Obama To Make Draconian Budget Cuts

President Obama, after spending a mere trillion dollars on government growth in an effort to "stimulate" the economy, and pushing dramatic leaps in Federal spending in his budget, has laid out a bold plan to cut as much as $100 million.

Budget:	$3,000,000,000,000
Stimulus:	$900,000,000,000
Cuts:	$100,000,000

How can he make these awful cuts, while spending in other areas barely keeps pace? Is he going to order women and children to starve in the street, while AIDS patients are left with no medicines, and senior citizens choose between paying the light bill and buying cat food to eat?

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The Single-Tasking President

I've often said we ask too much of our Presidents. Whenever I hear someone criticize the President for taking vacation, or not handling today's crisis or local emergency, I respond that one guy shouldn't make or break the system.

Barack Obama on the campaign trail, in response to John McCain's call to cancel a debate to deal with the credit crisis:

"It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person will be the next president," the Democrat said in Clearwater, Florida. "It is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once. It's more important than ever to present ourselves to the American people."

But after a few scant weeks in the Oval Office:

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.

Apparently, Barry never had a job in which he had to satisfy multiple customers at once.

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Bottom-up, or Craniorectal Inversion?

During this year's presidential campaign, Barack Obama posited that the economy should grow not from the top down, but "from the bottom up".

After the election he is showing his true big-government beliefs in action. Only government can solve our problems, he says.

Clearly, he's a top-down kind of guy.

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Obama Stops Denying Facts by Denying Facts

President Obama declared that the days of denying the facts (of Global Warming) are over.

Has he not gone outside for the last ten years?

Because it's been getting colder, not warmer.

Unserious, incurious, and power mad.

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Key Unemployment Forecast Rises as Illinois Leads Nation

Unemployment among the nation's governors is expected to rise by 2% next month, a level not seen since the 1980's. The Illinois rate is forecast at 100% following action by the State Legislature.

Gubernatorial unemployment has been at a historical low of 0% for the past two decades or more. The move in Illinois is expected to dramatically increase the unemployment numbers, experts agree.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-Chicago) blamed the move on a conspiracy by those who oppose his efforts to take care of sick people. The conspirators, meanwhile, blamed the move on the Governor's personal inability to tell the truth.

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Fisking the White House Bailout of GM and Chrysler

President Bush has decided to give some number of billions of dollars of TARP money, which was supposed to be used for financial firms, to two failing car companies.

In doing so, he said ... well, let us fisk, shall we?

Bush said in normal economic circumstances

What are "normal" circumstances? Is there any set of circumstances that we could call "normal" that would cause companies the size of GM and Chrysler to fail, while other companies are not failing? Or would the fact of two of these companies failing be considered evidence that circumstances were not "normal"?

he would not intervene to save the automakers

Intervening is one word, "meddling in private business by Executive fiat to favor two companies over their competitors with an unconstitutional bill of attainder" describes it better. And saving the automakers may be what he says he's doing, but it's really his own image he's worried about. "Something must be done, this is something, therefor this must be done." These steps are neither necessary nor sufficient to save the automakers from anything except a painful, newsworthy Christmas. In these times of pain avoidance, Mr. Bush is just doing the expedient thing: borrowing money to loan to people who have no clear means to pay it back.

but "in the midst of a financial crisis

The financial crisis has very little to do with the automakers problems, except that their problems were caused primarily by the run-up in oil prices, making people unwilling to buy inefficient but high-markup trucks and SUVs that they had previously wanted as toys and status symbols.

To the extent that the financial crisis is a cause of the GM and Chrysler problems, it's because they have continued to make ever-more-expensive vehicles believing that people would continue to buy them on credit. When people suddenly became credit-wary, realizing the foolishness of taking a loan against a depreciating asset, the car makers were sunk.

But now that people have realized that it's foolish to pay interest on something which is losing value, no amount of Federal credit assistance is going to rescue the car companies.

"and a recession,

Again, would there ever be a car maker failure during some other economic phase?

"allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse

The collapse bogeyman, too big to fail, etc. If these companies cannot make it, they should be allowed to fail now before we dump huge amounts of money we don't have into propping them up. We will be paying the interest on the debt we incur propping up the failing companies long after they go under anyway.

"is not a responsible course of action."

Saying it doesn't make it so. The responsible thing is to let people face the consequences of their actions. Call it compassion, call it anything else, but responsible it is not.

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Governor Blagojevice Has No Reason To Resign

What will resigning now get him?

If he's not found guilty of Federal corruption charges, he can still have a career in politics, on some level.

If he's found guilty, he can resign in protest, or simply wait to be impeached.

If he's impeached and tried, he can resign at any time during the process.

As Dave at Political Machine puts it:

It's quite apparent that no one has anything on Blago or is willing to offer him anything to resign. Quite the reverse. Blago probably knows where enough bodies are buried to make taking him out a risky project, and he has nothing to lose by staying where he is until he gets the right offer. The most valuable thing he now owns is the ability to resign. He's not going to give that away for bleeping nothing right?

I disagree with Dave on one thing: Blago has more leverage than just the ability to resign. If he's impeached and goes on trial, he can take a whole bunch of people down with him, probably to include a former Senator or two.

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Lying, like smoking, is a hard habit to break.

A liar is tripped up by inconsistency. I have come to believe that this inconsistency is of two different kinds, internal and external. When the liar's version of the tale conflicts with itself, we have an internal conflict; when it is inconsistent with known, objective reality it is in external conflict or is externally inconsistent.

Politicians lie a lot. Barack Obama, for instance, seems personally incapable of telling the truth.

For instance, when asked whether he had any conversation with Governor Blagojevich about his replacement in the Senate, Obama said, "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening."

And yet, there are photographs of the two men together, with mutually acknowledged plans to discuss the Senate vacancy.

What he could have said was "My conversations with the Governor stopped because I, uh, didn't like the direction they were taking."

But the fact is, he didn't say that, and it's too late to say it now. Perhaps there is an alternative explanation, something involving national security. Barring that, either Barack Obama was willing to suborn unethical conduct from the Governor, or is an habitual liar incapable of telling the truth even when it will benefit him.

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Shocker: Obama Not Completely Candid

Clicky linky to go to Gateway Pundit's story.

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This is Not The Governor Rod Blajojevich (D-Chicago) I Knew

The problem: protect Barack Obama from the stink of Illinois politics.

The answer: claim that Barack Obama helped put Rod Blagojevich away.

Nice, neat, tidy, and like everything else Obama, a half truth.

Obama knew these guys were dirty (pdf), and used their dirtiness to further his own advancement, without doing anything to bring them to justice until he'd already been elected President. At that point, they became a liability.

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The $700 Billion Paulson Scam

The $700 Billion Henry Paulson claimed he needed to rescue the financial sector wasn't necessary. As proof, I point out that it hasn't been used.

This governmental manhandling of the economy is going to lead to nowhere good.

I agree with Maggie Gallagher: No More Bailouts.

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Murtha Attorney: Congressman Above The Law

Legal counsel for aged Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) claimed in open court that his client is immune from laws which limit ordinary citizens.

Murtha is being sued for saying that Marines involved in an incident at Haditha, Iraq, were "murderers" guilty of "war crimes".

From the via Malkin:

Assistant U.S Attorney Darrell Valdez, who represents Murtha, argued that a member of Congress is “absolutely immune” from a defamation suit because there’s no circumstance in which speaking to the media is not within the scope of a lawmaker’s employment.

That is, a lawyer representing the United States Government asserted that his client is above the law.

It's not clear from the claims if the Congressman claims immunity for all defamation, or only that against members of the Armed Services in time of war. In particular, the question of whether members of Congress are free to say that government lawyers are guilty of malpractice will have to go unanswered.

Clearly, according to the United States Government lawyer, Murtha would be free to allege that the lawyer in question were guilty of murder and crimes against humanity, but alleging malpractice and incompetence may be a line even a Congressman must not cross.

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Ayers: Terrorism Doesn't Exist

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn continue to say that it's not terrorism unless you are the U.S. Government.

Part of me really hopes Ayers stays in the news for four years. He's a walking, partially sentient trooth machine. Here he describes the Obama victory celebration in Chicago's Grant Park:

But they were also celebrating—there was—you could kind of cut the relief in people’s feelings with a knife. I mean, it was the sense that we were going to leave behind the era of 9/11 and the era of fear and war without end and repression and constitutional shredding and scapegoating of gay and lesbian people, on and on. And there we were, millions, in the park, representing everybody, hugging, dancing, carrying on right in the spot, forty years ago, where many of us were beaten and dragged to jail.

We're going to leave behind the era of 9/11 because we voted it away.

"Scapegoating" of gay and lesbian people? When have gays and lesbians been blamed for anything, falsely or not?

Al Qaeda gets a vote, too. And they really don't like gays and lesbians, pal.

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Just Because You Say It, Mr. Ayers, Doesn't Make It So.

In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, William Ayers says:

“Let’s remember that what you call a violent past, that was at a time when thousands of people were being murdered by our government every month,” he argued. “And those of us who fought to end that war were actually on the right side.”

Ayers denied that the bombings carried out by the group amounted to terrorism.

“We tried to end that war. And in trying to end it, we did cross lines of propriety, of legality, maybe even of common sense. But we never committed terror,” he stated.

Ayers claimed that the actions taken by his group were not terrorism because they did not “target people.”

Terrorism is violence against civilian targets to effect political change. That distinguishes it from free speech (non-violent acts such as sit-ins and marches against civilian targets), war crimes (acts by military personnel against civilians, or vice versa), and mere criminal behavior (the same act minus the call for political change).

Whether the action was intended to target people, or merely ended up killing policemen by accident, is irrelevant. Targeting civilian private property to make a political point is terrorism.

Ayers is a self-righteous liar.

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Bailout Bait and Switch

Not going to purchase troubled assets.

Psych!

No, they're buying stock in banks.

It was such an emergency. Had to be done right this minute, no time for discussion.

Not only did they not have to do it right that minute, they didn't have to do it at all.

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Peter Beinhart Race-baits

From The Washington Post:

And just as younger Protestants found JFK less threatening than their parents had found Al Smith, younger whites - even in bright-red states - don't view the prospect of a black president with great alarm.

Speaking as one of those younger Protestants, I don't view the prospect of a black president with any alarm at all. It's not that Obama's black, it's that he's a lying, terrorist-loving, anti-semite tolerating, racist propagator of class envy himself.

w/t Weekly Standard blog

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In Which Barack Obama Makes John Kerry Look Decisive

This is not the Barack Obama he knew:

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Barack the Sophist Makes Personal Attack on Everyone

Quoth The One, alias Barack the Taxer:

"The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich. I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the America dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific...

"John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic. You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness."

In the first place, Barack the Insufferable Sophist misrepresents both his opponent's position and his own. He has repeatedly railed against "tax cuts for the rich". His case has been one of playing the dissatisfaction and envy of those who have less against those who have more. He knows he isn't going to make anyone rich by giving them $500 or $1000 of someone else's money. The point is "fairness", not the creation of wealth, and it makes a lie out of your claim to love the rich.

It would be far too cynical a reading of that statement to accept it in the only sense in which it could be true. Barack the Five Year Planner wants everyone to be rich so that he can tax them all.

But in the end it isn't to make someone rich that Barack the Disingenuous Windbag wishes to give them money; it's to make them dependent. Wealth comes from risk and work, and there is neither risk nor work when people vote themselves mammon from the treasury. There is only abuse of the democracy for the purpose of gaining and maintaining power.

Taking money from one group and giving it to another is socialistic. It just is.

Giving out checks is not the way to get people "rich", even as Barack the Slider variously tries to redefine richness down from $250,000 to whatever figure he needs at the moment. If by some perverted definition of richness he claims that he is bringing wealth to those who don't have it, he is engaging in a get rich quick scheme.

People get rich on their own, when the grubby little hands of government are kept out of their pockets.

But then comes the insult: Barack the Weasel implies that anyone who doesn't want to give him money to give to others is "selfish".

Government is not the best judge of how I should use my money. I am. Without Barack the Thief's stinking taxes, I would be in a much better position to give to others.

Barack the Tempter is urging others to be envious. Envy is a vice, not a virtue, and those who encourage others in vice bring peril on themselves. Better to have a millstone tied around one's neck, in fact. As Jeremiah Wright would say, "That's in the Bible."

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Talking Points Memo Thinks LA Times Khalidi Tape Issue is About Race

Josh Marshall claims the LA Times Khalidi-Obama-Ayers Tape issue is about race, apparently because the people involved are not all white, and claims Khalidi is just a harmless professor.

But Khalidi was a spokesman for a terrorist organization.

And the LA Times Khalidi-Obama-Ayers Tape issue is not about race; it's about what Khalidi and Obama say and do on the tape, who else is on the tape, and why it isn't being shown.

Is the LA Times suppressing anti-Obama information?

Does Obama express or approve anti-Israel sentiment?

Were Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn at the Khalidi going away party, and does the tape contradict Obama's claims of casual acquaintance and knowledge of Ayers' attitudes?

In short, it's all about Barack Obama's actions and Barack Obama's beliefs, not about Rashid Khalidi.

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Obama: Communists Are The Nice People

Barack Obama is trying to divert attention from his collectivist economic policies through his usual redefinition+strawman tactic. Noting that John McCain and Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher called his wealth-spreading ideas "socialism", Obama complains joyfully:

"By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

No one gets called a communist for sharing their own resources, something Barack Obama does not in fact do (unless it's for his own benefit).

Kindergarten communists share other people's toys, and other people's lunch money. Barack the Spreader wants to share other people's wealth.

If the shoe fits....

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