A Twelve Step plan for Democrats

Came across this today on Scott Ott's Facebook page. Michael Steele, our fearless leader of the RNC is releasing a new book "Right Now: A 12 Step Program for defeating the Obama agenda". And it got me remembering the book I saw the the DNC chairman Tim Kaine wrote, "Maybe Never: A twelve step plan for passing the Obama Agenda.

Step 1. We admit that we are powerless over Big Government

Step 2. Only a government bigger than GWB's government can save us.

Step 3. We made a decision to turn our money and freedom over to the government.

Step 4. Made a searching of our tax receipts (this only applies to those living under Big Government.Not to prospective members of the administrion)

Step 5. Admitted to Obama the exact nature of what is wrong with free enterprise.

Step 6. We are ready to have Obama nationalize all remaining remnants of the free market.

Step 7. Humbly ask Obama to remove the yoke of work from us.

Step 8. Made a list of all of the people that Republicans have harmed and find a way to send Attn Gen Holder after them.

Step 9. Made Attn General Holder send them to Gitmo (It's not for terrorists anymore!)

Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory of Republicans and send them to Gitmo when necessary.

Step 11. Sought through Obama's youtube videos and speeches in MP3 format for the knowledge and will to carry out Obama's vision.

Step 12.Having had a glorious vision of the future, spread the message of Hopenchange to all people, at least those on the Moveon.org mailing list.

Failure number 7,894,423, give or take a few more million, of socialism

In the wonderful workers paradise that is Venezuela, where all people are equal and there is no strife as Chavez is concurrently Jesus, Castro and Barack Obama combined, El Jefe has made all people equal. Equal to rolling blackouts in one of the most energy rich countries in the Western Hemisphere. From the NYTIMES (of all places)

This country may be an energy colossus, with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and one of the world’s mightiest hydroelectric systems, but that has not prevented it from enduring serious electricity and water shortages that seem only to be getting worse.

President Hugo Chávez has been facing a public outcry in recent weeks over power failures that, after six nationwide blackouts in the last two years, are cutting electricity for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana. Now, water rationing has been introduced here in the capital.

Over the course of the last decade, Chavez has nationalized the better portion of the utilities industry as oil money flowed into the country and drove growth in Venezuela. Now that we have seen global demand wane, it looks like poor little Hugo is learning, probably for the first time, the inefficiencies inherent in centrally planned economies. As oil revenues poured in, things got better for the greater population in Venezuela right?

The deterioration of services is perplexing to many here, especially because the country had grown used to cheap, plentiful electricity and water in recent decades. But even as the oil boom was enriching his government and Mr. Chávez asserted greater control over utilities and other industries in this decade, public services seemed only to decay, adding to residents’ frustrations.

With oil revenues declining and the economy slowing, the shortages may have no quick fixes in sight. The government announced some emergency measures this week, including limits on imports of air-conditioning systems, rate increases for consumers of large amounts of power and the building of new gas-fired power plants, which would not be completed until the middle of the next decade.

So what does Hugo do? He moves towards a more efficient market based economy right?

In response, the president is embarking on his own crusade: pushing Venezuelans to conserve by mocking their consumption habits.

He began his critique last month with the amount of time citizens spent under their shower heads, saying three-minute showers were sufficient. “I’ve counted and I don’t end up stinking,” he said. “I guarantee it.”

Then he went after the country’s ubiquitous love motels and shopping malls, accusing them of waste. “Buy your own generator,” he threatened, “or I’ll cut off your lights.” He similarly laid blame with “oligarchs,” a frequently used insult here for the rich, for overconsumption of water in gardens and swimming pools.

Damn those clean people. How dare they want to wash themselves. Additionally those money changers are trying to throw their weight around.

Mr. Chávez is even going after his countrymen’s expanding waistlines. “Watch out for the fat people,” he said last month, citing a study finding a jump in obesity. “Time to lose weight through dieting and exercise.”

When Chavez writes his little red book the first political piece of advice will be "fatty, fatty two by four can't fit through the bathroom door." I wonder if that will show up in any of the speeches of Mark Lloyd and Anita Dunn in the future. Fat People are the scourge of existence they don't share their bounty.

Meanwhile, homes and businesses across the country are adapting to the erratic supply of power and, here in Caracas, of water. Sales of small generators, candles and water storage tanks are surging. Reflecting the unease of the already strained industrial base, which developed around access to ample and cheap power, Sidor, a steel maker in Ciudad Guayana, said it was shutting down its furnaces five hours a day because of the cuts.

“If this crisis teaches us something,” said Fernando Branger, an energy expert at the Institute of Superior Administration Studies, a Caracas business school, “it is that the immensity of our energy reserves means nothing if we cannot even get them out of the ground.”

Socialism will never be able to match up to the efficiency of capitalism. Can we finally throw this model on the dustbin of history.(see what I did there, I quoted Trotsky)

Fears behind Government healthcare

Obama hits 'fear-mongering' on health care changes

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I must say, the President is throwing every ounce of political capital that he has at trying to sell his healthcare plan to the AMA and the American people. The truth is that more than likely he will not get what he wants(in the end, a single payer system) because he will not make the necessary political concessions to do it.

One such "scare tactic" the president cited Monday was an assertion that he favors socialized medicine. Obama again denied that, although he did say he thought that a "public option" should be available as a choice for those who currently have no insurance coverage. Obama said "we know the moment is right," citing the passage of legislation giving the government unprecedented control of the marketing and sale of cigarettes.





What is laughable is that the "public option" is essentially a collective, or in a more direct manner socialized medicine. What the President is calculating is that he will be able to charm the disparate sides; labor, doctors, insurance companies and the public and will be able to get his plan passed. This is hubris at the highest level. The good news for those of us who would like to see healthcare reformed without the intorduction of full blown socialized care is that the President is such an idealogue that he will refuse to push back against his base. Tort reform, not going to be touched he can say goodbye to the AMA. Pretax health benefits, goodbye union support. Rationing of care, goodbye middle class. We need to begin to chip away at his periphral support and I beleive that the best way to start is to push him on tort reform. We shall see

New GM Head Honcho: "I don't know anything about cars"

From Bloomberg:

“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”

In other news the President admitted that he doesn't know shit about governing.

You can't make this shit up... but the President can.

White House Cites Progress on Economy Under Plan

WASHINGTON — The rising unemployment rate is giving President Obama’s critics an opportunity to raise questions about the effectiveness of his recovery plan and his economic leadership. The huge budget deficit is focusing fresh concern on the national debt.

So Mr. Obama began a new effort on Monday to show that his stimulus plan was yielding concrete benefits, saying that his administration expects to save or create 600,000 more jobs this summer, as the federal government spends billions to expand care at health centers, spruce up national parks, hire teachers and improve military facilities.

At a meeting with Mr. Obama and the cabinet, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. outlined 10 major initiatives that he said would “build momentum and accelerate job growth” over the next 100 days. After Mr. Biden ticked off a list of programs — including water and waste projects in rural America and rehabilitation of 98 airports and 1,500 highways — the president took aim at his critics.

“Now I know that there are some who, despite all evidence to the contrary, still don’t believe in the necessity and promise of the recovery act,” Mr. Obama said, “and I would suggest to them that they talk to the companies who, because of this plan, scrapped the idea of laying off employees and in fact decided to hire employees. Tell that to the Americans who receive that unexpected call saying, ‘Come back to work.’ “

How stupid does the administration believe that the American people are; seriously?


Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

Its not like they haven't tried. Hell, I could save or create a job this weekend by hiring a babysitter and getting my snotty nosed neighbor's son to mow my lawn, but isn't that just a "McJob" I'm not going to promote my babysitter or lawn care specialist to prune my petunias, that is done by Korean man-servant Kato, no pay. Where are these jobs that have been saved? How about these jobs? I remember, this recovery plan was going to save those jobs at the Caterpillar plant right?



I wish that I could pull this off. I'm going to let my professors know that I am going to save or create my dissertation in the next several weeks by investing my time in playing Call of Duty 4. Of course the White House press corps is eating this up. Bill McGurn hit the nail on the head in the WSJ today.

The Obama numbers are pure fiction.

Bernanke's "Green Shoots"

From Bloomberg this morning.

The Labor Department’s April 3 report that the economy shed an additional 663,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent, will be followed by months more of bad-news headlines, economists say. The recession, now in its 17th month, has already cost 5.1 million Americans their jobs, the worst drop in the postwar era; unemployment may hit 9.4 percent this year, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey, and may top out above 10 percent in 2010.

The risk is that the jobs picture turns even more bleak than forecast or the drumbeat of bad news still to come causes consumers, whose spending has firmed up in recent months, to hunker down again.

“If something happens to spook consumers and they crawl back into their tortoise shells, that would be terrible news,” says Alan Blinder, former Fed vice chairman and now an economics professor at Princeton University.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the economy, rose 0.2 percent in February after climbing 1 percent in January, breaking a six-month string of declines.

“Whether the little wisps of improvement in spending are sustained needs watching,” says Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Interest Rates

Declining interest rates on mortgages and business loans led Bernanke, 55, to tell CBS Corp.’s “60 Minutes” on March 15 that he sees “green shoots” in some financial markets, and that the pace of economic decline “will begin to moderate.”

Fueled by optimism that the economy may finally be stabilizing, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index last month gained 8.5 percent, the most in seven years. Still, “I would be careful about chasing this rally,” Jason Trennert, chief investment strategist at Strategas Research Partners in New York, said in a March 27 interview.

With the Obama administration borrowing to finance record budget deficits, U.S. debt sales will almost triple this year to a record $2.5 trillion, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The borrowings may send 10-year yields as high as 6 percent by the end of 2010 from 2.9 percent on April 4, Trennert says, adding that it’s “hard to get optimistic” about stock prices “if you’re in a situation where it’s reasonable to expect long- term interest rates to be higher.”

Stock-Price Plunge

Another plunge in stock prices is just one of the things economists say might derail any recovery. Others include the disorderly collapse of General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC or a major financial firm; or the failure of the Obama administration’s bank-rescue plan.

A one-month jump in the jobless rate of more than 0.6 percentage point would be a severe blow to confidence, says Alan Blinder, former Fed vice chairman and now an economics professor at Princeton University. So would monthly job losses that continue to top 600,000 into the second half of the year, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Payrolls have been shrinking by more than that every month since December. Losses need to come down below 500,000 in the next few months and drop close to 100,000 by year-end to confirm that the worst of the recession is over, Zandi says.

“If we continue to lose 600,000-plus jobs a month, that will burn out those green shoots pretty quickly,” he says. “If you lose jobs like that, it continues to undermine consumer spending and confidence.”

I think that Big Ben has this right. We are seeing lots of "green shoots" or "mustard seeds" that will lead to a long term economic recovery. We have a crash in energy prices, as well as retailers that are offering the barn to try and stoke retail sales upward again. Also, the low, low interest rates lead to an upturned yield curve for banks that are borrowing to responsible lenders so bank balance sheets are becoming less leveraged. Also, we want to remember that unemployment is a lagging indicator so going forward we shouldn't look at the last quarters numbers as much as at the leading indicators. Also, with bargains abounding in the stock market the bear hopefully will go into hibernation within the next few quarters.

All of the indicators are pointing to recovery in the financials, but we are still struck down by a bout of fear.I think that this is capital's fear of the impending tax hike as well as fear of hyper-inflation. The President should retreat from his call for tax hikes until the economy has recovered, as we can not afford to lose any capital investment that would come our way.

Wouldn't a world without mean people be nice too...

From the Wall Street Journal this morning.

Speaking at Prague's Castle Square, Mr. Obama told the audience his administration was committed "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

"We have to insist: 'Yes, we can,'" he said, reprising a campaign theme recognizable to a crowd a continent away from his election victory.

Sunday's speech followed a meeting Wednesday between Mr. Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, where the two leaders committed to conclude a new bilateral treaty that would reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals below the 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads agreed to in 2002.

Mr. Obama's strategy, however, also seeks to gain the support of developing nations by recognizing their right to develop nuclear power.

The Obama administration is specifically supporting the development of an international nuclear-fuel bank that aspiring nuclear-power states could tap to feed their reactors.

Such a system, say U.S. officials, would undercut demands of countries like North Korea and Iran that they need to develop their own infrastructure to produce nuclear fuel. Such technologies can be easily shifted into producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The President has a limited amount of political capital that he can use in both domestic and foreign affairs. Why he would choose to go into a former soviet Bloc country to call for an end to nuclear weapons in what amounts to not much more than a campaign speech is beyond me. The intention is good, but the steps to go about strengthening our position against Russian, Iranian and North Korean hegemony is not to pray for cats and dogs to live together in peace, but to take a substantiative stance against nuclear proliferation, including everything up to a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe as well as the possible use of force against those nations who would use nuclear capacity against there perceived enemies.

One thing that I have realized about the North Koreans is that they are willing to push the envelope but not to step to over the line. (Sorry about the mixed metaphors) In that regard, I believe that the President's response was appropriate. However, Iran is the big issue here. If this is a test, by proxy, of the President by the Iranians, unfortunately he came across in Carteresque fashion.

NY TIMES gets it wrong...Again

This report from the NT Times this morning details the "failure" of the North Korean "satellite" launch over the weekend.

A disgraceful passage.


The command said that North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 missile at 11:30 a.m. Sunday local time, or 10:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday, and that its first stage fell into the Sea of Japan, which analysts had expected as the point of splashdown in a successful launching.

However, “the remaining stages, along with the payload itself, landed in the Pacific Ocean,” the statement said. Analysts had expected the rocket’s second stage to land in the Pacific but its third stage and its ostensible satellite payload to fly into space.

The command emphasized that “no object entered orbit,” apparently a reference to both the rocket’s third stage as well as the supposed satellite.

North Korea’s public portrayal of the event as a complete success was similar in its celebratory tone to the happy note it struck in 1998 after having failed to loft a satellite into orbit.

News reports out of Japan also said the rocket’s second stage splashed down in the Pacific, hundreds of miles short of the danger zone that North Korea announced last month. Western analysts said that shortfall, if correct, probably indicated a failure of the missile’s second stage.



Does it occur to the "Newspaper of record" that the North Koreans weren't trying to launch a satellite. Perhaps they wanted to rattle the saber at the Japanese and President Obama, who was giving a vaunted, teleprompted speech about a world without nuclear weapons. I know that my liberal friends want to compare the President to Superman, but if he is Superman it is the Superman of the 4th shitty movie; Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

What the situation over the weekend reminds me of is a D.A.R.E officer giving a speech on a drug-free school system while the bad kids sit on the fire escape snorting coke. "Maybe if those bad kids heard how good the speech about the drug-free world is then why would they use drugs." I think that we would be able to stop the Dear Leader's saber rattling by beaming this into the country.



Another case of the Trailer being better than the movie

The Incomparable Thomas Sowell

Wow...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODk5M2I3YWI2NTU2ZGZjZDBjMGVjNTVkZGQwNWI5ZTg=

What is even worse than making mistakes is having sycophants telling you that you are doing fine when you are not. In addition to all the usual hangers-on and supplicants for government favors that every president has, Barack Obama has a media that will see no evil, hear no evil, and certainly speak no evil.

They will cheer him on, no matter what he does, short of first-degree murder — and they would make excuses for that. Even Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan has gushed over President Obama, and even crusty Bill O’Reilly has been impressed by Obama’s demeanor.

There is no sign that President Obama has impressed the Russians, the Iranians, or the North Koreans, except by his rookie mistakes — and that is a dangerous way to impress dangerous people.

What did his televised overture to the Iranians accomplish, except to reassure them that he was not going to do a damn thing to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb? It is a mistake that can go ringing down the corridors of history.

Future generations who live in the shadow of that nuclear threat may wonder what we were thinking about, putting our lives — and theirs — in the hands of a rookie because we liked his style and symbolism?

In the name of “change,” Barack Obama is following policies so old that this generation has never heard of them — certainly not in most of our educational institutions, where history has been replaced by “social studies” or other politically correct courses.

Seeking deals with our adversaries, behind the backs of our allies? The French did that at Munich back in 1938. They threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves and, less than two years later, Hitler gobbled up France anyway.

This year, President Obama’s attempt to make a backdoor deal with the Russians, behind the backs of the NATO countries, was not only rejected but made public by the Russians — a sign of contempt and a warning to our allies not to put too much trust in the United States.

Barack Obama is following a long practice among those on the left of being hard on our allies and soft on our enemies. One of our few allies in the Middle East, the Shah of Iran, was a whipping boy for many in the American media, who vented their indignation at his regime — which now, in retrospect, seems almost benign compared to the hate-filled fanatics and international-terrorism sponsors who now rule that country.

However much Barack Obama has proclaimed his support for Israel, his first phone call as president of the United States was to Hamas, to which he has given hundreds of millions of dollars, which can buy a lot of rockets to fire into Israel.

Am I the only one who is not surprised by the terrible performance of my President...Nope, thank God for Tom Sowell keeping me sane.