Congressional Job Approval is now at 18%

Gallup just recently gave congress a historic negative approval rating.
According to this poll:

Congress' job approval rating from Americans fell six points in the past month, from 24% to 18% -- the lowest reading in more than a year. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) now disapprove.

Go congress!

AP Considers Tea Party

According to the AP article:

No doubt this is democracy at work, a quintessential part of America.

Whew!
Finally... someone gets it!
Thanks AP.

Phil Jones, the Scientist caught in e-mail scandal

I want to feel sorry for the guy.
Its true what he says. He wasn't ready for the criticism that he recieved when it was revealed that he was one of the scientists at the center of a global warming scandal. It must have been hard to have all of those people criticize him just because they felt that he...
... wait a minute.

What exactly was Jones accused of doing again?

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.

"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.

So Jones tries to discredit other scientists, and he thinks its part of his job.

When someone tries to discredit Jones, they are... they are what?

In my opinion, they are trying to reveal the truth?

Rahm tells democrats that he's sorry

How is it that Obama knows so many bigoted people.

Remember Wright, the racist mayor?
Or Reid, who 'complimented' Obama on his lack of a negro dialect?
Or his VP Biden, who said that he was a "clean, articulate black man"?

How about Rahm Emmanuel?
He said that Democrats were retarded. Retarded. Neat.
Well, at least he apologized for it. Not to Democrats. To the people who have mental conditions that are not politically related. According to Poitico:

The Special Olympics is disputing the White House claim that its chairman, Tim Shriver, accepted Rahm Emanuel's apology for calling liberals "retarded."

Yowsa.

Canadian premier to get healthy in US

This is for anyone who thinks that Canada is the model to follow in health care.
Honest?

From a reporter, in the article:

Then there is the fact that Williams is worth close to a quarter of a billion dollars, and can afford to buy the best care in the world.

The reaction here is very mixed. Many people said it shows a lack of confidence in the health care system. But that was before the explanation that the procedure can't be done here. An equal number say it is Williams' own business, and how he manages his health is none of our business. Many say if they had the cash, they would do the same thing.

Of course they would.

Look, I've been holding back, but I'm going to go full bore now. We're the fucking US of A. When Haiti fell to an earthquake, what was the big news? What made the Haitian people rejoice?
When they found out that doctors from the US were coming.
It makes sense. I mean, cool... so all of these other countries sent their doctors. But what made the Haitians feel as though they were about to receive the best health care in the world? Was it when the German doctors arrived? The French?
Of course not. You heard it as well as I did. They were actually chanting USA in some parts.

Just like the premier of Canada. I'm positive he loves everything about his country. Its a beautiful place. But does he want to get health care there? No fucking way. He wants the best. So where did he go?

I know... its jingoism, right? When you believe that you are the best?
But I have to say, that if everyone was coming to my particular store when they had the choice of every store on the block... then maybe my store is doing something correct. Wouldn't you say?

Joe Klein, the president, and racism

This is why Joe Klein is an asshat.

1) Joe Klein uses the term 'teabaggers' to describe Tea Party members
2) Joe argues that the stimulus package was needed to stave off an economic collapse. Are we there yet?
3) Joe argues that it isn't Obama's policies that we hate, but that, In that sense,

Barack Obama is the apotheosis of all they fear. He is a child of what used to be called miscegenation--a mixed marriage.

Apparently, I'd be cool with the stimulus plan of $787 Billion if Obama were white. Go figure, I never realized that.
Moreover, I hate anyone who comes from a mixed marriage. Its 'what I fear', rather then a deficit that is ballooning up so quickly that everyone is looking for the boy who is reportedly hiding in it.

Joe Klein, you get my asshat award for 2009 for that column. And trust me, we had a lot of them in 2009.

Lobbyists & the WH

God, I love this article.
Kudos to the Hill for reporting this the day after the president repeated his promise about keeping lobbyists out:

The Hill on Thursday morning reported that lobbyists, as well as other stakeholders, were invited by the White House for policy discussions on a range of issues with senior administration officials.

Who is Ellie Light?

I'm still curious as to who she is.

The rewriting of history: DOMA and DADT

I need to start by saying that I didn't know what the initials DADT stood for. But I ended up in an online discussion about the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) when someone started to mention DADT; Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

You may have heard Bill Clinton say, recently, that he "didn't want" to pass don't ask, don't tell... but that he was forced to. He implied heavily that it was conservatives who made him do it. So lets start there.

Don't ask don't tell was passed into law in 1993. Since then, Obama has repeatedly said that he was going to repeal it. Let's go back in time.

1993 was the 102nd/103rd, congress in the house of representatives.
The 102nd congress was made up of 267 democrats and 167 republicans.
The 103rd congress was made up of 258 democrats and 176 republicans.
It would have been statistically impossible for Republicans to not only get a bill passed on their own, but steamroll it through.
The process started in the house, as the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy was put into a congressional defense spending bill.

In the Senate, 22 members voted "No" on Don't ask, Don't tell. 18 of those members were Republicans. 4 senators who voted "No" were Democrats.

Here's the vote in the House for DOMA:
As expected, all but one Republican voted Yes.
Not expected? 118 Democrats voted yes, while only 65 voted no.

The next time someone tells you that Republicans made it impossible for the Democrats to oppose DOMA or DADT, please send them those links.

Brown is the new Red White & Blue

I didn't cry when Brown was elected, but I did get very very emotional.

Its funny, because I realize that my emotions were a mirror of what the left felt when Obama was elected. For a long time, the left felt as if no one was listening to them. They thought that the right was able to do 'whatever they wanted', unfettered, and that they had no voice.

Which is pretty much how the right has felt about the democrats in charge for the past year.

If you had told me 5 years ago that some day a democrat politician would get into office and

• spend $787 Billion for a 'stimulus' bill
• take control of some banks and part of the auto industry
• actually pay consumers if they destroyed their old gas-hogging cars to buy new 'green' cars
• attempt to take over the health care insurance industry which was making 4% profits, and call them greedy

I'd call you a victim of right wing paranoid conspiracy theories.
Yet, here we are.

So I realize that here I am, the mirror image of where the left was a year ago. Except, I don't get to say that my election was historic because a black man was not elected into office. It was just another 'old white guy'. But considering how much the left has been pushing the takeover of health care, and how most of the country opposes it... I can't help but feel relieved. It was a loud message to Democrats. Here's hoping that they actually hear that message, instead of trying to re-define it into something that they want it to be.

That hissing sound is the deflating of Air America

Usually, the hissing sound from Air America is its radio personalities. Not tonight.

Tonight, that sound is the air going out of Air America.
Now to be fair, the economy has sucked despite that stimulus plan last year.

Huh. Who does Air America blame for that?

The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America's business. This past year has seen a "perfect storm" in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry's long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.

But... I thought it was great when corporations fail?
Wasn't that pretty much Air America's theme song?

Anyway... the company that spawned Rachel Maddow, and sent her to another failing broadcast company, has finally gone under. Let's hope that Rachel can continue her magic where she currently resides.

Krugman's nose unexpectedly visits Los Angelos

I presume that's what happens when you live in New York, and you say a lie so gigantic that your nose grows across the Continental Divide?
From his column (my emphasis added)

The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.

I read it over and over, thinking that I had misread it. Or that maybe Krugman was being sly and ironic. But he wasn't . He actually believes it.
He didn't even stop there.
Not content with arguing that Obama should have placed some of the blame on the Bush administration for his failures....

Mr. Obama could have done the same — with, I’d argue, considerably more justice. He could have pointed out, repeatedly, that the continuing troubles of America’s economy are the result of a financial crisis that developed under the Bush administration, and was at least in part the result of the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate the banks.

But he didn’t. Maybe he still dreams of bridging the partisan divide; maybe he fears the ire of pundits who consider blaming your predecessor for current problems uncouth — if you’re a Democrat. (It’s O.K. if you’re a Republican.) Whatever the reason, Mr. Obama has allowed the public to forget, with remarkable speed, that the economy’s troubles didn’t start on his watch.

Wow.
Any cursory look into any of Obama's speeches, and you find that he does actually place blame on the previous administration.

Here's from the first page of a Google search:

From February 22nd, 2009, Politico:

Obama blames financial woes on Bush

From March 14th, Washington Post:

Obama's New Tack: Blaming Bush
President Points to 'Inherited' Economy

Apparently, The Washington Post thought it was a new strategy then.
From July, 29th, 2009, AP:

Obama blames Bush, Wall Street
Says economic woes caused by bad decisions

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama yesterday blamed "irresponsible decisions" by the Bush administration and Wall Street for the country's economic woes as government officials said the budget deficit would soar to record heights next year.

Hmmm. Sounds like he's blaming Bush to me?
Let's keep going.


Maybe Krugman meant that he hadn't heard anything recently from Obama blaming Bush?
From AP, January 9th, 2010:

He says "the buck stops with me," but nearly a year into office, President Barack Obama is still blaming a lot of the nation's troubles — the economy, terrorism, health care — on George W. Bush.

The list goes on. You can do your own search. But you get the idea. To say that Obama hasn't blamed Bush for the economy is a complete fallacy. Its a fantasy. A denial of reality.
There are many things that Krugman has said that has led me to believe that he is not dealing with reality. That his sole job on earth is to protect democrats from criticism.

But this tops them all.

The walking disaster known as Coakley

How did someone in her campaign ad misspell Massachusetts?

Martha Coakley's first attack ad in the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat had an embarrassing mistake in it.

Massachusetts was misspelled at the end.

I understand that its a hard state to spell... but if you're running for senator in the state... shouldn't the people in your campaign spell it right?

Those Republicans who invoke Jesus

I get into arguments with other people online.
I know. Unbelievable. Right?

Anyway, one of those people talked about how 'nutty' Palin was for believing in that old religion called Christianity. Having watched television, I know that Palin isn't the only person bragging about her Christianity. The current POTUS happened to have mentioned his religion a little bit.

So I did some research... and sure enough, POTUS is a Jesus Freak. Even more then Bush. From Politico:

As president, Barack Obama has mentioned Jesus Christ in a number of high-profile public speeches — something his predecessor George W. Bush rarely did in such settings, even though Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity.

A sweetheart deal for the unions

If you want to pass a wide-ranging bill that will take over health care, its only expected that you'd give away billions of perks. Right?

So who should be surprised at the lastest slap in the face that Obama's team has committed to the American public?

You know how they decided that really wealthy people would pay extra taxes if they had really nice health care plans? Well, it just so happens that union-paying people were in that category. And we couldn't have Obama taxing his own people, now could we?
So naturally, a deal was cut, and people who were in unions were exempted from the plan.

Is there any doubt anymore that this was a bad bill?
That it was merely a way to put more money and power in the hands of the weasels in Washington?

Remember when Trig wasn't Sarah Palin's baby?

I find it really, really hard to take Sarah Palin critics seriously.
These were the same people who said that Sarah Palin couldn't have had Trig, because she didn't look pregnant enough.

So as long as we're going back in time, I want to remind people about the idiocy that existed on the left before Sarah Palin had even addressed the Republican Convention.

This guy is one of the many who fell for the conspiracy theory that Trig couldn't be Sarah's baby. Here is a sample of the logic that was being scratched:
In addition to the facts mentioned above, I want to point out how unlikely it is for a 43-year-old woman to accidentally get pregnant.
Neat.

Then there was the time when a photo of Sarah Palin in a bikini, carrying a rifle, was so much fun that the entertainment reporter for CNN decided it was true.

The thing is that the left has a hard-on for Sarah, and not the friendly kind.
Remember how the AP assigned eleven reporters to "Fact Check" her book? Do you remember what they actually came up with?

Anyway, my point is pretty simple. When you read something about Sarah Palin, double check the facts. Chances are, its not true.

Who said "Teabaggers" first?

Every once in a while I get into an argument with someone who tells me, with a straight face, that it was the Tea Party Protestors who came up with the term "Teabaggers"... and that its not their fault that they call Tea Party protestors Teabaggers.

Most recently, I got into this argument with an earnest member of the left who insisted it was because of protestors who, on April 15th, wore Teabags on their hat.
Forgetting for a moment that putting teabags on your hat is not the same as being asked to be called a Teabagger, I did my research.

Predictably, it turns out that a member of the left who started using the term.

Rachel Maddow went on the air April 9th (6 days before the protest), and in giddy glee, she played a few tapes in a row of guys holding up tea bags who said that we should tea bag the White House.
This, of course, sent Rachel into schoolgirl convulsions. More over, it gave her the presumed license to use the term "Teabaggers" as much as humanly possible.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So let's get this clear: the first person to use the term was Rachel Maddow.
Which couldn't be more ironic,
If you have a differing opinion, or believe me to be in error, please post to me and I'll make the correction or add your counter argument to the mix.

Transcript of Palin on Fox

Raw Story is becoming such a propaganda website that they are giving Media Matters a run for their money. So let's start with what Raw Story said about Palin's first commentator spot on Fox.

In first appearance as Fox News ‘analyst’, Palin dodges O’Reilly’s questions

I'd just watched her appearance online, so I wondered what Raw Story meant. As usual, they start by picking out parts of the conversation to give one appearance of what she said, and then stop right before they ruin their premise.
In this case, they wanted to say that Palin was dodging questions. So they quote Politico:

Interviewed by Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on his show “The O’Reilly Factor,” Palin trashed many of the critical accounts of her candidacy in the new book “Game Change.” But one story from the book that Palin did not say was “made up” or “a lie” was the description of her uncertainty as to whether Iraq had a hand in the planning of the September 11 attacks.

“I did talk a lot to [campaign strategist] Steve Schmidt about the history of the war and where the attackers could have come from,” Palin said of her debate prep during the fall of 2008 – more than five years after the start of the war in Iraq and seven years after the terrorist attacks that hit New York and Washington.

“I do admit to asking questions about that,” she said.

Of course, they could have just quoted the actual Fox News website. That would have been easy enough. But then they couldn't say, in their headline, that she had dodged questions.

This is from that transcript:

O'REILLY: That's pretty nasty, isn't it?

PALIN: Well, it's pretty made up, too. I — I think that these reporters — who were not in any part of what I was doing there as a VP candidate, I think I explained a lot of this in "Going Rogue," in my book.

O'REILLY: Is he...

PALIN: I was there...

O'REILLY: Is he lying?

PALIN: They were not there.

O'REILLY: Is this guy lying? He says you don't know the difference between North and South Korea.

PALIN: Yes, that surprised me. I hadn't seen the "60 Minutes" and I — I had been warned, you know, don't — don't watch. It's a bunch of BS from Schmidt (INAUDIBLE) and those guys...

O'REILLY: Is that a lie though?

PALIN: Yes, that is a lie.

O'REILLY: OK.

PALIN: That is a lie.

Go to Raw Story and see what they say. Then go to the transcript, and see if its accurate.
Raw Story is quickly becoming one of the least accurate websites that people send me to. When someone heads me in that direction, the first thing that I do is check the original material to see how they misrepresent it.

This time its no different.

$135,294 Per Job

Some facts need little introduction.
For instance... let's say that you found out that a politician had a 'jobs' program that cost more then, I dunno... $50,000 per job. Would that be too much?
Okay, how about $70,000 per job? Too much?
Wait... what if it cost $100,000 per job?

Still not enough?

Obama's Green Jobs Program: $135,294 Per Job

You're wasting a ton of cash once you get up to an amount that high. Heck, you start getting into the category of what the left considers wealthy when you get to that amount.
Anyway... further proof that the government knows how to waste money faster then any other entity.

-John

Who's more racist? Biden Or Reid?

Okay everyone, its time to play my favorite game of "Who's more racist?"

Would it be Harry Reid:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Obama is the nation's first African-American president.

Or Joe Biden:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

I'm going with answer #3. They can't be racist... because they aren't Republicans!
If they were Republican, they should have left office. But since they aren't, they get the buddy pass.

Obama's 8 time lie, promising to show health care debates on CSPAN

If I could, I'd have every American watch this video, and then tell me what they think of Obama now.

A deficit projection from March 2009

I just wanted to remind everyone about this chart provided by the Washington Post:
The next time that someone tells you that GWB blew up the deficit, take a look at what happened up until 2007... the year that a democrat congress took over.

Noonan: The Risk of Catastrophic Victory

I don't read Peggy Noonan very often. but this is a great editorial about how tone deaf the Obama administration has been:

At the exact moment the public was announcing it worried about jobs first and debt and deficits second, the administration decided to devote its first year to health care, which no one was talking about.

When your government pays someone to tell you how great government health care would be

Would it surprise you to find out that one of the 'expert' economists that the government bought forward to push their health care takeover was actually under contract with the government?
No?
According to FoxNews:

Gruber, according to federal government documents, is under a $297,600 contract until next month to provide "technical assistance" in evaluating health care reform proposals.

Who would have figured that the government would have paid for someone to tell us about how great the government would be at taking over our health care? Huh.

All props to CSPAN

You have to give them credit.
The president promised to make the health care debates open, and of course they are not.

So CSPAN called them out on it.
You can read the complete PDF file here.

It took balls. They could have just stayed quiet, and pretended like no one had said anything. But they held him accountable.
Good for them.

Breitbart.tv » Top Obama Aide Blasts Fox News While Ducking MSNBC Question

The headline kinda speaks for itself.

Breitbart.tv » Top Obama Aide Blasts Fox News While Ducking MSNBC Question

Cash for Clunkers: $24,000 per vehicle

There was a study done on Edmunds.com on the Cash For Clunkers program. According to CNN, what they found is that a lot of the people who bought into the program were going to buy cars anyway.
By figuring out what it cost for people who were not going to buy a car, but were probably swayed by the program, Edmunds figured out the actual cost of every new car bought (that wouldn't have been) at about $24,000.

CBO: Public plan premiums will be more expensive then the 'health exchange' premiums by private insurers

Thanks again to the Politico for reporting this:

The public insurance option would typically charge higher premiums than private plans available in the exchange, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House bill.

Again, completely predictable. The government plans to take over the insurance... and it costs more.

What are health insurance profits?

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you AP for actually fact checking this:

Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Who woulda thought?
Oh yeah... Republicans, who have been pointing this out for a month now.

My president, the asshat

Explaining that unlike Democrats, Republicans do what they are told to do...


Mr. President: no one had to tell me to call you an asshat.
I figured that out on my own.

Barney Frank admits trying to increase the role of government in everything

This video, from Real Clear Politics, needs to be seen to be believed.

What if Bush had done that?

Politico has a great article titled:
What if Bush had done that?

Its a good read. Here's a short section.

A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser.

Snubbing the Dalai Lama.

Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.

Freezing out a TV network.

Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

Liveblogging; I'm going through bill H.R. 3962

Bill H.R. 3962 is the latest health care bill introduced to congress.

You can download it at that link. Its 1,990 pages of regulations.

I'll be going through it over the next few days. Forgive me for not printing this one out, since it would literally take 4 REAMS OF PAPER to print it. Just to give you an idea of how much paper that is... my toner cartridge is good for about 3,000 pages.
2/3rds of my toner cartridge would be used if I printed the full thing.

If you're reading it with me, the first few pages are the table of contents.
Up until page 16, its page after page of definitions that they are using for the sake of the bill.

I'm now on the first page of actual bill, which is entitled:
SEC. 101. NATIONAL HIGH-RISK POOL PROGRAM.

This is a pool that would be established Jan. 1st, 2010; or about two months from now.
I presume that this is to placate the people on the left who were complaining that the health care bill wasn't even going to cover anyone for two years.

Van Jones Resigns!!!

Fox News has a copy of the resignation.
Since its a WH document, I presume I can quote it in full:

"I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.

On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.

I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum - urging me to "stay and fight."

But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead."

Lies and distortions?
Yeah. Right.
It seems as though the real reason that Van Jones is resigning is because his balls are so big that they take up too much valuable space in the White House.

Obama-related Ad Company gets contract for Health Care PR push

This isn't too surprising... is it?
Bloomburg.com should get some kind of Pulitzer for covering this story. Why hasn't anyone else picked up on this?

Two firms that received $343.3 million to handle advertising for Barack Obama’s White House run last year have profited from his top priority as president by taking on his push for health-care overhaul.

One of those companies is David Axelrod's old company.
I'd call this a kickback, but that would be redundant to suggest that a Chicago Democrat was arranging for their own kickback.

To make this even more funny, Obama was completely hypocritical when he accused insurance companies of funding the 'opposition'.

“In some cases what we’ve seen is also funding in opposition by some other insurance companies to any kind of reform proposals.”

$343 Million is being spent to sell us on Universal Health Care, and Obama is complaining that the insurance companies are spending too much money to defeat it? What a jackass.

Newsweek: 'Socialism Is the Best Medicine'

Okay, so we always knew that Newsweek felt that way. But this time they said it out loud.

Most Americans have heard horror stories of long waits for health-care services in other countries. But according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, Americans wait longer to see primary-care physicians than patients in Britain, Germany, Australia, or New Zealand all countries with strong public-health systems.

How did they come to the conclusion that socialist health care is better then other countries? Oh, that's simple. They quoted a study from the Commonwealth Fund.

From their 'about us' section of their website:

The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

Did anyone expect them to come up with any other conclusion?

The Joker Artist is a Chicagoan

When I first saw this poster, I thought it was awesome! I still do.

I know that some people don't get the social commentary. They don't get why someone would compare the joker to someone who believes in socialism. But to people like me, its not that the joker = socialism.
The joker was someone who pronounced himself to be something that he wasn't. He kept insisting that he was an agent of anarchy, but all along, he had a plan. Remember how he tried convincing the district attorney that he had little to do with the death of Rachael? How he tried to use fear against the people of Gotham to get them to kill each other?

Anyway, someone did their homework and found out who did the original poster. According to the Los Angelos Times, the original artist is Firas Alkhateeb from the University Of Illinois. It appears that Firas isn't a Republican, but just a guy who was bothered by the celebrity worship of Obama. So he created the following cover of Time.

Apparently, someone photoshopped out the Time Logo and kept the original image... adding the "Socialism" tagline.

Firas kept quiet about the whole thing, even though he's not the guy who called Obama a socialist. Seems that he was a little worried about the Obama fanatics going a little nuts. Which is a valid fear.

I'm pretty impressed with what Firas did on many levels. But mostly because he took on a cultural icon in Chicago. As a person who lives here, I can only compliment him on his courage.

What does the country care about the most?

In January of 2009, the Pew Research Center asked the American public what their main policy priorities were. The results might surprise you, given what the administration is spending its time on.

Here are the priorities, as given then:
Economy
Jobs
Terrorism
Social Security
Education
Energy
Medicare
Health Care
Deficit Reduction


The list goes on.
I put it here to remind people that Medicare and Health Care were not the top things on the list. And they were right next to 'deficit reduction' in the priorities of the people.

5 Health Care Freedoms you'll Lose

From CNN Money:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.

I've talked about this before.

Anytime the government is able to give specific details on the way a business is run, its disaster.

I hate everything about this bill. Please read CNNs article.

Obama's Town Hall was literally bussed in at New Hampshire

According to the White House, the people who oppose his health care program are pre-fabricated protests, and not real.
Yet, in New Hampshire, a lot of the people supporting his plan were bussed in.

Don't believe me?
Go watch this video, and listen to the reporter. At around 40 seconds in, she says that 'busloads' of 'supporters' arrived.
Thanks to WMUR in New Hampshire for reporting that.

Tampa Bay incident, accorrding to HuffPo

I'm just adding a permanant link to my blog so that I can find this story when I need it again.
This is about a town meeting in Tampa Bay, and how the protesters were confronted by union goons who threw them out of the town hall meeting.
Pay close attention to the guy with the video camera, recording everyone. You'll note that HuffPo blames the protesters for the escalating violence. But its clear to anyone who follows the links to the Tampa Tribune that Randy Arthur was violated by the 'pro health care' thugs.

Obama as Hitler... not

Here's a blogger who runs down the source of a 'protestor' with a Hitler poster.
It turns out that the 'protestor' is more likely a universal health care fan, rather then a foe. Go figure.

11 yo reporter interviews Obama; -inset joke here-

The full story is here.

Possible punch lines:
"No, this time it wasn't Matt Lauer."
"For the first time, hard questions"
"Reporter, unlike president, doesn't know how to use a teleprompter"

The possibilities are endless...

There is the deficit, and then the Deficit

Almost a decade ago I took an accounting class. I own my own business. I realized that I was horrible at keeping records, and I wanted to become better at it.

I hated accounting. So much of it seemed common sense to me. But there were a few aspects of the class that really resonated with me: like the concept of running a deficit.

I had taken a basic economics class previously, when I earned by Bachelor's degree. I was familiar with the idea of how the government ran a deficit, and how dangerous it was. The accounting class reiterated the problems of running a deficit, and how many businesses would try to hide the deficit with accounting tricks.

I knew - at the time - that the biggest company is the US that hides the true cost of their deficit is the US government.

I've tried explaining this to a lot of people. The hardest part to explain is how - in the years that we were running a 'surplus' - there was no surplus. The debt continued to go up. Yet, its been reported everywhere that there was a surplus and economists will tell you that our country ran a surplus.
But anyone who took economics or accounting knows this is a lie. You can't run a surplus and have your debt increase.

Anyway, when someone forwarded me this old article by USA Today, it was heartening to me. It explains what you need to know about the 'real' federal deficit. Keep in mind, this is from August of '04:

The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

The reason for this disparity is because the government doesn't include all of their liabilities on the books. The USA Today article explains it very well, and I don't want to impinge on their copyright... but I wish that everyone would read it.

G550s, the only way to fly

Everyone dreams about winning the lotto.
The last time I did, I wondered how much money it would cost to buy a personal jet. I kept going to different websites until I found the jet of choice: A Gulfstream 550.

Of course, the problem was that I couldn't afford it. Beyond the cost of initial aquisition ($65 million), the jets are pretty costly to keep. Most websites put the yearly upkeep at anywhere from $1 to $2 million to own a jet like that.

So I shelved my dream for now.

But most recently, I found out that if you really want a personal jet that you can share with friends, you can always become a member of congress:

Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.

But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.

I love irony.

Air Force One Document Dump

NBC had the story about the photos from the Air Force One flyover of New York:

The photos are posted right on the Pentagon's Website, defense officials said today. The Pentagon also released a heavily redacted flight manifest.

Check it out, and the redacted files.

Paul Krugman finds out about Canadian Health Care

Paul Krugman, famous economist from the New York Times (who doesn't seem to understand basic economics) was served at a discussion panel.

http://www.thehopeforamerica.com/play.php?id=1592

When he asks Canadians if they feel that their health care is 'terrible', they all seem to answer 'yes'.
Hilarious.

Red pill vs. the Blue pill

Its almost like the blue state / red state thing.
Here's an article about Obama's health care speech the other night. Obama tried making an analogy that was epic fail:

"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President Obama

In last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions.

I think that the Matrix got it right. Obama wants us to swallow his blue pill.

The Biggest Lie Ever: 'My economic plan worked as intended'

That took cajones to say that.

President Barack Obama said his $787 billion stimulus bill “has worked as intended” as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.

Obama;
If your plan all along was to convince us that spending $787 BILLION dollars was a severe waste of money? Then your stimulus bill worked as intended.
If your intention was to soar unemployment over 9%? Worked as intended.
If your plan all along was to make your economic crew look like idiots? Mission accomplished.

Transparency, redefined

This week, Newsweek finally noticed that the Obama Whitehouse isn't as transparent as, well, what they said it was going to be. In an article called "Obama Closes Door On Openess", they write:

Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."

Its written in a strange way. As if Newsweek can't figure out who in the Obama administration is keeping him from being as open as he wants to be. For instance, this sentence:

The hard line appears to be no accident.

So it wasn't just an accident??
I'd love to know how someone 'accidentally' gets secretive.

In upcoming weeks, I'll be watching to see if Newsweek wakes up and smells the coffee, as the people from the LA Times have.
In this blog, they openly mock Biden's private meetings:

And we've wondered aloud how this Democratic VP's private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets.

Its a good read. And good for the LA Times to take notice.

Obama's teleprompter commits suicide

In an apparent attempt to avoid further embarrassment, Obama's teleprompter leapt to its death today.
You can see the gruesome video here. CNN decided that it would be okay to show a close-up of its shattered and lifeless body on the floor.

Even more shocking then the video of the teleprompter committing Hari Kari? As the president continues talking about how the porkulus bill was necessary to save our cities, some hypnotized reporter in the foreground is caught nodding his head in agreement.

Actual headline: "Mrs. Obama bringing glamor to Moscow this weekend"

Punchline: And she didn't even leave the White House.

(headline & story here)

Helen Thomas Pwns Gibbs?

Actually, it was another reporter who started it.
But then Helen Thomas chipped in. I have to admit, I never thought I'd see Helen Thomas give any kind of criticism to this administration. I'm glad she stepped up to do it.



Personally, I think the reporters are sick of feeling like pawns.
My only question is: what took them so long?

Admitting that the Stimulus bill failed?

Nope.
The Obama administration won't do that.
Instead, they will redefine what their timeline is:

Back in February, with Congress moving swiftly to approve President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, White House budget director Peter Orszag said the benefits of the stimulus would “take weeks to months” to be felt.

But now, the council of Economic Advisors to the president is telling us a different story:

“We always knew we were not going to get all that much fiscal impact during the first five to six months. The big impact starts to hit from about now onwards,” Romer said.

Of course, Romer is lying.
This is a chart that they put out a while back. You can find a copy here:

I think the most telling thing is that the unemployment rate was never supposed to go above 8% in 2009. Heck, if the chart is right, the unemployment rate is supposed to be at around 8% towards the 3rd quarter of 2009.

Who thinks that's going to happen?
If anything, the chart seems to be predicting that the unemployment rate would track... well, about where it is now, without all of that pork.

I'm keeping this chart alive. Because I want to see if our unemployment rate strays from it... at all.

David Axelrod: Floating a middle class tax

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the president won't rule out a health care reform bill that includes a tax hike on people making less than $250,000 a year.

Don't forget for a moment, that when he said that, Axelrod was talking about the Health Care Reform that was supposed to save us money.

Obama admits that his Health Care plan is going to cost more

Obama has finally copped to the fact that his Health Care program is actually going to cost more money then it currently does.
His new argument:

President Barack Obama says he recognizes the heavy price tag of revamping the health care system but that it would be much more costly to do nothing.

My antenna go up anytime someone tells me that they can save me money by spending more.
Yours should too.
Especially when they have a huge website devoted to getting you to support their 'plan', where they solicit horror stories, and ask you to share your POV of why you support their plan.
More Pravda from the White House.

Garrett from FNC Pwns Obama

In one of the best exchanges I've seen yet between a member of the press and our president, Major Garrett from FNC (its his name, not his rank) asks Obama what took him so long to respond to the events in Iran.

Watch Obama as he tries not to get upset at the question.

Obama's infomercial failed to attract an audience

We all know that before the Health Care infomercial ran, Diane Sawyer told us that it wasn't going to be an infomercial. According to the MRC:

When asked whether ABC should include guests from the health care industry, Sawyer, who appeared via phone, said such voices would be featured and again swore, "And I think a lot of people haven't understand fully that this is going to be a room full of widely diverse ideas in which people who actually experience the reality of front-line health care are going to get a chance to pose their challenging questions to the President."
That's what Diane said beforehand.

This is what she did during the show. She introduced the head of Aetna, an insurance agent, and 'gave' him this opportunity to be 'heard'.

“If I could, I’m going to bring in Ron Williams from Aetna, CEO of Aetna, and if I can reverse the order a little bit Mr. President, I’d like to ask a question of him and then let you comment on his answer,” Sawyer said. “Mr. Williams, Aetna, to take one, an insurance company. We hear people all over the country people see their premiums going up 119 percent in the last several years. They see the profits of the insurance companies, the billions and billions of dollars, even in a lean year. They see profits in the billions of dollars. Is the President right – that you need to be kept honest?”

That was the chance that the insurance industry was given to speak. They were asked if its right that the president needs to keep them honest. To Diane Sawyer's credit, she didn't ask him if he still beats his wife.

Jake Tapper, who seems to be the only person at ABC who still has his balls, co-wrote this article the next day:

President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people -- like the president himself -- wouldn't face.

Dr. Orrin Devinsky was the man who challenged the president. According to ABC, he told the president that 'elites' often create universal health care proposals safe in the knowledge that they would be above any restrictions or rationing caused by their programs and regulations. The good doctor asked:

if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

As noted before, the president, sans teleprompter, struggled to answer. But he refused to make any such pledge.

How did this go over with the public? That's hard to tell, since most did not tune into the broadcast. According to Live Feed:

The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour "The Philanthropist" debut and a repeat of "CSI: NY" on CBS). The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.

I think its fitting that the president was beat out by another program about someone who gives away money.

I'm heartened that my Republicans complained about this infomercial beforehand. This, according to "The Note":

The letter to ABC News, signed by 40 members of the newly formed “Media Fairness Caucus,” accuses ABC of “providing in-kind free advertising for President Obama.”

In defense of ABC news, co-ordinating questions that the president wants to be asked seems to be normal with the Obama WH.

One last note; Insurance companies are being hit by the Democrats for a practice that is known as rescission. Its cutting the coverage of an insured person typically after they've incurred major medical expenses.
I hate insurance companies, and I'm loathe to defend them. However, in this case, its worth noting why the insurance companies cut the coverage. Its after they find out that the insured person has been less then complete in filling out their medical history when they applied.
Again, I hate defending insurance companies. But when I filled out my medical history, I tried to make sure I was up front as possible about everything.

Huffington Post officially hops into Obama's pocket

The next time you read the Huffington Post, remember their 'journalism' ethics.
The Obama administration wanted a question asked by the Huffington post on Iran. So they literally asked them to find a 'good' question ahead of time.

This is how it played out at the WH Press Conference:

THE PRESIDENT: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?

Q Yes, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?

Naturally, the rest of the press watched that exchange and their antenna went up.

Its considered unethical in journalism to ask the question that a politician actually asked you to pose. But the Huffington Post dove in anyway, and confirmed that they are a propaganda arm of this administration.

Politico noticed:

According to POLITICO's Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.

Which makes sense. Josh would have talked to him right beforehand to see if he was on board.

According to AP, the White House confirmed that they had spoken to the Huffington Post:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said there was nothing inappropriate in how an administration official phoned the Huffington Posts' Nico Pitney and suggested President Barack Obama might take a question from him if he came prepared with one submitted to the reporter from someone inside Iran.

Ap also noted that:

Obama replied with a familiar response, that it was too soon to know.

This was great reporting on Politico's part. They really called out Obama on his inability to add anything to the debate with a softball question that was preplanned. Kudos to the staff at Politico for trying to keep their fellow press honest. There is a lot of ass-kissing going on between the press and this White House. I'm heartened by the courage of Politico who, no doubt, is getting yelled at by a White House press toady at this very moment.

A few articles on health care that I'm looking at

Look at the giddiness of the Dems in announcing health care in this article on Politico. Its downright spooky how anxious they are to take over such a large segment of the society and turn it into a bureaucracy.

Then read this article at AP (via Yahoo) on how the Democrats strong armed yet another industry:

The pharmaceutical industry agreed Saturday to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.

What that means is that since Barack can't actually afford to give old people all of the drugs they need, he asked drug companies to offer a price break to Medicare. That price break, of course, will be passed over to consumers. It is, in effect, an invisible tax.
Here is another scary part of that article:

While none of the changes in the prescription drug program would directly lower government costs, several officials also said the industry agreed to measures that would give the Treasury more money under federal health programs. In particular, officials said drug companies would likely wind up paying pay higher rebates for certain drugs under Medicaid, the program that provides health care for the poor.

Note: the whole purpose of the government taking over health care was to make it cheaper. Remember?

This dichotomy is kinda reflected in a recent Pew poll:

Relatively few Americans believe the country as a whole is spending the right amount on health care at this point, but there is no consensus on what the problem is. Just as many Americans say we are spending too much on health care (38%) as too little (40%).

Here is another interesting tidbit for me:

People with no more than a high school education (47%) or some college (42%) are far more likely than are college graduates (31%) to favor a complete rebuilding of the health care system.

Go figure. Smarter people don't want to lose the best health care in the world, whereas dumb people want the government to control it.
Anyway, the important thing is that the government is coming for your health care. Obama wants it. Bad. And he's not going to stop until he controls it.

More transparency

The White House is blocking access to its visitor logs:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

I think its fascinating that MSNBC is, in effect, blaming Bush for Obama's position. I don't remember them ever blaming Clinton for Bush taking the same position as Clinton. But maybe that's me.

I'M one of those people resisting Universal Health Care

In a recent article on Bloomberg, the writer talks about how Universal Health Care is a hard topic for volunteers to pitch. This is the author's take on the topic:

Obama is pursuing a goal that has eluded presidents of both parties for the past 60 years. He is counting on volunteers such as McArdle to help him marshal public support to overcome resistance to some aspects of his plan from hospitals, doctors and companies such as Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana Inc., the second-largest U.S. provider of government-backed health benefits.

I read through the article and noticed one thing: the writer never talked about the real opposition to health care... people like me. Its not just high powered companies that are resisting Universal Health Care. So I wrote back. I think my letter is good enough that I want to share it:

In a recent article, you wrote:
"He is counting on volunteers such as McArdle to help him marshal public support to overcome resistance to some aspects of his plan from hospitals, doctors and companies such as Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana Inc., the second-largest U.S. provider of government-backed health benefits."

You forgot to mention that the real problem; that they are trying to overcome resistance from people like myself. I know that the government will only make health care more expensive, that it will add another layer of bureaucracy to getting healthy, and that its impossible to reach the stated goals of Obama's plan. Already, the two central goals (that it will make health care affordable to everyone and be available to everyone who is not covered) have been exposed as fallacies. The current plan being floated will add 1.6 Trillion of debt and only cover 1/3rd of the uninsured.

I ask that the next time you write an article on the resistance towards universal health care, you talk to ordinary people like myself. I've been against the idea since Hillary pitched it the first time around. This president has only shown an ability to put us further into debt while creating more dependence on the government, and more pork.

I've talked to many people who support universal health care. The problem is always the same. They can't answer how adding $600 Billion (the original figure for launching universal health care) or $1 Trillion (the revised figure) or $1.6 Trillion (today's figure) is going to make health care cheaper for everyone.
I hope that you'll start asking that question too.

Skylights for a state-run liquor warehouse

That's one of many projects that the stimulus/pork program is paying for.
Does it sound ridiculous? Over-the-top?
Heck... how much do you think it would cost to put skylights into a warehouse?
$2.2 Million Dollars
The excuse? Its part of an energy saving program.
Let's do a cost-benefit analysis on that. How long do you think it would take to save 2.2 million in lighting and heating costs in a warehouse by adding skylights? More importantly: does anyone realize that light & heat are the two things that you're supposed to keep liquor away from?
But nevermind all of that. Someone thought it would be a good project, and someone is going to make 2.2 Million off of it.

This is just one of a hundred items that Senator Coburn, a Republican from OK, listed off as wasteful spending, according to this article from Yahoo.
The aritcle takes pains to explain that Coburn is a one of the most 'fiscally conservative' senators, and uses the famed term 'others' to hide that some people like pork projects:

The list by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., includes projects others would identify as ideal for creating jobs and benefiting generations of Americans: skateboard parks, streetscapes, upgrades of park facilities, bike trails and parking garages.

Yes, other people do identify those projects as ideal for creating jobs: senators. The rest of us know better. Creating a park is a great thing, but its not the best way to create jobs. Once the park is made, there is no extra benifit from the park that creates jobs.

Anyway, I know that, unfortunately, nothing will happen from this. Because the people who support Barack will forgive any pork he creates, and any wasteful spending that goes on. Including, but not restricted to:

...a $3.4 million Florida Department of Transportation project for an "eco-passage" - an underground wildlife road crossing for turtles and other wildlife in Lake Jackson, Florida...

Yes, you read that right.
That uber valuable stimulus package is paying for a way for turtles to avoid getting run over on a highway, by creating a $3.4 million dollar tunnel for them. Bizarre.

The Two Faces Of Barack

On one hand, Barack is doing everything he can to reduce our debt:

President Barack Obama sought on Tuesday to show he was serious about improving the U.S. budget picture as he called on Congress to pass new limits on tax cuts and spending programs to avoid adding to deficits.

On the other hand, he's gotta borrow a bunch of money indefinitely for his health care debacle:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed budget rules that would allow Congress to borrow tens of billions of dollars and put the nation deeper in debt to jump-start the administration's emerging health care overhaul.

Yeah? Who didn't see this one coming?
I've been predicting this for like... a year.

It would carve out about $2.5 trillion worth of exemptions for Obama's priorities over the next decade. His health care reform plan also would get a green light to run big deficits in its early years. But over a decade, Congress would have to come up with money to cover those early year deficits.

Okay. So Barack's health care plan to save us billions starts with putting us into even more debt.

C'mon everyone. You're not that stupid.

The moment when your goverment officially took over a private business

Freedom is rarely lost in one big sweeping motion. It generally takes time, and a public who is asleep at the wheel.
Take this article from The Hill:

Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) won a stay of execution on Thursday for a General Motors plant in his district that the automaker had announced it would close.

No other lawmaker has managed to halt the GM ax. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Frank oversees the government's bailout program, known as TARP. Frank's staff said the lawmaker spokes with GM CEO Fritz Henderson on Wednesday and convinced him to keep the Norton, Mass. plant open for at least 14 months.

Understand?

Barney Frank is now in the auto business. Now the government has officially interfered with what they are doing, and are dictating the terms of their business. That will work out just fine... don't you think?

Obama's threat to us: he's just getting started

Does that mean that $2 Trillion in debt in one year isn't enough for him?
Ugh.

And speaking of favorable press coverage

James Delingpole of the Telegraph savages the American press for their coverage of Obama:

Congratulations. Your presidential regime has managed to secure the most supine, slobbering, spineless, unquestioning media coverage since Enver Hoxha's Albania.

James... I'm not sure how you feel. Could you make yourself more clear?
:)

Obama's press coverage, the numbers

Somehow, I missed the release of this study of the media by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. It covers Obama in the first part of the administration.
Here is the highlight:

During his first 50 days in office, the three broadcast network evening news shows devoted 1021 stories lasting 27 hours 44 minutes to Barack Obama’s presidency. The daily average of seven stories and over 11 minutes of airtime represents about half of the entire newscasts. By contrast, at this point in their presidencies George W. Bush had received 7 hours 42 minutes and Bill Clinton garnered 15 hours 2 minutes of coverage, for a combined total airtime five hours less than Mr. Obama’s.

Yeah. We knew that.

Mr. Obama has received not only more press but also better press than his immediate predecessors. On the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news, fifty-eight percent of all evaluations of the president and his policies have been favorable, and 42 percent were unfavorable. CMPA’s previous studies of network news found that George W. Bush received only 33 percent positive evaluations by sources and reporters during the first 50 days of his administration in 2001, and Bill Clinton received only 44 percent positive evaluations during his first ten weeks (70 days) in office in 1993.

I wonder if that type of coverage has any effect on his favorability ratings?
Here's a chart of Bill Clinton's favorability ratings over time.

Clinton's favorability rating dragged down to 45 percent by May 10th... a little over his first 100 days in office. Which eerily parallels his media coverage in the first 70 days.

That made me curious as to how Bush's favorabilty ratings were after 80 or so days. The theorey being that favorability ratings would lag behind coverage. I wondered if Bush's approval rating seemed to be as affected by the media coverage. But that doesn't seem to be the case. His approval rating hovered around 53 percent on May 7th. So yeah. Thus another neat theory bites the dust due to actual facts and statistics.

Pravda: Capitalism on wane

We all knew. Its nice for them to tell us.
For those of you who don't know... Pravda is the newspaper that was best known as the mouthpiece for Russia:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Yes. I can't argue with that.

Donate to Obama, get Ambassadorship

Okay... so its not quite that easy. But close.
Bloomberg has a story about a guy who raised a bunch of cash for Obama. Guess where he's going?

Susman, 71, a retired Citigroup Inc. senior investment banker, raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and another $300,000 for his inauguration. On Wednesday, Obama nominated Susman to the post formally known as the Court of St. James.

Yes, just like every other crooked politician, Obama is appointing guys who gave him cash. So we're clear, its not just one guy.
Bloomberg lists off 3 others:

-- John Roos, chief executive officer of the Palo Alto, California-based law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, to Japan. He raised more than $500,000 for Obama.

-- Charles Rivkin, chief executive officer of Wildbrain Inc., to France. Rivkin collected more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign and $300,000 for his inauguration.

-- Laurie Fulton, a partner with Williams & Connolly LLP, to Denmark. Fulton, 59, raised $100,000 to $200,000.

My hats off to Bloomberg for doing the research on this story. Not a lot of people are covering what Obama has done wrong. But that's for my next post.

UPDATE:

Someone pointed out to me the section in the article where they talked about Republican Tim Roemer, and how 'fair' his appointment was supposed to be. This is how Tim Roemer earned his seat at Obama's table:

Roemer campaigned for Obama in 11 states throughout the year. He said he's heard the rumors that he's being considered, but up until now, he's been "entirely focused and consumed" on the campaign.

So no... he didn't just do great deeds.

Ex president Clinton copping a feel on a starlet

Fran Drescher was accompanying Bill Clinton on the stage of the Life Ball charity event (oh man, the jokes are already writing themselves). As they made their way off stage, Bill lent a helping hand.
Someone on a BBS actually tried defending Bill by saying that his hand was on the small of her back. I've dated my share of women. The small of their back has never been between their hips.

Wouldn't it be weird if Obama opened up a "Dentention Center"?

Especially after he closed Gitmo?

I know. I'm being stupid now. Right....?
This was the headline from the New York Times article:

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

Buuuut, he'd still have trials. Right?

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

So Obama was talking to these human rights groups about the need for somewhere that you could put terrorism suspects who couldn't be tried. Like... Gitmo?

My favorite part of the story is that he was telling this to Human Rights advocates, who were presumably the biggest Obama supporters in the world. I would have loved to have seen their faces when the told them that he needed somewhere to put terrorism suspects without trials.
I kinda picture it like a scene from a poker match, where they just realized that they'd been bluffed.
Anyway, I have no doubt that they will somehow blame it on Bush.

Cheney's more popular then ever

While everyone is talking about Cheney's speech today, and while the talking heads are telling you that Cheney might be alienating people with his outspokenness, its important to know how Cheney is doing in the polls.

He's up 8 percent from the time he was in office.

House covers up for Pelosi

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been accusing the CIA of lying to her about waterboarding.

Naturally, this is a serious charge, and the Republicans in the House decided it was worth looking into.
Of course, as soon as they suggested it, every single democrat in the house blocked it.

According to Brietbart:
The House voted 252-172 to block the measure that would have created a bipartisan congressional panel. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, sponsored the resolution.
Note that the Democrats didn't even want to look into the matter. How lame is that?

Let's be clear on this. If the Democratic members of the House really believed Pelosi, they would be insisting that we investigate why the CIA lied to her.
This is nothing short of a very scared bunch of Democrats trying to protect their power, and trying to hide the truth.

Happier Than I Thought?

According to a recent study by the Pew research foundation, the secret to happiness is being old, male, and Republican.

Which would suggest that the secret to being unhappy is to be a young female democrat. But I digress.

The interesting thing is to read the comments on the LiveScience website that reports this. There are people there who are arguing that the survey isn't technically correct, but it says that because Republicans lie more. Which, to me, indicates something about the person who has come to that conclusion.

Anyway, I had a bad February and March, so my year has not been great. But when I stopped to think about it, I guess I really am happier then I "should" be. I have a positive outlook on things. I don't wait on other people to take care of me. I believe, for the most part, in myself.
I am a Republican.

Old News, on Cheney / Haliburton

This is actually from 2004, but its really important to make sure that everyone knows this.
Cheney has often been linked to Haliburton. FactCheck did a report on the link to see if Kerry's claims were true. In an ad for Kerry:
It says, "As vice president, Dick Cheney received $2 million from Halliburton. Halliburton got billions in no bid contracts in Iraq. Dick Cheney got $2 million. What did we get?"
Fact check investigated it.
Here is a partial list of what they found:
A Halliburton pay statement dated Jan 2, 2001 shows just under $147,579 was paid that day as "elect defrl payou," meaning payout of salary from the company's Elective Deferral Plan. That was salary Cheney had earned in 1999, but which he had chosen previously to receive in five installments spread over five years.
Read the whole thing, because its too complex to sum up here.
But let me hit on the key points. Cheney took a deferred payment plan when he quit Halliburton. Its a way for him to spread his payments over several years to reduce his taxes. That payment wouldn't change based on Halliburton's profits.
Cheney's stock options were a different matter. He assigned them to be paid to charity.

Another words, no matter what happened to Halliburton, Cheney couldn't have personally profited from it.
So the next time that someone tells you that Cheney was shelling for Halliburton, read the Fact Check, then school them on the truth.

Anderson Cooper Still Has His Mouth Full

When I read on TVNewser that Anderson Cooper had apologized for his tea bagging comment, I was heartened. I thought that maybe a good journalist had figured out that he had stepped over the line and was trying to correct a mistake.

I was wrong.
Start here, with the original comments made by Cooper:

Anderson Cooper says "Its hard to talk when you're Teabagging."
It was a dumb joke. I have to point out that MSNBC was the first organization that I heard using that term to refer to the Tea Party protestors. But other news organzations, like CNN, followed suit.
The problem with all of them is that they suggested that the Tea Party protesters were referring to themselves with this term.
I was there in Chicago. They were not.
I Googled to try to find a Tea Party organization referring to themselves with this term. Its possible that someone did, but if they did, they didn't get much news coverage.

Which brings us back to the journalists like Anderson Cooper, and his 'apology.' This is what he said, you can watch his comments here.

Pardon the fact that I can't embed it. The guy who posted it on YouTube disabled embedding. He's been very defensive of Cooper.

Anderson Cooper clearly didn't believe that he was wrong. He blamed his teabagging comments on the protesters, and said, basically, that it was their fault for not knowing what it meant.
Which would be cool if they were actually referring to themselves in that way.

I love good journalism. I abhor bad journalism.
I have a lot of problems with Anderson Cooper, but my current one is that I can't understand what he's saying with that thing in his mouth. And I mean, of course, his foot.

David Pflouffe's "Swiftboat" fundraising

For those of you who don't know, David Pflouffe was David Axelrod's other hand in getting Obama elected.
So its important to understand the background on Pflouffe. According to SourceWatch, David raised a record $95 million for the DCCC in 1999-2000 for democrat candidates who were running for the house.
Keep that in mind, while you read this:

David Plouffe, the man who ran Obama's historic and ultimately successful run for the White House, wrote in a fundraising e-mail to Obama's massive supporter e-mail list that the same operatives behind the swiftboat campaign that helped end Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) quest to unseat President George W. Bush are regrouping to target Obama's healthcare efforts.

Now what does it sound like he wants to do?
Let's get specific:

In his e-mail through Organizing for American, Obama's semi-dormant campaign operation at the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Plouffe asked supporters to donate money and organize to urge Congress to act on legislation.

He wants money.
And he's willing to sell you any type of fear to get you there... even by threatening that Republicans are going to (cue spooky music) Swiftboat Health Care.

NOTE: Swiftboating is to offer a completely different opinion then what a Democrat says.

On the other hand, trying to scare people into giving you money? That's cool. Right David?