Gore caught in an "Inconvenient Truth"

Gore never quite got over the fact that he lost the election.

To prove it, recently, he argued that Cheney had no right to criticize Obama this early in his term. Suddenly, its not right for the former VP to criticize the current president.
Gore argued that he waited 2 years to criticize Bush. But wouldn't you know, he couldn't even get that right?

The Weekly Standard, doing the kind of journalism that would sell newspapers, nails him to the wall here. One such quote:

USA Today, 4/15/2002: "Gore's speech was the emotional peak of the convention. With practiced skill, humor and a passion some delegates said they did not see during the campaign, Gore denounced virtually every element of Bush's domestic policy." (Headline -- "Gore's fiery speech raises questions of plans")

It makes you wonder why no 'mainstream' outlet did this basic 'Google' type of research. Its not like Gore's statements are made in private. Or like its hard to find an article in USA Today.

Anyway, its all good. You can still believe what he said about the Polar Bears dying off.

Victor Davis Hanson Nails Palin :)

Victor Davis Hanson is fast becoming one of my favorite columnists. Here, he writes about the first 100 days of Sarah Palin's Presidency. A sample, to get you to go there:

IT'S THE MATH, STUPID!
“Well,” lectured Paul Krugman, again in the Times, “we were worried that they didn’t teach math at Idaho U., and now we know for sure they don’t. Is it $1.6 trillion, $1.7 trillion, or $2 trillion in red ink this year? Are we supposed to be impressed that she offers ‘fiscal sobriety’ by cutting 0.003 percent of the budget? She gives out money to those who don’t pay taxes and calls it a tax cut. And now Queen Sarah tells us that in four years she’ll ‘halve’ the deficit, as if she hasn’t borrowed another $5 trillion in the meantime.

VDH is brutal in his writing... and if life were fair, he'd get a Pulitzer for that opinion piece. Presuming, of course, that the committee understood great satire.

Fact Checking Biden

Thanks to the AP for doing the basic research. When Biden tried to recently portray an economy on the rebound, they did the number checking and printed the actual facts.
More importantly, they challenged the administration on the basis for its claims:

To visualize that disconnect, consider this: The administration has promised to create or save 600,000 more jobs in the next 100 days. Even if the nation loses another 5 million jobs during that span (a highly unlikely prospect) the White House could still claim success.

This has been my problem with the administration from the beginning. They will say that they 'succeeded' in creating/saving jobs, because they thought about it. And thinking, in this administration, is doing.

White House Prediction: no job growth

After nearly 2 TRILLION of spending... how much job growth do you think that the WH is predicting?
None.
No kidding.

President Obama's chief economics forecaster said on Sunday that the country was not likely to see positive employment growth until 2010, even if the economy began to grow later this year.

Now let's pause and consider this for a moment. Let's say that this was Bush, not Obama, who did this. Do you think that the press would go after him for spending so much without any result until 2010?

9/11 Family member on Obama

Debra is the sister of Charles F. Burlingame III - the pilot of American Airlines 77 - which was flown into the Pentagon by terrorists on 9/11.

She was invited, along with others, to meet with the president. Her passionate editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal on May 8th. A small portion of it:

Given all the developments since our meeting with the president, it is now evident that his words to us bore no relation to his intended actions on national security policy and detainee issues. But the narrative about Mr. Obama's successful meeting with 9/11 and Cole families has been written, and the press has moved on.

The Obama team has established a pattern that should be plain for all to see. When controversy erupts or legitimate policy differences are presented by well-meaning people, send out the celebrity president to flatter and charm.

I can't post her entire editorial, because I don't want to violate copyright. But I hope you'll go there and read it. She details what this administration has done, point by point, including a proposed release of detainees and the possibility of making them eligible for welfare support. Its absurd, but welcome to the Obama administration.

Something completely different

Joe Cocker, subtitled, appropriately.
Go there if you need to smile.

Obama popular among Muslims

According to Reuters...

Of those surveyed, 33 percent had a favorable view of the United States, 43 percent had a negative view, 14 percent were neutral and 10 percent said they did not know, Ipsos said.

In contrast, Obama received favorable ratings averaging 48 percent in the region as a whole.

I'm okay with people in the Middle-East having a bad opinion of "us." We're talking about countries that stone a woman to death simply for being seen with a man, alone. The woman gets murdered in cold blood, while the man gets... well, we're not sure. But he doesn't get stoned to death.

I find it interesting that Obama has such a positive rating by those people. You have to wonder what it is that they see.

Obama cuts $17 BILLION!!!

...from the deficit. Leaving it hovering at around 1.8 TRILLION.

President Barack Obama urged Congress to cut almost $17 billion in programs, including tax breaks for oil and gas companies, while seeking an $81 billion increase for his domestic agenda.

Ugh.

Even with the proposed cuts amounting to only about one- half of 1 percent of the total budget, Obama is confronting resistance to them in Congress and from interest groups seeking to keep alive favored programs.

The good news is that Republicans are starting to listen to the Tax Protesters, and they are making loud objections to Obama's plans...

“The administration’s proposed cuts, while welcome, don’t go far enough, and they appear to be a diversionary tactic -- an effort to change the subject away from the unprecedented debt this budget heaps on future generations,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in a statement.

Thank you, Mr. Boehner, we appreciate it!

"New Era Of Responsibility"

That's what it actually says on the White House Home page, next to their 2010 budget.

I'm about to violate my new promise to myself, about using inappropriate language on my blog.

What the fuck?
How do you add 50 cents of debt for every dollar of spending and then have the Audacity of Spending to use the phrase "A New Era Of Responsibility" near your budget?

If that's responsible spending... what the heck does Obama think is irresponsible spending?

"No. That's MY photo of Obama!"

Just when I think that the cultists can't go any farther, from Cincinnati.com:

Marla Anderson wanted that Barack Obama picture. So much so that Wyoming police say she walked into a Grove Avenue home Friday to take it.She struggled with the owner, who called police for help.

C'mon people.
There are enough photos of Obama to go around. Trust me on this. Its not worth it. No really. Its not worth it.

I'll prove it. Go here and print one out for yourself. Feel better?

50 cents of debt for every dollar of spending

Its almost unfathomable to me that people aren't getting this. From AP, with thanks to Andrew Taylor for putting this in terms that everyone can easily understand:

The government is currently adding 50 cents of debt for every dollar that it spends.

Let me see if I can put that into perspective.
Let's say that you make $30,000 a year.
This year, you spend $45,000. In one chunk. That's this year alone.
If you did that, and had nothing appreciable to show for your spending, what would you call yourself? Irresponsible? Reckless? Dumb?

The fact is that our deficit... not our debt, but our deficit... is 1.8 TRILLION dollars this year. Our spending? Roughly twice that.
How did we get here, folks?

By deciding that everything is a necessity for the government to get involved in.
By nodding our heads when the government says "Do you want us to buy you this?"

We got here by never having the common sense to realize that we are still going to have to pay for it.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ear; or at least half of your current income in debt. Because that's what we are doing... today, in our government. And its going to drown this country.

We just confronted the fact that there were too many individuals buying homes that they couldn't afford.
The solution to this, by the current government?
Spending that increases the debt by 50 cents, for every dollar we spend.
That is not cool.

And the right is called the party of hate?

I found this courtesy of the Telegraph in the UK:



Yikes.
There is something very frightening about seeing the president laughing when a comedian refers to Rush Limbaugh as the 20th hijacker.

I have to remind myself that the Democrats are not the party of hate... that we are.

Fed 'Stress Test' wasn't?

The idea of the "stress tests", put out by the Fed, was to give a fiscal report card on the health of major banks.

Only... they let the banks 'negotiate' their financial standing. The WSJ, via Reuters:

The Federal Reserve reduced the size of capital deficits facing several banks before releasing the results of stress tests on the financial institutions, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

This means that either the Treasury's initial report was completely wrong, or the Treasury department caved to pressure from the banks, and put out a report card that was not accurate.
Which is kinda how we got here in the first place.

-John

"Grants.gov"

While wandering around Recovery.gov, I found Grants.gov.
It shouldn't be confused with Change.gov, or any of the multitude of .gov websites that the Obama administration has branded.

But it does have one thing in common: a desire from the government to give away cash.

Grants.gov runs in a way that only the government could run.
If you were running a business, you would figure out what you needed, and then try to find businesses that could provide those items or services.

Grants.gov works the other way around.
It asks the person applying what they are going to provide in return for the money provided.

Some examples:
Recovery Act Limited Competition: High-End Instrumentation Grant Program (S10)

"Purpose. The NCRR High-End Instrumentation Grant (HEI) program encourages applications from groups of NIH-supported investigators to purchase a single major item of equipment to be used for biomedical research that costs at least $600,000. The maximum award is $8,000,000."

It then lists basic categories of 'possible' spending. Note, these seem to be just suggestions of the kind of things that the person applying for the grant COULD provide: structural and functional imaging systems, macromolecular NMR spectrometers, high-resolution mass spectrometers, cryoelectron microscopes and supercomputers.

Note; about $160 MILLION is being set aside for such mystery purchases.
Only in America do we provide money, and then ask people what they will give us for the money.

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence FY2010

An organization may submit only one application through one of the following FY2010 Grants for Arts Projects categories: Access to Artistic Excellence, Challenge America: Reaching Every Community Fast-Track Review Grants, Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth.The Arts Endowment's support of a project may start on or after June 1, 2010.

You can get up to $150k for that one.

The point is, there are literally thousands of grants on those pages.
They are all offers from the government to give you money... but you have to tell them what you are using it for.
Which is like me going to the store, and telling the clerk: "I have $150. What are you going to sell me in the category of groceries."

Grants.gov is a way to make it easier for the government to give that money away.

Recovery.gov is a PR tool

Again, I need to remind everyone that when the president announced "Recovery.gov", he said that it would be a tool for us to track every last penny of spending.

What he didn't tell us was that, according to his people, they don't have the data capacity to get it up and running until October.

They also didn't tell us that Recovery.gov is a place where everyone can go to get money.
Here's an example:

Want to see what kind of federal grants are available? Federal agencies offer more than 1,000 grant programs and access to approximately $400 billion in annual awards. Note that federal grants are not federal assistance or loans to individuals. Rather, organizations can search and apply for grants from 26 different federal agencies through the Grants.gov site. For grant opportunities related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, use the Find Recovery Act Opportunities option on Grants.gov.

I added my own emphasis in red.
This is what I hate about government: they are so completely anxious to give away my money. But its not even my money. Its the money of our kids.
And its nothing short of a crime that Obama isn't legally required to tell you that every time he comes up with another pork bill.

More on Acorn

According to Review Journal.com:

A voter registration drive last year illegally required canvassers to meet quotas to keep their jobs and resulted in thousands of “garbage” registrations gumming up Clark County voter rolls, officials said Monday as they released a criminal complaint against the drive’s organizers.

Yet, people continue to argue that ACORN is blameless in all of this.
If it is, then its an 'innocent' organization that just happened to attract dozens of bad people.

Cliff Asness, on Obama's Chrysler's reorganization

Cliff Asness is a hedge fund manager. You may know that the Obama administration criticized Hedge fund managers for not going along with his plan for reorganizing Chrysler.
As one of the targets of the Obama administration, he obviously has a stake in all of this.
Cliff gave his argument on "Zero Hedge". I'm including a large portion of it, because he makes a great point:

Here's a shock. When hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, and individuals, including very sweet grandmothers, lend their money they expect to get it back. However, they know, or should know, they take the risk of not being paid back. But if such a bad event happens it usually does not result in a complete loss. A firm in bankruptcy still has assets. It’s not always a pretty process. Bankruptcy court is about figuring out how to most fairly divvy up the remaining assets based on who is owed what and whose contracts come first. The process already has built-in partial protections for employees and pensions, and can set lenders' contracts aside in order to help the company survive, all of which are the rules of the game lenders know before they lend. But, without this recovery process nobody would lend to risky borrowers. Essentially, lenders accept less than shareholders (means bonds return less than stocks) in good times only because they get more than shareholders in bad times.

The above is how it works in America, or how it’s supposed to work. The President and his team sought to avoid having Chrysler go through this process, proposing their own plan for re-organizing the company and partially paying off Chrysler’s creditors. Some bond holders thought this plan unfair. Specifically, they thought it unfairly favored the United Auto Workers, and unfairly paid bondholders less than they would get in bankruptcy court. So, they said no to the plan and decided, as is their right, to take their chances in the bankruptcy process. But, as his quotes above show, the President thought they were being unpatriotic or worse.

That's all true. The president favored the United Auto Workers above the people who invested in the company. That's not fair. The company would not be there if it wasn't for investors.

House Democrats seek MORE money... what???

As if quadrupling the deficit in 100 days was not enough...

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will seek passage in coming weeks of $94.2 billion in emergency money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other programs, including $2 billion more to prepare for an influenza pandemic.

Pork, pork, pork pork pork.
Say it with me. Pork.

"Is the media soft on Bush?"

Considering what's going on today, I thought it would be interesting to link to this story from the American Journalism Review. Its from October/November of 2003. It takes on the topic: is the media treating Bush too softly?

Bush himself acknowledged the event was "scripted" when he called on CNN's John King from a predetermined list of reporters. Critics argued the press should not have succumbed so meekly to such an indignity, and some even accused the White House press corps of submitting questions for advance approval--an allegation that beat reporters vehemently denied.

Hilarious.
In case you haven't been paying attention, in every press conference to date, Obama has been picking reporters from a list on his podium. Most of the time, he has to ask if they are 'there'. Its pretty sad.
But how many times have you heard Obama being called out for it?
Its not just that journalism is dead. Its that they don't even realize they are dead.
There is a giant yawning chasm out there waiting for a newspaper that will challenge the status quo.

NY Times publisher is asked about a spiked story on ACORN

According to the Philadelphia Bulletin:

New York Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger was asked about the March 30 The Bulletin report that his paper intentionally did not use information that might be deleterious to the Obama campaign.

His answer?

“He said he didn’t know anything about it and told me to give the details to his staff assistant and she would get back to me,” Mr. Gammon told the Bulletin in an email.

If this is true, then Sulzberger is completely in the dark about the daily business of his newspaper.
I don't believe that is true. How about you?

Iowahawk has topless pictures of the gay marriage opponent

You can find the photo here.

"Recovery.gov" won't/can't do its job

Remember how Obama promised to have a website up and running that would allow 'everyday citizens' to track the progress of government dollars?

How he promised that we would all be able to watch and see how our money is being spent?

Remember how he promised that we could watch every penny of "stimulus spending', so that we could alert him if money wasn't being spent wisely?

Would it surprise you to know that the government won't let us 'track every dollar' until November?

"Recovery.gov now lists programs being funded by the stimulus money, but provides no details on who received the grants and contracts. Agencies won't report that data until Oct. 10, according to Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which manages the website."

What complete bullshit that is.
Devaney says that the problem is that the board "doesn't have enough data storage capacity".

Let's presume, for a moment, that was true.
Let's presume that Devaney doesn't have a one terabyte hard drive lying around. That after spending $787 BILLION on a stimulus program, they don't have the $150 lying around to buy a terabyte hard drive to keep tract of it all.

What does that mean?

It means that currently, no one in government is keeping tract of all of the stimulus money. Because, you know, they just don't have the storage capacity to do... accounting.
Can you think of any more lame excuse then that?

Look: I knew that we would hear some kind of excuse like this. Its not like the government wants us to know where it is spending its money. But this is pretty extreme. To say that they don't have the DATA capacity?
Liars.
They are liars.
Say it with me: "Liar"
Obama? "Liar"
Devaney? "Liar"
Any Democrat who stands behind this excuse? "Liar"

Right now, the government is spending close to $800 BILLION dollars of the porkulus bill, and they can't keep tract of it?
C'mon. You and I know that is bullshit. Please call them out on it.

Two more looks at Obama's first 100 days

The first one comes from "Factbox", a product of Reuters:

* The Dow closed at 8281.22 on the last trading day before Obama took office and closed slightly lower on Friday at 8076.29. In between, it plummeted about 1,800 points to 6469.95 on March 6 before recovering. The broader S&P 500 closed at 850.12 on Jan. 16 and ended slightly up, at 866.23, on Friday.

AND

Joblessness was 7.6 percent in January and had risen to 8.5 percent by March, the latest monthly figure. New unemployment claims have continued to rise in April.

And most importantly:

Number of appointees with personal tax issues: at least 6

How do you raise revenue in the Obama regime? Appoint more democrats into office, and make them pay their taxes.

Obama had a speech on April 29th, a Wednesday. AP Fact Checked his speech.
I can't believe that anyone is finally doing this, but I'm just glad that someone did.
On Obama's "Stimulus" bill, they write:

"...his response to the crisis goes well beyond "one-time charges."

He's persuaded Congress to expand children's health insurance, education spending, health information technology and more. He's moving ahead on a variety of big-ticket items on health care, the environment, energy and transportation that, if achieved, will be more enduring than bank bailouts and aid for homeowners.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated his policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion."

The rest of the Fact Check is similarly great.

For those of you who didn't understand, this is what us Tax Day protesters were upset about. Thank you to Calvin Woodward. I know that Obama fans will be littering his inbox with criticisms. I want to give him credit for good journalism.

And now, how to pay for it?

According to the Hill:

Leaders of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition stood shoulder to shoulder with House leaders on Wednesday and rallied around a $3.5 trillion budget agreement that also paves the way for an eventual pay-as-you-go law — a provision that became a prerequisite for Blue Dog support of the budget document.
Exactly how that law is going to work is still under substantial negotiation.

No shit?

Error Force One over New York

Who the fuck did this?

From the Wall Street Journal:

A plane circling Lower Manhattan escorted by two fighter jets is part of a “photo op,” said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters. The event caused some evacuations of office buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City, N.J., on Monday morning.

Their update said from Reuters said:

One of President Barack Obama's official planes flanked by an Air Force fighter jet flew low over the Statue of Liberty on Monday for a photo opportunity that reminded startled New Yorkers of the September 11 attacks....
...The U.S. Air Force said the "aerial photo mission" involved an F-16 fighter jet escort and one of the Boeing 747s designated as Air Force One when the president is aboard, which he was not. Police and the Federal Aviation Administration said three aircraft were approved for the mission.

The New York Post had reported:

...Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, later said he approved the mission.

"I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption," he said. "I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.

Note: the White House director of the Military Office said he approved of the mission. He did not say that he planned it.

Why is this important? Well, because unnamed"White House aides" tell us that Obama was furious when he heard about the report.

How many people think that the president doesn't know where his plane is from day to day?

John Stewart got the controversy right:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Mistakes on a Plane
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Two versions of 100 days of Obama

You can either read the fawning full-statist propaganda from the DailyKos here, or go to the critique from Scarborough and Glenn Beck here.

A sample of the Kool Aid from the Daily Kos:

► Passes $787 BILLION Jobs-Stimulus bill.

► Signed $32.8 billion bill for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, extending health care to 4 million uninsured children. A bill vetoed various times buy Bush.

A sample from the criticism of Scarborough and Beck:

1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them...

AND

5. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, 4/15

The fifth one is my personal favorite, because I was there.

You'll note by looking at the DailyKos list, that they are all wet and happy that Obama is spending a lot of money and 'giving' them things. They have no clue as to where the money will come from. They don't care. They just know that, for now, they are getting something for 'free'.

They are idiots.

Obama to teleprompter operator: Go ahead, move it up

Just when I think that the teleprompter follies can't get any funnier, Obama starts giving the teleprompter operator's instructions. According to Politico:

Laying his plan for a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks – before realizing he’d already introduced them, earlier in his speech.

“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”

1992 NY Times article: Clinton Pressured Fannie Mae

Sweetness & Light deserves an internet Pulitzer for pulling this up.
This is what modern journalists should be doing... using the power of their databases to either confirm or deny claims that are given by the politicians of today.

For instance, the democratic party has been claiming that the Republicans are to blame for the lack of regulations on mortgage institutions like Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.

But as this New York Times article says:

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

Later, it says:

”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990’s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”

Read the whole thing.

-John

Remember that Fidel Castro Joke?

You know... the one where the far leftie Democrats meet with Fidel?
Oh wait... its not a joke?

In an effort to improve the relationship between Cuba and the U.S., Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) were the first U.S. officials to meet with the 82-year-old former dictator since his intestinal surgery in July 2006.

Geitner wants to fire CEOs

Just so that its clear:

When asked if he would leave open the option to pressure a bank CEO to resign, Geithner replied: "Of course."

So no... I'm not over-reacting.

-John

Tax Protest in Chicago, and CNN

I was at this protest in Chicago, when I heard a group of people shouting "CNN, go home!"


I didn't know what it was about. In truth, I thought it was a really bad move on their part. Its just bad PR to tell a media agency to 'go home'.
Then I saw the video on this page.

The reporter was unprofessional, and lost her shit. I don't know Susan Roesgen. I want to give her the benifit of the doubt. But when I saw this video, I understood why my fellow protesters were yelling for CNN to go home. Particularly when she started telling the protester that he should be happy because Obama was providing him with tax breaks. She didn't get what the protest was about.... at all.
Bad reporting. Fail.

Rescuing another one of his promises

Obama said that he was going to get a pound puppy, and that he was going to rescue a dog in need.
Instead, he ended up getting a pedigree pup that had lineage that traced back to the Kennedy's dog.

Go figure that for the man, whose image is everything, is picking out a pure bred dog.

"He's in a gray area," Pacelle said of Bo. "But I will say that many animal advocates are disappointed that he (Obama) didn't go to a shelter or breed rescue group, partly because he set that expectation and because so many activists are focused on trying to reduce the number of animals euthanized at shelters, and there's no better person to make the case to the American public that you can get a great dog from a shelter than the president."

Let's get this straight; there was no grey area. That pure bred dog was not going to end up in a shelter. We all know that.
If this were Bush making this type of decision, there would be a bunch of hand-wringing about how he broke his promise, and how its a shame that he can't keep one.

But this is Obama.
So there is no expectation that he's going to stay true to his word.

-John

Rahm Emanuel

I've blogged about Rahm before, but its a good time to remind everyone who he is.

Rahm is currently the chief of staff for Obama. Before that:

• He worked for Mayor Daley as a fund raiser.
• He worked for Bill Clinton as a campaign adviser, and was instrumental in his defense during impeachment.
• Rahm earned $320,000 working 14 months, starting in 2000, for Freddie Mac. He was appointed by Bill Clinton.
  
• After that, he was hired by a fund raiser for Clinton to work as an Investment banker for Wasserstein Perella. He made $16.2 million in 2 1/2 years.
• Then Rahm became a state senator. While he was doing that, he worked as a campaign strategist for Governor Blagojevich.

That makes him the first person I know of who has worked for both an impeached president and an impeached governor.

I'm important to remind you; when he worked for Clinton, he was appointed to the board of Freddie Mac in 2000. In 14 months, Rahm earned $320,000, or about 1/3rd of a million dollars in a little over a year.

So to me, it came as no surprise that Rahm's name came up when Blago was suspected of bribing people. I even told several people that I expected Rahm to be indicted as a person who was complicit in the scandal.

I was, however, surprised to read this headline in Politico as the indictment came down for Blagojevich:

Indictment suggests Rahm, brother were victims of extortion attempt

Rahm was a 'victim' of extortion???

Its time to remind everyone that Rahm worked as a campaign strategists for Blago.
Rahm was apparently looking for $2 Million for 'athletic facilities' at a school. This leads to the obvious question: how was Rahm being punished?
Unless, of course, Rahm was looking to profit somehow off of the two million dollars worth of 'athletic improvements' on one school.

But I digress.

When Blago was first indicted, Rahm ducked reporters.
The Obama administration was quick to say that they had to be quiet, because a criminal investigation was under way.
Then things got weird.
It was discovered that Rahm had spoken to Blago on a number of occasions.

I believe that Rahm had pitched a 'senate candidate' to Blago. Blago, being Blago, would have asked for something in return.

I know I have to convince some people, so let's start with the section of the criminal complaint that everyone has heard.
This is on page 68, number 104:

ROD BLAGOJEVICH suggested starting a 501(c)(4) organization (a non-profit organization that may engage in political activity and lobbying) and getting “his (believed to be the President-elect’s) friend Warren Buffett or some of those guys to help us on something like that.” HARRIS asked, “what, for you?” ROD BLAGOJEVICH replied, “yeah.”
[snip]
Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”

That's section 104 of the criminal complaint. Its the one talking point that the WH apparently pushed to the press... the fact that Rod said "Fuck them." if all they wanted to give was appreciation. But Rod was speculating about what they might say... because he kept talking about working out a deal.

That's clear from the next few notes in the criminal complaint:
From section 105:

Later on November 11, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor A.
Advisor A indicated that he will stay “on top” of getting the Senate Candidate 5 information leaked to the particular Sun Times columnist. ROD BLAGOJEVICH again raised the idea of the 501(c)(4) organization and asked whether “they” (believed be the President-elect and his associates) can get Warren Buffett and others to put $10, $12, or $15 million into the organization. Advisor A responded that “they” should be able to find a way to fund the organization.

Just so that its clear... Blago hadn't given up on the idea of a deal with the president-elect (Obama.)

The idea of a deal is kept alive from day to day. From Section 106:

ROD BLAGOJEVICH noted that the President-elect can ask Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and others for money for the organization. ROD BLAGOJEVICH states he will ask “[Senate Candidate 6]” to help fund it as well. HARRIS said that funding the 501(c)(4) would be a lot easier for the President-elect than appointing ROD BLAGOJEVICH to a position.

From section 107:

On November 12, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor B. ROD
BLAGOJEVICH discussed with Advisor B his idea for a 501(c)(4) organization. Advisor B stated that he likes the idea, but liked the Change to Win option better because, according to Advisor B, from the President-elect’s perspective, there would be fewer “fingerprints” on the President-elect’s involvement with Change to Win because Change to Win already has an existing stream of revenue and, therefore, “you won’t have stories in four years that they bought you off.”

From section 108:

The advisor said he likes the Change to Win idea better, and notes that it is more likely to happen because it is one step removed from the President-elect.

Note how often the advisors are concerned that they stay one step away from the president-elect.
Like... a Chief Of Staff. From note 112 (my emphasis added in Blue):

On November 13, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with JOHN HARRIS.
ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he wanted to be able to call “[President-elect Advisor]” and tell President-elect Advisor that “this has nothing to do with anything else we’re working on but the Governor wants to put together a 501(c)(4)” and “can you guys help him. . . raise 10, 15 million.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he wanted “[President-elect Advisor] to get the word today,” and that when “he asks me for the Fifth CD thing I want it to be in his head.” (The reference to the “Fifth CD thing” is believed to relate to a seat in the United States House of Representatives from Illinois’ Fifth Congressional District. Prior intercepted phone conversations indicate that ROD BLAGOJEVICH and others were determining whether ROD BLAGOJEVICH has the power to appoint an interim replacement until a special
election for the seat can be held.).

Who is the President-elect's advisor? He's the same guy who was from the 5th congressional district of Illinois: Rahm.
From section 113:

Also on November 13, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with Advisor A.
ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he wants the idea of the 501(c)(4) in President-elect Advisor’s head, but not in connection with the Senate appointment or the congressional seat. Advisor A asked whether the conversation about the 501(c)(4) with President-elect Advisor is connected with anything else. ROD BLAGOJEVICH replied that “it’s unsaid. It’s unsaid.”

I hope you're following.

Shortly after that, in early December, everything blew up in Rod's face.
The prosecutor, Fitzgerald, had to act before Blago appointed someone. In the meantime, a clear path to the president-elect was being formed... through Rahm Emmanuel.

Now you can interpret this information many ways.
Obama fans will no doubt say that even if "advisor A" spoke to the President-elect's Advisor (who would most likely be Rahm), that any quid pro quo was 'unsaid'.
I would point out that if Blago thought that his former campaign strategist Rahm would go along with such a scheme, he was probably right.

The fact is that Rahm has a lot to answer for... and I don't know why the media is not asking him about it.
Rahm has left a trail of shady dealings with shady people. I find it near impossible that he is innocent in all of this. If he was, it would be the first time that he didn't profit from dealings with a shady character.

Who is this guy, at Obama's International Press Conference?

Please take a look at the first 10 seconds of this video.

This is a screen cap taken from the video. Note the guy in the Blue shirt, pointing. I highlighted it with a circle.

When I watched this press conference, I was watching streaming Fox News coverage. (I added the circled highlight)
They cut away from the president and showed a 'front' view of this guy pointing. (Highlighted)

Then the president called on someone in the direction he was pointing to... the woman from India.
From what I saw of the guy in blue, he didn't have a press pass on. He looks American.
What I want to know is: was this guy part of the White House? Is he an aide whose job it is to let the president know who he should ask?
Or is he just some tool that happened to be there, pointing at a reporter he liked?
If you know the answer, please leave a comment.

New Obama promise broken!

The AP gets credit for actually calling the president out on this.

The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama's promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.

The short version is this: Obama is putting out a massive tax on tobacco. Anyone who thinks about this realizes that poor people smoke too.
Obviously, this massive tax will hit the poor the hardest.

A world currency??

Look... I know that there is no way that it would happen.
Heck, having a world currency would be as stupid as getting the government involved in our health care. Wait. What???

Here's the scoop:
Tim Geithner, your treasury secretary, and the guy in charge of socializing the bank and auto industry (slight sarcasm there), was speaking to the Council of Foreign Relations a few days ago.
According to Politico...

Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is "open" to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar, but which Geithner described as more modest and "evolutionary."

Read the article. I don't think that Geithner understood what the governor of China's bank meant. If that's true, its scary that our Treasury secretary didn't understand China's proposal:

The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help "to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability."

Its completely understandable that the governor of China's Central bank wanted to take over all of the banks. That's China. That's the whole "Hey, how about if we all live under one ruler and have one currency" kind of thinking.
-And like I said, its scary, but possible, that Geithner, the same man who is spending us into oblivion with bailouts, misunderstood China's way of thinking and what the governor said.

But what made Geithner comment - out loud - about the governor of China's ideas without realizing that he is, you know, the Treasury Secretary?

I think it helps if you really think about what the Obama administration is about:
Celebrity.
Getting on television at every opportunity, no matter what the show. Sharing every single thought of yours, no matter how half-assed it is.

But you can't do that when you are the president. You can't do that when you are the Treasury Secretary of the US. Because people will taking your thoughts seriously, even if you don't.

Did Obama know what the Stimulus Bill Contained?

Remember how Obama pushed the Stimulus bill through?
Remember how he said it couldn't wait?

When Obama promoted and signed the bill, known as:

House Report 111-016 - MAKING SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR JOB PRESERVATION AND CREATION, INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT, ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND SCIENCE, ASSISTANCE TO THE UNEMPLOYED, AND STATE AND LOCAL FISCAL STABILIZATION, FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2009, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

Did he know that it contained this phrase?

`(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.

If he didn't.... he shouldn't have signed it.
If he did, then he is a complete fraud and a liar.

So you know, these are the co-sponsors of that bill:
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] - 1/26/2009
Rep Gordon, Bart [TN-6] - 1/26/2009
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 1/26/2009
Rep Oberstar, James L. [MN-8] - 1/26/2009
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] - 1/26/2009
Rep Spratt, John M., Jr. [SC-5] - 1/26/2009
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] - 1/26/2009
Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. [NY-12] - 1/26/2009
Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-30] - 1/26/2009

They are either incompetent, or liars. Take your pick.
One thing is for sure... if you believed in Hope&Change from Obama?
WAKE THE FUCK UP!

"Let's make soldiers use private insurance for their wounds!"

No one could be that dumb.
Really... how on earth would anyone come up with the idea of making private insurance companies pay for expenses related to a soldiers injuries while he was serving?

Well, that's what Obama tried to do. From American Legion:

The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.

Its such a stupid concept, that I can't believe it ever got out of the realm of discussion in the White House. Somehow, it did. I gotta wonder what asshat tried to pass this through?

This is what the Military.com said about it:

The Obama administration is considering making veterans use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat and service-related injuries.

You need to read the comments.
Here is one of the nicer ones:

Only in America can a man who has no business getting elected as President, get there, only to continue to punish those that fought to get him there. This Administration is already out of control and sending the Nation further down the wrong path. It never ends with this clown. Having been retired now, I'm glad I don't have to follow the orders of such a pathetic man. He appears to have no ethics or morals. What an embarrassment to that Office!

That was one of the ones I could print.
Of course, Veterans groups were outraged. According to Fox:

President Obama's plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has infuriated veterans groups who say the government is morally obligated to pay for service-related medical care.

The Veterans made a big deal out of it, until Obama's spokesperson came forward, and admitted that they had made a mistake.

"In considering the third-party billing issue, the administration was seeking to maximize the resources available for veterans," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday in a written statement. "However, the president listened to concerns raised by the [veteran service organizations] that this might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans' and their families' ability to access health care.

What a load of crap. These asshats proposed something really, really dumb.
The only question is why they ever thought it was a good idea.

US is 'opposing' the lawsuit against torture

What does this mean?
It means that the new boss isn't that different from the old boss.

The Obama Administration, taking its first position in a federal court on claims of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, urged the D.C. Circuit Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit by four Britons formerly held there. In addition, the new filing argued that a recent appeals court ruling makes clear that “aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.”
Really?

Wow. You didn't argue that when Bush was in office.
AP summed it up like this:

The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights

Which proves that Obama was full of crap. Along with everyone who still supports him, after arguing that he was opposed to 'torture.'

POTUS playing it the same as previous administration

After telling us that the detainees couldn't/shouldn't be held, Obama's administration is trying to pretend like they are 'changing':

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who is leading the administration’s effort to develop a new detention regime, took pains to tell the court that the administration’s effort was ongoing, and that its legal position could evolve. Moreover, the administration said its new position only applied to current Guantánamo detainees — not to “military operations generally, or detention in other contexts.”

There is a lot of hair-splitting on the issue with the Obama administration, who is trying to pretend like they've changed the outcome completely, when they really haven't.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm glad tha tthe administration is continuing to hold bad guys. But they were completely dishonest about the previous administration. -And now that its their responsibility to keep bad guys detained, they've gotten religion. So to speak.

Everyone should remember who Charles Freeman is

Obama had his first fundraiser with terrorist William Ayers.
He hired a racist as his 'spiritual advisor'.
Then came this lunatic, Charles Freeman, who he tried to hire on as his chairman for the National Intelligence Council.

"The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth."

The article from Politico details how Obama repeatedly had to distance himself from aides that he had hired who had loony points of view on Palestine.

Speaking of Nationalizing Banks...

Here is an article in the International Herald describing it:

As public outrage swells over the rapidly growing cost of bailing out financial institutions, the administration of President Barack Obama and lawmakers are attaching more and more strings to rescue funds.

I'm not a socialist. I just want to nationalize your banks, health care, and make everyone employed

Audio of Obama denying that he's a socialist.
I just wanted to booklink it, so that years from now, everyone can say "Oh yeah... I guess I should have seen that coming"

Obama reads teleprompter, thanks himself

He's such an idiot.
Okay, so this is what happened:
Obama is having a press conference with the Irish Prime Minister. Obama reads his comments. The Irish Prime Minister goes to read his comments, but then realizes that its Obama's speech.

Obama, trying to 'save the day', gets up to read his speech. Again.

But during that time, someone has switched out his speech with the speech of the Irish Prime Minister's speech... so unknown to Obama, he's reading the PM's speech.
And he doesn't realize it, until he thanks himself.

Now tell me: If this were any other president, wouldn't that be the lead story on the news? About how silly it that the president didn't know he was reading someone elses speech?

Worst President / Dow ever

From the Seattle Times, of all places:

Stocks turn in worst performance for new president

Keep in mind... its Seattle. So they probably think of this as a positive.
The Dow Jones industrial average has fallen 21 percent during Obama's first seven weeks in office. Count back to Election Day and the results are even bleaker: That afternoon, the Dow closed at 9,625. Now it stands at 6,547, a loss of 32 percent.

Who would guess that a man who preaches socialist policies would cause the Dow to drop?

Is Wikipedia really scrubbing criticism of Obama?

A while back, I went to correct some entries on Bill Clinton on Wiki.

I need to point out that I hate Wiki. I think its a dumb idea, because it pretends like its an unbiased source. However, each article ends up being edited by those who have the most passion on any subject, whether or not that passion is correct.

Imagine a Wiki entry on 9/11.
Heck... just visit the site.... and check out the history of edits on September 11th. You'll note that on any given day, some conspiracy nut edits the page.

With that in mind, I kinda cringed when I read this post:

Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited entirely by its users, has been deleting within minutes any mention of eligibility issues surrounding Barack Obama's presidency, with administrators kicking off anyone who writes about the subject, WND has learned.

I normally don't put much weight into World Net Daily. But this time, I do. We've all been there. If you say something negative about Obama, the most passionate people won't hear it. At all.
Its scary.

Obama bristles at being called a Socialist

And I get angry when people say that I love dark chocolate.

The Washington Times sums it up:

President Obama was so concerned that he had appeared to dismiss a question from New York Times reporters about whether he was a socialist that he called the newspaper from the Oval Office to clarify his policies.

Here is the audio of the call.

Charles Krauthammer rips Obama a new one

Forget the 8,570 earmarks in a bill supported by a president who poses as the scourge of earmarks. Forget the "$2 trillion dollars in savings" that "we have already identified," $1.6 trillion of which President Obama's budget director later admits is the "savings" of not continuing the surge in Iraq until 2019 -- 11 years after George Bush ended it, and eight years after even Bush would have had us out of Iraq completely.

Read it. Its brilliant.

How to have a dishonest debate

Every once in a while I wander over into another person's blog to debate a point.

I found "Please Cut The Crap" in a roundabout way. On a political BBS, one of the writers (nicknamed Claimsman) started a thread with a bunch of facts that had no attribution. I was curious as to where he was getting his facts, so I Googled the information contained in the post.
It turned out that the guy had copied and pasted from someone's blog.
That's how I found this post entitled "Why Should We Even Listen To Right Wing Pols?"

If you go there, you'll find that the poster lists off a bunch of 'facts' to explain how 'red' states are fucked up. An example:

Here's a list of the top ten states by median income: 1. Maryland, 2. New Jersey, 3. Connecticut, 4. Alaska, 5. Hawaii, 6. New Hampshire, 7. Massachusetts, 8. California, 9. Virginia, 10. Minnesota.But more interesting are the BOTTOM ten states; 50. Mississippi, 49. West Virginia, 48. Arkansas, 47. Kentucky, 46. Alabama, 45. Louisiana, 44. New Mexico, 43. Oklahoma, 42. Tennessee, 41. South Carolina.

You'll note that the poster never gives an attribution... the source for all of his facts.
Whenever I see that, my 'german shepard ears' perk up. It means that someone is trying to hide the whole truth. Or in this case, he could just be making some crap up.
So I challenged him. I commented on his post. I told him about how stats, when unattributed, can lie.

To explain this, I wrote about divorces and marriage.
You may have read an e-mail that was being passed around a while back about how 'red states' have a higher incident of divorce then 'blue states'.
That e-mail was partially right.
There are a number of red states that have unusually high divorce rates when compared to blue states. But that's because those blue states have much lower marriage rates.

You can't get divorced if you don't get married in the first place.

I wrote all of this in a reply to that blog. It seemed like the post was deleted, so I posted again... and "Milt Shook", the owner of the blog, replied with this:

As for sources, there are multiple sources in many cases, and they're easy enough to find. I didn't see the need to cite them. I'm not sure what the point would be, actually. I stand behind them.

Milt also gave an answer suggesting that he didn't know what a divorce rate was. So again, I suggested that it would add more weight to his posts if he gave sources for them. We wrote back and forth 2 or 3 times. -And then Milt shut down the comments.

I need to note that all of my blog is moderated. I don't expect anything less from anyone who owns a blog. You don't want someone posting something bizarre or inflamatory in response to something you said. But what Milt Shook is doing is dishonest. He's pretending like its an open debate... with no attributions. When you challenge him on it? He shuts you out.

All while complaining that conservatives are shrill and dishonest.

Newsweek confirms what we already know about Obama

Which is, that he's trying to head us towards socialism.
Of course, in typical Newsweek fashion, they want to argue that we're 'already' socialist... and that it was really Bush who did it.

We Are All Socialists Now
In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French.

Someone should tell everyone on the left that GWB is a socialist.

Yet ANOTHER article on Obama killing the Dow

From economist Michael J. Boskin

Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster.

Fantastic businessweek article on Obama's Dow debacle

Please, please, please look at this chart.
The only reason why I'm not printing it is because I don't want to violate the copyright.

Then tell me that Obama has nothing to do with the Dow tanking.
From the article:

"Polls still show the President has strong popularity among the general U.S. population, and Obama continues to command power in Congress. But among investors, fairly or unfairly, there is griping that the new Obama Administration is at least partly to blame for the recent slide in stocks. Since Nov. 4, Election Day, the broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is off about 25%, and since Jan. 20, when Obama took office, the "500" is down 15%. "

The graphic kind of makes the point.

Obama's fudging the numbers on Health Care

According to ABC news, Obama's health care initiative started out with the usual slaughtering of facts:

“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds," Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform. The problem: That claim, based on a 2001 survey, is simply unsupportable.

The website does an excellent job of running the numbers. I love when when people challenge what politicians say, but especially now.
This is roughly 1/7th of the economy, and the government is planning on taking it over.
I want you to think about that... and then see what the administration is doing... above.

Rush Limbaugh at CPAC

Here is a great YouTube video of Rush at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Watch the full series if you have the time. Rush really nailed what conservatives believe.

If you ever wondered why people love Rush, look at his statements that start at around 6:30 and end at 7:30. It will help explain why we're angry right now.

Obama's budget (or how do you cut a deficit in half? By doubling it!)

That sound that you're hearing is our collective pocket being picked:

An eye-popping $1.75 trillion deficit for the 2009 fiscal year underlined the heavy blow the deep recession has dealt to the country's finances as Obama unveiled his first budget. That is the highest ever in dollar terms, and amounts to a 12.3 percent share of the economy -- the largest since 1945. In 2010, the deficit would dip to a still-huge $1.17 trillion, Obama predicted.

What the fuck? Seriously, people... what the fuck? Obama is literally doubling the deficit. Then he has the balls to suggest that he's going to cut it in half in a few years? What the fuck?

Wall Street Journal explains why taxing the wealthy won't work

Why is it that the Wall Street Journal is the only newspaper to actually run the numbers?
WSJ analyzed Obama's proposal to tax the wealthy to help control the deficit.

A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010.

No kidding?
So you're telling me that Obama's suggestion that we could tax the rich to make up for his budget shortfall was bullshit?
Who woulda guessed?

Obama's appointment to Urban Affairs

Barack is setting up a new agency to funnel money into cities (or more accurately, Democrat voters). According to the Executive order:

In the past, insufficient attention has been paid to the problems faced by urban areas and to coordinating the many Federal programs that affect our cities.

"Coordinating federal programs" is another way of saying "getting money to".
Now the unusual twist to this is that the man that Obama wants to appoint to this position has a little bit of an ethics problem. Guess what it is?

The man who is President Obama's newly minted urban czar pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers' money, a Daily News probe found.

Ironically, for the position that Obama is hiring him for, this seems to me like his resume. I mean, isn't his job going to be to funnel campaign cash to Obama in exchange for urban redevopment?

Remember: Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, was an advisor to Clinton (who was impeached.)
Then Rahm worked as a fundraiser for Chicago's Mayor Daley.
Let's not forget that Rahm worked as a 'chief campaign strategist' for our impeached governor Blago.

With all of that in mind, getting kickbacks sounds like it would make Obama's new hire overqualified for the job.

Obama's dangerous new budget and health care

Obama's planning to take over health care.
His 'downpayment' is $634 Billion dollars. I don't think I'm understating that if you are spending $634 Billion on a downpayment for anything, you are getting ripped off.
From the article in the Washington Post:

Nearly one-third of the money would be generated by eliminating subsidies that the government pays insurers that sell Medicare managed-care plans. Instead, the Medicare Advantage plans would be put under a competitive bidding process, for a savings of $175 billion over the next decade.

I want for you to re-read that, and think about what it means.
Hospitals and doctors would get $175 Billion less dollars. What do you think it would mean for those hospitals to get $175 Billion less dollars, while being required to cover more people?
Where will those hospitals cut back?
Will they buy less new equipment? Purchase less MRI equipment?
Will they fall behind on technology, because they can no longer afford the latest thing?
Will they have to fire nurses? Janitorial staff?

Because here is the thing: when a hospital is taking in less money... they have to cut back somehow. Like any business, the health care industry can't just operate at the same level with less income.
Why won't Obama mention this? -Or the media, for their part?

John Boehner "Gets it"

From The Hill:

“From everything I’ve seen, it looks like the era of big government spending is back,” he told reporters at a lunch convened by the Christian Science Monitor. “My question to my Democratic friends is how are you going to pay for it?”

The usual way... smoke and mirrors.

First line that I couldn't make up

A combative President Barack Obama warned on Saturday he was bracing for a fight against powerful lobbyists and special interests who sought to pick apart the $3.55 trillion budget he wants to advance his agenda of reform.

What the fuck?
Are you kidding me?
What was David Alexander thinking when he wrote this drivel?

How does a president 'fight special interests' to spend $3.55 TRILLION dollars?
What special interests?
Taxpayers?
People who hate government money being wasted?
Anyone with a soul?

Barack just pushed through the $800 BILLION dollar Pork plan.
That was after Democrats forced through $700 plus BILLION of TARP money.
Now Barack wants to spend $3.55 TRILLION more... and he's afraid of 'special interests'??
Who?
Who's left who isn't getting money already from the federal government???

Seriously, Barack, what the fuck???
And to David Alexander, who bought that line of bullshit hook, line, and sinker: are you kidding me?