Friday, February 27, 2009
Obama eyes revenues via green policy, taxing rich
President Barack Obama is moving to raise new revenues and curb a massive deficit through two key channels under his maiden budget plan: a 'green' energy scheme, and taxes on 'the rich'...
[You've probably forgotten the >9000-Earmarks in the 410 Billion 9-month (to Sept. '09) spending bill passed just yesterday...
Well, evidently today's another day...]
READ MORE
Obama's Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes
President Obama's budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.
1) On people making more than $250,000.
$338 billion - Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion - capital gains tax hike
Total: $636 billion/10 years
2) Businesses:
$17 billion - Reinstate Superfund taxes
$24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion - codify "economic substance doctrine"
$61 billion - repeal LIFO
$210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
$4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
$1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
$882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax credit
Total: $353 billion/10 years.
READ MORE
[Or, to explain this budget in graphical terms:
Obama can't win war on business
Making war on business is no way to stimulate an economy. But read between the lines of President Barack Obama's address to Congress and you find a battle plan for a broad attack on industrial America.
His proposals reflect a stunning disregard for the impact of government policies on economic output and a clear preference for jobs created by government spending rather than private investment...
READ MORE
THE DEFICIT CHARADE
."And that's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office,"
President Obama said at his summit. But what does that mean?
- The administration says President Obama's promise to "cut the deficit we inherited in half" means he will reduce it from $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2009 to $533 billion in fiscal 2013.
- This $533 billion deficit -- that President Obama vows will be the lowest annual deficit he runs in any of the next four years -- is larger than any deficit the profligate President Bush ran before this recessionary year.
- In fact, President Obama's planned $533 billion deficit for fiscal 2013 is more than twice as large as the $248.1 billion deficit Bush ran in 2006 and more than three times as large as the $162 billion deficit Bush ran in 2007.
Every dollar President Obama borrows and spends, like every dollar President Bush borrowed and spent, adds to the permanent burden of government laid on the backs of our children.
READ MORE
THE 2 PERCENT ILLUSION
President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."
This is going to be some trick, says the Wall Street Journal. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Obama's new spending ambitions.
Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2 percent":
- Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006 (that's about 7 percent of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point).
- These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62 percent of all federal individual income receipts.
- The richest 1 percent -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9 percent of all income tax revenues.
These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Obama is going to need. Even if Obama confiscated 100 percent of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006, this would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue - or about half the spending he's proposed so far.
READ MORE
Many Americans Question Fairness of Tax System
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% say people who earn twice as much as they do pay less than twice as much in taxes. At the same time, 37% say those who earn half as much pay less than half as much in taxes.
Only 14% believe those with higher incomes pay a higher share of it in taxes.
[*More proof that class warfare propaganda campaigns work.]
READ MORE
Government Is Still the Problem
In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that“government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that this basic view of the American people has not changed: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.
READ MORE
[Make that media popularity:]
One month in, Barack Obama's approval slips, disapproval doubles
One month down, 47 to go.
And Barack Obama's poll numbers have slid almost 10% already. According to the latest Gallup Poll, the new president's approval rating of 68% in January has slipped now to 63%, about average for recent new presidents one month in.
What isn't average, however, is Obama's new disapproval rating -- 24%, or 50% higher than the 16% average for a month-old new presidency.
And it's twice the 12% disapproval rate that Obama had last month.
Additionally, Obama's support has weakened among middle-class Americans, those touted during the campaign as benefiting from his promised tax cuts. Among that working crowd, Obama's approval fell from 69% to 58%.
Historically, 63-62% approval after a month is about average; Ronald Reagan had the worst at 55%, and Jimmy Carter had the best at 71%. Look how they turned out.
READ MORE
[Isn't that interesting about Regan and Carter - any chance media bias influenced those early numbers {before actual performance trumped spin}? MEANWHILE, the 'poll' getting all the TV coverage:
Survey Reveals Broad Support for President
President Obama is benefiting from remarkably high levels of optimism and confidence among Americans about his leadership, providing him with substantial political clout as he confronts the nation’s economic challenges and opposition from nearly all Republicans in Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
A majority of people surveyed in both parties said Mr. Obama was striving to work in a bipartisan way, but most faulted Republicans. [?]
[Same President, same basic polling topic - just a complete lack of context {trending or historical} with a little partisan demagoguery thrown in. What bias? And to think an organization like this is going bankrupt - go figure.]
.
Mastermind of 9/11 gives Texans a chill
Rep. Michael McCaul called the moment chilling and eerie. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she froze in place. And Rep. Pete Olson stared through the one-way glass, thinking, “My God, that’s the man who planned the attacks.”
There he was in a stark cell at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, kneeling on a prayer rug, head bowed, wearing the white cap of faithful Muslim men worldwide. [snip]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 44, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 al-Qaida attacks on the United States, appeared thinner than in the photos taken the 2003 night of his capture in Pakistan. [snip] But from what three members of Houston’s congressional delegation observed during a tour of the Guantanamo Bay facility, Mohammed remains every bit as bent on America’s destruction as the day he orchestrated the synchronized suicide attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. [snip]
The visit, cleared by Attorney General Eric Holder, was part of the Obama administration’s new public relations campaign to show human rights advocates that all 241 prisoners are being treated humanely...
READ MORE
Gitmo in Conformity with Geneva Convention
The Guantanamo Bay prison where terror suspects are held was examined by a special task force ordered by President Barack Obama. In its 81-page report, released Monday, the task force concluded:
“After considerable deliberation and a comprehensive review, it is our judgment that the conditions of confinement in Guantanamo are in conformity with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.”[Again, control of language as spin: the conventions explicitly do not apply to those who have acted as the terrorists have - yet again and again it's portrayed as if they somehow do - and is this what we're to believe 'humane' treatment of terrorists is to mean?...>]
The report also noted that the prison, popularly referred to as Gitmo, keeps its thermostat set between 75 and 80 degrees, provides art classes to the prisoners, and holds a library of 13,000 books, 900 magazines, 300 DVDs and regular TV programs. Also, there is a “detainee newsletter.”
Every prisoner has a copy of the Koran in the language of their choice. Each prisoner is given prayer beads, cap, rug and current prayer schedule. “Guards and staff have received specialized cultural and religious sensitivity training,” and the report adds, “guards have been disciplined for interfering with prayer time.”
The recreation includes a “large recreation yard with facilities/equipment to support soccer, basketball, volleyball, jogging, table tennis, foosball (sic), treadmill and elliptical machines – for up to 20 hours daily.”The prisoners are provided three hot meals per day with between 4,500 and 5,000 calories daily. They have “six menus for detainees to choose from,” with a typical meal consisting of “meat, starch (plus bread), vegetable, dessert, fruit, fruit juice or similar drink.”
[more, disgusting.]
READ MORE
I Will Defend to the Death Their Right to Silence You
In Amsterdam, the capital of freedom and tolerance, a Dutch Muslim nearly decapitated filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had made a movie that criticized the mistreatment of women in Islam. Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot's depiction of Mohammed set mobs of Muslims in a rampage not only in Holland, but all over the world. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders produced a 17-minute film Fitna, which juxtaposes quotations from the Koran and documentary footage of Islamic leaders inciting violence (jihad) based on those quotations. Wilder is on 24-hour police protection since al-Qaeda issued a fatwa calling for Wilder's murder.
There is some pushback. Despite the threats to his own life, Geert Wilders has come to the U.S. this week to make the case for an "International First Amendment." Wilder and the International Free Press Society, in conjunction with the Center for Security Policy, are speaking out against the he insinuation of Shariah legal codes and practices into Free World.
Apparently some in Congress still understand the need to protect Free Speech. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has invited Geert Wilders to present the film Fitna to the United States Senate this Thursday in the Senate office once used by Lyndon B. Johnson. Our gratitude goes to Wilders and to Kyl and a strong message to those who are sacrificing freedom for political correctness. The credo of Western Liberty must not be distorted to read, "Islamists disapprove of what you say, so I will defend to the death their right to silence you."
Wilders' movie has been pulled from the web many times, but here is a link to Fitna the movie.
READ MORE
How Democracies Become Tyrannies
Can a free people willingly choose servitude? Is it possible for democracies to become tyrannies? How? Back in 1959 the philosopher Eric Hoffer had this to say about Americans and America:For those who want to be left alone to realize their capacities and talents this is an ideal country.
Flash forward fifty years to the election of Barack Obama and a hard left leaning Democrat Congress. What Americans want today, apparently, is a government that has no intention of leaving any of us alone. [snip]
The deeper theme of Plato's Republic is the nature of education and the relationship between education and the survival of the state. In short, it's about a journey that results in the realization that justice and happiness in a community rests upon the moral condition of its citizens.
The short version of his theory is that the combination of freedom and poor education in a democracy render the citizens incapable of mastering their impulses and deferring gratification. [snip]
The progressive left in America has spent countless generations destroying the guardians of our inner citadel: religion, family, parents, and tradition - in short, conservatism and limits. When we exhaust the financial and moral capital of previous generations (and future ones, as with the current stimulus bill) we will dutifully line up at the public trough, on our knees.
[Highly Recommended > ]
READ MORE
"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have...."-- Thomas Jefferson
A FUNNY SORT OF DEPRESSION
.
Are we headed to something like the Great Depression?
There is clearly much to be worried about. Most of America's private retirement 401(k) accounts have significantly decreased in value since last autumn's crash. Home equity has plunged. The unemployment rate is above 7 percent and climbing. [snip]
Given all that news, we are in a funny sort of depression. Our spiraling national deficit is being financed by China, Japan and other overseas concerns at almost no interest -- saving the United States trillions of dollars in debt service costs.
Nearly 93 percent of those Americans in the workforce are still employed. Americans, who import 60 percent of their transportation fuel, along with natural gas, have been given about a half-trillion-dollar annual reprieve. [snip]
The vast majority of American homeowners -- well over 90 percent -- meet their mortgage payments. They have no plans to flip their homes for profit. Most are confident that after a few years their houses will appreciate again. As for now, working young couples have a chance to buy a house that would have been impossible just two years ago.
The majority of working Americans are not pulling out their sinking retirement funds. Most are still putting away pre-tax money each month, apparently confident that within a few years their portfolios will return to their former value. Some are even consoled that they are now buying mutual funds at rock-bottom prices. [snip]
For the vast majority of Americans, the fall in prices for almost everything from food to cars has, in real dollars, meant an actual increase in purchasing power.
I live in southeastern Fresno County, one of the poorest regions of a now nearly bankrupt California. Many people are hurting. Yet to go to the local Wal-Mart is to see late-model cars in the parking lots and plenty of cell phones, iPods and BlackBerrys among the shoppers. Carts are stuffed with consumer goods, lots of food and Easter confections.
So are we in a depression that justifies a vast redefinition of government and a massive takeover of the private sector? Not quite. What we are a witnessing instead is a sharp downturn from the most affluent era in the history of civilization.*
For the last two decades, we borrowed and spent as if there were no tomorrow. Now we are living in that tomorrow of cutting back and making do. In relative terms, it is no longer 2005, but that does not mean it is 1932.
[*And we need remember what brought us that prosperity {hint: it wasn't government} - Highly Recommended > ]
READ MORE
Paved With Renewable Mandates
Highly informed sources (don't you love that phrase) tell us that Senate majority leader Harry "Hands-Off-Yucca-Mountain" Reid will be pushing for the Senate to adopt a national renewable energy portfolio within the next two weeks. Reid has reportedly told Senator Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, he wants a bill on the Senate floor within two weeks.
[Here we go again: two weeks, for a national energy policy.
We're witnessing the creation of the next major investment bubble, and it's green.]
READ MORE
Repeal Health Care Fascism
[HT:BN]
Buried in Barack Obama's so-called stimulus bill is funding for a bureaucratic structure for the government to begin rationing the health care of the American people. (Snip)
Unless this is stopped, many of you reading this article right now will one day suffer death-by-liberalism, when the government bureaucracy decides that the health care you need is not worth the cost, or puts you in a waiting line where death will arrive before treatment...
READ MORE
Hollywood Extols National Healthcare While Closing Its OWN Actors Hospital and Long-Term Care Facilities
The self-aggrandizing denizens of Hollywood constantly scold Americans over a lack of national healthcare. It is the biggest failure of American society ever that there is no cradle to the grave program for free health care, they constantly tell us.
And now, in keeping with these nearly universal Hollywood "principles," to prove how Hollywood is far more moral than we lowly citizens of flyover country, and to show that they are better than the great unwashed in the backwaters of America... Hollywood is closing its nearly 90-year-old Motion Picture Fund hospital and accompanying long-term living facilities for aging actors.
Yep, dumping it. Walking away. Fuggedaboutit.
READ MORE
Most Say Affirmative Action No Longer Relevant
Americans are closely divided over the need for continued affirmative action programs now the country has elected its first African-American president.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) of adults say affirmative action is still relevant, but 41% disagree in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure.
Last August, prior to the election of Barack Obama as president, 46% of Americans said affirmative action programs were no longer needed.
READ MORE
Southington Council Member Suspended For Comments
A long-time member of the Southington town council has been suspended for two weeks without pay from his job as director of the town's chamber of commerce for comments at a recent council meeting in which he referred to a Satanic symbol while mentioning President Barack Obama.
[Say something nasty about this president, lose your livelihood. Liberal tolerance in Amerika.]
READ MORE
ABC 2001: 'Hard Core' Conservative Bush; 2099: No Label for Obama
Despite calling for massive new spending on education, universal health care and more money for bailing out banks, no ABC anchor on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning used the word liberal in describing Barack Obama's February 24 address to Congress.
In contrast, ABC host Terry Moran on February 27, 2001 anticipated that a similar speech by President George W. Bush would be "conservative." Following that address, he spun it as "hard core conservatism: fiscal restraint; deep, across-the-board spending and tax cuts; the privatization of part of Social Security."
[What bias? Move along...]
READ MORE
What's Free Enterprise? Don't Ask Us!
Since the economy slipped into a recession last year, Americans have seen leaders of both parties push unprecedented policies in response to the downturn, including federal bailouts of banks, automakers and mortgage holders.(snip)
Do Americans understand the free enterprise system — the system that made this nation wealthy in the first place — well enough to intelligently scrutinize the policy proposals now being advanced by our elected leaders?
[1) Control the money. 2) Control the media. 3) Control the schools.]
READ MORE
Slightly historical
So the proposed re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec has been scrapped.
Even though it would have been entirely accurate, if appallingly over-sensitive to the losers, it told a truth that was not pleasant to militant separatists. And nobody wants to in any way offend anybody in modern Canada.
Welcome to the wonderful world of historical revisionism. [snip]
So what other historical truths must never be mentioned for fear of hurting feelings?
That Africans themselves often sold people to white slavers and that long after slavery was abolished, particularly under African and Arab leadership.
Or that the Ottoman Empire's surveys revealed that very few people lived in the area later known as Palestine until the Jews returned to it, and that it was not considered a nation state or a separate political entity.
Or that after Israel had conquered Gaza and the West Bank it offered them back to Egypt and Jordan and both refused. [because Israel's (only) 'price' is that it be recognized.]
Or that the Crusades were not known as such until long after they had stopped and that they were merely a direct response to Islam's invasion of the Christian heartlands of North Africa and the Levant.
Or that Joseph Stalin killed more people than Hitler, that Che Guevara was a mass murderer.
Or that Galileo was a faithful Catholic whose patron was a cardinal and that Copernicus was a priest. [missed that one][snip]
There is a terribly politically incorrect joke about French roads being lined with trees so that Germans can march in the shade. This joke should never be re-enacted because it might cause offense to someone.
Trees perhaps.
READ MORE
[Point: Revisionist history is rampant in every sphere dominated by the Left; media, government and worst of all (public) education. It erodes the very foundation of our society. So what to do? {tell me if you've heard any of these before}:
Media: internet not TV.
Government: pay attention and act.
Education: demand universal-unencumbered vouchers {and elect those who support}.
Big problems don't have push-button solutions, they have paths to recovery - traversed one step at a time...]
Delta, Northwest mechanics reject union representation
Mechanics at Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, the two carriers that merged in March to create the world's largest air carrier, have decided they won't be represented by a union, the company announced Thursday. (snip) The National Mediation Board, which oversees labor issues for railroads and airlines, revoked the union's certification this morning following a vote of the 6,700 employees.
READ MORE
Anti-terror unit asked to protect Ayers
Millersville University has asked the regional counter-terrorism task force to provide security when William Ayers, a former militant anti-war activist, speaks at the university next month. Area law enforcement officers are disturbed.
Speaking on their behalf, Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman said law enforcement must provide security if the university requests it, "regardless of how we feel about an unrepentant terrorist."
[Professionally done.]
READ MORE
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Confidence in Stimulus Plan Drops Over Past Week
Confidence in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan has fallen four points in the week since President Obama signed it into law, and more voters are prepared to punish their representatives for supporting it.
Thirty-four percent (34%) of U.S. voters now say the plan will help the economy, while 32% believe it will hurt, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty-six percent (26%) say the plan will have little impact on the economy. Eight percent (8%) are undecided.
A week ago, 38% of voters said the plan will help the economy, while 29% said it will hurt.
READ MORE
Yet, Yesterday...
.
House Approves $410 Billion Spending Bill
Washington - The Democratic-controlled House approved $410 billion legislation Wednesday that boosted domestic programs, bristled with earmarks and chipped away at policies left behind by the Bush administration. The vote was 245-178, largely along party lines. Republicans assailed the measure as too costly -- particularly on the heels of a $787 billion stimulus bill...
READ MORE
The Truth-O-Meter Re:
The omnibus spending bill has "9,427 pork barrel items."
John McCain on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 in an interview on CNN's American Morning.
True: Omnibus bill packed with earmarks and pork
Despite all the talk during the campaign about cutting earmarks, Congress is still packing them into appropriations bills.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington group that tracks federal spending, has a slightly lower number -- 8,570 (down from 8,811 last year). That number includes anything defined by Congress as an earmark that doesn't mention the president as the person making the request. If you also include items requested by the president's budget that have been jointly requested by a member of Congress, the number comes to 9,287, according to TCS.
A McClatchy News Service story put the total earmarks at 9,000, attributing it to "congressional officials."
So McCain's number is in the same range as other counts and given slightly different definitions, it's possible to get different tallies. We find his claim to be True.
READ MORE
Two Obama Cabinet Members Added Earmarks to Omnibus Spending Bill
Two of President Obama's Cabinet members authored a variety of earmarks in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill the House is poised to pass Wednesday to keep the government running through Oct. 1. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis
READ MORE
[That's 1.2 TRILLION, not including interest - it's all borrowed money, in two weeks. And the promise against earmarks? They'll start that in the next spending bill - only 5 months away. Between now and then? 'Universal' health care; >600 Billion now, with at least as much later... all with no serious debate of alternatives - just ram 'em through; 'crisis-emergency-hurry' - we can read the bills later...
And the 'explanation' for how all these earmarks are still sailing through? Well, this bill is "unfinished business" from the previous administration. That's right, it's Bush's fault - even though he's out of office, and it will be Obama's hand that signs it into law when it reaches his desk.
To which our 'professional' media says ... ... .. ... . ...{sigh}]
Around the world...
.
Diplomats: Syria has put missile facility on bombed nuke site
Vienna - Syria has indicated that it has built a missile facility on the site of an alleged nuclear reactor that IAF warplanes reportedly bombed, diplomats said Tuesday. (Snip) The diplomats said that the facility appeared to be either a missile control center or an actual launching pad. They demanded anonymity for reporting on the closed meeting. The site was bombed in 2007.
READ MORE
Obama Yawns as Iran Fires Up First Nuke Plant
Iran might not have rated a single mention in the president’s address to Congress last night, but that doesn’t mean nothing interesting is happening there. Today, the New York Times reports that Iran has started tests on its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr. The Russian-built plant will begin loading its nuclear fuel later this year but we are assured the Russians will not let any of that fuel be used for illicit purposes.
READ MORE
Vladimir Putin faces rising anger from within Russian army
Vladimir Putin is facing an unprecedented military challenge to his authority as discontent over medieval conditions and personnel cuts mounts within the Russian armed forces. A growing number of disgruntled servicemen, including senior officers, are making contact with Russian opposition groups for the first time since he came to power in 2000.
READ MORE
[And when leaders are in trouble at home, they look for trouble abroad for distraction...]
Russian missiles seized
Moscow - Russia's chief military prosecutor said on Wednesday he suspects navy officials tried to smuggle 30 anti-submarine missiles through Tajikistan to sell them in China.
''A few days ago we sent material to start criminal proceedings against navy officials and some businessmen who brought 30 contraband anti-submarine missiles and 200 aviation bombs into Tajikistan for onward sale to China for $18m..."
READ MORE
So in Washington...
.
No terror talk: Homeland Security head's 'new tone'
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoids mentioning terrorism or 9/11 in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors. Napolitano is the first homeland security secretary to drop the term "terror" and "vulnerability" from remarks prepared for delivery to the House Homeland Security Committee, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.
READ MORE
Intel pick peddled Saudi-funded textbook accused of bias
Washington - The Obama administration’s reported pick for a top intelligence post helped peddle a Saudi-funded school study guide decried by Jewish groups and educators for having anti-Jewish biases. Charles ''Chas'' Freeman, the U.S. envoy to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, is slated to chair the National Intelligence Council, according to The Cable, a blog at Foreign Policy magazine that has been unerring in reporting Obama administration national security appointments.
READ MORE
White House: DoD Officials Must Vow Secrecy on Budget
The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government. In an undated non-disclosure agreement obtained by Defense News, the administration tells defense officials that "strict confidentiality" must be practiced to ensure a "successful" and "proper" 2010 defense budget process.
READ MORE
[And this adds to 'transparency' how?]
Congress Should Cut Military Spending, Says Democrat Barney Frank
Congress should cut U.S. military spending by $160 billion, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, proposed at a press conference Tuesday.
READ MORE
So on Main Street...
.
Confidence in War on Terror Drops
Just over two weeks ago, 62% said the United States and its allies were winning the war, a new record high. Only 14% said the terrorists were winning at that time.
Confidence in how America is doing in the War on Terror has dropped dramatically in the past two weeks. Just 47% of voters now believe the United States and its allies are winning.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 23% believe the terrorists are winning, while 25% say it's a draw. Six percent (6%) are undecided.
READ MORE
Bad Times Visit Our Betters in Europe
[HT:PS]
LONDON -- Think that credit collapse that triggered the Bush administration's $700 billion bank bailout was necessary because of Republican hostility to regulation and the ineptness of President George W. Bush? If it were that simple, then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Labor Party would not be squirming, and the United Kingdom would not be swimming in staggering sums of debt.
It was not that long ago that market watchers hailed Brown as the savvy Euro-technocrat who, as the United Kingdom's former chancellor of the exchequer, understood capital markets and calmly navigated British finance through the storms that swamped Bushdom last year. When the Halifax Bank of Scotland was on the verge of collapse in September, Brown began working on a takeover of the bank by Lloyds TSB -- for which the prime minister was hailed as a hero who averted a crisis.
But the deal did not save the empire. Instead, it helped sink Lloyds, requiring government intervention. British taxpayers now own a 43 percent stake in Lloyds -- which may grow. Some wonder if Brown will have to nationalize Lloyds.
Oh, yes, and last week, the Sunday Telegraph reported that Lloyds was planning to pay 120 million pounds ($171.72 million) in bonuses to top execs.
READ MORE
Durban II draft document 'getting worse'
Besides issues relating to Israel, the draft has problematic paragraphs regarding free speech, defamation of religion and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, he said."At this stage it is not possible to say what in the text would improve, if at all. In fact I expect the text to get only worse on all issues which are important for western democracy,"
He spoke as representatives from 190 nations have been meeting in Geneva to debate the language for a document in which Israel is alluded to as a "racist" and "apartheid" power.
Israel and the United States walked out of the 2001 conference to protest its disintegration into an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-fest. Israel and Canada have already announced they do not intend to participate in this April's conference in Geneva.
The United States has yet to announce whether it will participate, but it has been present in Geneva this week...
READ MORE
HOPE'S EXPIRATION
In confirming that he will let the Bush tax cuts expire, President Obama is discarding proven economic medicine. He is also bringing the discredited welfare state back to life, bigger than ever.
Heritage Foundation senior domestic policy analyst Robert Rector recently noted that the stimulus will overturn the fiscal foundation of welfare reform and for the first time since 1996, the federal government would begin paying states bonuses to increase their welfare caseloads.
- Under the stimulus bill, the federal government will pay 80 percent of cost for each new family that a state enrolls in welfare.
- The original goal of helping families move to employment and self-sufficiency and off long-term dependence on government assistance has instead been replaced with the perverse incentive of adding more families to the welfare rolls.
Uncle Sam would actually pay the states many billions of dollars to increase their welfare caseloads, with spending increases nearing $800 billion over a decade, with more than $1.3 trillion added to the national debt by the stimulus.
Yet amidst all this, the president promises to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his first term -- a promise Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, appearing on CNN, disparaged as "wildly optimistic," especially since the massive, ever-expanding Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs are left unaddressed.
READ MORE
Obama's deficit strategy 'wildly optimistic,' economist says
Some economists doubt President Obama will be able to meet his goal of cutting the nation's deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron said it's a good idea for Obama to focus on the long-term deficit, but he said he suspects the proposal to halve the $1.3 trillion deficit is
"wildly optimistic."
"First, tax increases will probably not produce as much revenue as being forecast, and second, he hasn't really touched the two really important programs that account for a huge fraction of our future liabilities ... Social Security and Medicare," ... "Unless he does something about those, he's just kicking a can down the road,"
said Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
READ MORE
Obama glosses over complex realities
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's assurance Tuesday that his mortgage-relief plan will only benefit deserving homeowners appears to be a stretch.(Snip)The president glossed over a number of complex realities in delivering his speech to Congress and a nation hungry for economic salvation.(Snip)THE FACTS: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money does not go to home buyers who used bad judgment, it hasn't announced it.
READ MORE
Fact Check: Obama’s words on home aid ring hollow
President Barack Obama knows Americans are unhappy that the government could rescue people who bought mansions beyond their means. But his assurance Tuesday night that only the deserving will get help rang hollow. Even officials in his administration, many supporters of the plan in Congress and the Federal Reserve chairman expect some of that money will go to people who used lousy judgment. The president skipped over several complex economic circumstances in his speech to Congress _
READ MORE
54% Say ‘No’ To All Bailouts
.
Given the choice between federal bailouts for the auto companies, the finance industry and financially trouble homeowners or no bailouts for any of them, 54% say no bailouts period.
Just 26% support bailouts for all three, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty percent (20%) aren’t sure which course is better to follow.
READ MORE
Japan: Global warming isn't man-made
Japanese scientists have made a dramatic break with the UN and Western-backed hypothesis of climate change in a new report from its Energy Commission. Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside. [snip]
The report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) is astonishing rebuke to international pressure, and a vote of confidence in Japan's native marine and astronomical research. ... Only one of the five top Japanese scientists commissioned here concurs with the man-made global warming hypothesis. [snip]
Shunichi Akasofu, head of the International Arctic Research Center in Alaska, has expressed criticism of the theory before. Akasofu uses historical data to challenge the claim that very recent temperatures represent an anomaly:
"We should be cautious, IPCC's theory that atmospheric temperature has risen since 2000 in correspondence with CO2 is nothing but a hypothesis. "
Akasofu calls the post-2000 warming trend hypothetical. His harshest words are reserved for advocates who give conjecture the authority of fact.
"Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth... The opinion that great disaster will really happen must be broken."
READ MORE
Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor
A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said. The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February.
[Again and again. When there's a monetary interest involved, all kinds of 'mistakes' can {and do - and do and do} happen - most going unreported.]
READ MORE
Census offers a look at the foreign face of the U.S.
Indians are the best-educated newcomers from overseas. Somalis are the youngest and poorest. Immigrants from Jordan and Bangladesh are most likely to be working in sales and office jobs.
Those are among the findings of a profile of the nation’s foreign-born residents, legal or illegal, released this week by the Census Bureau.
The profile indicates that Latin Americans and Africans account for a greater share of the nation’s immigrant population than they did five years ago. In 1990, 22 percent of the foreign-born residents were from Mexico. By 2007, 31 percent were.
READ MORE
image toon - othr fnn - Dept of Commerce taken leave of Census
Teaching Schooling children to hate our values
Can you imagine the outrage if school children were encouraged to empathise with Hitler, the better to understand why he murdered six million Jews? Or if they were given lessons on the mindset that made Stalin starve eight million Russians? That's exactly what's been taking place in some of our schools where, as part of 'citizenship' lessons, children as young as 11 were asked to empathise with the motivations of the July 7 terrorists.
[Parents, do you know what your children are being taught.]
READ MORE
The right not to be offended?
It's a discredit to our national confidence that each time some impolite thought — perceived or otherwise — is uttered, sketched or typed, a faction of professionally offended Americans engage in a collective hyper-sensitivity meltdown. It has been a long-standing custom for opponents to shut down debate by tagging an adversary with some dreadful label.
READ MORE
Paper At Last Finds Unions Hurt Business, When it's THEIR Business
The Minneapolis Star Tribune is often called the "Red Star" Tribune by residents of Minneapolis for its long-time, virulently left-wing outlook. Many has been the time when the editorial board of the Star Trib has carried water for political candidates shilling for big labor.
The STrib endorsed Obama for president for his supposed fiscal responsibility as well as his focus on the working classes. It is well known that big labor was solidly behind Obama and have been getting payoffs every week since the January inaugural.
But that was then. Now-a-days the STrib is not so keen on unions. In fact, it is so put off by unions that it is going to court to have its contract with its printers union annulled and asks for new terms to be imposed by the courts to save the paper from going bankrupt.
Apparently, unions are fine for politicians as far as the STrib is concerned, but when it is faced with real life union demands, well, the courts are asked to save them from union excess.
READ MORE
Holder’s Shame
By all means we need a little moral courage when it comes to discussing race — and Eric Holder was in a perfect position to begin that discussion. But instead, he simply trotted out the well-worn shibboleths about intolerance and racial division. He might have taken another course. [snip]
The elephant in the room in discussions of race isn’t white prejudice; it’s the breakdown of the black family and all the attendant social pathologies that emanate from it.
Instead of lecturing us on cowardice, Eric Holder could have talked about the relationship between family breakdown and crime. He could have talked about why it is that young black men aged 14-24 represent only 1 percent of the U.S. population but committed almost 28 percent of the nation’s homicides in 2005, according to his own department’s statistics. He could have talked about what it means to have fatherless teenage boys grow up in neighborhoods where your chances of being killed are greater than they were on the streets of Baghdad at the height of the insurgency.
He could have talked about why it is that schools systems presided over by black superintendents in cities governed by black elected officials produce black high-school graduates who read at the eighth-grade level. He could have talked about why it is that illegal Mexican immigrants with a sixth grade education are more likely to be employed in a steady job than young black men with a high-school education.
Now that would have taken some courage.
READ MORE
I’m a Racist Coward
I am appalled. I just found out that I am a racist and a coward and I did not know it. (Snip) The things you find out about yourself if you just listen to newly appointed/elected government officials.(Snip)
Apparently, I’m a racist coward because I want to be color blind. This great national offense of racism doesn’t want to die - even though we just elected our first black president.
READ MORE
[The victim industry: Too big to fail {despite all evidence to the contrary}.]
Iraq’s full story not told
Americans aren’t hearing the whole story about life in Iraq and United States involvement there, according to Dave Schmidt, who has talked to anyone who will listen about positive aspects, since his return to Pratt last July.
During a year in Iraq with an Army Reserves unit based in Pittsburg, Schmidt witnessed, and in some cases, was a part of changes that are making life better for Iraqis.
“We’re doing the right thing. We’re helping but that’s not the type of stories national newswires pick up and send back here.”
For whatever reason, national media focuses on suicide bombings or crowds of people complaining about the U.S. presence in their country, he said. What is not shown is that once the cameras are turned off, those same people are expressing their gratitude for a sustainable source of power and safe schools for their children...
[Lots of facts I bet you don't know... Recommended > ]
READ MORE
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
GOVERNORS V. CONGRESS
Tens of billions of dollars of aid for health care, welfare and education will disappear in two years and leave states with no way to finance the expanded programs. Gov. Perry sent a letter to President Obama last week warning that Texas may refuse certain stimulus funds."If this money expands entitlements, we will not accept it. This is exactly how addicts get hooked on drugs,"
Consider South Carolina:
- Its annual budget is roughly $7 billion and the stimulus will send about $2.8 billion to the state over two years.
- But to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to the likes of Head Start, child care subsidies and special education, the state will have to enroll thousands of new families into "permanant" programs.
The Medicaid money for states is also a fiscal time bomb:
- The stimulus bill temporarily increases the share of state Medicaid bills reimbursed by the federal government by two or three percentage points.
- High-income states now pay about half the Medicaid costs, and in low-income states the feds pay about 70 percent.
- But in 2011 almost all the $80 billion of extra federal Medicaid money vanishes.
READ MORE
What They Told Us
Voters didn’t like much of what they saw last week.
On Tuesday, President Obama signed into law the $787-billion economic stimulus plan. The president was able to rally support for the plan through his own personal appeal, but only 38% of voters nationwide believe the plan will help the economy.
On Wednesday, General Motors and Chrysler came back to Washington asking for an additional $22 billion in federal help, but 64% of U.S. voters are opposed to providing them any additional taxpayer-backed loans.
Also on Wednesday, Obama announced a $275-billion taxpayer-backed plan that would help some Americans refinance their mortgage payments or otherwise avoid foreclosure. But sixty-three percent (63%) say the housing market will improve only when the overall U.S. economy gets better. Just 25% believe targeted government programs like those announced by the president will help the housing market.
In Congress, after the intense partisan debate over the economic stimulus bill, Republicans and Democrats remain almost even in this week’s edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.
Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters say finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing the amount of energy Americans now consume.
READ MORE
Rick Santelli: The Man Who Talked Back
It's now clear why Team Obama is following Rahm Emanuel's "shock doctrine" recommendation of not "letting a crisis go to waste." When you are trying to govern a center-right nation from the left, you need to grab whatever advantages fortune hands you and then move fast and hard to exploit them. But did Obama really win a mandate to borrow and spend taxpayer money like never before, rescue bad banks and then bailout financially-inept or even fraudulent homeowners? Rick Santelli doesn't think so.
Clearly, CNBC reporter Santelli tapped into something last week with his housing harangue from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. A YouTube video of Santelli has been downloaded more than half a million times, and commentary on the diatribe is burning up the blogosphere. He even made Meet the Press. Lots of pundits are comparing him to Howard "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Beale, the crazed anchorman from the 1976 film "Network."
Actually, I prefer a different comparison. In 1937, there was a radio debate between Wendell Willkie and Franklin Roosevelt administration official Robert Jackson about the proper economic role of government. (The event and its fallout are wonderfully described in the outstanding book "The Forgotten Man" by Amity Shlaes.)
By all accounts, Willkie won easily by arguing that FDR's efforts at nationalizing the utilities industry, his dramatic tax increases, and his administration's push for prosecutions of businessmen had frozen the private sector with fear and prevented the country from returning to prosperity. The Saturday Evening Post would later dub Willkie "The Man Who Talked Back" against the New Deal and Big Government.
I would love to see a debate between Santelli and Obama spokesperson Robert Gibbs.
READ MORE
FLASHBACK > NNB : NRO Talks to CNBC's Rick Santelli
S. Korea: NKorea deploys new ballistic missile
North Korea recently deployed a new type of medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching northern Australia and the U.S. territory of Guam, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Monday. The report comes amid speculation that the isolated regime also is preparing to test-fire another, longer-range missile capable of hitting Alaska.
READ MORE
Obama's Durban gambit
last Saturday the Obama administration announced that it would be sending a delegation to Geneva to participate in planning the UN's so-called Durban II conference, scheduled to take place in late April. Although largely overlooked in the US, the announcement sent shock-waves through Jerusalem.
The Durban II conference's stated purpose is to review the implementation of the declaration adopted at the UN's anti-Israel hate fest that took place in Durban, South Africa the week before the September 11, 2001.
At Durban, both the UN-sponsored NGO conclave and the UN's governmental conference passed declarations denouncing Israel as a racist state, and called for a coordinated international campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel.
The NGO conference also called for curbs on critical discussion of Islam. As far as the world's leading NGOs — including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch — were concerned, critical discussions of Islam are inherently racist... [snip]
Assuming that the Obama administration truly wishes to change the agenda, the fact is that the US is powerless to do so. As was the case in 2001, the Islamic bloc has an automatic voting majority. Beyond chipping away at the margins, the US has no ability whatsoever to change the conference's agenda or expected outcome. [snip]
Some might argue that no Israeli interest is served by openly condemning the White House. But when the White House is participating in a process that legitimizes and so advances the war against the Jewish state, such condemnation is not only richly deserved but required...
[So it is...
1) Highly Recommended >
READ MORE
2)
"BOYCOTT DURBAN 2"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
The Obama Administration Sacrifices Israel
The Obama administration's decision to join the planning of the U.N.'s Durban II "anti-racism" conference has just taken a new twist: cover-up.
On Friday, State Department officials and a member of the American Durban II delegation claimed the United States had worked actively to oppose efforts to brand Israel as racist in the committee drafting a Durban II declaration.
The trouble is that they didn't.
READ MORE
Eleven States Declare Sovereignty Over Obama’s Action
[you're probably tired of the 24/7 TV coverage of this, but just in case you missed it...]
In the first five weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has acted so rashly that at least 11 states have decided that his brand of “hope” equates to an intolerable expansion of the federal government’s authority over the states.
These states -- Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas -- have passed resolutions reminding Obama that the 10th Amendment protects the rights of the states, which are the rights of the people, by limiting the power of the federal government.
These resolutions call on Obama to “cease and desist” from his reckless government expansion and also indicate that federal laws and regulations implemented in violation of the 10th Amendment can be nullified by the states.
Regardless of the specific reason behind each of the resolutions in the 11 states, all of them direct the federal government to “cease and desist” in its reckless violation of state’s rights. In this way, South Carolina’s resolution is typical of the others issued to date:
“The General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, by this resolution, claims for the State of South Carolina sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution…
Be it…resolved that this resolution serves as notice and demand to the federal government, as South Carolina's agent, to cease and desist immediately all mandates…beyond the scope of the federal government's constitutionally delegated powers.”
What these state assemblies and congresses have hit upon here is key to our entire conservative interpretation of the Constitution, for these states understand that the Constitution limits the federal government, not the people. Or to put it another way, it guarantees the freedom of the people by limiting the government.
[But only if we insist it be so.]
READ MORE
DUKES OF MORAL HAZARD
President Obama made clear that his plan to prevent home foreclosures "will not rescue the unscrupulous by throwing good taxpayer money after bad…and will not reward folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford."
But details have suggested that his plan will do all of the above, says the Wall Street Journal.
- Anyone with mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will be able to refinance at lower rates if his mortgage is between 80 percent and 105 percent of the value of his home.
- Existing borrowers who may not qualify for Fan/Fred refinancing can still receive loan modifications that move their mortgage payments down to 31 percent of their monthly income.
- In either case, no effort will be made to verify that recipients of aid were truthful on their original mortgage applications.
And the recent history of mortgage modifications isn't encouraging. According to the December report by the Comptroller of the Currency, for modified loans that were 30 or more days delinquent:
- Nearly 37 percent of them re-defaulted after just 3 months.
- 55 percent re-defaulted after 6 months.
"One very troubling point is that, whether measured using 30-day or 60-day delinquencies, re-default rates increased each month and showed no signs of leveling off after six months and even eight months."
READ MORE
TRYING TO MEET THE CARTER STANDARD
Add President Obama's name to the ever-growing list of global-warming hypocrites.
During the campaign, Obama made no bones about where he stood on the question of energy and global warming:"We can't drive our SUVs and . . . keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."
Obviously, a president gets a necessary pass on driving in a big (i.e., safe) car.
But it turns out that Obama keeps the Oval Office at near-tropical heat levels. The New York Times reports that he doesn't wear a suit jacket at his desk because he has "cranked up the thermostat."
Explained adviser David Axelrod:"He's from Hawaii, OK? He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."
So would the rest of us, if we could afford it.
But talk about "Do as I say, not as I do."
Mr. President, how 'bout you turn down the heat - and borrow one of Jimmy Carter's old cardigans?
[2Qs: 1) who the hell is anyone to tell any of us how much power we can use given we each pay for our usage? 2) how about we make more energy and resign such thermostat v sweater 'debates' to the trash heap of infantile ideas where they belong? ]
READ MORE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
