I believe that this is one of the best summations of why we find ourselves where we are, and why the honeymoon is obviously over.
"The Democrats are getting what they asked for.....They had on their hands an inexperienced, recently minted US Senator from Illinois....Never mind, they thought, Obama's long-standing connections with William Ayers, the unrepentant mastermind of a domestic terrorist bombing campaign in the 1970s. Never mind Obama's close association with the racist demagogue Jeremiah Wright. Never mind his lack of executive experience, his unfamiliarity with the private sector, and his ignorance of the ways of Washington. With the help of the pliable press, he could be sold -- and Americans would congratulate themselves on their lack of racial prejudice if they voted for him."
Those words come from Paul Rahe via Powerline Blog.
Hillsdale College Professor Rahe's insights into our new 'Soft Despotism' can be found in last week's edition of 'Uncommon Knowledge' interview videos by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institute. Chapter 1 of 5 can be found here.
A final thought from Rahe: "Now comes the reckoning. For Barack Obama seems to be a one-trick pony."
The official caption states: "President Barack Obama autographs books backstage while being photographed by an U.S. embassy photographer at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, Nov. 15, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)"
I think that it could just as easily say: "President Barack Obama obstructs firefighter access as he autographs books backstage at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore"
Its all a Stimulus Subterfuge, a Recovery Ruse, a GDP Gimmick.
In other words, the 'Great Obama Recovery'® that was announced earlier in October by the White House is all hogwash, a hoax, a fraud...a lie.
Sure, the economy was announced to have grown by 3.5%. However, that has now been revised down (GDP numbers are often adjusted) to 2.8%. 'What's so bad about that?' you might ask. 'Isn't any positive growth a good thing?' Normally, but as the blogprof points out, the only thing making this a positive number, is Stimulus cash....
That "robust" 3.5% GDP growth rate in Q3 that the AP heralded as the end of the recession sans actual jobs? That just got reduced. A lot. As in down to 2.8% now. Even that is deceiving as consumer spending, which comprises 70% of the economy, declined 0.5% during the same period (Positive GDP Fraud! Consumer Spending DOWN 0.5%. GDP Up Because Of MASSIVE DEBT!). So how is it that the GDP increased in the 3rd quarter after consumer spending decreased? Well, that's got everything to do with the 'G' in the GDP - gross. That includes consumer spending, government spending, in fact all spending. So if the consumer spending is down, one way to artificially inflate the GDP number is to increase government spending with money that the government doesn't, by the way, have. In essence, the GDP number is positive due to increased debt! It's purchased on a government card that has no credit limit.
So Stimulus cash, which is created out of thin air and injected into the economy to unknown effect, makes up 118% of the GDP growth....
So what this really means is that we will be seeing increasing GDP growth for many quarters to come, and thus a White House trumpeting a full-throated recovery, just in time for the 2010 elections.
Since only 22% of the Stimulus had been spent by the end of October, that means we have over $600 Billion left to be entered into that 'Government Spending' column that blogprof tells us about. Thus, unless consumer spending craters, this glut of Govt Spending spread over many quarters will prop up the GDP numbers for those quarters. And as it will most surely do, the White House will point to the string of positive quarters, and how their actions have saved the economy, despite the fact that it is really a Potemkin Village of economic figures...
The only problem will be the ever expanding unemployment roles....and the largest spike in employment will be found in GOP political campaigns.
"As I listen to you, I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money. This does not inspire confidence...."
Classic.
Two thoughts - 1) Why does it take SNL to throw the BS flag on the administration's policies? Where is the MSM. Oh yeah, they are kissing Obama (what the whole video). 2) You can see how much cachè Obama has lost, even with the left-leaning SNL, when they have no problem crudely mocking Obama and even his wife.
"'Climate change' and 'health care' are different ends of the same stick: They're both all-purpose pretexts for regulating every aspect of your life..."
According to ESPN, two NBA commentators for on-air comments in which they pronounced the word Iranian as 'eye-ray-nian' instead of presumably 'Ear-ahh-nian'.
Clippers longtime play-by-play announcer Ralph Lawler and color analyst Michael Smith were suspended one game by the Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network for their comments about Memphis center Hamed Haddadi.
Lawler and Smith made their off-the-cuff comments about the Iranian-born center during Wednesday night's telecast from Memphis. The on-air banter offended a viewer who e-mailed Fox to complain.
One measly emailer?? Talk about sensitive! Here is the stuff that apparently got the pair suspended:
Smith: "Look who's in."
Lawler: "Hamed Haddadi. Where's he from?"
Smith: "He's the first Iranian to play in the NBA." (Smith pronounced Iranian as "Eye-ranian," a pronunciation that offended the viewer who complained.)
Lawler: "There aren't any Iranian players in the NBA," repeating Smith's mispronunciation. Smith: "He's the only one."
Granted some of their later banter is pretty juvenile, it is entirely innocent.
If all it takes is one lousy emailer to complain about the mispronounciation of a word to get a long-time professional suspended from their job, this country is indeed circling the drain. I mean it is not like he called him something mildly offensive like 'Ayatollah' or an even more derogatory epithet.
I guess I should not be surprised. I mean it actually has been like this for a long time. Take this Bloom County cartoon from the 1980s....
Perhaps hey should have called Haddadi a 'Teabagger', and then they would be OK....
In the newest edition of National Review [subscription required], Jay Nordlinger has a good interim retrospective on the 'teabagger' imbroglio in 'Rise of an Epithet'...
"To “teabag” or not to “teabag”: That is not the most pressing question of these times, but it is a question to consider. Routinely, conservative protesters in the “tea party” movement are called “teabaggers,” and those calling them that do not mean it in a nice way. Many conservatives are mulling what to do about this term: fight it, embrace it, what?"
I say fight it....and of course you may want to fight fire with fire. Because I am in the mood, I will ignore a normal tendency not to sink to the Lefties' level. If they want the discourse to utilize crass barnyard imagery to subtly insult one's opponent, so be it.
If those in this country who oppose larger government control, gangster government, higher taxes, and the general slide towards European socialism can be labeled as "Teabaggers", then the Democrats and lefties who are running the country can suffer a similar epithet.
From now on, in any public reference, the Democratic Party and its actions in running the Executive and Legislative branches of government should be referred to as...."The Donkey Show".
Washington, Tijuana....it doesn't matter. We are all getting screwed.....
It seems that people are now getting really snarky and declaring their candidacies for some of those non-existent Congressional districts revealed by recovery.gov to be receiving Stimulus $$.
Republican activist and free market think-tanker Grant Bosse formally declared his candidacy today in New Hampshire’s 00th Congressional District after news that the Obama administration has attributed a majority of the state’s stimulus jobs to that non-existent district.
Good on ya Grant! But while that is all well and good, I am not sure why you are going to so much trouble to declare candidacy for an election that will never occur.
Since this is the case, I am going to simply declare myself the new Congressional Representative of the non-existent TX-52, based on the results of a non-existent election! Good folks like Grant Bosse are working way too hard at this....
So why did I pick TX-52 to be my new fiefdom? First, I am a Texas resident. And second, it received $8.9 million of Stimulus cash, and it has created "0" jobs. That sounds like the makings of a great slush fund to me!
EXCLUSIVE: CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy
The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.
[...]
"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton.
They go on to reveal the horrors that went on there...
They included eye-gouging; piercing of hands with an electric drill; suspension from a ceiling; electric shock; rape and other forms of sexual abuse; beating of the soles of feet; mock executions; extinguishing cigarettes on the body; and acid baths.
Here is the *torture* Mr. Sifton says happened at this alleged CIA location:
The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."
Oh the horror!
Let us compare those two again.
- eye-gouging; piercing of hands with an electric drill; suspension from a ceiling; electric shock; rape and other forms of sexual abuse; beating of the soles of feet; mock executions; extinguishing cigarettes on the body; and acid baths
SEN. LEGHORN ANNOUNCES $14.7 MILLION FOR TEXAS; ‘YEE, HAW!’ HE ADDS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Foghorn J. Leghorn, D-State, announced Tuesday that he had won an extra $14.7 million in stimulating funds from the solicitous Obama Administration for the people of seven congressional districts in Texas.
“This funding will go for good,” the Senator said. “Why, son, 98 hardworking, taxpaying, aging, poor, honest, hungry, working-class, middle-class, undereducated, disadvantaged, undercounted, overlooked, underprivileged, overtaxed and uninsured constituents of my good friends and esteemed colleagues in the 52nd, 58th, 86th, 00th, 68th, 91st, and 85th Congressional Districts of Texas deserve every penny,” he added. “Yep, they can shore count on me. Vote Leghorn! Yee, haw!”
Go to Moe Lane and read the whole thing. The best satire is always rooted in the truth...
#tcot #hhrs #rs #sgp The United States vastly outpaces the rest of the world in Breast Cancer survival for one simple reason....screening.
Researchers discovered that it was because of breast cancer screenings that women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it’s 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent.
However now a Health & Human Services panel recommends that women should reduce the number of mammograms that they get. What is the reasoning behind this recommendation? They cite "evidence that the potential harm to women having annual exams beginning at age 40 outweighs the benefit..."
One might argue that the numbers listed above would counter that line of reasoning.
And the intelligentsia cackled when some warned that socialized medicine Obamacare would lead to rationing with faceless bureaucrats deciding levels of treatment. Like, say, a cancer related recommendation from a panel that doesn't have one oncologist.
Of course the left will argue back that this is simply a recommendation, not law. But do we really think that when Obamacare is the law of the land that these bureaucratic pronouncements won't become policy for those who are stuck with government-run health care?
#tcot #hhrs #rs President Obama gave a speech at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska on his way to Japan. I am sure it was intended as a rah-rah, we support you type of speech. Unfortunately, there is some awkward phrasing that perhaps reveals a little too much of the President's real thinking toward the military and its mission.
"So as your Commander-in-Chief, here’s the commitment I make to you....I want you guys to understand I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests. (Applause.) But I also make you this promise: I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America's vital interest. (Applause.) [...] And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back. We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve. We will give you the equipment and support that you need to get the job done. And that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you. (Applause.)"
Hmmm....lets parse that a little bit....
"We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve..."
OK, that must be a promise for the second term, since it has been 10 months now, and the administration is still showing the indecisiveness of my three-year-old when it comes to choosing a strategy for our hottest and most vital engagement.
The big dollop of condescension however is contained in the sentence just prior to that.
"And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back."
Uhhhhhhh....we are the United States Armed Forces, and you are the President of the United States and our Commander-in Chief.....shouldn't you ALWAYS have our back?!?!?
President Bush may have ended up being a little squishy on a lot of issues I would have preferred he not be, but at least I always knew he had my back. Come hell or high water.
Now I will just have to settle for "if necessary" during this time of war. Not exactly the change I was hoping for....
[President]"These Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible."
[...]
In the media, the question of the hour is how the military could have missed the warning signs of Hasan's impending attack. Such details are important, and it would be a great idea to have better mechanisms (or any mechanisms at all?) within the military to catch the warning signs and act in time. But vigilance of that kind starts at the top. Right now the biggest warning sign of all is a president who looks at a pattern of jihadi communications, recruiting and attacks on America, and tells the public that the bloodshed at Fort Hood is "incomprehensible."
The NRO's Corner steered me to an interesting NYT article on how many "...fear that the relationship between the military and its Muslim service members will only grow more difficult..." following MAJ Nidal Hasan's murderous rampage. In other words, as stated by the Army Chief of Staff, they are "...worried about a backlash against Muslims in the armed forces..."
The NYT devotes a lot of column inches to the standard PC meme that we troglodytes in the military will take our anger out in a "backlash" on those other Muslims in the Armed Forces. This idea is pretty funny given that the military is probably the most integrated segment of American society. But hey, what would we expect liberal CSJ grads working at the NYT to know about the military...
In the South Asian and Arab immigrant communities where the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are deeply unpopular, Muslim military members have often felt criticized for their service, Muslim chaplains, military members, veterans advocates and others said in interviews.
Some return exhausted and traumatized from their tours, only to hear at their local mosques that they will go to hell for “killing Muslims,” said Qaseem A. Uqdah, the executive director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council.
“Imagine you are 20 years old and you hear you’re going to purgatory,” Mr. Uqdah said. He argued that Muslim groups must work harder to help their veterans cope with coming home. “We are failing as a community here in America.”
So the the largest backlash against Muslims in the military is from.....other Muslims. Hmmmm...I don't think that was the meme that the NYT was trying to advance...
Noah Pollack at Commentary's Contentions blog points us to the tip of the MSM's excuse iceberg on the FT Hood story. According to Time Magazine, Hasan had "Secondary Trauma"...
Gateway Pundit provides us with a good screen shot of the Time webpage of the story.
One thing I find interesting, and totally out of place, is Time's additional link in the story, 'See pictures of suicide in the recruiters ranks'.
This will take you to a Time story from April about the issue of recruiter suicide. I ,for the life of me, cannot figure out why that would be relevant to the discussion of a mass-murdering Army psychiatrist with Jihadi tendencies. Does Time not know enough about the military to think that two are somehow related? Talk about an inappropriate non-sequitur.
And as far as their search for a to excuse Hasan for his actions, pehaps they ought to consider that Hasan's "Secondary Trauma may not have come from listening to his patients, but rather from listening to the Wahhabist clericsat the mosqueshe liked to attend...
If Pelosi gets her 218 votes, it will be unprecedented. It is fair to say that never will a piece of legislation this sweeping (and damaging) have been passed over the opposition of so much of the electorate and on the votes of such a narrow ideological slice of the governing class.
If the only thing bipartisan is the opposition, and a party with an overwhelming majority is scrambling to get it over the first hurdle, it sure says something about the bill.
I believe that this is what might be called the 'Tyranny of the Minority Majority'...
"All I know is that Speaker Pelosi is trying to force her members to vote for a bill that the American people have soundly rejected," added House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Democrats counter that their agenda has kick-started a recovery on Wall Street, even if it hasn't trickled down to the job market yet, and that Republicans are putting what they've begun at risk.
All I can say is that it is nice to see that the Dems are finally supporting trickle down economics.
