SIGN UP - IT'S FREE!
SEARCH FSM
| National Debt Clock |
A million seconds pass in 12 days.
A billion seconds pass in 31 years.
A trillion seconds pass in 31,688 years!
October 9, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch – Friday, October 9
Does Obama Get It? Does he GET IT?! The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging. GO HERE.
Human rights groups see Obama wavering: President's actions clash with pledges. HERE.
Hillary Clinton is giving millions to Gaddafi. Why? - Florida Congresswoman: “No U.S. funds should be going to Gaddafi or his barbaric regime.” Read article.
The Obamas' Ego Trip to Copenhagen
George F. Will, Washington Post.com
In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.
Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about . . . themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 Games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.
In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences conveyed the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.
The president told the Olympic committee that: "At this defining moment," a moment "when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations" in "this ever-shrinking world," he aspires to "forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world."
Good grief. The memory of man runneth not to a moment that escaped being declared "defining" -- declared such by someone seeking to inflate himself by inflating it. Also, enough already with the "shrinking" world, which has been so described at least since Magellan set sail, and probably before that. And by the way, the "fate" of -- to pick a nation at random -- Chile is not really in any meaningful sense "inextricably linked" to that of, say, Chad.
But meaningful sense is often absent from the gaseous rhetoric that makes it past White House editors -- are there any? -- and onto the president's teleprompter. Read article.
It's not about healthcare at all!
Radiopatriot.blogspot.com
It is not about health care at all -- it is about a socialist plan to control our lives, cradle to grave. It's a masquerade. There's a reason why Obama et al are trying to rush thru legislation that the people do not want. Our gut is telling us "this doesn't smell right". Obama and his pals know that if they don't ram this thing through, Americans will get wise. And they're right. We are. We know we have the best medical care in the world - it's why the rest of the world comes to us when their socialized health care programs fail them. Americans are looking at each other over this rush to reform our health care and going "WHAT??"
States across the nation are enacting legislation to assert their sovereignty and protect themselves against a fascistic Fed that is interfering well beyond the Fed government's Constitutional authority. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (10th Amendment)
2. If it's about addressing the waste and fraud, why wasn't it done years ago? The facts show that the worst government run program is Medicare! Both Medicare and Medicaid are hundreds of millions of dollars in the red. Why? Fraud and waste. ER care costs are the highest in the world - because Federal mandates FORCE hospitals that take Fed dollars to care for everyone who shows up. That's CRAZY! Where does the Fed get the authority to do that? Congress? No. Why? Congress only gets to admininster 18 things. It says so in the Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 8. 3. All these brilliant minds argue the finer points of "public option, blah blah blah" while completely blowing past the fact that the federal government has no business being in the business of administering health care, or auto manufacturing, or banking, or anything else for that matter. Cash for Clunkers worked really well, didn't it? Amtrak, the Postal service, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... pick a government program -- any program -- and you'll see a stinking cesspool of waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, malfeasance. Corruption. It goes on and on.
3. All these brilliant minds argue the finer points of "public option, blah blah blah" while completely blowing past the fact that the federal government has no business being in the business of administering health care, or auto manufacturing, or banking, or anything else for that matter. Cash for Clunkers worked really well, didn't it? Amtrak, the Postal service, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... pick a government program -- any program -- and you'll see a stinking cesspool of waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, malfeasance. Corruption. It goes on and on. Read article.
There Are Serious Fascists In America
David Horowitz, NewsRealBlog.com
But they’re on the political left. I wrote yesterday about Glenn Beck’s feature on the violent demonstration by leftists in Pittsburgh (which was covered up by the New York Times and the rest of the left-wing media.) He also reported on the bombing of a radio tower in the State of Washington by the Earth Liberation Front — a left-wing terrorist organization — which went equally unreported. Instead we are treated to a rash of hand-wringings by liberals like Tom Friedman who talk about incitements that could lead to the assassination of President Obama.
Pete Wehner has an excellent blog on this hypocrisy, recalling that a film was actually made by leftists portraying the assassination of President Bush among many other incitements against him by leftists with no — absolutely no — complaints by Friedman and the NY Times. In fact the whole Democratic Party leadership accused Bush of lying to get us into a war and killing young Americans in the process. “Bush lied people died” was the favored leftist chant of the Iraq War, just like “Hey Hey LBJ How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?” was during the Vietnam War. The incitement to assassinate American presidents is the background music of the American left. “Captialism is evil!” “Our leaders are torturers!” “He BETRAYED us!” Screamed Al Gore one of the inciters — and liars –in chief. Read article.
Surrendering Sovereignty
Dick Morris, Vote.com
While all eyes were on the rantings of Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, the United States -- under President Barack Obama -- was surrendering its economic sovereignty at the G-20 summit. The result of this conclave, which France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed as "revolutionary," was that all the nations agreed to coordinate their economic policies and programs and to submit them to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for comment and approval. While the G-20 nations and the IMF are, for now, only going to use "moral suasion" on those nations found not to be in compliance, talk of sanctions looms on the horizon.
While the specific policies to which the U.S. committed itself (reducing the deficit and strengthening regulatory oversight of financial institutions) are laudable in themselves, the process and the precedent are frightening. We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Even though our GDP is three times bigger than the second largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus. Europe has five votes (U.K., France, Germany, Italy and the EU) while we have but one.
And the process will be administered by the IMF, whose counsel to less developed nations over the past two decades has consistently called for social pain and economic austerity. The IMF's misguided policies have been responsible for more revolutions than Marx, Engels and Lenin combined. Its bureaucrats' arrogance is legendary and their search for appropriate punishments to fit the crime of spending too much on the poor smacks of colonialism and imperialism. They are our new overseers. Read article.
We've Been Talking to Iran for 30 Years: The seizure of the U.S. embassy followed the failure of Carter administration talks with Ayatollah Khomeini's regime.
Michael Ledeen, Online WSJ.com
The Obama administration's talks with Iran are accompanied by an almost universally accepted misconception: that previous American administrations refused to negotiate with Iranian leaders. The truth, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said last October at the National Defense University, is that "every administration since 1979 has reached out to the Iranians in one way or another and all have failed."
After the fall of the shah in February 1979, the Carter administration attempted to establish good relations with the revolutionary regime. We offered aid, arms and understanding. The Iranians demanded that the United States honor all arms deals with the shah, remain silent about human-rights abuses carried out by the new regime, and hand over Iranian "criminals" who had taken refuge in America. The talks ended with the seizure of the American Embassy in November.
The Reagan administration—driven by a desire to gain the release of the American hostages—famously sought a modus vivendi with Iran in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War during the mid-1980s. To that end, the U.S. sold weapons to Iran and provided military intelligence about Iraqi forces. High-level American officials such as Robert McFarlane met secretly with Iranian government representatives to discuss the future of the relationship. This effort ended when the Iran-Contra scandal erupted in late 1986.
The Clinton administration lifted sanctions that had been imposed by Messrs. Carter and Reagan. During the 1990s, Iranians (including the national wrestling team) entered the U.S. for the first time since the '70s. The U.S. also hosted Iranian cultural events and unfroze Iranian bank accounts. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly apologized to Iran for purported past sins, including the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh's government by the CIA and British intelligence in August 1953. But it all came to nothing when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proclaimed that we were their enemies in March 1999. Read article.
American Jews and Obama’s Abandonment of Israel
Abraham H. Miller, Pajamas Media.com
When the Israel Bonds appeal was made in many synagogues this year, congregants heard something that would have been unnecessary a generation ago: a strong reminder of the ties that bind American Jews to Israel.
Given a choice between ties to Israel and commitments to leftist politics, American Jews will choose their politics.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the support among Jewish Democrats (92%) for the policies of Barack Obama and their contrasting rejection by Israelis (4% support Obama’s policies).
The explanation for the divergence is typical of the hubris of leftist Jews. They see themselves and President Obama as the embodiment of Democratic and Jewish ideals, while Israeli Jews, especially the Orthodox and Russian immigrants, have moved decidedly to the right and spurned both Jewish and Democratic values.
In the boardrooms of Jewish organizations, discussion of “divergence,” as it is being called, takes place with the consummate acceptance of this explanation. Read article.
Meet the Hazzards
Nomi Prins & Christopher Hayes, The Nation.com
As we mark the end of the first year of the financial bailout, the public seems to regard the government's actions with a toxic combination of rage and confusion. People are pissed off but too bewildered to know what to do with that anger. The confusion isn't an accident. The government hasn't exactly been forthcoming about how it's made buckets of money available to the banking sector. When it does disclose some information--such as in July's SIGTARP report from the Treasury or the Federal Reserve's weekly balance sheet--it's in the form of intimidating descriptions, accounting mumbo jumbo and technical reports that do little to illuminate just what the hell is going on.
What's worse, banks and the establishment press have portrayed TARP as the sum of the banking industry's federal subsidies. An August 30 New York Times article, "As Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees a Profit," gives the impression that taxpayers should be happy to have made $4 billion on the deal, as if our checks were in the mail. But when the government became Wall Street's bank, it wasn't just $700 billion of TARP money that flew north to Wall Street. TARP was but a small fraction (roughly 4 percent) of the full $17.5 trillion bailout and subsidization of the financial sector. [See image.] The details of this total bailout are complicated, but the basic mechanisms aren't beyond the average citizen's grasp. We're going to walk you through it. Read article.
The Making of a Right-Winger
J.K. McGowan, American Thinker Blog.com
Thank-you, President Obama. I think of my favorite hymn, Amazing Grace - "I once was blind and now I see".
I have lived a mostly apolitical life. Oh, I mourned the end of Camelot with the assassination of JFK, abhorred the arrogance of Richard Nixon, suffered the gas lines under Carter's reign, listened with hope to Ronald Reagan's speeches and despised the amorality of the Clintons. But still embraced no political ideology.
Almost a year after the election, with Obama's relentless attacks on our Constitution, I am a rabid, "hate mongering", "lying", "racist", "violence inciting", on the terrorist watch list right winger. I have discovered Levin, Stehn, Rush, Beck, David Horowitz, The American Thinker, Imprimus, the Heritage Foundation and so much more. My "seasoned citizen" brain is overflowing with knowledge of czars, White House and congressional corruption, communism and radicalism in America and, most importantly, the founding principles of our great nation. Being informed isn't easy. I email and phone Congress and I worry about our future. Ignorance cannot be reclaimed. I once was an "in the closet" proud American. I am now a loud, "you will not destroy our country", flag waving, "save our Constitution" PROUD AMERICAN.
Thank you, President Obama. Read article.
Rent-Seekers Inc. Climate-change legislation helps a few big utility companies, but costs most Americans.
Kimberley A. Strassel, Online WSJ.com
It isn't often an energy company (of all things) gets to present itself as an environmental crusader, cozy up to Washington rulemakers, buy political protection, and pad its bottom line—all in one neat little announcement. So give Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM and Exelon credit for going for the gold.
The three utility giants have made news recently by quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Their finer sensibilities, they explained, would no longer allow them to associate with an organization lacking in environmental fervor. How dare the Chamber demand the Environmental Protection Agency be transparent about the science it is relying on to regulate all carbon energy use. Heresy! "As a company with a clear and strong position on the importance of addressing climate change," we must go our own way, lamented PG&E's CEO Peter Darbee.
Fortunately for Mr. Darbee, that way leads to the bank. As much as supporters of cap and tax would like to spin this as a new corporate ethic, the reality is less edifying. The lesson here is that big business political rent-seeking is alive and thriving.
"The carbon-based free lunch is over," declared Exelon CEO John Rowe, neglecting to mention that his company's free lunch is only beginning. Under the House's climate-change bill, a few utilities—primarily those that have made big bets in renewable and nuclear energy—are poised to clean up once Congress hands them carbon emission credits. The bill sets aside 35% of the free credits for utilities. Exelon and other "renewable" utilities will get a huge piece of that pie. Read article.
Cash for Clunkers Comes Crashing Down
The Foundry, Heritage.org
Politicians initially lauded cash for clunkers as a successful program that stimulated the economy, particularly the ailing auto industry, and the program also inspired consumers to buy more fuel efficient vehicles at the expense of completely destroying their old ones. Nancy Gibbs sums it up well in Time:
“What does it tell us about our national character when the most popular government program in years is an economically dubious, environmentally negligible, politically lazy handout from 99% of the population to the other 1%, all aimed at reviving the economy from its vegetative state?”
If you subsidize anything enough, people will buy it. Industry incentives are increasing but nowhere near the level of the $3,500-$4,500 taxpayer-funded “incentives.” Worse, cash for clunkers could have serious adverse consequences for consumers’ behavior when it comes to purchasing goods. If consumers come to expect a handout from the government, they may hold off on buying a new product.
It’s difficult to say when the cash for clunkers hangover will subside, but head of Chrysler’s sales organization Peter Fong thinks that “the remainder of 2009 will continue to be a challenge for the U.S. automotive market.”
So much for that talk of a successful government program. Read article.
Politicians earned distrust - Broken promises and burgeoning costs.
richard A. Viguerie & Steven J. Allen, Washington Times.com
Politicians lie. A few politicians are honest. Sometimes, even, what appears to be politicians' lying is just incompetence and cluelessness. The point is that when politicians are trying to sell the public on a big program, they don't let the actual costs and consequences of the program get in the way.
In fact, the next time a tax or a program costs what politicians say will be the first time.
In 1913, proponents of a federal income tax promised that only the top one-half of 1 percent of income earners would be subject to the tax, with the maximum tax on the super-rich at 7 percent. How did that work out?
In 1936, we were promised in an official pamphlet that the Social Security tax would rise gradually until it hit 3 percent from the employee and 3 percent from the employer on the first $3,000 of income. "That is the most you will ever pay," according to the pamphlet. Today, the maximum Social Security tax, adjusted for inflation, is eight times that amount. With the Medicare tax, it's 10 times that amount.
In the official pamphlet, Americans were told that "the United States government will set up a Social Security account for you" - saving your money as in a bank account. No such accounts were set up. The pamphlet promised, "The checks will come to you as a right." The Supreme Court ruled later that there is no such right. Read article.
Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (0) | Sign Up for FSM Updates!
