silly:

Update: Ed Morrissey, As always, does a bang up job analyzing this new Bill and as I suspected; There’s some crap in it. :pissedoff:

Oh Wonderful….: The Economy is screwed to hell, worse than originally thought!

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Hope and Change……and Unemployed:

The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:

  • – June’s total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.
  • – More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don’t count on the unemployment roll.
  • – No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn’t searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
  • – The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job and the total unemployed rises to 16.5%, putting the number of involuntarily idle in the range of 25 million.
  • – The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. That’s 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water, and factories are operating at only 65% of capacity. If Americans were still clocking those extra 48 minutes a week now, the same aggregate amount of work would get done with 3.3 million fewer employees, which means that if it were not for the shorter work week the jobless rate would be 11.7%, not 9.5% (which far exceeds the 8% rate projected by the Obama administration).
  • – The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (i.e., for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.
  • – The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.
  • – The goods producing sector is losing the most jobs — 223,000 in the last report alone.
  • – The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers back to full time. Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because many layoffs have been permanent. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct business. General Motors and Chrysler, closed hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands. Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of positions and exited many parts of the world of finance.

Job losses may last well into 2010 to hit an unemployment peak close to 11%. That unemployment rate may be sustained for an extended period.

via Average length of unemployment highest since 1948. – WSJ.com.

So much for “The One” fixing the economy. Oh, right; he misread it. Looks like this Blogging gig get might be my only job for a long time to come.  The Left is now spinning saying it will never recover.

Here’s ol’ Floppy ears talking about it:

Others: Hot Air, Pajamas Media, QandO, The Strata-Sphere, Stop The ACLU and Balloon Juice

An Aunt’s Grief

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(H/T MRC)


Watch CBS Videos Online

I wonder, what would Lew Rockwell say now?

Pssst! Hey Liberals! Sarah Palin knows what she’s talking about!

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As I am sure you all know Sarah Palin wrote in the Washington Post, an Op-Ed about the purposed Cap and Trade legislation.

Government Palin Writes:

There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America’s unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won’t bring jobs. Our nation’s debt is unsustainable, and the federal government’s reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

Of course, as if right on cue, every liberal in America is laughing at her and is saying that she is an idiot; and that she is trying to stay in the spotlight and so forth. Well, guess what? Not too long ago; on March 5, 2009. My own home paper, The Detroit News, wrote a similarly written editorial, basically saying the SAME THING. The Article itself is now offline, and you have to pay to get it. But luckily for me; I blogged about it.  The Article says and I quote:

President Barack Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation’s heartland — particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.

The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate revenue for more government spending programs.

The president’s budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.

The goal, according to the president’s budget outline, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount to a major tax increase for American consumers.

Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times, “let’s just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a light switch, pure and simple.”

The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers. Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its electric power from coal plants, and the state’s economy is still reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto parts production.

Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.

The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the expected recovery has arrived by then. It’s impossible to raise costs for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt across the economy.

The nation’s gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 3.8 percent in last year’s fourth quarter — the worst economic record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment decisions?

Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But that won’t make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the economy, especially in Michigan.

So, maybe, perhaps maybe, Sarah Palin is not as stupid as these liberals want to make her out to be. At least, she right on point about this Cap and Trade Legislation. It would raise taxes and be a job killer for Michigan and yes, for the rest of the Country.

Others, Yes, Including idiot liberals who are mocking her: The Fix, The Atlantic Business Channel, The New Republic, The Huffington Post, Washington Wire, The Daily Dish, The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room, Ezra Klein, Boston Globe, Hot Air, Right Wing News, PERRspectives, PoliGazette, The Strata-Sphere, Wake up America, Moe Lane, The Note, The Daley Gator, Democratic Strategist, Zandar Versus The Stupid, NY Daily News, The Politico, The Swamp, NewsBusters.org, No More Mister Nice Blog, Gawker, Gathering of Eagles: NY, Sister Toldjah, YID With LID, Macsmind, Classical Values, GOP 12, Stop The ACLU, TBogg, American Power, Real Clear Politics, Green Inc., Gateway Pundit, Cold Fury, PoliBlog, Balloon Juice, Latest Open Salon Blog and Left in the West

TOTUS goes to pieces………Literally

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Ya know; I’ve heard of going to pieces on the job. But, this is a little ridiculous.

Jack Tapper reports:

ABC News’ Sunlen Miller and Jake Tapper report: If a teleprompter falls in the White House, does it make a sound?

Yes, especially when it’s the President’s teleprompter – or TOTUS as it is often referred to.

Midway through his speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building this afternoon, one of his two small glass prompters came crashing down, hitting the wood floor and crashing in many pieces. It made quite a ruckus.

“Oh, goodness,” a startled President Obama said. “Sorry about that, guys.”

He then proceeded on with his remarks, “To pull our economy back from the brink, including the largest and most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation’s history…”

For the rest of the speech the president relied on the one remaining teleprompter, to his right, and notes on his podium to finish his speech.

Shards of glass remained near the president’s feet for the duration of his speech.

Video:

Alternative View Here

Poor thing; must have gotten tired, with all the hard work in the White House. Either that or all of the Socialism had him depressed, and he just could not take it any longer.

Other Blogs covering this horrible tragedy:

(H/T and Thanks to AllahPundit)

No Matter what your Politics is… Hate Speech is STILL WRONG

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There is a big story burning up the Blogsophere right at the moment. I guess some liberal happened to go over to Free Republic and spotted some nasty remarks about Obama’s daughter.

Gawker has the story:

We should’ve seen this coming: conservative blog Free Republic fired hate speech off at Malia Obama after this photo of her appeared, letting their commenters go to town. But the journalist who reported this as news isn’t innocent, either. Chris Parry of The Vancouver Sun highlighted some of the comments on the mainstream, hard right-wing blog/news aggregator Free Republic. Among them, a picture of Michelle talking to Malia Obama with the caption: “To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds.” Classy.

[….]

FreeRepublic claims to be a site that “does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government.” Yet, the thread went down, and back up with the original comments in tact, and then some, notes Chris Parry, the story’s writer. Parry was careful and kind enough to – maybe unnecessarily – note the few reasonable voices in the crowd who were conservative, on Free Republic, and not racist. But there’re always going to be a few exceptions to the rule, which, as far as you should be concerned, are absolute swamp creatures. Pardon any political incorrectness, but I think you’ll agree if you happen to go over and dip your toe in what’s mostly a bog of contagiously slimy invective and general retardation.

It gets worse, though. Chris Parry, it appears, has advocated on his Daily Kos blog any number of egregious offenses, among them: posting hate speech on sites like Free Republic and blaming it on conservatives. Parry posted under the name “hollywoodoz” on Daily Kos, where his signature was “Fool me once, I’ll punch you in the fucking head.” Parry outed himself as hollywoodoz here, where he discloses the company he helped start. In essence: Parry, the journalist, found his story right where he’d been circling it for a very long time, and reported it as news. Sigh.

Bottom line: Parry’s noble intentions are paving him a road to hell, by taking the same one the slimeball majority at Free Republic employs. They’re probably going to cheer a “mainstream,” centrist blog pointing out the offenses of a liberal reporter trying to expose hate speech, but they shouldn’t get it mixed up. A quick glance at Free Republic and you’ll probably see the same thing I did: some of the most egregious examples that lend credence to the idea that some people just shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard, or to open their mouths, no matter what their political affiliation. Or, as some would have it: STFU.

There you have it; What happened, basically in four paragraphs.

Here is my take on all this mess. As someone who has went over the line once myself. Hate Speech is wrong. I do not give two flips who is doing it. I do not care, if you are a Right Winger, or a Liberal. This sort of nonsense is wrong. You say, “But they do it!”, So what? Do two wrongs make a right? Hell No! It just makes two wrong people!  This Chris Parry nut-job ought to be fired for trying to smear Conservatives, and ought to be SUED for a libel by the owner of the Free Republic. Not to mention the Vancouver Sun for allowing this idiot to write this report.

Just as well; The owner of the Free Republic ought to take some responsibility for the actions of his users. Whomever made the racist comments ought to be banned for life from that site. I know that I have had to snip some comments here from this Blog myself, when a couple people went overboard. It is simply called responsibility.

My feelings on this subject are not limited my partisan or Political Ideology. What is wrong; is wrong. No matter who is doing it. Period.

Others: Politics Daily, Say Anything, Lean Left, JammieWearingFool, Scared Monkeys, Gateway Pundit, The Progressive Republican, freerepublic.com, The Moderate Voice, The Huffington Post, Wake up America, Mediaite, Moonbattery, The Reaction and Latest Open Salon Blog

Update: Title changed after someone politely informed me, that I was using an improper word.

John Stossel takes on Liberal Propagandist Michael Moore

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I happen to like John Stossel; because he dares to take on the Liberals. Not in a mean or nasty way. But by simply stating the truth.

He writes about Michael Moore’s latest Movie:

Michael Moore has been working on another documentary.  This time, he’s taking on capitalism:

“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth. They wanted more — a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money.”

How ridiculous is that?  The wealthy, and everyone else, almost always decide that they don’t have enough wealth.  People ask their bosses for raises.  We invest in stocks hoping for bigger returns than Treasury Bonds bring.  “Greed” is a constant.  The beauty of free markets, when government doesn’t meddle in them, is that they turn this greed into a phenomenal force for good.  The way to win big money is to serve your customers well.  Profit-seeking entrepreneurs have given us better products, shorter work days, extended lives, and more opportunities to write the script of our own life.

He goes on…:

Moore also fails to understand is that it was not “capitalism” run amok that caused today’s financial problems.   In reality, it was a combination of ill-conceived government policies and an overzealous Federal Reserve artificially lowering interest rates to fuel a bubble in the housing market.  Then it was government that took money from taxpayers and forced banks to accept it.

Moore ought to understand that, because he makes a good point when he says his movie will be about “the biggest robbery in the history of this country – the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.”

That is indeed robbery.  It sure doesn’t sound like capitalism.

Nope, sounds more like socialized Healthcare or simply Socialism in general; to me.

Mike Tennant writing over at Lew Rockwell’s Blog chimes in:

According to the press release you linked, Chris, “Moore has made three of the top six highest-grossing documentaries of all time,” which presumably means he has accumulated a great deal of wealth.  Apparently, since he continues to foist his so-called documentaries on an unsuspecting public, Moore has decided that he doesn’t have enough wealth.  He wants more–a lot more.

Like most anti-capitalists, Moore has no problem personally profiting from his own endeavors while demonizing other successful persons and attempting to have them dispossessed of their wealth.  The good news is that Moore ultimately has to answer to the marketplace and thus may find himself begging for work from the very people he now condemns if enough of his audience members wake up to the fact that he’s a charlatan and stop shelling out their increasingly scarce cash for his celluloid propaganda.

Mike is right on point; that is exactly how the socialists in America are. The Socialist left wants to preach to America, how evil, rotten, nasty and no good the evil capitalist system is; all the whole pocketing a profit from their lectures, Movies and the books that they just happen to make a profit at.  It is more of that “Yea for me, but Nay for thee”, type of mentality and outright hypocritical nonsense that the Far Socialist left is known for.

The troubling thing about it, is this; these knuckle-headed socialists basically control the Democratic Party and it’s message.  Hence my reasoning for not wanting anything to do with them or their Party any longer.

Give me Capitalism, Freedom and Liberty or Give Me Death!

Others: Wake up America