I Totally REFUDIATE Oba-Marxim

Just wanted to go on record, making it clear that the Left is not going to "Dan Quayle" Sara Palin. Aren't there 57 states anyway?

Bombshell Inspector General's Report on Dealership Closures

HT: HotAir. From the report (page 31):

"....at a time when the country was experiencing the worst economic downturn in generations and the Government was asking its taxpayers to support a $787 billion stimulus package designed to preserve jobs, Treasury made a series of decision that may have substantially contributed to the accelerated shuttering of thousands of small businesses and thereby potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls — all based on a theory and without sufficient consideration of the decisions’ broader economic impact."

Obama Channels Captain Queeg: Enemies at Every Turn

"Ah, but the strawberries! That's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist! And I'd have produced that key if they hadn't pulled Caine out of action! I-I-I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer and!......

Such was the riveting climax of the court martial scene which sunk the paranoid Captain and freed Lieutenant Steve Maryk from charges of mutiny.

President Obama seems to be having his own Captain Queeg moment, or rather a Queeg-like paranoia. Yesterday, he visited Racine, Wisconsin home to 14% unemployment 19 months into his presidency.

Yet, just like the like incompetent paranoid in The Caine Mutiny, he continues to blame the Republicans for his failure. A party which holds super MINORITIES in both houses of Congress and are impotent to stop any of his initiatives.

Yesterday he said: “I just want everyone to remember — we’ve tried the other side’s theories,”

Well, Mr. President, now we've tried your neo-Keynsian theories and found them wanting.

Your performance as FDR II is an enormous failure. Your presidency has ushered in a new normal of 10-plus percent unemployment as far as the eye can see. You've created an environment where, in the Vice President's words: "we will never make up the 8 million jobs lost." And where the Treasury Secretary told the world: don't look to the US for economic leadership, telling the BBC that the world "cannot depend as much on the US as it has in the past."

Yeah, well maybe that's because the USA's citizens can't depend on it's government to support free markets, resource development and growth anymore.

It's Obama's economy, he owns it lock-stock and smokeless barrel.

The man has FAILURE written all over him.

Obama's Waterloo

It is, perhaps, fitting that it was on this day, June 18 in 1815, that Napoleon met his Waterloo. For, 195 year later, to the day, it seems that Barack Hussein Obama (Milhous to those who know him), is meeting his own Waterloo, this time in the actual water of the Gulf of Mexico. The metaphor is so neat, it's almost trite, but I submit it anyway. It's also fitting that Napoleon lost the battle largely because he had to wait for the field to dry, it was too muddy to advance on.

So too, is today the beginning of the end for Milhous, since this is the first time in Rasmussen's survey of Obama's approval that the totality of likely voters approving of the president is only 41%. Reading the poll a different way, 58%, nearly 6 in 10, disapprove of his performance.

Technical stock analysts would consider this drop important because it penetrates a major resistance point, from here the bottom's the limit. Couldn't happen to a nicer, strike that, nastier guy.

Thomas Friedman, buffoon

In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman talks about the gossip at Davos, which is the use of the words U.S. and political instability in the same breath. He goes on to bemoan our poor, embattled, yet enormously gifted president, who seems unable to right the sailing ship America, which is foundering. Completely ignored is the fact that our president's program are completely at odds with the wishes of the American people and history of the American experiences.

Thomas Friedman is, quite obviously, an enormous fool. Obama is the cause of the instability, not the victim. It is incredible how "intellectuals" can become blind to simple truths. The American people are four-square against centralized control and planning since well before 1776. It's in our DNA, encoded right there next to our unwillingness to trust intellectuals and silver tongued orators selling all manner of tonics and snake oil from the back of their "progressive" travelling circus.

Since stability is a desirable goal, how about relegating the government to its proper role: building bridges, tunnels and railways and facilitating, not impeding commerce. We don't need a bunch of geniuses designing a Marshall Plan unless it's to save the decayed inner cities and forgotten poor from ill-conceived liberal fixes. Our gifted, young president should focus on Detroit first. My brother had a term for guys like this which he would pronounce in rising cadence and pitch: "jerk o--."

Smells like tyranny to me

Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that millions of our fellow citizens, especially the poor and less educated are paying dearly for the Obama administration’s academic exercise to rehabilitate Keynesianism.

Keynes is the father of “demand-side” stimulus theory which was first tried during the Great Depression as FDR’s “new Deal.” But, in 2004, UCLA economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian concluded that rather than help the economy, “FDR’s policies prolonged the misery by 7 years.*”

While the Obama administration spends recklessly on wasteful boondoggles, private investment is, quite obviously, being crowded out and jobs are continuing to be shed.

According to the Washington Times:

“The number of people with a job fell by 589,000 in December. On top of that job loss, the number of people no longer in the labor force grew by an astounding 843,000 from November to December.”

Since February, when the stimulus package was passed, the number of people not in the labor force has grown by 3.2 million. The number for December represents 26 percent of the entire increase. This is important because these millions of people are not included in the official unemployment rate. The crisis of unemployed Americans getting discouraged and giving up looking for work is ballooning. Of course, they have good reasons to be discouraged. Since February [2009], the total number of jobs has fallen by 4 million."

Me-thinks a tyrant is loose in the land.

*In an interview, Ohanian said:


"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump…We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."





Also see: For Obama, a Very Good Crisis

Harold Ford Jr., the Next Republican Senator from New York

Writing in the New York Times today, former Tennessee conregessman Harold Ford Jr. lays out a 4-point plan that any rational being could get behind:

1. "First, cut taxes for businesses — big and small...America’s primary job-creating machine — the private sector — needs to be rejuvenated."


2. "Second, we should pass a more focused health reform bill that restructures current health care costs before spending more..."


3. "Third, we should reform our immigration policy to ensure that those who contribute to our economy, especially foreign math and science graduates of American universities, have a clear path to citizenship." (Absolutely, we must move to a more merit-based immigration system.)


4. "Finally, we need to address budget deficits now rather than waiting for some ideal future economic situation."

Harold Ford Jr. is completely in touch with what American voters want, but is completely out-of-touch with his uber-leftist Decmocratic Party.

Mr. Ford, come to where you ideas would be cheered -- become a Republican.

No, Bobo. You're the joke.

David Brooks, the New York Times token conservative proclaimed Sarah Palin a "joke" during the round table discussion on This Week with George Stephanapoulos today.

David Brooks wrote a book called Bobos in Paradise, which sold something like 30,000 copies (a paltry amount compared to the hundreds of thousands sold by Beck, Levin, O'Reilly and (soon enough) ex-Governor Palin, herself. No one cares what he thinks except for his coterie of elitists in New York and the capital Beltway. Not only did it sell practically zero copies, bu the term also failed to catch on in the vernacular.

Though he wrote for the National Review and continues to write for the New York Times, he does not represent conservatives, in the least.

He reminds me of the very smart, but socially inept outsiders in High School. To think he is what passes as conservative in the lame stream media is in itself lame.

David Brooks and Gwen Ifill on Sarah Palin

David Brooks and Gwen Ifill on Sarah Palin

FW: Great News from Senator Jim DeMint on Honduras

From Senator DeMint's Blog:

November 5, 2009 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint

(R-South Carolina), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, announced he has secured a commitment from the Obama

administration to recognize the Honduran elections on November 29th,

regardless of whether former President Manuel Zelaya is returned to

office and regardless of whether the vote on reinstatement takes place

before or after November 29th. Given this commitment, which Senator

DeMint has requested for months, he will lift objections on the

nominations of Arturo Valenzuela to be Assistant Secretary of Western

Hemisphere Affairs and Thomas Shannon to be U.S. Ambassador to Brazil.

"I am happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed

its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November

29th elections," said Senator DeMint. "Secretary Clinton and Assistant

Secretary Shannon have assured me that the U.S. will recognize the

outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya

is reinstated. I take our administration at their word that they will

now side with the Honduran people and end their focus on the disgraced

Zelaya."

Throughout this crisis, Jim DeMint as well as Senators Tom Coburn

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRGCkac8FlU, John Cornyn, Jeff

Sessions, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, John Ensign, Mel Martinez

<http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=JimsJournal.Deta

il&Blog_ID=5b0b894a-c963-37f0-45ba-00b84fbf89c4, Jon Kyl, Kit Bond,

Mitch McConnell, David Vitter, Jim Inhofe and other Republicans have

been stalwart in opposing the restitution of Mel Zelaya who had been

clearly operating in an effort to sunder the constitution of that

wonderful little country.

Letter to Clinton on Honduras:

http://demint.senate.gov/public/_files/2009-07-08_Letter_to_Clinton_on

_Honduras.pdf

Link to Jim DeMint's Blog:

http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=JimsJournal.BlogH

ome&Issue_id=71b2cbd4-5300-4f12-aaf4-4db61116b34c

Senator DeMint's WSJ Opinion piece:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

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Good article: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16566

Zelaya Tries to Pull a Fast One in Honduras (through AFP)

Update, October 15, 8:30am EDT.

According to Laprensahn.com, president Micheletti confirmed late last night that "there is no agreement" with deposed president Mel Zelaya regarding his return.

October 14, 11:30 pm. Lucianne.com has linked a story from Agence France Presse, which seems to indicate that the Micheletti government has given in on point # 6 referring to the framework created in Costa Rica for a resolution of the situation in Honduras.

However, a statement from pro-Michiletti media (reported less than an hour ago) indicated the following:

"We understand that a group representing Zelaya has agreed to submit to a determination by (Honduras') Congress whether Zelaya may return to power or not."

AFP has interpreted it this way: "Honduran negotiators reached agreement on Wednesday on a plan to restore President Manuel Zelaya to office and end a political crisis triggered by his ouster in a June coup."

So, there seems to be no "agreement," because that would infer two parties reaching an accord and the phony "agreement" is only an offer to submit to Congress' will, not to restore Zelaya. Still, nevertheless, we don't know whether mal Mel has lined up the votes or plans to detain his foes, who knows? It's the wild west down there now. This is likely Zelaya misinformation.

From Yahoo.com (Latin America)
"Tengo entendido que el grupo de Zelaya está pidiendo que sea el Congreso el que determine si puede regresar o no" al poder, indicó Micheletti a periodistas, al aclarar que, en todo caso, "eso es un asunto legal"."

AFP puts it this way:
"Honduran negotiators reached agreement on Wednesday on a plan to restore President Manuel Zelaya to office and end a political crisis triggered by his ouster in a June coup.

""We have agreed in a document on point number six, which relates to the restitution of the powers of state to where they were before June 28, 2009," Victor Meza, Zelaya's representative, told a news conference.

"Restoring the state to the situation before the coup would imply Zelaya's return to office, something that had been opposed by Robert Micheletti, the head of the coup-backed interim government.

"Micheletti and Zelaya must now ratify the agreement reached by their representatives in talks Tegucigalpa."

My earlier posts on the subject:

• Thousands of Hondurans march to protest the return...
• Obama May Foment Civil War in Honduras to Please Chavez
• Honduran President Micheletti Continues to Defy Obama/Chavez
• Honduran President Micheletti to Clinton: Nuts
• Letter to Barack Obama

An interesting side note, all local Websites have been inaccessible for the last 30 minutes or so.

Update: BBC admits to confusion on early reports from Zelaya's camp