Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Olbermann and Dean Musings on ‘Fascism’

Proving once again that Olbermann is an uber-fool. Hat tip to OlbermannWatch for this spot.

More From Obama’s BFF

Obama Pushes for Expanded Powers

Ok, now I’m really scared.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009; A01

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Ok, so now the government can use taxation to ‘undo’ legal but unpopular contracts (see AIG bonuses) and now they will have the right to seize companies outright? Where are the armies of hyperventilating liberal idiots who said Bush was trying to make himself an evil fascist overlord now, huh? Where did they go? If you’ve got a company that’s related to finance, watch how you run your company, because if it becomes politically expedient for Barack Obama to nationalize your company, he can and will. This is full-bore socialism.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.

Only a fool would actually believe that the federal government would do a better job at crashing these companies. The government is partly to blame in the first place! And this is not about saving investors, this is about saving the owners of these businesses. They won’t be protesting this action (at first) because it will be better than having a golden parachute — it will mean that as long as they are profitable the profits will remain privatized, but once the company starts to fail the losses will become socialized, extending onto the backs of taxpayers.

The administration’s proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed’s other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.

‘Systemic risk regulator’? We already have a system for that in place - it’s called the free market.
If this goes through, people, America is doomed. DOOMED.

The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.

Where would we draw the line on ‘tottering’? Is a public outcry enough? Would a heartfelt speech by a senator do the trick? All this will accomplish in the long-term is expanding the role of government, and in the short term delay the recovery. The Democrats’ prescription for the economy’s case of temporary walking pneumonia is terminal socialistic brain cancer.

Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG’s most troubled unit.

We’re privatizing profits and socializing the risk.
I’ll say it again - under the Democrats this nation is DOOMED.
No, I’m not joking.

Sweden Rocked by Radical Muslims

Malmo is Sweden ’s 3rd largest city and a major epicenter of the Islamization of Europe. Wide-open immigration policies have changed Sweden and have made Malmo, which is now one-quarter Muslim, one of the most racially divided cities in Europe.

Most Muslim immigrants are concentrated in one district, where the male unemployment rate is 82 percent. Crime affects one of three families in the city and rape has tripled in 20 years, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network.

From NewsMax.

Probably just more of what most of us are aware of, but I found it interesting.

Here in the US, politicians are lax with immigration for the purpose of getting votes. Dems cater specifically to illegals while reps are stupidly scared to step in the way for fear of repelling those votes. Not that it should matter, because illegals don’t carry the right to vote. But that doesn’t stop more liberal voting precincts and special interest groups, does it?

Do you all think it’s reasonable to believe that lax immigration policies could cause the doom of Europe? What about here in the states? I seem to come across many different stories here and there about these issues, and more and more I see it as a reasonable grounds for concern in the loss of a nation.

President Barack Obama’s Teleprompter Blog

President Barack Obama Teleprompter Blog

So why am I going public now, when for the past two years I’ve let others do the talking? Well, this is a thankless job, and I sure don’t want to take the fall for communications missteps. But more important, I expect you’ll be seeing a lot more of me over the next few months and years. Barack and I don’t go anywhere without each other; we even complete each other’s sentences … well, more mine than his, but let’s not split hairs.

I sense new text being loaded now, so I’ll have to be going.

Sen. Dodd Admits He Inserted AIG Bonus Loophole

This past Tuesday Senator Dodd (CT-D.) declared that he was not responsible for the loophole that allowed AIG executives to hand out $165 million in bonus pay. Today he has admitted to adding the loophole and has blamed the Obama Adminstration for insisting on the change.

In a dramatic reversal Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd confessed to adding language to a spending cap in the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage.

Dodd, D-Conn., told FOX News that Treasury officials forced him to make the change.

“As many know, the administration was, among others, not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications to it,” he said. “They came to us, our staff, and asked for changes, and the changes at the time did not seem that obnoxious or onerous.”

But the provision has become a flash point for criticism amid the controversy over $165 million in bonuses given out by AIG after securing more than $170 billion in federal aid. The language in the stimulus bill wasn’t specific to AIG, but some have expressed outrage that it appears to have created a loophole.

This was a decision backed by not a single Republican in the House and only three Republicans in the Senate. As for the specificity of the language in the bill, it is well-known that Congress masks the beneficiaries of pork by using tortured language. This is all assuming anyone was able to even read the massive porkulus bill in the first place! Obama declared that if the bill wasn’t passed quickly American might never recover, and so Democrats smashed the bill through Congress, largely unread.

ABC quotes OpenSecrets.org’s list of which politicans received the largest donations from AIG:

1. Dodd, Chris (D-CT) Senate $103,100
2. Obama, Barack (D-IL) Senate $101,332
3. McCain, John (R-AZ) Senate $59,499
4. Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) Senate $35,965
5. Baucus, Max (D-MT) Senate $24,750
6. Romney, Mitt (R) Pres $20,850
7. Biden, Joseph R. Jr. (D-DE) Senate $19,975
8. Larson, John B (D-CT) House $19,750
9. Sununu, John E (R-NH) Senate $18,500
10. Giuliani, Rudolph W (R) Pres $13,200
11. Kanjorski, Paul E (D-PA) House $12,000
12. Durbin, Dick (D-IL) Senate $11,000

Interesting, that the two politicians who received the most money are blaming each other for allowing the bonuses? As far as I’m concerned the bonuses are fair play. We could have just allowed AIG to fail and the CEOs would have gotten what they deserved. Instead, St. Barack decided to trump the market and save the company, and now he’s insisting that the CEOs act not on the basis of self-interest but in a manner that serves his political posturing. Am I the last person who thinks that businesses should make decisions on the basis of business, not politics?

Why is there no public outcry when professional athletes receive huge salaries for what amounts to hitting a ball around? No one declares them ‘greedy’ and urges Congress to take the money away from them. If the government and Americans in general want to decide who gets bonuses in a company, than they should have just bought AIG en toto and nationalized it. Instead, they made AIG (and other companies) into chimerical parodies of themselves — profits remain privatized and the risk incurred is now socialized — the worst of both worlds!

So - nationalize AIG (and when the next scandal hits, no one will care because the government is expected to run things abominably) or let it remain privatized and let it fail when the market decrees that it should fail. In the coming years we’re going to duplicate the mistakes that Japan made in the early 90’s — they propped up failing banks. They called them ‘zombie banks’ — they would have ceased to be ‘alive’ economically if the Japanese government had not reanimated them with constant infusions of capital. Instead, let these companies wither and die so that new companies can replace them when the market conditions allow for it.

All the government is really doing at this point is trying to preserve a status quo, forestalling the recovery, for the sake of politics. They need to appear to be ‘doing something’ about the economy, and it does not matter to them if they are helping or hurting the economy, just the appearance. Government leaders like Obama keep wondering when the credit markets will improve, but they can’t seem to realize that they are the 800-pound gorilla in the room causing the paralysis in the first place.

No one wants to borrow or lend any money right now. Why is that? It’s because the government keeps on fiddling around with the rules. Imagine that we’re all playing poker. Suddenly Barack Obama decides to be the dealer. I find three aces in my hand, but when I slap down my hand expecting to have won, Obama tells me that aces are now deuces and deuces are the new aces. So I lose. This continues for a while until aces become aces again, but after a while no one wants to play — not until the rules become normalized. Markets hinge on the assessment of risk - ask any mortgage lender. If people are unable to gauge their risk, they tend to hold onto their money.

Keep this in mind the next time you read about how Congress is considering a special tax to extract the AIG bonuses away. The CEO’s have signed contracts. But contracts won’t mean anything in an Obama Nation. No, if there’s political gain to be had (or political pain to be avoided) the rules of the game will be voided or changed. Obama & Co. will continue to be amazed that no one wants to play.

Americans Protesting Bailouts and Porkulus

HomeSchool Injustice

This happens to be in the State I live in.  North Carolina.

Robyn Williams…no not that Robin Williams has been seriously wronged by the Justice system, if you would call it that. This straight up has an agenda that the Judge denies, but clearly can be see.  Please read on and give some encouragement to her if you will.

 http://www.hsinjustice.com/2009/03/press…

NC Judge orders homeschool mother to put kids in public school
March 11, 2009, Raleigh, NC - Venessa Mills is fighting a legal battle for the heart and soul of homeschooling in North Carolina. On Friday, March 6, Judge Ned W. Mangum stripped her of the right to homeschool, and ordered her three children to enter public school.
Mills was forced to defend her right to homeschool during divorce proceedings brought on by her husband’s unfaithfulness. Mr. Mills admitted, under oath, to repeatedly committing adultery. Even with abundant evidence showing the Mills children are well adjusted and well educated, Judge Mangum ruled overwhelmingly against Mrs. Mills on every point. He stated the children would do better in public school despite the fact that they are currently at or beyond their grade level. Evidence showed two children tested several grades ahead.

Master Diplomat Obama Snubs Oldest Ally

It just keeps getting worse.

The President who claimed he would repair America’s image abroad has managed to diplomatically snub the one nation with whom we have had the most steadfast support, Great Britain. Barely covered in the U.S. mainstream media, the Obama White House has treated our best ally like an unwanted relative.

As the visit of the national leader of our closest ally began, the President informed the Brits that he wouldn’t be attending the joint press conference that was planned to be held once PM Brown’s plane touched down. This threw the visiting delegation into a tizzy leaving them scrambling to explain the sudden change in plans to the folks back home. Still, meetings were had and things smoothed out. Eventually the visit seemed to right itself… then came the Obama’s gift gaffes.

For his part, PM Brown gave two symbolic gifts and one that expressed national pride. Brown came bearing a pen holder carved from the timbers of the sister ship of that which gave the wood to create the famous “Resolute Desk,” the desk that has been in America’s charge since 1880. He also gave Obama the framed commission for that famous ship, the HMS Resolute. His third gift was a seven-volume biography of one of England’s greatest leaders, Winston Churchill.

How thoughtful and graceful!

So, what did President Obama give the British PM? 25 movies on DVD. Yeah, that’s it. Brown gives a symbolic gift like the pen holder fashioned from a famous British warship and Obama responds by sending a staffer to WalMart to pick up a few quick movies.

Graceless. Not only does Obama not find time to show up to the press conference, he fobs a foreign leader off with some DVDs. I wonder what DVDs he got the British PM? I’m guessing he bought from the bargain bin — maybe ‘Ernest Goes to Prison’ or ‘Superman 3′ was in there? Pathetic!

Oh, and the PM’s wife brought the Obama girls two dresses from an upscale British clothing store. What did Obama get the PM’s children? Two plush toys of Marine-1 (the presidential helicopter) from the White House gift shop! Yeah, I know the media are going gaga over Michelle’s very well-toned arms, but could they manage to notice that she’s a graceless clod?

All of this would be easier to take if St. Barack had not portrayed himself as a master diplomat, promising to use diplomacy in ways President Bush did not. Last I checked President Bush didn’t alienate our allies by treating them crassly.

Oh, and Barack also returned a bust of arch-Brit Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. It was on loan from the Brits. It’s widely been seen by the UK press as a snub.

Has America’s even- tempered new president already ruffled feathers in the land that spawned Borat and Benny Hill? That’s certainly how the spiky British press responded after the White House sent back to the British Embassy a bust of Sir Winston Churchill that had occupied a cherished spot in President Bush’s Oval Office. Intended as a symbol of transatlantic solidarity, the bust was a loaner from former British prime minister Tony Blair following the September 11 attacks. A bust of Abraham Lincoln–Obama’s historical hero–now sits in its place.

Worst. President. Ever.

Obama is STILL a Socialist

This story just slays me.

President Obama was so concerned that he had appeared to dismiss a question from New York Times reporters about whether he was a socialist that he called the newspaper from the Oval Office to clarify his policies.

“It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question,” he told reporters, who had interviewed the president aboard Air Force One on Friday.

Opening the unusual presidential call to reporters by saying that there was “just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter,” he said it wasn’t he who started the federal government’s intervention into the nation’s financial system.

“I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement -– the prescription drug plan — without a source of funding. And so I think it’s important just to note when you start hearing folks throw these words around that we’ve actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word ’socialist’ around can’t say the same.”

We really have a pathetic, pathetic excuse for a president. News flash to President Obama — George W. Bush isn’t president anymore. You’re the president. You are responsible. Incoming presidents routinely undo the policies of former presidents. If President Bush acted in a way that stinks of socialism, then do something about it President Obama.

And for the record myself and many others called President Bush a socialist as well. In fact, the former president had something the sitting president doesn’t have — candor. Bush admitted that he had abandoned the free market. Here it is:

At least Bush was honest. The WashPo article continued:

The phone call came after the president was asked aboard his plane: “Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?”

He was clear in his first answer: “You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no.”

Look at the budget, President Obama, the largest budget in human history? The budget that has made the word ‘billion’ the new ‘million’ because its several orders of magnitude larger than any other budget that has come before? That budget?

“Let’s just take a look at what we’ve done,” Obama said, ticking off efforts his administration has made to stabilize the economy. But he acknowledged that, as he told Joe the Plumber, he plans to try to spread the wealth around.

“If you look on the revenue side what we’re proposing, what we’re looking at is essentially to go back to the tax rates that existed during the 1990s when, as I recall, rich people were doing very well. In fact everybody was doing very well. . . . We said that we’d give a tax cut to 95 percent of working Americans. That’s exactly what we have done.”

Ok, so follow the Obama-Logic here. No, he’s not a socialist because he’s expanding the government to unheard of levels, and he’s also not a socialist because he wants to redistribute (’spread around’) wealth. Apparently, Obama thinks Americans are stupid. And perhaps he’s right — they did elect him, after all.

Also, it makes not an ounce of sense to bring taxation levels back to 1990 levels, as though the key to that time span’s prosperity had anything to do with our level of taxation. That was the tech boom, not the tax boom, you pathetic excuse for a President. Obama is a liar, pure and simple. Also, shunting the tax burden to the ‘rich’ people in America is foolish. As a businessman, I don’t want to have a single, super-wealthy client upon which I depend for 95% of my income. Why? Because if that one client goes out of business or takes a serious economic hit, then I’m sunk. I’d prefer to have a ‘basket’ of clients.

America needed a leader, and we’ve elected a lying orator instead. Rough times are ahead.




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