Michelle Obama: It's About Grievence and Sacrifice

Michelle Obama came to tiny UC Merced to give a commencement address, and it was more of the "Obama(s) will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual" routine, with a touch of racial division thrown in for good measure, of course:

In her debut as a commencement speaker on Saturday, Mrs. Obama evoked the struggles of California's founders — settlers and former slaves, trailblazers and immigrants — to encourage the 493 members of the school's first full graduating class to use their newfound skills to lift up those around them.

"Remember that you are blessed. Remember that in exchange for those blessings, you must give something back. You must reach back and pull someone up. You must bend down and let someone else stand on your shoulders so that they can see a brighter future."

The must, you say? Hmmm....Baracky is selling kids the same thing, incidentally:

He told the Class of 2009 to "give back and contribute to the life of your community and your nation," briefly suggesting that it was okay to start companies but steering them to "teach in a high-need school" or get to work "registering voters," "tutoring children" or leading "a green revolution." "Help our struggling non-profits find better, more effective ways to serve folks in need," the president urged.

Sounds like he's looking to add to his ACORN army...

Kyle Smith begs to differ, thinking Obama should be pleading for our future community organizers to become ruthless capitalists instead, using billionaire Warren Buffett as his guide:

[Buffett] pursued his own interests and made more than he could ever spend, to the world's great benefit. Buffett put capitalism before community. Do you agree, Africa? Before you answer, who would you rather have on your side: 22-year-old Warren Buffett teaching English in a hut, or 78-year-old Warren Buffett, sending gargantuan checks?

We know what path the Obamas would pick. But then, whom would there be left to tax to pay for their liberal welfare state?

Alas, as with most ideologues, the Obamas lack a sense of...reality. And after all, it's all about sacrifice and grievences, and if you've rise to the top of a capitalist-driven field, you've failed, in their eyes...

Corzine: Losing to Lonegan?

It is a tribute to the growing distaste and disdain for New Jersey governor Jon Corzine that recent polls in this blue state not only show him trailing moderate republican Chris Christie badly, but now losing to the much more conservative Steve Lonegan.

In his bid for re-election, New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Jon Corzine trails Republican challenger Chris Christie by nine percentage points. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Garden State voters shows Christie with 47% of the vote and Corzine with 38%.

The Governor does better when matched against Republican Steve Lonegan. In that case, it’s Lonegan with 42% and Corzine just a point behind at 41%.

Well, if you resorting to describing the position of a Democrat trailing a neocon in a blue state as "better", you know this Corzine fellah's in a wee bit of trouble.

But never fear - we're in Jersey here! More Monmouth Musings highlights the following passage in the poll analysis:

New Jersey polls often shows Republican candidates polling well in the spring and then shows Democrat gaining ground in the fall. A Republican has not won a statewide election in the Garden State since 1997. On a generic basis, 48% of New Jersey voters would like to see a Democrat as Governor while just 34% would prefer a Republican. T hat political gravity is almost certain to help the incumbent as Election Day draws near.

Maybe. But Christie is well known as a tough AG who had a perfect prosecution record when it counted:

... he has earned praise for his history of convictions for public corruption. During his tenure, Christie's office won convictions or guilty pleas from 130 public officials, both Republican and Democratic, on the state, county and local levels without losing a single case

Christie is a moderate in a state where center-right Republicans have won general elections before (Tom Kean, Christine Todd Whitman ). Note hear the glowing praise given to him after he resigned by the liberal Newark Star Ledger:

Christie snagged the federal appointment with nothing more to recommend him than prodigious accomplishments as a Republican Party fundraiser. Several lawyers' groups and The Star-Ledger editorial page said he lacked the experience to be a good federal prosecutor. All of us were wrong.

Whether it was his political ambition, as his critics claim, or a drive to deliver justice as he was sworn to do, Christie amassed an amazing record of 130 convictions against zero acquittals for the public officials he indicted.

Corzine has only one hope: attempt to flush the first four years of his stewardship of New Jersey down into a "memory hole", via a media blitz financed with tens of millions of his own dollars. Because if it's clear-eyed, clear-minded voters stepping into the booths on election day, Corzine is a goner.

Apparently, even if he's facing Lonegan...

Global Warming Will Mean Death To Us All !

...only not in the way you have been taught to believe.

Now that Barack Obama is actually going to do something about "global warming" - in the form of a $650 billion cap-and-trade tax that will be paid for by every American - the battle is joined to save our economy and families from utter and complete destitution at the hands of the far-left.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is onto the scam:

This bill would impose enormous taxes and restrictions on free commerce by wealthy but faltering powers — California, Massachusetts and New York — seeking to exploit politically weaker colonies in order to prop up their own decaying economies. Because proceeds from their new taxes, levied mostly on us, will be spent on their social programs while negatively impacting our economy, we Hoosiers decline to submit meekly.

And for what? No honest estimate pretends to suggest that a U.S. cap-and-trade regime will move the world’s thermometer by so much as a tenth of a degree a half century from now. My fellow citizens are being ordered to accept impoverishment for a policy that won’t save a single polar bear.

We are told that although China, India and others show no signs of joining in this dismal process, we will eventually induce their participation by “setting an example.” Watching the ...flow of jobs from our shores to theirs, our friends in Asia and the Third World are far more likely to choose any other path but ours.

Read Paul Krugman here make the exact opposite argument, and you tell me which is more convincing... "once America acts, we can expect much of the world to follow our lead.". OK, Pauli, whatever you say...

Maybe he should read his own paper? Even the New York Times confesses that certain fears are overwrought, to say the least:

A new analysis halves longstanding projections of how much sea levels could rise if Antarctica’s massive western ice sheets fully disintegrated as a result of global warming.

The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about 10 feet rather than 20 feet, according to the analysis, published in the May 15 issue of the journal Science.

The Competitve Enterprise Institute, along with the National Taxpayers Union have released the following video to make their point:




How about some...truth:

Fiction: Global warming is a threat that is rapidly getting worse each year.
Fact: There has been no global warming over the last decade. In fact, global average temperature was lower in 2008 than in 1998! [1]

Fiction: We can cheaply reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Fact: As President Obama said in the campaign, “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” [3]

Fiction: Cap-and-trade will help the economy by creating lots of new green jobs.
Fact: A recent economic analysis estimates that 2 million jobs would be lost if Congress enacted President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade bill! [4]

This is a scam, meant to control people, redistribute their earnings, and throw us back a century in progress. People who are cold, poor, and living in the dark are much easier to rule, after all. And don't be afraid to say so...Ayn wasn't:

"I think it's funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns --- just somebody naming the exact nature of what you're doing? "
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982)
Source: Atlas Shrugged, Page: 407

Instant (Economic) Karma is Gonna Get Ya !

Based on a few current events, it looks as if we are not going to have to wait until 2012 to debate the merits of Barack Obama and the Democrat's economic policies. Those "chickens have come home to roost"...now let's see if liberal politicians are any smarter than the aforementioned flightless birds. From the Baltimore Sun:

One of Maryland's budget-balancing tactics - asking millionaires to pay more money to the state - appears to be backfiring as the number of the highest-earning taxpayers dwindles...

But as the state comptroller's office sifts through this year's returns, it is finding that the number of Marylanders with more than $1 million in taxable income who filed by the end of April has fallen by one-third, to about 2,000. Taxes collected from those returns as of last month have declined by roughly $100 million.

The revenue figures are ugly," Franchot said in an interview. "Right now, we're digging through a pile of tax returns and trying to understand this."

Sorry to insult the intelligence of the common chicken. Tax analyst Karen Syrylo gets it, though:

"Maryland is such a small state, and it is so easy to move a few miles south to Virginia or a few miles north to Pennsylvania," Syrylo said. "So there are millionaires who are no longer going to be filing Maryland tax returns."

Wait until they all move to Canada. Speaking of which, our ham-fisted bumbler of a president, who promised to "improve" our relationships with the international community, seems to have infuriated our peaceful northern neighbor - and it could cost us billions:

Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions.

Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning "a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S."... This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts -- the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.

Looks like we won't have to wait until 2012, as the wreckage of the Demcoratic economic policy is accumulating all around us, no matter how desperately and transparently Obama tries to lie his way out of it (who coaches him, Nancy Pelosi?). As you step over the economic rubble of America to vote in the 2010 elections, it won't be hard to remember who piled it all up for you...

The Rape Of Carrie Prejean

The Other McCain links to a piece Ann Coulter wrote about the liberal assault of Carrie Prejean, and what it means in a larger context:

Not even Dick Cheney can incite the blood-curdling rage of liberals at the sight of a sexy Evangelical Christian. Paula Jones, Katherine Harris, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and, most recently, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, have all come under a frenzy of attacks from liberals.

From Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso and Bertrand Russell, who treated women -- mostly their mistresses -- like dogs, to Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton in our own day, liberals are ferocious misogynists. They share Muslims' opinion of women, differing only to the extent that liberals also support a women's right to have an abortion and to perform lap dances. You'd be better off in a real burqa than under the authority of a liberal American male.

...another beautiful Christian has thrown off the liberal burqa, thereby inciting mass hysteria throughout the liberal establishment. Prejean doesn't care...

It's more than mass hysteria, it's more than an assault. When liberals see an attaractive woman who doesn't share the same views as they do, they refuse to engage them in intellectual discourse or argue on the merits of their competing ideologies.

For some reason, when liberals see a Sarah Palin or a Carrie Prejean, the impulse immediately is for the lowest road possible: not to engage them, but to defile them. Not to prove them wrong, but to humiliate them in the vilest way possible. The immediate, insatiable urge of the Left is to wreck a female adversary so completely that no one can look at them the same way; so that anyone who sees their victim will see the marks on them and turn away in disgust or openly mock with rightous venom, and to hopefully so emotionally destroy their female "enemies" that their self-esteem is ravaged, and they slink away from public life, alone and ashamed.

There's a word for this type of assault. Rape.

Yes, the assault isn't physical, but the thought process behind the rapes of Palin and Prejean are identical to that of the common street rapist: To defile, degrade, humiliate, embarrass, and make themselves feel better in the process. A broken victim is what each hopes to obtain, and neither stops the assault until the surrender is complete.

And do you wonder why Prejean's name stays in the news? Because the rape is ongoing; the victim has refused to break.

So beautiful conservative females, take off the burqua of liberal thought at your own risk. For if you dare to take it off and reveal an opinion at odds with left-wing belief, you will be raped, thoroughly.

And you will be told, like "provocative" women in backwards countries, that you had it coming.

Welcome to progressive America.

Expect The News to Stay "Balanced"...

...as the government starts the financial bailout of the the mainstream media. Gateway Pundit reports:

[Washington] Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state's troubled newspaper industry.The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state's main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.

Well, I can think of a few things right off the bat that can shatter this funhouse "mirror":

-how many people in Washington State work for the newspaper industry, and what is their annual tax payments compared to that of Boeing and Big Lumber? Why do I have the feeling that the inkworkers are far less numerous, and contribute far less to the state, than the other industries mentioned? Really - why not bail out dry cleaners, who have less suits and shirts to press an the unemployment rate continues to rise? What is so special to politicians about the media? Hmmm....

-Neither Boeing or the timber industry are charged with spreading information (or not spreading information, or selecting which information to spread, or creating false information to spread) to the people of Washington. How can one compare a heavy industry recieving a subsidy - jet engines know not of politics - to a newspaper, who can easily tilt facts and stories to benefit their benefactors?

-How can one not expect news reporting to stay unbiased when your very existence is predicated on a paticular person/party in power? Can you imagine, for instance, a Seattle newspaper coming out with a series of critical articles on abuses by Washington governor Chris Gregoire, when on a whim he can eliminate their welfare and put them out of business? I can see the editor screaming at his young cub reporters right now....

And that's the problem. Bad enough that the people are already losing faith in the mainstream media. If full government subsidies become the norm, and news-gathering organizations are considered nothing more than the propoganda arm of those in power, it will be a deadly blow to the civility of American society. Rumors, false allegations, and competing lies will be the coin of the realm, and discourse and knowledge will suffer.

We are halfway there now; and look at how partisan the national conversation has become. A few more bailouts of the media, and we will lose the ability to talk to each other entirely. And nothing good can come out of that...

Embracing our Enemies, Alienating Our Allies: Hope and Change!

While I loath to link to anything written by Glenn Greenwald, left-wing lunatic par excellence, he makes an interesting observation while attacking the Obama administration's willingness to bitch-slap the occasional terrorist.

Apparently, while trying to keep past and future coercive measures under wraps, Obama is treating a stalwart ally to an early peek of his "new relationship" with Europe. According to the British High Court - an organization not known for fabrications:

The United States Government's position is that, if the redacted paragraphs are made public, then the United States will re-evaluate its intelligence-sharing relationship with the United Kingdom with the real risk that it would reduce the intelligence it provided (para. 62) . . . . [and] there is a real risk, if we restored the redacted paragraphs, the United States Government, by its review of the shared intelligence arrangements, could inflict on the citizens of the United Kingdom a very considerable increase in the dangers they face at a time when a serious terrorist threat still pertains (para. 106).

In other words, Barack is telling the Brits: Do what I say, or we will withhold information from you that could enable you to break up terrorist plots aimed at your citizens.

Not quite the treatment the Brits expected when they eagerly clamored for a Democratic president and a liberal American government. We right-wing nuts tried to warn you, but c'mon - everyone knows that conservatives are stupid, and to be mocked, not heeded!

You've made your bed, Britain....I hope you're finding it comfortable.

In New Jersey, The Blind Leading The Naked

But who can say which is which?

Somehow, Jon Corzine thinks this will help his already-wounded re-election campaign for governor:

Vice President Joe Biden will join Gov. Jon Corzine as the Democratic governor officially kicks off his re-election campaign next month, Corzine announced today.

Corzine zipped out an email to his diehard loyalists...

"I share the President and Vice President's vision for what America can become once again," Corzine wrote. "In times like these, it is essential that our leaders hold firm to our core values and show the courage to do the right thing, and I'm eager for a chance to serve with a partner in the White House and with an economy on the upswing."

Man, you can spend a day just picking apart this example of Corzine's cluelessness. He shares Obama's vision of the socialization of America? Well, he's telling the truth about that. But what "core values" and "courage" have Corzine, Obama and Biden ever shown?

And what's that crap about an "economy on the upswing?" Does Corzine think if he keeps repeating a lie enough, people will start to believe it? Or does he ascribe to Hitler's "Big Lie" theory?

It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

Well, guess who does has the impudence...

Related - if you ever wanted to know how clueless Joe Biden was, this statement should send the Gaffe-O-Matic flying off the scale:

[Biden] commended the former Wall Street executive for helping to craft the Recovery Act, adding that Corzine was the first person he called during the presidential transition period for advice on how to repair the damaged economy. At one point, he called Corzine, who was rumored to be on the short list to become Treasury Secretary, "the smartest guy I know on the economy and finance."

Well, if he's the smartest guy Joe Biden knows on "economy and finance" - a man who's run a somewhat wealthy state into the ground, and may be facing bankruptcy in six weeks - it's no wonder that the nation's economy is disintergrating before our eyes...

We All Live In A Banana Republic Now!

As I balanced my distate for Barack Obama during the election season with the sinking knowledge that he would be elected president, I still thought, "OK, he may be a socialist horror show, but there's no way he can wreck this republic within four years. Our foundation is too strong".

Boy, was I wrong about that. It took him just over 110 days to turn this once-great nation into an oversized Third-World banana republic. The bullying of private investors and the subversion of the rule of law in the Chrysler proceedings were bad enough, but nobody can willingly accept a government deficit this high without the full intention of destroying the standard of living of everyone subject to it. And this is before Obama nationalizes health care.

At least the AP pulls no punches:

With the economy performing worse than hoped, revised White House figures point to deepening budget deficits, with the government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.

The deficit for the current budget year will rise by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion -- about four times the record set just last year. The unprecedented red ink flows from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout, the cost of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, as well as a structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.
.. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.

And the budget is dealt with honestly as well:

Obama's budget remains a bold but contentious document that proposes higher taxes for the wealthy, a hotly contested effort to combat global warming and the first steps toward guaranteed health care for all...

Annual deficits would never dip below $500 billion and would total $7.1 trillion over 2010-2019. Even those dismal figures rely on economic projections that are significantly more optimistic -- just a 1.2 percent decline in gross domestic product this year and a 3.2 percent growth rate for 2010 -- than those forecast by private sector economists and the Congressional Budget Office.

And check out these tidbits:

....the congressional budget plan approved last month would not extend Obama's signature $400 tax credit for most workers -- $800 for couples -- after it expires at the end of next year.

Guess Obama can't chirp about lowering taxes, especially after this goes down:

Obama's remarkably controversial "cap-and-trade" proposal to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions is also reeling from opposition from Capitol Hill Democrats from coal-producing regions and states with concentrations of heavy industry. Under cap-and-trade, the government would auction permits to emit heat-trapping gases, with the costs being passed on to consumers via higher gasoline and electric bills.

Huge deficits causing inflationary monetary policies for a nation with massive unemployment is a recipe for economic destruction. Higher energy costs and rising food prices (gotta have that ethanol!) will leave Americans hungry, and in the dark (just like in the Third World). America's children will have no hope save for civil service, and our leadership position in the world will fade away, like so much dust in the wind.

While many books will be written about the "fall of the American Empire", how many will speak this truth: It was one man, and a party and media that supported him, that destroyed over 200 years of amazing progress.

Where will we all be in four years? In Haiti? In Obama's dreams...

Obama as Spock? Says Who?

So I'm reading this piece on Star Trek old and new in the New York Times, when I stumble across this interesting line:

Forty years later, as “Star Trek” is returning to its past so is America: the country is again gripped by anxieties about entanglements abroad, compounded by the fear that the economy could collapse at warp speed. A cautious optimism has emerged in the afterglow of the election of President Obama (whose Vulcan-like composure has invited frequent comparisons to Mr. Spock)....

Really? Obama, who has come across more as a petulant bully than a logical analyist, has "invited frequent comparisions to Mr Spock"? Really? By who?

That question wan't too hard to answer. Via Newsbusters, we find the culprits:

Steve Daly in Newsweek:

“Spock's cool, analytical nature feels more fascinating and topical than ever now that we've put a sort of Vulcan in the White House.” And “like Obama, Spock is the product of a mixed marriage (actually, an interstellar mixed marriage), and he suffers blunt manifestations of prejudice as a result.” Daly also hailed how “with the willfully hegemonic Bush administration now gone, the tenets of [original Star Trek creator Gene] Roddenberry's fictional universe feel very much in step with current events,” ....


Uh huh. How about NBC?

GEORGE LEWIS: Some Trekkies have compared the Spock character, the product of a mixed marriage between a human and a Vulcan, to President Obama,...

And here's Salon, who makes the comparison to congratulate their own inteeligence, apparently:

Star Trek" fans who bonded with Spock already understood what those of us who followed Obama learned early on: that witnessing a powerful intellect can be deeply satisfying on an emotional level.....Obama, like Spock, rewards close listening. His cool logic is a real departure from what we've grown used to...

And Mauren Dowd, Queen of the Shallow Puddle:

Mr. Obama has a bit of Mr. Spock in him (and not just the funny ears). He has a Vulcan-like logic and detachment...

In an piece entitled "Spock at the Bridge", no less....

So apparently, the mainstream media are the only "Trekkies" who have decided that Obama is in fact Mr. Spock, that a man who sneers at an adversary is "cool", a man who bullies private enterprise is "detached", and a man who claims a trillion dollar deficit is a reduction is "logical".

Meanwhile, I live and work in blue states, know more than a few Trekkies, and not one of them has made that comparison. Ever.

So the "frequent comparisons" the New York Times piece at the top refers to? Made by Obama's biggest fans only, the ones who hoot and hollar at his hateful humor, and turn a blind eye to his many misdeeds.

Don't believe the top-down hype...you're really looking more at a Jar-Jar Binks in the White House...

Obama's "Humor": Mean-Spirited, With a Dash of Hate

The White House Correspondents Dinner is an annual incestuous love-in between the President and the press, and this year with media pinup darling Barack Obama as the star of the show, it became the #1 event on the liberal media/Hollywood celebrity social calender.

Now the rule of thumb here is for the President to poke fun at himself , but with President Narcissus ruling the roost, you knew there would be precious little humble pie served at dinner.

Instead, we saw Obama's now-trademark sneer, along with derisive comments about his political adversaries. He boasted about his wife's looks and the media's subserviance ("Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me."), and joked about his own omnipotence in ways that make you think that the president spends quite some time reading his own press clippings:

"During the second 100 days, we will design, build and open a library dedicated to my first 100 days."
"My next 100 days will be so successful, I will complete them in 72 days. And on the 73rd day, I will rest."
"I must confess I really didn't want to be here tonight. But I had to come. That's one more problem I inherited from George Bush."

All of which, according to the Washington Post, drew a similar response: The crowd roared.

The WaPo tries to cover for the ugliness and hero-worship by the media (and themselves) by a bit of editorializing and reader misdirection:

For media types, the dinner -- staged since 1920 -- has become a major schmooze-fest. Outside the Beltway, this stokes public perception of journalists sucking up to the power elite they cover. But the celebrity onslaught, which has become its own yearly tradition, may temper that critique somewhat: The journalists are more likely to be swooning over the star they've invited than the politicians they know so well.

Well, as we have discussed before, Obama knows when he's before the media, he's playing to a crowd of his biggest supporters. Celebrities are just plastic figurines on the cake. But what about the other 49% of us that he's mocking, instead of taking himself down a peg as the dinner traditionally dictates?

Centrists and conservatives don't count in Obama's America - like FOX news, we are something to be mocked and hated, not to be taken seriously.

That's our uniter!

Gateway Pundit has video of Obama's speech, where you can hear him continue to sneer at those who came before him:

On VP Cheney: "He is very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, "How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People."

And for real class, here's a video of the evening's master of ceremonies, Wanda Sykes, saying that she "hopes Rush Limbaugh's kidneys fail"

Hatred, pure and simple. But hey kids, no offense! It's just "humor", liberal-style!

"...and the crowd roared...."

So We Spent $787 Billion...Why, Exactly?

In the pogrom of fear and terror the Obama administration unleashed (with the help of an enthusiastic media) in the days prior to the rush crafting and passing of the rapacious "stimulus bill", we were told that time was of the essence, we couldn't wait a moment or cut a dime, or the unemployment spiral would look thusly:

The pale blue line on top indicates where the Obama administration told us the unemployment rate would be (8.9%, based on the chart) if we failed to ratify the stimulus bill. Well, we did, and the April unemployment figures are out, and with the stimulus plan in full effect, the April unemployment figure is....8.9%.

So we would have been here anyway, except we wouldn't have created a trillion dollar debt (with interest) for our children to cover for us.

How clueless are our Ivy League trained masters? Take a look at what Geithner's Treasury considers a "worst-case" scenario:

To take one example, the "adverse" scenario envisions the U.S. jobless rate gradually rising from 6.9% at the end of 2008 to 8.9% at the end of 2009.

Hey, geniuses, we're already there. The unemployment figures would have to start dropping tomorrow in order for us to get below 8.9%. But although the Fed and the media will lie to the people, they can no longer lie to themselves:

Policymakers admitted that the odds have increased that joblessness will reach adverse-case levels of 10.3% by 2010.

Hmm....betcha Obama and the Dems are sweating that timing....

He Owns Them, And He Knows It

Barack Obama is a man who understands power, if nothing else. He understands the relationship between those who have it and those who don't (hence his bullying tactics regarding Chrysler, and his complete mocking indifference to any Americans who oppose his agenda). Which is why his casual attempt to dictate the type of storylines he would prefer from the White House press corps is not surprising in the least:

In remarks on his administration's proposed $17 billion in cuts from the 2010 budget this morning, President Obama was somewhat on the defensive against charges that his cuts don't amount to much considering that next year's total budget amounts to $3.4 trillion.

In his remarks today, the president sought to change that tenor of that coverage. He mocked the notion that smaller savings are considered "trivial" in Washington and stressed that "these savings, large and small, add up."

And he told journalists directly that they should stress the fact that the cuts are "significant" – a surprisingly direct appeal to reporters concerning which angle they should take in their coverage."

It is important, though, for all of you, as you're writing up these stories, to recognize that $17 billion taken out of our discretionary, non-defense budget, as well as portions of our defense budget, are significant," he said.

Geez, what makes Obama so confident he can customize the media's coverage? What makes his underlings smug and secure enough in their power to tell reluctant creditors that they should take the loss or the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation ?

Maybe it's the fact that they have always done his bidding before, especially in the election, when they refused to cover any story he deemed "distracting". Maybe it's the same attitude he takes with American Jews, a sneer and a "what are they going to do? Support a Republican? Bwahahahaha!" type of thing. Or maybe it's just seeing MSNBC editing their footage on a daily basis to make sure nothing embarrassing about their president gets through to the general public.

How will the media respond? Looking forward to today's coverage....

Crony Capitalism Catches Up to Obama

..and, by extension, ourselves, our families, and our children.

Change, but no hope:

U.S. stocks slid on Thursday as investors took profits from the technology sector's recent surge, while analyst downgrades hurt telecoms and a tepid response to a government bond auction raised fears about public finances.

Investors worried that poor demand for government debt could raise the cost of capital and hamper chances of a U.S. economic recovery.

U.S. debt prices slid, sending the 30-year Treasury bond yield to its highest since November.
"The auction is big news because now it's showing that maybe the Chinese don't want our bonds. If the cost of capital for the United States becomes more expensive, then the recession is going to take that much longer to get out of," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.

I'm sure Obama's utterly reckless $3 trillion-plus budget plan, submited with no real way to pay for it, might have had something to do with it. Or maybe it was the way Obama tried to screw Chrysler's debt holders in order to protect his votes from the UAW...

Day 108, and the world has lost faith in America's ability to pay its bills. Well, that's change, all right....

Update: You think we aren't a Thugocracy now? This is how Obama's people spoke with the investors who refused to take a soaking on the Chrysler deal in order to help Obama's union supporters:

Confronting the head of a non-TARP fund holding Chrysler debt and unwilling to release it for any sum less than that to which it was legally entitled without compelling cause, this country's "Car Czar" berated the manager of said fund with an outburst of prose substantially resembling this:

Who the fuck do you think you're dealing with? We'll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything and nothing we find to destroy you with.

So how's that "stimulus" working out, America?

You can't argue with the facts (although, if you are a Democratic president with a subserviant media, you can lie about them):

Number of people collecting unemployment benefits the week the stimulus was signed into law: 5.11 million.

Number of people collecting unemployment benefits as of May 2: 6.35 million.

CNN spins it thusly:

Unemployment claims at 3-month low

When the truth is:

The number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, to their lowest level in more than 3 months...

Big but here:

But the number of people filing claims on an ongoing basis rose to a record high for the 14th straight week as employers remain reluctant to hire in the weak economy.

So - since the stimulus bill passed, 1.24 million more Americans are now unemployed. And while fewer are filing for the first time, unemployed Americans continue to file claims as they cannot find work in an economy where the private sector is being strangled to death.

Whatcha got next for us, Baracky? Improving our national security by subcontracting it to the Iranians?

Anti-Semitism Roundup - Thursday Edition

Sacre Bleu! Why not start with the French, who were the masters of the art until the Germans picked it up and did it better...

What your about to see is a video of Israel haters scouring a French supermarket to remove Israeli products from the shelf. There isn't a manager in sight. All the shoppers go about their business like it is 1942 Vichy France.




And just for an added kick in the balls:

This video is even more grotesque than you think. It was shot in a suburb of Paris called Aulnay-sous-Bois. The next-door town to Aulnay is called Drancy, about one mile away. Drancy was used by the Nazis between 1942-1944 as a deportation holding camp for the Jews of Paris prior to the deportation to the extermination camps in eastern Europe. Sixty-five thoursand Jews passed through Drancy, of whom 63,000 were killed. In other words, the Israeli boycotters have chosen, of all the supermarkets in France, the one closest to France's most important Holocaust memorial site.

"Never again", right? As meaningless a phrase in France as "cutting the budget" is in DC...

Next, we go to the West Bank, where Fatah is busted in an attempt to use the Pope as a prop in a morality play showing the world how wicked those damn Jews are:

A Palestinian official says the Palestinian Authority has scrapped plans to host Pope Benedict XVI next week on a stage near the West Bank separation fence.
Palestinian say they had hoped that receiving the pope next to a towering cement wall and military watchtower inside the Aida refugee camp would highlight their suffering under Israeli occupation.

How about posing the Pope next to the fence that seperates, say, Gaza from Egypt? Or even France from Albania? Ah, but without the Jews it's nothing!

And how's that peace process going these days? Everyone (well, the few remaining readers of the NYT) was abuzz at Hamas' Khaled Meshal's offer for a ten year "hudna" with Israel in an interview with the Times a few days ago. Meshal then showed how much weight his words have:

Militants in Gaza fired five mortar shells into southern Israel on Wednesday, and Israel retaliated with airstrikes on three smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt, the Israeli military said....

The military wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for the mortar fire, according to the Palestinian news agency Maan. On Monday, the Syria-based leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, told The New York Times in an interview that his group was not firing at Israel currently as “part of an evaluation of the movement to serve the people’s interest.”

Finally - do you want to see the Arab dream of "every Jew pushed into the sea" realized? The Times has a depiction from a French artist here...with their full support, of course.

It always seems to begin and end with the French, doesn't it?

Corzine Trying to "Fix" Republican Primary?

Oh, man, only in Jersey is this kind of circus-like shennanigans possible:

Allies of New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Jon S. Corzine, are so worried about his re-election prospects that they are going to start spending and advertising heavily — in the Republican primary.

Mr. Corzine’s allies plan to attack the Republican they consider more formidable, the former federal prosecutor Christopher J. Christie, in an attempt to knock him out in the June primary, according to people briefed on the matter.

That would leave Mr. Corzine facing Steven M. Lonegan, a former small-town mayor from the party’s right wing, whose support for a flat income tax and a ban on abortion are popular with conservative voters, but could be a problem in the general election.

Mr. Christie has based his campaign almost entirely on his credentials as a corruption fighter, having obtained convictions of some 130 New Jersey politicians and public employees. and promises to bring the same forceful leadership to tackling the state’s fiscal problems. The Democratic assault, according to one of the people briefed on the plans, will aim to tarnish that image.

A desperate plan from a desperate man, I reckon. I believe Christie will survive this attack, as he has already survied others from frightened Corzine allies such as the ACLU, who smeared Christie with accusations of "abuses of power" that turned out to be anything but. Corzine still trails Christie, with polls showing leads over the embattled incumbant of anywhere of 4-9 points.

Six months out from election day, and Corzine is already using his unlimited wealth to go negative in the opposition's primary. This is going to be ugly, and the Republicans better be ready to fight back hard, or the state will retain Corzine for another four years, or until he is forced out, a la Rick Wagoner, in a bankruptcy hearing.

And speaking of forced out - Corzine's strategy here is reminicent of Gray Davis' strategy in the 2002 California governor's election, where he used his funds to defeat a tough Republican in their primaries and then cruise to an easy general election victory.

Does Corzine remember, though, what happened a short time after that? Enter the infamous California recall, say goodbye to Mr. Davis, and hello to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Desperate men win small victories, but always lose big in the end...

Poll: Torture the Bastards!

Although a sizeable majority of Barack Obama's most feverent supporters want to see President Bush swinging in the gallows for smacking around the leadership of al-Qaeda, it seems as if most Americans actually approve of Bush's less-than-gentle handling of terrorists:

Six in ten people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday believe that some of the procedures, such as water boarding, were a form of torture, with 36 percent disagreeing.

But half the public approves of the Bush administration's decision to use of those techniques during the questioning of suspected terrorists, with 50 percent in approval and 46 percent opposed.

"Roughly one in five Americans believe those techniques were torture but nonetheless approve of the decision to use those procedures against suspected terrorists," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "That goes a long way toward explaining why a majority don't want to see former Bush officials investigated."

Fifty-seven percent of those questioned don't want Congress to investigate Bush officials who authorized those harsh interrogation procedures, with 42 percent calling for action by lawmakers. Fifty-five percent also don't want a similar investigation by an independent panel.

Investigations of the military and intelligence personnel who actually used those techniques during interrogations are even less popular...

This is a CNN poll, so add another five percentage points to every pro-Bush question....still, it shows that Americans are quite aware of what is going on here. Only 20% of all surveyed classified waterboarding as torture (as opposed to "a form of", which is a pretty loose definition - for me, seeing Obama's fascist mug is a form of torture; can I have him tried and jailed?), with at least 50% believing it was OK to smack these murderous thugs around a bit.

And this is almost eight years after 9/11, mind you. Imagine what a survey would have said eight weeks or months after the attack.

Seems like Obama has backtracked on his initial wavering on whether or not Bush administration officials would be indicted for torture. Still, he gets no praise here. To float a horrific idea, and then retract it weeks later, is not quite the genius-level intellect the media was selling us here.

Creating a negative, then removing it, is not a positive. Pointing a gun at someone's head, then lowering it, does not make you a hero. Breaking someone's leg with intent, then splinting it, is not a good deed.

Obama has already poisoned the well with his ugly trial balloon. He'd better hope it doesn't blow up in his face when the new administration takes charge in 2013 with their own scores to settle...

Related: From Obama's election website:

"The secret authorization of brutal interrogations is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security....Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence..."

Seems like at least 50% of Americans disagree with you, Baracky, as well as Dennis Blair, your hand-picked national intelligence director, who claimed high-value information was obtained with these techniques.

The blind leading the clueless....

While Obama Kisses Mad Mullah Butt....

...ordinary Americans, of all races and religious identifications, are making a stand against radical Islam.

Big movements start with small crowds, although 400 people of diverse backround is worth more than a homogeneous crowd of 4000:

The pouring rain did not stop over 300-400 concerned citizens from attending a rally in Times Square, sponsored by the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam. Comprised of people from all religious, ethnic, racial and sexual preference groups including Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Israelis and secularists, the focus of today’s events, which featured a diverse selection of speakers, was to educate and mobilize people to support freedom, democracy and tolerance and to oppose the inherent dangers that radical Islam presents to those who cherish the aforementioned ideals.

Speaking today were Pastor Gerald Bell, a black minister who personally traveled to the Sudan to help liberate African slaves from their Muslim captors, Tawfik Hamid, a former jihadi terrorist, Beth Gilinsky of the Jewish Action Alliance who spoke of the burgeoning menace of radical Islam and how it will effect the future of Israel in terms of Iran’s growing nuclear arsenal, (and who read my speech as well), Arish Sahani, of the Indian American Intellectual Forum who spoke of the barbaric and systematic slaughter of Hindus in Pakistan. He also mentioned, “the alarming trend of Hindu girls being kidnapped, raped and held in Madrassas and forcibly converted to Islam”.

Quoting a Hindu American Foundation report he said, “In 1947, in what is Bangladesh today, Hindus composed 30% of the population. Today they are less than 10%. Every day there are acts of murder, rape, kidnappings, temple destruction and physical intimidation. Just yesterday, areas captured by the Taliban forced followers of the Sikh religion to vacate their homes and businesses for not paying the oppressive Jizya tax.”

And where was the media? Debating whether Obama is already, on day 105, a greater president than FDR and JFK combined, all while our enemies gather and our economy is taxed into a coma.

If the Obama administration has done anything positive in the infamous "100 Days", it is to stir a realization in ordinary Americans about how far their government has strayed from its roots and from its responsibilities to the people they alledge to represent. First Tea Parties to protest insane spending and taxation, now mulitcultural foreign-policy groups who see the danger in Obama's appeasement of radical Islam.

Let the media surround him and keep assuring him that he's the King, and the blacks and Hindus and Jews amrching together are just 21st-century "Uncle Toms". It will make the look on his face all the more enjoyable when the inevitable fall comes...

More info on HRCARI and the Times Square rally at Right Truth and Atlas Shrugs.

Personal Freedom = Economic Prosperity. Somebody tell Jon Corzine...

Fascinating report issued by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, entitled Freedom in the 50 States.

It can be summed up rather succiently:

We find that the freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place. All three states feature low taxes and government spending and middling levels of regulation and paternalism. New York is the least free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland.

Regression analysis demonstrates that states enjoying more economic and personal freedom tend to attract substantially higher rates of internal net migration.

So those bastions of "progressive thought" - New York, New Jersey, and California - are essentially ranked 48th-50th in terms of personal freedom. Which makes Obama's bullying and threatening tactics all the more understandable, as it seems to be part and parcel of all Leftist movements since Stalin.

But what does this mean in terms of economics? The New York Post explains:

Together, New York, New Jersey and California face some $65 billion in budget deficits in 2009, amounting to more than two-thirds of the budget gaps faced by all 50 states. These states' stratospheric spending and taxes have stifled economic growth and left them scarily unprepared for the economic downturn.

Job growth has lagged, too. New Jersey in the last decade saw virtually no private-sector job gains, even counting the boom years before this steep recession. California's unemployment rate is the country's fourth highest.... The bottom-rankers also have reputations as the places that citizens most want to flee for other states.

What a contrast with the study's freest states: New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota, Idaho and Texas. They all have unemployment rates at or below the national average....

I keep hearing how smart all these progressives are, so much smarter than a Neaderthal like myself. Yet why can't they read the above data and add 1+1 together, and let their people be free ?

Unless it's really not about about a certain way to run an economy, or to conduct international relations. If it's truly all about obtaining power, and holding it at any cost, why, it is no suprise that Obama and the Democrats would follow the lead of the bottom three, and take the rest of the nation down with us. We may be nothing more than a 3rd world power by 2012, but as long as the Democrats have absolute power, they won't shed a tear...