Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Dear General Motors and Chrysler Customer,

Please be aware that there has been a change in your warranty.

 

For all inquiries please call 202-456-1414.  Ask for Barack, your customer service representative.  He will be pleased to serve your needs.

 

Signed,

 

The staff of the Central Automobile Commissariat

Joseph Biden

Rohm Emmanuel

David Axelrod

Nancy Pelosi

Harry Reid

 

A Rookie President

By Thomas Sowell

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Someone once said that, for every rookie you have on your starting team in the National Football League, you will lose a game. Somewhere, at some time during the season, a rookie will make a mistake that will cost you a game.

We now have a rookie President of the United States and, in the dangerous world we live in, with terrorist nations going nuclear, just one rookie mistake can bring disaster down on this generation and generations yet to come.

Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other Presidents in American history have ever been. It is not just that he has never been President before. He has never had any position of major executive responsibility in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell033109.php3

 

Friday, March 27, 2009

The Next Oil Shock

by Richard W. Rahn

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.

Added to cato.org on March 26, 2009

This article appeared in the Washington Times on March 26, 2009.

The price of oil soon will soar again. The present price of a barrel of oil, $50 or so, is below the price needed to meet current demand for a sustained period of time, and it is well below the price needed to meet global demand as the world economy rebounds.

In addition, with the U.S. Federal Reserve System greatly expanding the money supply - which will continue because of the explosion in government spending - the dollar is falling against other currencies; and given that global oil is priced in dollars, the price of oil will rise in dollar terms, just as it did two years ago.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10071

 

How to Turn a Recession into a Depression

by William A. Niskanen

Four federal economic policies transformed the Hoover recession into the Great Depression: higher tariffs, stronger unions, higher marginal tax rates, and a lower money supply. President Obama, unfortunately, has endorsed some variant of the first three of these policies, and he will face a critical choice on monetary policy in a year or so.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v31n2/cpr31n2-1.html

 

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant

Short Freddie Mac stay made him at least $320,000

| Tribune reporters

March 26, 2009

Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.

One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was Chicago's Rahm Emanuel—now chief of staff to President Barack Obama—who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.

As gatekeeper to Obama, Emanuel now plays a critical role in addressing the nation's mortgage woes and fulfilling the administration's pledge to impose responsibility on the financial world.

Emanuel's Freddie Mac involvement has been a prominent point on his political résumé, and his healthy payday from the firm has been no secret either. What is less known, however, is how little he apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the nation's current economic mess.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story

 

THE FOX IN CHARGE OF THE HEN HOUSE…

 

STUMULATED YET???

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Cheap Political Theater

by Thomas Sowell

 

Death threats to executives at AIG, because of the bonuses they received, are one more sign of the utter degeneration of politics in our time.

Congressman Barney Frank has threatened to summon these executives before his committee and force them to reveal their home addresses-- which would of course put their wives and children at the mercy of whatever kooks might want to literally take a shot at them.

Whatever the political or economic issues involved, this is not the way such issues should be resolved in America. We are not yet a banana republic, though that is the direction in which some of our politicians are taking us-- especially those politicians who make a lot of noise about "compassion" and "social justice."

What makes this all the more painfully ironic is that it is precisely those members of Congress who have had the most to do with creating the risks that led to the current economic crisis who are making the most noise against others, and summoning people before their committee to be browbeaten and humiliated on nationwide television.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/03/24/cheap_political_theater

 

STIMULATED YET???

 

VERY TROUBLING…  LIBERTY IN DANGER

A Special Message from Barack Obama's Teleprompter

Monday, March 23, 2009

How Much is 1 TRILLION Dollars?

Soon there may be nobody left to lend to America

 

Anyone who thought Ben Bernanke and his Federal Reserve Board colleagues were out of ammunition received a rude, or pleasant, shock last week. Rude, if you worry that a few extra trillions sloshing around the economy might one day trigger a wave of inflation; pleasant, if you worry that the economy is sinking fast, and the Obama administration and Congress haven’t a clue what to do about it.

The Fed plans to buy $300 billion of Treasury IOUs in the next six months (more to come if needed), pour $1.45 trillion into the mortgage market, and keep interest rates close to zero for “an extended period”. There’s more in the Fed’s “do whatever it takes” arsenal if these steps don’t bring interest rates down so people can borrow more cheaply to buy houses, cars and other durable goods. But so far, so good: interest rates on 30-year mortgages fell below 5%. Whether that will encourage enough creditworthy borrowers to sop up the huge inventory of unsold homes, much less trigger new construction, is difficult to predict.

But the dollar dropped like a stone. Earlier, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said he was “a little bit worried” that America might cheapen (that means hyper-inflation folks) its currency and pay back the $1.2 trillion it owes in depreciated dollars. Now that the Fed has moved, he must be a lot worried.

The Fed’s decision to pump trillions into the money markets comes on top of President Barack Obama’s proposal to drive the federal deficit to 12% of GDP by borrowing trillions to fund a few stimulus projects, universal healthcare, a green energy system and a host of other programmes on his wish list. Obama’s assurance that America will never default on its debt hasn’t completely soothed the markets: The Wall Street Journal reports that it now costs seven times as much to buy insurance against an American government default (It costs more because there is less confidence) as it did only a year ago. Besides, America can always inflate its way out of its obligations.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article5950258.ece?openComment=true

 

Friday, March 20, 2009

Time to Get the Heck Outta Dodd

March 20, 2009

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/time_to_get_the_heck_outta_dod.html

 

By Pamela Meister

For some years now, I've referred to Christopher Dodd as Connecticut's "other" senator, because few outside of his state knew who he was, while Joe Lieberman has been a household name for quite some time -- despite being Connecticut's junior senator.

I think Dodd has been, well, kind of desperate to become better known across America. You know, he'd like leave a legacy as one of our nation's greatest leaders. Unfortunately, even his failed bid for the presidency didn't do much for his name recognition, despite moving to Iowa to make good with the voters there. (He earned somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.2% of the vote in the Iowa caucus.)

 

You know the old saying: Be careful what you wish for -- you may get it. And Chris Dodd has been getting it in spades.

 

First there was the Countrywide mortgage scandal which revealed Dodd -- head of the Senate Banking Committee overseeing Fannie and Freddie, the institutions on which Countrywide unloaded risky loans -- as one of the recipients of sweetheart mortgages due to his "friend of Angelo" status. Despite promising to release documents that will clear his good name, Dodd has yet to release them.

 

Then came the news of Dodd's Irish cottage, which brings to mind a cozy little home on a hill with a thatched roof and perhaps a goat or two in the front yard. Turns out this "Irish cottage" is much larger than a couple of rooms and it's on ten acres near the fashionable village of Roundstone (where celebrities, like Dodd, love to gather). At first just a one-third owner of the property originally valued at $160,000, Dodd eventually bought out the other two-thirds from his partner at a bargain basement price. Also, on his Senate financial disclosures, Dodd valued the property between $100,001 and $250,000 - with the footnote "value based on appraisal at time of purchase." But it seems that values for existing homes in Ireland tripled between 1994 and 2004, and in 2007, a two bedroom cottage in Roundstone marketed for the US value of $918,000. Oh, and the guy who helped Dodd broker the deal? Well, Dodd helped broker Edward R. Downe's full pardon on Bill Clinton's last day in office for - insider trading.

 

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, especially when it comes to posh vacation homes overseas.

 

Now we come to the latest in the Dodd saga -- his part in the AIG bonus debacle. When news of the bonuses came to light, Dodd was among those whipping Americans into a frenzy about them, suggesting a heavy tax on the bonus recipients to get the money back. Yet when the "stimulus bill" was signed into law, it contained a little tidbit called the Dodd amendment, which allowed for companies receiving bailout money to honor contractual bonuses decided upon before February 11, 2009. When first asked about it, Dodd denied any involvement. A day or so later, he reversed course, admitting to it but couching his confession in the usual politico-speak about if he hadn't made that provision then other provisions would have been lost, blah blah blah, eyes glaze over.

 

Pssst: Guess who was the second highest recipient of campaign funds from AIG execs?

 

Dodd lied, faith in American politics died. Well actually it's been on life support for quite some time. Dodd just pulled the plug.

 

And taking a look back to ancient history, who can forget the tasty "waitress sandwich" Dodd concocted with fellow bloviator Teddy Kennedy at a fashionable DC eatery while their dates were in the restroom? Good thing he wasn't a Republican; he'd have been run out of office on a rail for sexual deviance.

 

They say power corrupts. Dodd has been in the Senate since 1980, and is a good candidate for poster boy for the case for term limits. He's up for reelection in 2010. Will Connecticut (full disclosure: my state) pull the Dodd lever out of habit? Or will they look for someone new to take the tarnished mantle of leadership to the drycleaners? That depends upon how well Dodd can recover. But when even CNN calls you a liar, prospects aren't looking so hot.

 

Like father like son? Dodd's father Thomas, also a senator from Connecticut, was censured in 1967 for diverting $116,000 in campaign funds for personal use and a number of other ethical sticky wickets. Dodd's been trying to rehabilitate his father's image. But who will rehabilitate the image of the son?

 

STIMULATED YET???

 

Guess what Murtha has been given by the Navy!

 

IN THE MILITARY
Guess what Murtha has been given by the Navy!
Honored with Public Service Award, bloggers erupt in outrage

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92372




Posted: March 19, 2009
11:58 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily


Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

The U.S. Navy awarded U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., its Distinguished Public Service Award, triggering an Internet campaign to have Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter withdraw it.

Murtha, who publicly accused U.S. Marines of cold-blooded murder in a firefight in Haditha, Iraq, and was caught on camera in the Abscam scandal appearing to negotiate a bribe, was honored by the Navy for his "selfless devotion to the Nation's Sailors and Marines."

Sign the Petition:  An online petition that appeared almost immediately already has collected more than 6,200 signatures.  Now at 11,000+

 

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Why Government Spending Fails

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p31-xQ2Rrz4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enewsmax%2Ecom%2Finsidecover%2Fmilton%5Ffriedman%5Finflation%2F2009%2F03%2F19%2F193738%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

 

 

Milton Friedman on Why Government Spending Fails

 

 

 

 

 

In a 1979 interview with Phil Donahue, free-market economist Milton Friedman prophetically explains why government spending only covers up economic ills, leading to rampant inflation.

 

 

Scientific Fraud thinks we should toss democracy

March 19, 2009

Rick Moran
NASA scientist James Hansen, last seen cooking the books on a global warming temperature study, thinks that we should forget about democracy and take part in "direct action:"

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/03/scientific_fraud_thinks_we_sho.html

 

THE RELIGION OF CLIMATE CHANGE…  TRADING LIBERTY FOR JUNK SCIENCE AND SNAKE OIL

 

VERY, VERY SCARY

 

STIMULATED YET?

Another $1 Trillion in Debt

The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release new estimates on Friday indicating that the deficit projections under President Obama's fiscal blueprint will be significantly larger than originally thought. In a new bulletin, Cato scholar Chris Edwards argues, "Sadly, Obama's first budget sets a course for more government bloat, more economic distortions, and ultimately lower standards of living for everyone who is not living off of federal hand-outs."

What’s a Trillion Dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) among friends anyway???

http://www.cato.org/

STIMULATED YET?

The Second American Revolution

We The People Stimulus Package

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Knock on the Door

By Lona Manning






A sitting President of the United States is "organizing a political organization loyal to him, bound by a pledge, outside the government and existing party apparatus. The historical precedents are ominous."

A visit to the OFA website reveals that supporters are not simply asked to sign up, they are asked to take a pledge. A pledge to support -- not the flag, not the constitution, not the country, not even the Democratic party, but Obama and his "bold plan." OFA does not use the Democratic Party logo but the "O"-shaped logo of the Obama campaign in which the red white and blue of the flag are abstracted to soft pastel colors.

Modeled on the Nazi Brown Shirts and SS???

Does anyone know of any historical precedents for this in the United States?

Did Mitch Stewart, youthful director of OFA, who asks Obama's acolytes to organize "neighborhood by neighborhood" study anything at school about Mao's "Red Guards?

How about Fidel Castro's "widespread system of neighborhood informers"?


Or Hugo Chavez's use of "neighborhood committees"?

These thugs are not exactly shining stars of liberty, are they???

Did Stewart learn anything about democracy at all?

Do any of Obama's pledged servants understand why a sitting president has no business creating and deploying his own supporters to help organize their neighbors?

Keep in mind that these acolytes have renounced any thought of questioning the actual policies of the maximum leader. Whatever he says, they are for it. They have given their word.

And they are coming to have a talk with you.

As Thomas Lifson wrote, "This is not the way a democracy is supposed to operate."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/the_knock_on_the_door.html

STIMULATED YET?

Obama In St Patrick's Day Teleprompt Blunder

12:26pm UK, Wednesday March 18, 2009

A teleprompt blunder has led to Barack Obama thanking himself in a speech at the White House in a St Patrick's Day celebration

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address in Washington when he realised it all sounded a bit too familiar.

It was. He was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Mr Cowen stopped, turned to the president and said: "That's your speech."

A laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium to take over but it seems the script had finally been switched and the US president ended up thanking himself for inviting everyone to the party.

Mr Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the "teleprompt president" over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Barack-Obama-Thanks-Himself-In-Teleprompt-Blunder-During-Address-With-Irish-PM-On-St-Patricks-Day/Article/200903315243932?lpos=World_News_First_World_News_Article_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15243932_Barack_Obama_Thanks_Himself_In_Teleprompt_Blunder_During_Address_With_Irish_PM_On_St_Patricks_Day

 

Moron…  Stimulated Yet?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

JournoList: Inside the echo chamber

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20086.html

 

Sounds like collaboration, don’t it???

The Obama Budget: Spending, Taxes, and Doubling the National Debt

by Brian M. Riedl

Backgrounder #2249

During his presidential campaign, President Barack Obama promised the American people a "net spending cut."  Instead, he signed a "stimulus" bill that spends $800 billion, and he has proposed a budget that would:

·                          Increase spending by $1 trillion over the next decade;

·                          Include an additional $250 billion placeholder for another financial bailout;

·                          Likely lead to a 12 percent increase in discretion­ary spending;

·                          Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over pre-recession levels;

·                          Raise taxes on all Americans by $1.4 trillion over the next decade;

·                          Raise taxes for 3.2 million taxpayers by an average of $300,000 over the next decade;

·                          Call for a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) law despite offering a budget that would violate it by $3.4 trillion;

·                          Assume a rosy economic scenario that few econo­mists anticipate;

·                          Leave permanent deficits averaging $600 billion even after the economy recovers; and

·                          Double the publicly held national debt to over $15 trillion ($12.5 trillion after inflation).

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg2249.cfm

 

Time for a Real Change: Repeal the Corporate Income Tax

by Karen Campbell, Ph.D.

Backgrounder #2248

Entrepreneurs are among America's greatest resources. These individuals try to change the status quo because they expect to use resources to create higher value than those resources are currently pro­ducing. This takes investments, and investments are risky. The return to these investments is the economic growth that they create, which is profit. Yet the gov­ernment often taxes these profits twice, once at the business level and then again when the profits are distributed to individuals.

This double taxation not only dampens the incen­tive to invest, but also obscures who actually bears the burden of these taxes. Corporations are often per­sonified and demonized, but a corporation is a legal entity, not an actual person. Because a corporation is made up of a group of individuals but is not actually an individual, corporate taxes are really taxes on the stakeholders in the corporation. In a U.S. Treasury report, William Gentry points out that empirical studies show that employees and consumers really bear the cost of corporate and investment taxes.[1]

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2248.cfm

 

Between you and your doctor

Joseph Smith

National health care is going to take excellence out of American medicine, and give the state access to your most private records. Americans are concerned.

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/03/between_you_and_your_doctor.html

 

LETTER FROM THE BOSS

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for all these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.  

But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off six of our employees instead.  This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to go.  

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lot and found six 'Obama' bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change, I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

 

Monday, March 16, 2009

Gore's big lie: the global warming hoax

 

http://www.examiner.com/x-3704-Columbia-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m3d16-Gores-big-lie--the-global-warming-hoax

 

 “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”  -- from the Oregon Petition, signed by over 31,000 scientists

 

Al Gore recently took on his critics by claiming that 'the science is settled' concerning global warming.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Ever since collectivists initiated the 'global warming' hoax to justify to the gullible public their draconian demands for limiting human choice, controlling human behavior, and mandating what we can drive, eat, and heat our homes with, there has been a consistent and substantial cacophony of dissent among scientists and climatologists.

 

The fact that these voices have been ignored by those who have gotten all the good press by no means indicates that 'the science is settled.'  In fact it is quite UNsettled.

 

The report of the International Conference on Climate Change indicates quite clearly that a substantial number of scientists from all over the world do NOT subscribe to the Al Gore notion of 'man-made global warming.'  And they have an arsenal of studies to back up their claims, as you will see by reading the article at the link above.

 

In addition, the reason these scientists cite as the primary motivation for many of their colleagues' jumping aboard the 'global warming' bandwagon is that when they do so they suddenly find themselves swimming gleefully in more funding than they know what to do with.

 

But the most ominous consequence of these scientific sell-outs is the global disaster resulting from the failure of industrialized nations to be prepared for the coming demand for energy.

 

“[Holdren] wants carbon cap and trade that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to curb ‘global warming’ that the PDO shows isn’t going to happen in the next several decades (no matter what the cause).  The PDO data shows conclusively that global cooling is going to continue for several decades, causing increasing demands of energy and resources (while population escalates), but if we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on cap and trade (as Holdren is pushing), we will have little left with which to handle the real problems of increasing demands on dwindling resources.  Holdren’s path will lead to a real global catastrophe.”

And the losses will extend beyond the monetary.  Professor Arthur Robinson, author of the afore-quoted Oregon petition, revealed the true reasons we import 30% of our energy, even though “one Palo Verde Nuclear Installation in each state results in $200 billion net export of energy.”  Robinson says there are those who would prefer that 30% grow much larger, encouraging higher energy prices and ultimately – rationing.  And quickly advised -- once we become victims of rationing in the west we lose our all of our freedoms, but energy deprivation in third world countries will lead to the loss of tens of millions of lives. 

 

In short, the 'global warming' hysteria bandwagon will lead to world-wide catastrophe and the deaths of tens of millions in the future, not to mention the evil intent to rob individual citizens of the liberty to make their own choices and control their own lives

 

Irena Sendler

There
recently was the death of a 98-year-old lady named Irena Sendler.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work
in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive...

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the
Jews, (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of
her tool box she carried, and she also carried in the back of her truck a
Burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she
trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to
do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time and course of doing this,
she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kid s/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both
her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the
kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in
her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any
parents that may have survived it, and reunited the families.

Most, of course, had been gassed.

Those kids she helped were placed into
foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize....

She LOST.

Al Gore won for doing a slide show on Global Warming.

 

 

Obama's essence

Undisciplined. Disorganized. Overreaching. Dangerous. Even the Democrats are taking off the upside-down plastic buckets they've kept over their heads, like David Broder, David Ignatius, and even David Brooks, the house conservative at the NYT, who keeps trying to hug that dangerous median strip on the superhighway of life, dancing and dodging between all the whizzing cars and trucks. 

 

But the commentariat still doesn't understand that Obama is the worst control freak to occupy high office in the history of the United States. Obama is the Nanny to end all Nannies. Socialism is not a political philosophy for him. It's the other way around. Control freakery is Obama's basic personality. Socialism is just his way of making it look good to his buds on the Left.

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/obamas_essence.html