Holding Krugman the Klown accountable

Amity Shlaes details what those of us who have been paying attention already know: Krugman is nothing more than a partisan political hack, a clown with an academic pedigree.

Noteworthy:

"Why does all this matter today? Because lawmakers are considering new labor legislation containing 'card check,' which would strengthen organized labor and so its wage demands. Because employees continue to pressure firms to spend on health care, without considering they may be making the company unable to hire an unemployed friend. Piling on public-sector jobs or raising wages may take away jobs in the private sector, directly or indirectly.

What the new administration decides about marginal tax rates also matters. Mr. Obama said in a Thanksgiving talk that he wanted to 'create or save 2.5 million new jobs.' People who talk about saving new jobs are usually talking about the private-sector's capacity to generate jobs in the future -- not about the public sector alone.

We know that the new administration is going to spend. But how? It can try to figure out a way to do that without hurting the private sector. Or it can just spend, Krugman-wise, and risk repeating the very depression we seek to avoid."

Obama's 'Global Warming' Cap'n Trade nonsense: Higher energy costs, slower ecomic growth, higher unemplyment

All to fix a problem that doesn't exist, to fulfill a foolish libthink cherished agenda item.....

Tom Borelli has details:

"The Congressional Budget Office found that investors and workers in the energy sector would suffer losses due to the decline in energy-intensive industries. Not surprisingly, since Obama’s victory, investors have punished coal stocks.

The CBO also says the cost of cap-and-trade will be 'borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products like electricity and gasoline.' The CBO adds that these added costs would preferentially harm low-income households.

The cost to consumers in not unknown to Obama, who has acknowledged, 'Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket...'"

No big deal, according to BarryO. We'll just pay the electric bill for the "less advantaged" by raising taxes some more...and more...and more...and more.................

Demolishing the myths and establishing the facts about the Community Reinvestment Act

Our Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" pals want you to think that the CRA is a wonderful thing, and all the financial mess was caused by "lack of regulation" forced upon us by those "Eeeeeeeeeeeeevil Wepublicans".

IBD puts that particular lie to rest, whether the Libthinkers like it or not.

Key point:

"Regulation: The Community Reinvestment Act is to blame for the financial crisis, but it so powerfully serves Democrats' interests that they'll do anything to protect it — including revising history."

Obviously,'Due Diligence' only applies to those not favored by the Tank Media

Otherwise,our recent Presidential election undoubtedly would have turned out differently.

Looks like the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" are training the new administration's Media Enforcers in Thailand

(hat tip: Power Line)

Greg Mankiw on Krugman the Klown's assessment of Obama's economic team

"Redefing 'grownup' and 'hack'"

Excerpt:

"Judging by this objective criterion, it looks like the two adminstrations are drawing economists from roughly the same talent pool.

Of course, if one defines 'grownup' as a person who agrees with Paul Krugman, and 'hack' as a person who does not, then one might come to a different conclusion."

Too funny!

We need to get used to the Political Economy, and forget the market economy

Charles Krauthammer:


"In the old days if you wanted to get rich, you did it the Warren Buffett way: You learned to read balance sheets. Today you learn to read political tea leaves. You don't anticipate Intel's third-quarter earnings; instead, you guess what side of the bed Henry Paulson will wake up on tomorrow.

Today's extreme stock market volatility is not just a symptom of fear -- fear cannot account for days of wild market swings upward -- but a reaction to political decisions that have vast economic effects. We have gone from a market economy to a political economy.

We may one day go back to a market economy. Meanwhile, we need to face the two most important implications of our newly politicized economy: the vastly increased importance of lobbying and the massive market inefficiencies that political directives will introduce. Lobbying used to be about advantages at the margin -- a regulatory break here, a subsidy there. Now lobbying is about life and death. Your lending institution or industry gets a bailout -- or it dies.

You used to go to New York for capital. Now Wall Street, broke, is coming to Washington. With unimaginably large sums of money being given out by Washington, the Obama administration, through no fault of its own, will be subject to the most intense, most frenzied lobbying in American history. That will introduce one kind of economic distortion. The other kind will come from the political directives issued by newly empowered politicians."

(hat tip:Carpe Diem)

The urgency of combating the non-problem of 'global warming'

The "global warming" demagoguery nonsense of Obama: "The facts are not in dispute".

That's pure and absolute bullshit.

Key point:

"One of the biggest problems Obama will face in the coming years is maintaining a secure energy supply. For that he will need to continue to rely on coal and other fossil fuels, whether he likes it or not. Fortunately, fossil fuels are not a threat to the planet's climate, and it is no longer credible to pretend that they are."

Obama REALLY needs to get his Ministry of Truth up and running

Not only has he got conservatives alert and ready, he'll soon have the Mob that propelled him to election all hot and bothered about the Chump Change We'll Get.

It won't be long before Buyers' Remorse will become VERY difficult to control.

Noteworthy:

"Rather than come in and clean house, the President-elect seems to be embracing politics as usual.

The 'insult' added to previous 'injury' came with an announcement over the weekend that Obama's White House will continue the political office that was held by Karl Rove in the Bush White House. During his campaign, of course, Mr. Obama vowed to keep politics out of the White House. He criticized the Bush Administration for its partisanship and accused President Bush of running a 'perpetual campaign.' The Obama Administration, he promised, would end what he called 'politics as usual.'

But he is appointing the usual -- a bevy of inside-the-beltway politicians.

Thus far, there are no new faces and no one who will obviously push for new policies. Eric Holder (nominee for Attorney General) and Rahm Emanuel (Chief of Staff) bring lots of Clinton-era baggage; Tim Gaithner (Treasury Secretary) is part of New York's big-money establishment. Tom Daschle, (HHS Secretary) is welded into the Senate's good ‘ole boy network. Further, Obama helped to protect Joe Lieberman's Senate committee chairmanship even though Lieberman crossed party lines to actively campaign for John McCain. The leftist Bible, The Nation, noted recently that 'not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive' has even been mentioned for the Obama Cabinet.

The Far Left contends that Barack should be dancing with the ones that brought him to the White House. Those on the right who treasure our traditional America values of personal responsibility and freedom have far more serious cause for worry.

While Obama is filling top slots of his Administration with politicians from the center, his agenda will be thrust forward by the Schedule C minions in the lower levels of government who will be able to work under the radar to push his far left ideology.

That is the bottom-up strategy that he learned as a community organizer and a strategy that links him with his primary season competitor, Hillary Clinton, who promoted the feminist goals of the Beijing Platform for Action through various task forces set up in the federal agencies following the U.N.'s Beijing World Conference on Women. Both of these leftist politicians have learned to speak the language of the masses while working behind the scenes on the policies of the radical true believers."

'Bush should resign now and let Obama take over'

It's just the latest Lefty Looney Toon, but certainly not the last.

Excerpt:

"Gail Collins of the NYT makes what she thinks is is a clever proposal: she wants President Bush and Dick Cheney to resign so that Barack Obama can take over right away. The Gateway Pundit has video of Chris Matthews proposing essentially the same thing.

'Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning. Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.' "

One little problem with article, though. The Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" gang LONG ago abandoned any real pretense at manners.

This is the precise reason why they should receive the exact treatment they so willingly mete out, and so richly deserve to get in multiple magnitude in return.

'Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts'

...by Victor Davis Hanson.

My favorite is number 10:

"10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is man-made and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDS is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs."

It sure isn't the America of my misspent youth.

Come to think of it, it sure isn't the America of my misspent early middle age, either.

The 'Global Warming' Alarmists' beloved 'Hockey Stick' is permantly demolished

....in this statistical analysis by Willis Eschenbach.

Christopher Chantrill sums it up:

"He (Eschenbach) asked: which of the Mannian temperature proxies actually carry the 'hockey-stick' signal?

The answer was devastating. Out of the 95 data series in the latest Mann paper that covered the entire last 1,000 years, only 25 carried the "hockey stick" signal. Three of these series are lake sediments in Finland which are corrupted by recent urban development and the rest are from bristle-cone pine trees in the US Southwest that have been challenged by other researchers.

Take the 'hockey stick' proxies out and you get a signal that shows a Medieval Warming Period a thousand years ago and a Little Ice Age 300 years ago. What a surprise!"

I can hear the same old tired and lame True Believer rebuttals now: "Yeah, but blah blah blah blah blah woof woof woof ........."

Obama: 'We'll revive the economy by raising taxes and introducing universal health care'

....as noted in his address today.

Obamarama Lie of the Day, as told by the New York Times:

"Politically, by simply letting the tax cuts expire, Mr. Obama would get the benefit of higher revenues in 2011 and beyond to help finance his proposed health care plans without having to take any action himself, and without the Democratic majorities in Congress having to take a vote."

First, letting tax cuts expire is a TAX INCREASE.

Second, tax increases DECREASE GOVERNMENT REVENUE, as Obama himself has admitted.

No big deal, right?

After all we ARE talking about the New York Times, and we ARE talking about several cherished Libthink agenda items.

It's not like we haven't been warned......

Do you know what's missing from this Time story on a breakthrough in stem cell use?

Read closely to see if you can discern what important bit of information the article conveniently neglects to mention.

It's a HUGE error of omission.

Think our local floor of $1.89 per gallon of gas is cheap?

Check this out.

Or, if you really want to go into a blue funk about gas prices in Greensboro, have a look here.......

(Re) Birth of the Cool

Miles Davis he isn't......

Will our president- suspect elect make smoking cool once again?

To the point:

"And all those parents who were proud to have their children sing odes to Obama that were posted on YouTube will just have to suck it up when they discover that their children have taken up the habit of smoking. 'Obama does it!' will be their snarky retort. And who can argue with that?

In the meantime, perhaps the government should consider lifting the ban on smoking in federal buildings. After all, the White House is a federal building. You wouldn't want for our leader to have to suffer the indignity of sneaking out the back door just to grab a quick smoke, would you?"

Here's another good reason why Detroit's (shrinking) Big Three shouldn't get a bailout

It leaves the nation wide open to more environmental thuggery, and an extension of Big Government's far reaching control over yet another aspect of society in an attempt to regulate public behavior to some wacked-out "progressive" agenda item standard.

Senator Jim Inhofe:

"This latest bout of environmental thuggery is not an isolated incident. The legislative goals of Democrats and their environmental allies reveal that saving jobs is not their highest priority.

President-elect Obama has pledged to grant California a global warming motivated waiver to allow the state to demand its own standards of emission reductions from new autos. This would essentially allow a state by state approach, thus creating a patchwork of regulatory compliance regimes in addition to the federal standard that would be even more costly for automobile manufacturers.

The Wall Street Journal summed up this attempted hostile green takeover and the efforts to create an 'Environmental Motor Company' this way:

'All of this shows that Democrats don't merely want to save jobs. They want an entirely different American auto industry that serves goals other than selling cars to consumers. The green lobbies have disliked Detroit for decades -- for resisting fleet mileage standards and having the audacity to make SUVs, trucks and other vehicles that people have wanted to buy but that violate modern environmental pieties. For the greens, the bailout is their main chance to remake Detroit according to their dictates.'"

Our never ending battle to combat the insidious Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" influence needs to be stepped up to a new and more aggressive level to make sure the Obama administration and his Kongressional Klown Klub pals don't wreak total havoc upon our nation.

The automakers' plight is a good place to draw the line.

All of us have heard the babble about 'right wing rage'

It's a favorite talking point of Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" everywhere whenever they start feeling the heat of accountability for their words and actions.

But as John Hawkins details for us, "right wing rage" is just a cover-up, and amounts to nothing more than left wing projection.

Noteworthy:

"But the truth is that you don’t have to be angry, loud, hateful, or advocate violence to be a 'loud and angry voice' that 'spreads hate' in the eyes of the left or the media.

You merely have to disagree with them.

People will see that in the near future, when talk radio is hammered for some incident or another — it really doesn’t really matter what specific incident, because the facts will be secondary — and then the left uses the occasion to try to ram through the Fairness Doctrine and clamp down on Limbaugh, Hannity, and others. If you can’t make a better argument, then use the power of government to silence your political opponents.

You can also expect the Democrats to go back to the 'right-wing rage' meme as soon as the glow starts to wear off of Obama. After all, he ran as an 'everything to everyone' candidate. He portrayed himself as a diehard liberal and a moderate, a hawk and a dove, a tax cutting free marketer and a statist, a pragmatist and an idealist, a partisan tough guy and a unifier. No matter what he does, a lot of people are destined to be deeply disappointed in him."

We see a superb example of this particular delusion at work over at our pal Ed Cone's blog, the local Usual Suspect haven for smarmy, arrogant, and narcissitic, pseudo-intellectual "progressive" dweebs. This lefty projection occurs whenever a conservative has the temerity to tell the truth while commenting at that particular den of iniquity.

What will the future of the U.S. auto industry look like?

It will probably look southern in nature, and the operation will look a lot like a Honda, Toyota, or Nissan enterprise.

WSJ has some detail:

"As Detroit's auto makers seek a government bailout, the resilience of their foreign rivals could vault the South to the forefront of the U.S. car industry. Foreign makers have been lured to South Carolina, Alabama and other Southern states over the past decade by generous tax benefits and laws that make it easier to build a largely nonunion work force.

That labor flexibility has emerged as a key advantage during the industry downturn, allowing foreign-owned plants to rapidly downshift in ways their unionized U.S. competitors cannot. Looser work rules are allowing German automaker BMW to lay off up to 733 employees at its Greer, S.C., plant by the end of the year. And Toyota said it plans to let go at least 250 people at a Georgetown, Ky., factory in the first quarter of 2009.

Such moves would be largely out of reach for the Big Three U.S. auto makers, which have been saddled with stricter labor rules as vehicle sales have plummeted. Union rules often guaranteed jobs for workers along with generous benefits and wages that surpass those of most other U.S. manufacturing sectors (see CD post on GM's "jobs bank").

The foreign manufacturers -- which are also reaping benefits of advanced production lines and a more popular lineup of models -- are positioned to grab market share from domestic competitors when demand revives. 'If the American car companies died, this is what would replace them,' said Laurie Harbour-Felax, an auto industry consultant."

Bail out the Big Three?

No.

Rebirth under Chapter 11 is the proper way to go. Otherwise, we're only prolonging the inevitable. The American automotive manufacturers can not be competitive with their competitors in the market unless we allow a dramatic restructuring of the entire domestic industry.

Throwing bucks at GM, Ford, and Chrysler as they now operate will be money down the toilet. The only people think a strategy like this makes sense are various Dems/Lefties/"Progressives", whose motivation is to preserve the largess accumulated by a semi-powerful Big Labor ally, the UAW, who are intent on keeping the sugar coming for their dues paying members.

My favorite automotive journalist, Brock "The Assassin" Yates, had it pegged exactly in this Car and Driver column three years ago.

Excerpt:

"If any vestige of the American automobile industry is to survive, it must involve state-of-the-art vehicles that are not equal to but surpass the best imports in every way. They must be conventional passenger cars, not trucks or SUVs, because sedans are at the core of the market and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Such vehicles can only be developed and sold in a growing worldwide market by smaller, leaner, meaner, more energetic and creative teams of men and women in the Motor City. It will require ugly confrontations with the UAW and the corporate retirees as well as the dealer organizations and, in some cases, inbred customer groups, but the Armageddon must come if any chance of survival exists.

Can it succeed? Perhaps, but the clock is ticking perilously close to doomsday."

Remember, this was written three years ago, and the basic truth of this matter has been known for decades.

There's no other way.

Let it begin.

So does the election of Obama mean that racism is over in America?

Not bloody likely, for several disparate reasons:

"If the election of Obama proves one thing about the race card in American politics, it proves that the race card is just to valuable a card to take out of the deck. It works and will keep on being played until it doesn't work any longer."

How true!

How very, very sad, but how very, very true.

'That didn't take long'

The touting of Eric Holder as the AG nominee is just more evidence of the absolute disaster that the Obama Administration will be.

Noteworthy:

"In any other time, Holder would simply be an uninspired choice. But these are not ordinary times — we face a serious, persistent threat from Islamist terrorists. At the same time, Democrats have expressed outrage over both the alleged politicization of the Justice Department and the reckless disregard of its storied traditions. For these times, it is difficult to imagine a worse choice for AG than Eric Holder. "

It's time to admit the mistake that was made in electing Obama as our president.

This guy will most assuredly combine the absolute WORST aspects of both the Carter and the Clinton regimes.

Examining the the undemocratic Democrat agenda

....starting with this execrable violation of workers' individual rights: the card check bill.

Noteworthy:

"As the Heritage backgrounder explains, section 3 of the EFCA would require companies and newly certified unions to enter binding arbitration if they cannot reach agreement on an initial contract after 90 days of negotiations. Thus arbitrators would be empowered to impose the terms and conditions of employment for newly unionized workers. Neither companies nor employees could appeal the arbitrator's ruling regarding terms, and the contract would last for two years."

More to come, I'm sure.

Soros' fingerprints are all over the Dem attempt to steal the MN Senate seat

Look at the long list of election fraud stunts the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" are pulling in Minnesota, and follow the money trail to see who actually enables the fraud.

Noteworthy:

"The efforts of such '527 groups' (such as Democracy Alliance, Fund for America, and the Alliance for a Better Minnesota) to influence American politics is growing. They can help elect political leaders. These may be senators, representatives and now even secretaries of state. The political food chain is all fair game for these obscure groups that all too often escape even mild scrutiny.

These groups are a way to skirt Federal limits on campaign contributions. While they are required by law to focus on issues and not candidates, this is often a distinction without a difference. In practice, their efforts all too often used to help some political candidates and harm others.

They are tools that can be used to help fix an election for favored candidates.

They are Shadow Parties, operating in the shadows and through Byzantine networks (see the above 'power map') that obscure the channeling of power and money to help select and elect candidates that will hew to the policies advocated by the networks of wealthy Democratic donors.

They also a blight on our political landscape.

If Democrats were truly interested in honest government and transparency in politics, they would heighten the regulatory oversight of such groups: force more disclosure of donors, interlocking directorships (a favorite cause of Democrats when they examine corporate America), and the actions the groups take that frequently violate the law by working to elect favored-and usually-Democratic candidates."

But of course Dems and their partners in slime are NOT interested in honest government and transparency. They're only interested in furthering their control on social, political, and economic policy.

It's clear that Dems/Lefties/"Progressives will say or do ANYTHING to gain total domination, regardless of the costs to our nation and to our people. We know that from many past experiences that establish that fact.

Bankrupting the nation for sub-par, no quality health care

Coming soon, courtesy of Obamacare

"Reforming health care is a banana peel for Obama. Middle class voters are unlikely to tolerate any noticeable drop in the quality of their health care (including, of course, delay), nor will they look favorable on the additional debt that Obamacare is likely to entail. But Pipes shows that the real banana peel is the one in store for the American people."

Isn't that always the case when we're dealing with Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" agenda items, which usually provide little or in fact negative benefit in "fixing the problem"?

'And you dummies all bought into the "he's just a guy in my neighborhood" bit'!

Details:





“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

But right-wing commentators tried to use those connections to smear Obama, he says.

“Obama’s political rivals and enemies apparently saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest narrative about him, that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist, a sympathizer with extremism,” Ayers wrote.

Dishonest narrative from "Obama's political rivals and enemies"?

Not even close.

It's legitimate criticism about factually established evidence of lapses and lies in Obama's character and judgment.

And as Stanley Kurtz and others have documented, the relationship goes WAY past the "neighbors" and "family friends"category.

LGF has more:

"Whatever you think of Ayers, he played this one smart. He stayed out of the news until Obama was safely elected, because he knew if he admitted the personal friendship, and expressed his real opinions about radicalizing students, reparations, abolishing prisons, etc., his relationship with Obama would—rightfully—become a major issue in the campaign. And he counted on the media not to investigate him."

Just another episode in the successful Packaging and Selling of a President, as well we can see.

Official response from Team Obama and his Tank Media PR team?

"There's nothing to see here, folks. Let's move ahead."

Perhaps it's time to re-think my position on euthanasia

Which should go first?

The Times?

Or the News and Record?

Obamarama: The perpetual increase in government paternalism

All in the form of "nudge nudge, wink wink".

Noteworthy:

"A passive-aggressive socialist state — that’s the change we’ve been waiting for? That’s worse than a purely aggressive one. You’ll fight like hell if some goons barge into your home and make you put half your wages into fund X. But if you’re just 'nudged' into it bit-by-bit, you’ll surrender your free will over the long haul without a fight.

Out of all the predictions about an Obama presidency, this one seems most on target to me. Read that creepy, social-engineering blather above and recall all Obama’s campaign pledges to protect borrowers from villainous fine print. Cast your mind back to when Michelle Obama told a crowd that her husband would make them 'push yourselves to be better.' Or remember how Joe Biden asked supporters to resist the future urge to say, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision,' under an Obama administration. Consider that Obama told Joe Wurzelbacher that the government is better suited to spread Joe’s wealth than he is."

Here's some traffic laws that ought to be repealed

Eric Peters has the details.

Noteworthy:

"Just because it’s 'the law' doesn’t mean it’s right — or even sensible — when it comes to traffic law, anyhow.

While we may have no choice but to obey — or risk a ticket — that doesn’t make bad traffic laws any more worthy of our respect than the Prohibition ban on alcohol."

Changing the 'Change We Can Believe In', and it hasn't even been two weeks yet

Mark Alexander, at the Patriot Post US:

"While President-elect Barack Obama hasn't yet established his Ministry of Truth, there are signs that he's going to rewrite history to suit his needs. Witness the scrubbing of his change.gov Web site, which last week had 25 different agenda items sought by the coming Obama administration. After controversy first erupted over the oxymoronic concept of mandatory volunteerism, the site originally changed its tune but then dropped the agenda items entirely, instead substituting a vanilla mission statement.

Obama plans to be aggressive in his use of executive orders, beginning by rescinding several signed by President George W. Bush which promote a socially conservative agenda, such as those dealing with embryonic stem cell research and abortion funding. Another Obama target is the Second Amendment. The Obama/Biden team vows to not only close so-called loopholes at gun shows and create other regulations such as trigger locks, but also to take guns "off the streets" by reinstating the grossly misnamed "assault weapons" ban. When was the last time readers saw anyone waltzing down the street with a semi-automatic black rifle looking to make trouble? And did Obama notice the Supreme Court decision in June that involved the Second Amendment? Indeed, he did. If fact, he supported the Court's Heller decision in favor of the right to bear arms, if only out of gross political expediency.

Obama's change.gov site originally had a full anti-gun agenda, but that was wiped away along with his other promises. What was posted previously was a claim to "favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners," but by making the gun of one's choice more difficult to acquire and use, the incoming Democrats are eroding the intent of the Founding Fathers, as well as the letter of the Constitution."

And as well we know, these won't be the only changes to the "Change We Can Believe In" lies from the last campaign.

Think taxes, specifically "tax cuts for the middle class".

Coming soon to a bumper near you

Obamacare: Will he lead us into disaster?

Despite the lessons provided from the failures of a single payer health care system, and despite what the campaign propaganda said, Obama is likely to attempt to install the system he actually believes in regarding health care.

Key point:

"What does single-payer health care have to do with the American election, you ask? 'If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,' Obama observed last month in New Mexico. The surprise isn’t that the Democratic presidential candidate feels that way—he made similar comments a year earlier to The New Yorker. He was even more open during the 1990s, describing himself outright as a proponent of single-payer health care.

Rather, the surprise is that Obama wasn’t called to task. Americans understand the need for health-care reform. To some groups—academics, union officials, and politicians—single-payer health care looks like a panacea. Back in the heat of the ClintonCare debates of the 1990s, more than 70 congressional Democrats voted for a Canadian-style system. Today, they remain biased in favor of such a system, even if they’re more cautious about advocating it publicly."

This 'Worst Case Scenario' about Obamanomics is optimistic

There may well be no economic recovery by the end of Obama's term in 2013.

Be prepared for a MAJOR negative change in your lifestyle if you're one of the unfortunate blue and white collar middle class and upper class folks who actually pay taxes and contribute to the economy, rather than the growing class of people who will take away form the economy under the Obama Imperium.

More "Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee" news

Yet another example of how "tolerance" actually works among the properly indoctrinated Obamabots.

Noteworthy:

"'People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it,' Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

'One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,' Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

'In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain,' Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

'Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said,' Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

'He said "You should be crucifixed." It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican.

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms."

I can hear the sanctimonius bleats now: "But...but...but...but they're just KIDS!"

Yeah, that's true.

The adult Obama Attack Droids are even worse.

Israel is realizing that an Obama presidency spells BIG trouble

.....and nowhere is this more clear than in stories like this.

Noteworthy:

"Yousef also claimed he personally had friendly relations with some of Obama’s advisers and that 'Haniyeh will draft a congratulatory letter to Obama for his victory.'"

...and:

"A clash between Obama’s public, anodyne, mainstream statements and behind-the-scenes activities of a different nature would confirm the fears of those concerned about Obama’s history of association with radical people and ideologies."

Today's edition of "Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee"

I expect stories like this will grow by a magnitude of 10 times in the coming Obama imperium.

Noteworthy:

"'I don't think she was prepared for the close-mindedness,' he said. 'I told her she needs to take a lower profile [for the sake of] her academic and her sports careers.'

That's probably good advice, but it's one more reminder of why our colleges and universities have been described as 'islands of repression in a sea of freedom.'"

The coming "Progressive" censorship

David Limbaujgh nails it precisely.

Noteworthy:

"This self-blinding, superior mindset explains how liberals can accuse conservatives of racism for their legitimate political differences with Barack Obama while demeaning, with racist epithets, Condoleezza Rice or Clarence Thomas.

It's how they can mock conservatives for being close-minded while unilaterally declaring the end to the debate on global warming because of a mythical consensus they have decreed.

It's how they can demand every vote count and exclude military ballots.

It's how they can glamorize Jimmy Carter for gallivanting to foreign countries to supervise "fair elections" and pooh-pooh ACORN's serial voter fraud in their own country.

It's how they can threaten the tax-exempt status of evangelical churches for preaching on values, even when the churches don't endorse candidates, but fully support a liberal church's direct electioneering for specific candidates.

It's how they can ludicrously depict President Bush as a dictator while romanticizing brute thug tyrants Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

It's how they can falsely accuse President Bush of targeting innocent civilians in Iraq when he does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties but demand our withdrawal from South Vietnam, which resulted in the massacre of millions of innocents.

It's how they can advocate the banning of DDT in the name of environmental progress but be unconcerned about the untold malaria deaths that resulted.

It's how they can oppose the death penalty for the guilty but protect the death penalty for the innocent unborn.

It's how they can prevent the teaching of 'intelligent design' in schools in the name of science but defend the many documented myths of biological evolution in public-school textbooks, also in the name of science."

It's also how they can package huge tax increases as "tax cuts for 95 percent of the public".

The Obamanator's election emboldens those who would enforce "progressive values"

.... on the rest of us.

Here's the typical type of event we can expect to see as a result of the disastrous mistake made last week.

Excerpt:

"Can we expect more of this? Given what I've seen so far, I think that social cons are in for a very rough few years as Obama's victory seems to have empowered these punks. They will force their moral views down your throat whether you like it or not.

And they think they have the power to do it."

Indeed.

What shall we do to counter goons and loons like these?

Buyer's Remorse over Obama is already growing

In the previous thread, we saw how our very own Obamanator is working to change the platform on which he campaigned, while his Tank Team Media tag team partners are still giddy as schoolgirls about their Dreamboat.

Now we're starting to see the real radical left wing nature he so carefully covered up during the campaign start to take it's dogmatic course, despite the fact that such a course is clearly not in the nation's best interest.

Noteworthy:

"A week ago, if someone mentioned Obama’s intention to 'spread the wealth,' they were labeled an anachronistic red-baiter. If anyone suggested Obama didn’t care about victory in Iraq, they were vilified for questioning the candidate’s patriotism. If someone called him a Democratic socialist, they were laughed at. Today, people are starting to wonder what they got themselves into. It is both too early and too late to figure that out now."

You can't say that you haven't been warned.......

The Obama Revisionist History program continues its work

All the policy commitments on specific issues have been removed from the web site.

Excerpt:

"By this morning, all of the issue-specific pages on the transition site had been removed from the agenda section. In its place, a statement that mentioned details but provided none at all: 'The Obama Administration has a comprehensive and detailed agenda to carry out its policies.'"

Why are we not surprised?

Meet the New Boss.

Much worse than the Old Boss.

Service. Valor. Freedom. Sacrifice. Honor. Courage. Duty.

Important words that some of us have lived by.

Qualities that all should aspire to uphold and practice.

But just words with no meaning for too many people for my tastes.

Now that Obama has created the official position of "President Elect"....

...Greg Mankiw has a little advice for him.

Noteworthy:

Regarding Obama's economists:

"Pay close attention to what they have to say. They will often give you advice quite different from what you will hear from congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. To make sure you hear the views of your economists, put them in offices close to yours. Tell your chief of staff to invite them to all the relevant meetings."

...and:

"This past Tuesday, many people voted for you hoping you would achieve the kind of economic success that Bill Clinton enjoyed in the 1990s. Your best chance of delivering what they want requires that you abandon some of your past positions and pursue a more moderate, bipartisan course."

What are the chances that these wise words will be completely ignored?

Pretty good, I'd say.....

Just how much is this Obama presidency going to cost us?

Quite a bit, if he manages to ram through the most odious of his programs.

Excerpts:

"The worry is that congressional Democrats will persuade the new president to lower the $250,000 cut-off point to the $150,000 (NB: More likely under 100K, in reality) his vice president in waiting, Joe Biden, favors. Some of Obama's advisers are passing the word that he will hold the line at $250,000 and, moreover, won't risk exacerbating the recession by upsetting the wealth-creating small business sector with an immediate tax increase. Instead, he will simply allow the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010, returning taxes on high earners to the levels prevailing during the Clinton years. So, too, with inheritance taxes: They will go up in 2010 to something like the pre-Bush levels, perhaps with a bit more forgiveness for those passing on modest inheritances or small businesses. In the end, it will cost high earners more to live and more to die in 2011. Plan accordingly."

"Obama meant it when he said that he would make carbon emissions so expensive that any electric utility attempting to build a coal-burning generator would be bankrupted. Biden was more direct--"No coal plants here in America." Add to that the "no new nukes" implicit in Obama's refusal to fund nuclear waste facilities, and the "no offshore drilling" implicit in the terms House speaker Nancy Pelosi will insert in any legislation on that subject, and it will soon be apparent that America will not have sufficient supplies of energy to fuel its economy,especiallywhen a recovery takes hold. Renewables, heavily subsidized, will add a tiny bit to supplies, but if Obama is to avoid watching oil imports soar he will have to do what Democrats since the days of Jimmy Carter have always wanted to do: ration the use of energy. Not with coupon books, but by increasing fuel-efficiency standards that will shrink the size of cars to European dimensions; rigidly enforcing rules that mandate the use of ugly, unsafe light bulbs; mandating expensive efficiency standards for new appliances, and so on."

In other words, we'll all be poorer, with fewer jobs and lower pay, and the quality of life will suffer under an Obama presidency.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Now that the myth of "human activity results in calamitous global warming" has been thouroughly discredited

....look for Algore and the True Believers to change the focus of their nonsense, while hoping the world forgets just how dangerously wrong their religious zeal was.

Noteworthy:

"We’ll never know if Al Gore finally understands that he fell for an enormous and costly political scam. But he clearly realizes no one is throwing money into cooling the planet during a chilly recession. And he must sense that the collective American consciousness can only accommodate one overarching fiction at a time. Right now, it’s Obama change — not climate change — that 'we can believe in.'"

And that last little piece of overarching fiction-- Obama's "change"-- will probably not last nearly as long as the "scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming" did.

Don't worry, though. The Usual Suspects/True Believers/Libthinkers of all stripes will soon move on to some other cherished agenda item to champion as the Next Great Cause.

We can count on that as sure as the sun rises in the East........

Odes to Obama

Since we're in a literary mode, let's read some material from the City Journal staff and contributors:

Stefan Kanfer

An infallible pol named Obama
Had a recipe chock-full of drama:
Ayers? Wright? Not to fuss—
Throw them under the bus,
And invoke your white middle-class mama.

Stefan Kanfer, a contributing editor of City Journal and a former editor of Time, is the author of a dozen books, most recently Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando.

Benjamin A. Plotinsky

In diplomacy,” argued Obama,
“Preconditions can only cause trauma!”
So the prez-elect flew
To Tehran’s central zoo
And commenced two-way talks with a llama.

Benjamin A. Plotinsky is the managing editor of City Journal.

Theme poem for an election aftermath

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— William Butler Yeats

(Via LGF)

UPDATE:

Several people have emailed me suggesting I add the second verse.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The "New and Enduring Progressive Majority" theme is absurd

One look at the details blows away that particular phony talking point.

Obama has perhaps a year to come through. I'm not so sure that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (unlike the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" jerks who attacked Bush from the beginning) that long.

Why "Spreading the Wealth" is an empty slogan

The Wealth gets Spread well enough by our market-based system, and not by some grandstanding politician's "tastes great/less filling" sound byte.

Noteworthy:

"While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians."

But that sort of thing wouldn't allow people to stop worrying about putting gas in their car and paying their mortgage, as is popularly thought by those who listen to the pandering politician, will it?

Obama Hero Worship item of the day

At the WaPo, Anne Kornblut slobbers all over the story:

"It was a moment neither the senator from Illinois nor his advisers had anticipated, but one for which they were uniquely prepared. In the days that followed, the newly chastised Obama team became more aggressive, with a message they had refined over the summer. The candidate himself, criticized as too cool, too cerebral and too detached, suddenly had the opportunity to show those qualities to be reassuring and presidential."

Gag me with a spoon......

Power Lines's Paul Mirengoff comments:

"Though I don't subscribe to it, one can make a case that the fact of the financial meltdown in September cost John McCain the presidential election. But Anne Kornblut, still in high Obama worship mode even after the election, wants to claim that it was Obama's 'measured response' to the crisis that 'sealed the election.'

She contrasts Obama, 'so steady in public,' with McCain who acted 'erratically,' particularly when he suspended his campaign. Kornblut provides no evidence for her claim that Obama's allegedly superior response to the financial crisis sealed his victory, and the claim cannot withstand scrutiny.

McCain's announcement that he was going to suspend his campaign and return to Washington came on a day when a Washington Post poll showed him trailing Obama by 9 percentage points. Indeed, that evening some of my liberal friends insisted that McCain's decision was a desperate response to bad polling news. Whatever the validity of that suggestion, it is clear that Obama's gain and McCain's slide pre-dated the 'erratic' behavior that Kornblut and others blame for his demise.

Even in the absence of the polling data, it would be implausible to claim that Obama's approach to the meltdown, which consisted essentially of 'watchful waiting,' was particularly impressive or inherently superior to McCain's. The meltdown simply enraged many voters, causing them to lash out against the candidate more closely associated with the status quo which, in this election, was always going to be McCain."

Indeed.

More than any of the nonsense propagated by the Tank Media, the Nutroots, and the candidate himself, the indisputable major reason for the Obama victory was the economic downturn.

This occurrence is the proximate reason for the prolonged doom and gloom economic picture painted by Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" pundits and their tag team Tank Media allies for the last 15 months.

Obama: Selling the Doom and Gloom scenario

Sure you can. Tiger just has to spot you 40 strokes, or so, per 18 holes

"Equality of rights does not mean equality of results. I can have all the equal treatment in the world on a golf course and I will not finish within shouting distance of Tiger Woods.

When arbitrary numerical 'goals' or 'quotas' under affirmative action are not met, the burden of proof is put on the employer to prove that he did not discriminate against minorities or women. No burden of proof whatever is put on the advocates of 'goals' or 'quotas' to show that people would be equally represented in jobs, colleges or anywhere else in the absence of discrimination.

Tons of evidence from countries around the world, and over centuries of history, show that statistical disparities are the rule, not the exception-- even in situations where discrimination is virtually impossible.

Anonymously graded tests do not show the same results from one group to another. In many countries there are minorities who completely outperform members of the majority population, whether in education, in the economy or in sports, even when there is no way that they can discriminate against the majority.

~Thomas Sowell

How to steal a Senate seat in MN

It's right out of the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" playbook.

Noteworthy:

"As the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, 'The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.'"

Ya think?

Meanwhile, on the scene, PowerLine's John Hinderacker has more:


"Some very basic questions need to be answered. What are the precincts that have allegedly 'corrected' the vote totals they originally reported? On what basis were the alleged corrections made? Did both Republicans and Democrats participate in the alleged corrections? Have the original paper ballots been securely maintained since the polls closed? What assurances are in place to prevent Democrats from fraudulently adding new paper ballots? Do the precincts that have revised their vote totals use the optical scan system that is, as I understand it, nearly universal? If not, why not? If so, what do the ballot machines' tapes show? If the totals now being claimed are inconsistent with the tapes that were signed by the precinct's election judges, on what basis can they be accepted? Why is it that each 'correction' seems to favor Franken? (Imagine that! - Bubba)

The Coleman campaign has reportedly dispatched volunteers to try to guard the security of ballots in some locations. The danger, of course, is that they could already be too late. Minnesota's Secretary of State, a left-wing activist who was elected in 2006 after MoveOn.org and other nationwide groups targeted the Minnesota Secretary of State race, has yet to certify vote totals. If fraud is to be committed, it most likely has taken place already, or will occur before the recount begins.

UPDATE: Hot off the press, the first apparent evidence of fraud. Last night at around 7:30, a precinct in Mountain Iron, St. Louis County, mysteriously updated its vote total to add 100 new votes--all 100 for Barack Obama and Al Franken.

Mountain Iron uses optical scanning, so the Coleman campaign asked for a copy of the tape documenting the ballots cast on election night. St. Louis County responded by providing a tape that includes the newly-added 100 votes, and is dated November 2--the Sunday before the election. St. Louis County reportedly denies being able to produce the genuine tape from election night, even though Minnesota law, as I understand it, requires that tape to be signed by the election judges and publicly displayed.

Maybe there is some legitimate explanation for these events, but I haven't thought of one yet."

It was "slim margin" then, but "landslide" now, right?

Regarding "Patriotic Grace"

During this presidential transition, should we act like the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" did during the transition eight years ago, and continued to act (with about a week's exception after 9-11, and about a month after the invasion of Iraq) throughout the Bush presidency?

No.

I say we act like adults, instead.

But we prepare ourselves to counter the stupidity, arrogance, and wrong-headed action we are sure to encounter, based upon what we know from past experience.

And we will counter these things with an intensity not yet imagined from past political experience, accompanied by none of the self destructive namby pamby-ness that played so great a role in the cumulative damage we inflicted upon ourselves in the last four years.

As the editorial so accurately states, and despite of what some are want you to believe, this country is STILL a right-center nation.

The Tuesday results do not change that.

Theme song for an election aftermath

"We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?



There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!


Meet the new boss
Worse than the old boss"

Election night predictions

If Obama and his Tank Team Media PR team, in conjunction with his illegal campaign contributions and intimidation tactics have managed to fool enough people into electing him president, the babble, dribble, drool, and spew from every little smarmy slimeball slug in his support group will be forthcoming. Indeed, it started weeks ago.

If McCain manages to overcome all the odds against him to win, the blood-curdling howls of "racism", "fraud", and every other nonsensical excuse possible will be the order of the day from the afore-mentioned group.

Count on it.

Sister Toldjah has updates from her Charlotte base, Newsmax is going live this evening, and Redstate looks like it will stay busy throughout the night.

Meanwhile, on Mt. Rushmore

Peeling back the layers of the Obama onion

Obama: Not Man Enough To Be President.

Gerard Van der Leun:

"Obama is intelligent, charming, good-looking, stylish, well-educated and slick. He's everything that other people who value such surfaces look for... not in a leader, but in an icon. And that's what they're buying by buying Obama, an icon. A glowing plastic post-modern Jesus for the dashboard of their Prius. They know, as we all know by now, that he can talk the talk. He just can't walk the walk. He's soft talk and no stick.

I keep coming back to the one indisputable fact first spoken in Sarah Palin's acceptance speech: "There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you ... in places where winning means survival and defeat means death."

One of those places where defeat means death is in the Oval Office on a very bad day.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying Obama is not a man. He's just not man enough for the job."

We can't say that we haven't been warned......

'Ego and Mouth'

As noted in my last post, Barack Obama is nothing more than an arrogant, egotistical jerk, clearly not fit to be President of the United States.

Thomas Sowell tells us more:

"The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

"This is our time!" he proclaimed. And "I will change the world." But ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon.

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of "spreading the wealth," is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

The equally casual ease with which Barack Obama has talked about appointing judges on the basis of their empathies with various segments of the population makes a mockery of the very concept of law.

After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can cripple the military and gamble America's future on his ability to sit down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble."

God help our nation and our people if this miserable excuse for a leader fools enough people at the ballot box.

Flipping McCain off

Nah, there's no deliberateness here, is there?




What an arrogant jerk this guy is!

Adding up the true costs of Obama's huge tax increases

It's a combination of the worst of the McGovern-Carter-Mondale-Dukakis-Clinton-Gore-Kerry plans.

Key point:

"The economists writing Obama’s tax plan look at one set of numbers and think they’re scaring only a few high-income voters. In truth, the Obama tax plan should frighten the half of American households that have their lifetime savings in the stock market and the 25 million small-business owners who do not earn $250,000 today, but hope to in the future. As Langston Hughes wrote, a dream can dry up like a 'raisin in the sun.'

A whole lot of dreams are poised to dry up if the vote goes Obama’s way on Tuesday."

....in more ways that just taxes, Mr Nordquist,

Ready for your electric bill to multiply several times over?

Vote for Obama!



Are you ready for life in The Matrix?

Abortionists as human rights defenders?

Unbelievable!

But that's the spin the pro-abortion group Center For Reproductive Rights want to establish.

Noteworthy:

"CRR in their letter raises violence against abortion providers as one of their key arguments. Violence against abortionists is wrong and should be condemned. But CRR goes much further. They are in fact making the case that any restrictions that would affect abortion providers' practices would constitute an abuse of human rights defenders."

And I'm sure these people would get enthusiastic support for their "progressive" worldview from the great champion of totally unfettered abortion rights, Barack Obama.