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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 >
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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.
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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.]
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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."
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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? ]
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State Dept. Cites 'Large Firefights' in Travel Alert on Mexico
The department uses strong language to describe the situation in Mexico."Recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades. Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico but most recently in northern Mexico, including Tijuana, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area."
Being "temporarily prevented" from leaving a firefight is never a good thing..."U.S. citizens are urged to be alert to safety and security concerns when visiting the border region. . . . While most crime victims are Mexican citizens, the uncertain security situation poses serious risks for U.S. citizens as well,"
the alert states."Robberies, homicides, petty thefts, and carjackings have all increased over the last year across Mexico generally, with notable spikes in Tijuana and northern Baja California. Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nogales are among the cities which have recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues."
The State Department will review the situation again in six months.
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Wisconsin may fine schools $1,000 a day for Indian mascots
MADISON, Wis.— Democratic lawmakers are proposing a bill that would require the state to investigate complaints about American Indian mascots in Wisconsin schools.If the complaints are justified, the state Department of Public Instruction would have to order the school to drop the mascot or logo within a year or face fines of up to $1,000 a day...
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Reich's Call for Unionization is 'a 1930s Solution to a 2009 Problem,’ Economists Say
Reich is working hand-in-hand with a coalition of labor unions and the Center for American Progress Action Fund to call for increased unionization as a means of “saving the economy.”
As part of that, Reich endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the "Card Check" bill, which would allow union organizers to get employees of a company to create a union simply by signing union cards -- in lieu of workplace secret-ballot elections.
Barbara Comstock of the Workforce Fairness Institute, meanwhile, isn’t buying Reich’s analysis.“By his logic, Michigan -- the most unionized state in the country -- would be the most prosperous state in the country and the auto industry would be the economic model that the rest of the country should follow,”
Nothing could be further from the truth, she said.“On a day when the auto companies are asking for tens of billions of dollars more, and Michigan, according to the figures, is one of the least prosperous states with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, that argument makes no economic sense"
Economist and economic historian Robert Higgs, meanwhile, said Reich’s idea of promoting unionization “would be disastrous". Higgs, senior fellow in political economy for The Independent Institute, said that increased unionization in the 1930s actually helped to keep us in the Great Depression longer.
[Common sense folks: it's the number of people working - all of whom buy washers, while not being on the government dole. Less unions, more people with jobs. Recommended > ]
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BENEFITS NEGLECTED FOR CIVIL RETIREES
State and local governments have set aside virtually no money to pay $1 trillion or more in medical benefits for retired [union] civil servants. With bills coming due as baby boomers start to retire, states, cities, school districts and other governments will be forced to raise taxes.
The federal government has a $1.2 trillion unfunded obligation to pay medical costs for retired federal workers and military personnel. Medicare and Social Security push the nation's unfunded promises above $50 trillion.
Last year, for the first time, states and big cities were required to report the value of medical benefits promised to current and future retirees; state and local governments employ 20 million, and an additional 7 million are retired.
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Violating Their Sacred Honor
When the D.C. voting-rights bill comes up for a cloture vote in the Senate this Tuesday, senators will face one overriding question: Will they uphold their oaths to support and defend the Constitution? If they give the District of Columbia a voting representative in Congress, they will break those oaths.
Article I specifies that “Representatives . . . shall be apportioned among the several States,” and this is confirmed in Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. One of the qualifications to be a congressman is to “be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” [snip]
This is not an attempt to secure representation for District residents’ interests, then, but a raw grab at political power. It will establish a new, permanently Democratic seat in the House of Representatives.
Statehood proponents know that there is insufficient support nationwide to amend the Constitution to give D.C. a voting member of Congress. They’re willing to violate the Constitution instead. It will be a sad day in American political life if they succeed.
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"OPPOSE 'D.C.-Utah House Voting Rights Act"
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
.
What Happened to the Hopemonger?
Here's a fact that will probably shock you: Americans today have the same level of confidence in President Obama as they had in George W. Bush after his first month in office. According to Gallup, Obama's public approval rating currently stands at 63 percent, only a point above George W. Bush in late February 2001.
That Obama now stands where Bush did eight years ago, on the eve of his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, serves as a reminder of how quickly the demands of the presidency can sober even the most talented politicians. [snip]
Both Reagan and Obama began their presidencies with less than one in five Americans satisfied with the direction of the country. At the same time, like when Reagan first took office, eight in 10 Americans today remain "satisfied with the way things are going in" their "own personal life." *
In other words, the people today seem more optimistic than their president. They haven't given up hope, and Obama's burden tomorrow is to demonstrate that neither has.
[Again, 'personal life' is based on first hand experience - and 'national attitudes' are based on what we hear in the media.]
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MASSES LEAVE CALIFORNIA
The state stepped away from the brink of financial ruin when the state Legislature ended months of deadlock and paralysis -- which had shut down road projects and held up tax refund checks -- by agreeing to a budget plan that increases taxes, cuts spending and borrows money to plug a $42 billion deficit by mid-2010. However:
- In Vallejo, a city of 115,000 people, 1,700 homes are in foreclosure or owned by banks.
- The highest foreclosure rate in the United States -- 9.5 percent last year -- was in the California city of Stockton, which Forbes magazine declared as America's "most miserable city."
- Median home values in Southern California dropped 35 percent in the past year, and California has the lowest S&P bond rating of all 50 states.
- In each of four years prior to June 2008, more people left California than moved in from other states, a reversal of a decades-long trend in which the state took in more than it lost.
- Those leaving point to an unemployment rate that hit 9.3 percent in December, up from 5.9 percent a year earlier and fourth-highest in the nation, and taxes on income, sales and gas that are the highest in the nation.*
[*yet those highest tax rates somehow aren't enough]
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The Diversity Hustle
Barack Obama ran for office as a unifier, but it was all a hustle. His brand of politics needs enemies. Like southern slave owners of old, today's conservative Republicans represent the enemy to be vanquished by enlightened progressives from the north. This is an old storyline that provides unlimited nourishment to America's liberal elites. Many of us, especially those of us who work in education, have long seen this coming. [snip]"Individualism, fairness, merit -- these three words are continually in the mouths of our up-to-date, newly respectable bigots who have learned that they need not put on a white hood or bar access to the ballot box in order to secure their ends."
This kind of standard fare, cavalier hatred from the left is what has passed for "tolerance" and "diversity" in our schools for the last couple of decades. What's worse, the most brutal attacks on anything resembling the Enlightenment values of reason, merit, and individualism have occurred in our nation's law schools. [snip]The authors reveal that professors "who cling to Enlightenment aspirations" are "at some risk of being labeled racists or bigots." Why? Because according to the multiculturalists, "conceptions of merit are invented by the powerful to reinforce their dominant position in society."
The authors go on to suggest that other groups that take advantage of merit based, objective measurements of success - such as Jews and Asians - will soon join white (especially conservative) Europeans as open targets...
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Primates Fear Backlash
A 55-year-old woman was allegedly assaulted by her friend's roommate Wednesday. Doctors listed Charla Nash's condition as critical.
The alleged assault occurred shortly after Nash entered the residence of her friend, Sandra Herold. Herold's roommate, Travis, allegedly confronted Nash shortly after she entered the residence. The nature of the disagreement is uncertain, but the confrontation quickly escalated, according to police.
Police were called to the scene and, in the ensuing conflagration, shot Travis. Travis suffered fatal wounds and was later declared dead by medics at the scene.
Police refused to identify the race, ethnicity or species of Travis. The motive is under investigation, according to a police spokesman. However, a spokesman for CAAR (Congress for American-Ape Relations) feared an unwarranted anti-ape backlash.
"I fear that many people not familiar with the primate culture will use this incident as an excuse to further alienate and demonize the primate community," said Moko Zimbabwe, CAAR spokeswoman. "It is important that the upright-walking ape community understand that this is an isolated incident and that we should not rush to judgment until all the facts are in," she added.
While police are not yet categorizing the assault as a hate-crime, sources at the scene describe aspects of the assault as not unlike those of fundamentalist primates.
Primate expert, Noam Chimpsky, observed that, "this is not completely unusual in the more conservative enclaves of primate society."
Several citizens were held behind police barricades, protesting the extreme response of the police.
"They just showed up and shot Travis dead," said Missy Teethie, a neighbor. "They didn't even talk to him or offer him a banana or nothing. They just shoot, shoot, shoot. I know Ms Herold and she is a nice woman and her Travis was always nice to her, too."
Chief of Police, Rod Blagoranutan, said that while the police at the scene appeared to have followed appropriate procedures, "I am ordering a complete investigation of this incident to make sure all actions taken were appropriate and within the guidelines of established policy."
When contacted by reporters, Koko, a primate familiar with Travis's fundamentalist faction of the primate community, signed that she would like an orange.
['Noam Chimpsky' - that's funny]
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