Archive for 11 Feb 2009

More From Victor Davis Hansen

Posted: 11 Feb 2009 in Comarade Obama

Great piece by Victor Davis Hansen.

More on the New Horizon

Such a Strange Malady

A strange thing, this Obama worship (cf. the New York Times op-ed on Sunday where the columnist imagined having sexual relations with Obama) and Bush hatred (cf. the Will Farrell Broadway show trashing Bush, and showing images of his purported penis). They are flipside manifestations of the same sickness that has taken hold of a large subset of the population. Millions seems to think by demonizing A and worshipping B, then once intractable problems (that transcend both A’s faults and B’s merits) suddenly, magically will disappear. But the apocalyptic style is quite dangerous, and the 20th century should have told us that answers are not found through fixating evil on “them” and seeking a “He” to address it. In the meantime, civility is prized, and one should criticize Obama in a spirit and tone that are the exact opposites of the way in which Bush was demonized.

That said, stranger, read on:

Change You Can Imagine

Americans know that Obama announced his candidacy on certain principles and positions on the issues that are now, well, “problematic”— 1) campaign financing reform, 2) coal burning, 3) nuclear power, 4) off-shore drilling, 4) NAFTA, 5) hand-gun control, 6) capital punishment, 7) the surge, 8)withdrawal from Iraq, 9) FISA, 10) the Patriot Act, 11) renditions, 12) talking with Iran, 13) Jerusalem, 14) lobbyists and ethics and on and on. Most are silent about this metamorphosis, since the change from his initial positions was in many cases for the good. I agree that the newer Obama is far more realistic than the 2006-7 version. Some welcomed common sense I guess trumps the charge of hypocrisy.

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What is Plan B?

Posted: 11 Feb 2009 in Comarade Obama, Economics, Politics
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On the porkulus bill. Where’s plan B? I haven’t heard one. If this fails, as I think it will, what do we do after that?

What is Plan B?

By Tom Bruner

It seems certain at this point that the Economic Stimulus plan will be implemented at some point in the near future. It may be completely successful, it may be a total failure, or it may hit somewhere in between.

Rational people hope for the best, but what if it goes sour? When a prudent investor buys a stock he or she knows before submitting the order where the take-profit and the stop-loss points are. When an entrepreneur embarks on a new enterprise, he or she knows what level of sales will be needed to stay in business at several milestones in the near term. In either case this is prudent management of precious capital. There is a hope for success, but a defined point where total catastrophe can be avoided. They have a Plan B.

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Imitating Failure

By Nicholas J. Kaster

Shortly after the end of World War I, the U.S. economy contracted sharply and fell into a recession. The federal government did not respond with a stimulus program, did not expand government spending, did not add government workers to the payroll. Rather than pursuing fiscal stimulus, President Harding reduced government expenditures, cut taxes, and did little else. The recession last about a year and gave way to a strong recovery.

The recession of 1920-1921 was the last time the federal government responded to economic crisis by essentially doing nothing. The ideological winds were shifting toward progressivism and toward the notion that a strong central government was needed to manage the business cycle.

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Guns, Children, Statistics, and Liars

Posted: 11 Feb 2009 in (2nd) Second Amendment, Axis of Idiots, Comarade Obama, Congress, Guns, Media, Political Correctness, Socialism, Stupid People
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It’s for the children! Liars. It’s all about control. You don’t have it, and you want it really, really bad, so you’ll manipulate the media and data to suit your agenda. Let’s look at the data, shall we?

Gun control:

Children safest population group around guns (Part 1)

Women, particularly mothers, often express anxiety over keeping a gun in the home. They have heard reports that firearms in the home are more likely to kill a family member than a criminal attacker, or have seen a news report of a child who shot himself or another because an irresponsible adult left a gun lying around. But conclusions can be manufactured when the political agenda is strong enough. In this and future articles in this series, fatal injury data from the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] will help you assess risk/return of assuming responsibility to defend your children and yourself.

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Children safest population group around guns (Part 2)

In the first part of this article, we examined claims by anti-rights groups like the Children’s Defense Fund, which manipulated selected data bits in order to create propaganda that children have become more at risk for firearms death since 1994. Part 2 finishes examining their claims.

Part of gun control propaganda is the claim that more guns equates with more violence. For example, in response to a proposed concealed handgun carry law in Wisconsin in 2005, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett said: “It is a recipe for disaster to have a proliferation of guns in the central city.” If this claim is true, then more guns should correlate with more violent crime, but this is a false premise. To validate the “for the children” gambit, there should especially be some link between gun prevalence and child murder. Examining the Centers for Disease Control fatal injury data reveals the truth.

Looking at total fatal injuries, between 1994 and 2005, the overall fatal injury rate for ages 15+ (non-children) rose 4.6%, but it fell 26.6% for children (ages 0-14).

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Obama Picks Yet Another Anti-Gun Zealot

Holder was bad enough! From the Seattle Times:

Sources say Kerlikowske is expected to be named head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a Cabinet-level position otherwise known as the drug czar. The office, established in 1988, directs drug-control policy in the U.S. It’s subject to Senate confirmation.

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Senator Boxer’s fictions to promote ‘sensible gun control’ (Part 1)

On her official Senate “kids corner” web site, Boxer answers the question: What does Senator Boxer think about crime?

Senator Boxer thinks that sensible gun control and more police in neighborhoods are two things that will help make our streets and neighborhoods safer. In 1994, she voted in favor of a major crime bill that put 100,000 new community police on America’s streets. Since the crime bill became law, the California crime rate has dropped by 20 percent. Senator Boxer has written and supported a number of bills that would help reduce gun violence, including a bill that would require child safety locks to be sold with every handgun.

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Stimulus is Anti-Religious?

Posted: 11 Feb 2009 in Congress, Economics, Politics
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According to Mike Huckabee it is. It doesn’t surprise me, the left has always felt that Christianity would be their doom.

Huckabee: Stimulus is ‘anti-religious’

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.”

In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate’s passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious.”

The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a “school or department of divinity.”

“You would think the ACLU drafted this bill,” Huckabee said. “For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.”

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Obamassiah

Posted: 11 Feb 2009 in Comarade Obama, Politics
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From the left’s point of view. Yeah, I look at that too.

I disagree with her premise that the Obamassiah is off to a good start. He’s off to a lousy start. I think this is just the beginning of an even bigger mess, and will likely lead to the title of worst president ever, if the media can finally quit sucking him off at every opportunity.

At any rate, here’s the liberal view:

A rocky first few weeks

Feb. 11, 2009 | Money by the barrelful, by the truckload. Mountains of money, heaped like gassy pyramids in the national dump. Scrounging packs of politicos, snapping, snarling and sending green bills flying sky-high as they root through the tangled mass with ragged claws. The stale hot air filled with cries of rage, the gnashing of teeth and dark prophecies of doom.

Yes, this grotesque scene, like a claustrophobic circle in Dante’s “Inferno,” was what the U.S. government has looked like for the past two weeks as it fights on over Barack Obama’s stimulus package — a mammoth, chaotic grab bag of treasures, toys and gimcracks. Could popular opinion of our feckless Congress sink any lower? You betcha!

Why in the cosmos would the new administration, smoothly sailing out of Obama’s classy inauguration, repeat the embarrassing blunders of Bill Clinton’s first term? By foolishly promising a complete overhaul of healthcare within 100 days (and by putting his secretive, ill-prepared wife in charge of it), Clinton made himself look naive and incompetent and set healthcare reform back for more than 15 years.

President Obama was ill-served by his advisors (shall we thump that checkered piñata, Rahm Emanuel?), who evidently did not help him to produce a strong, focused, coherent bill that he could have explained and defended to the nation before it was set upon by partisan wolves. To defer to the House of Representatives and let the bill be thrown together by cacophonous mob rule made the president seem passive and behind the curve.

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And the not so liberal view.

Why Obama’s new Tarp will fail to rescue the banks

Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed presidency do not bear contemplating.

What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He should expect the worst and act accordingly.

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Cure for the Obama hangover?

“The Obama Hangover is the pain a moderate Obama backer is now feeling after having been promised the moon and realizing they have instead . . . been mooned. It’s got to be humiliating watching your Mr. Hope & Change fumble these first few weeks like a leprous teen would his girlfriend’s bra.” – Doug Giles

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Of Tight Lips, Bleeding Hearts and Leakage

Hopefully the Obama admin will be as tightlipped as the Bush admin was, Rove says. The lefty outrage is an indicator they’re off to a good start. LA TImes with Rove’s Loyola Marymount speech first:

Secrecy and confidentiality are necessary for every government, especially when you’re at war.

Most citizens don’t want our plans to stop an enemy attack splashed on the front pages of the newspaper. So when the New York Times took it upon itself to describe an intelligence program that used electronic means of communication and information-gathering … by which we listen in to the electronic communications of our enemy abroad — their satellite phones, their Internet messages, anything of an electronic nature. When the New York Times let it be known that we were doing this, it put America and our allies at risk.

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This Fight Is Not Over

Posted: 11 Feb 2009 in Axis of Idiots, Comarade Obama, Congress, Economics, Politics, Stupid People
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Sign the petition! If this goes through, America is fucked. It’s that simple.

No Stimulus

This Fight Is Not Over

We still have two chances to win in the House or Senate!

The Senate mustered 61 votes to squeak through the Collins/Nelson amendment, better known as the “compromise” stimulus plan.

If you listen to the mainstream media, this means the fight is over, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama win, and it’s time to move on. Not so fast!

The bill will go to a conference committee to work out differences between the House and Senate versions. The conference committee will be a brand-new feeding frenzy of wasteful pork projects.

Whatever comes out of conference committee will be another very tough vote in both the House and Senate.

If we keep the pressure on, we can win!

What Does the So-Called “Stimulus Package” Mean For You?

It means you pay.

You pay for more bailouts, more giveaways, more wasteful spending…and your children and grandchildren pay for trillions of dollars of debt.

But you can fight back right now. By signing the petition, you can join the thousands of Americans who are saying NO!

NO to more taxpayer-funded bailouts and giveaways to special interests!

NO to using economic hardship as an excuse for Big Government power grabs!

NO to heaving trillions of dollars in new debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren!

NO to this no-stimulus scam!

Follow the links on the right to contact your elected officials, learn how you can tell your friends and family why this new scheme will hurt taxpayers, and invest in the movement that is fighting back!