Hope for Detroit?

Having grown up in this once proud city, watched its decay, it's corrupt mayors and city council clowns, having returned home in my late 40's, it's good to see a ray of sunshine break through the clouds hovering over this dark city...T

The Detroit News ran a fascinating editorial on Tuesday about the arrival of Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, an accomplished bankruptcy manager assigned by the state of Michigan to spend the next eighteen months cleaning up that tortured, misgoverned city. The people who killed Detroit showed up to protest Orr’s arrival, but there were only about 150 of them, and little attention was paid to their antics:

Most city residents ignored the ministers who used their pulpits to raise the fervor against the state takeover, and also paid scant attention to ill-informed outside agitators such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and TV host Rachel Maddow, who are ranting incessantly about the loss of democracy.

Instead, Detroiters appear to be willing to give Orr a chance to show what he can achieve before they react. Or they simply are resigned to the inevitable. Or they prefer any option to the failed status quo.

They got their first look at what the city’s turnaround may yield Monday — as Orr was settling in to his new City Hall office — when Mayor Dave Bing detailed a plan by the business community to help equip the Emergency Medical Services and police departments with new vehicles.

Led by mega-mogul Roger Penske, Detroit’s Big Three automakers and other business leaders and foundations, the initiative will raise $8 million in private funds to lease 23 new EMS vehicles and 100 police cruisers. Another $6 million is promised for recreation programs, with $5 million of that money coming from Lear Corp. and $1 million from DTE Energy Co.

It’s an enormous private sector commitment that should help address the No. 1 concern of Detroiters — public safety.

  Imagine that! Private sector businessmen stepping up to help their city, now that they’re confident they won’t just be dropping money into the pockets of degenerate kleptocrats. The little band of protesters rallied by the likes of Maddow and Jesse Jackson (whose family knows a few things about corruption) are howling about the loss of “democracy,” but maybe this is the only way to dismantle rotting big-city political machines: let them prove their abject failure beyond question by crashing the city, use professional management to clean up the wreckage, and hope voters observing the process will have second thoughts about following political charlatans into ruin. Warning: this process will be several orders of magnitude more unpleasant, if run at the national level.

By the way, that’s Orr in the image above. It shouldn’t matter what he looks like, but let us not kid ourselves, it does.

A previous article in the Detroit News described an $11,600 tax lien on his Maryland home as a stain on “what colleagues say has been an otherwise distinguished career as a bankruptcy attorney and corporate turnaround specialist.” The tax liens mostly stemmed from his failure to pay unemployment taxes for his babysitter. The remainder of his resume is impressive:

Orr, 54, has some familiarity with the Motor City, having handled Chrysler LLC’s bankruptcy in 2009. He was the lead attorney who convinced a court to allow Chrysler to abruptly shut down 789 dealerships, a controversial decision at the time.

“He was sensitive and appreciative of the issues that he was litigating in those matters,” said Arthur J. Gonzalez, the retired bankruptcy judge who handled the Chrysler case.

[...] Orr has a 30-year career in bankruptcy law, business restructuring, commercial litigation and bank regulation. In discussing Detroit’s financial problems, Orr has said he is most comfortable in bankruptcy court, where municipalities are favored over bondholders, but he’d like to avoid that route.

After graduating from the U-M’s Law School in 1983, Orr first worked in private practice at a Miami firm.

He later moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for the federal government, first as a litigator for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and later as an attorney for the Resolution Trust Corp., a government-created entity from the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.

He also earned high marks working as deputy director of the Justice Department’s U.S. Trustees Program in the late 90s.

Orr has his work cut out for him, and limited tools for accomplishing the job. Detroit is running a $327 million budget deficit, plus $14 billion in long-term debt. The Washington Post described Orr’s formal powers as follows: “State law allows emergency managers to negotiate labor contracts and deals with vendors. He can sell off city assets to raise money and cut the salaries of elected officials to save bucks. In some cities with emergency managers, elected leaders have been moved out of decisions involving municipal finances.”

It will be enormously helpful if Orr can augment these limited formal powers with arrangements such as the business community’s support for police and emergency medical services. He sounds both cheerful and confident, saying of his job in a recent interview, “If it doesn’t kill me, it’s going to make me stronger.” Isn’t that pretty much the message Detroit and its automakers have been striving to convey through their advertising and public-relations efforts? It sounds like the city and its emergency manager are on the same page, at least for now.
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Detroit in Ruins:How it got there

There are of course more causes: The 67 Riots, racial tensions etc...but the root cause, as the progressives love to say, is, well, progressive policies that have destroyed this once great city...T

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GOP Freshmen Will Hold Boehner to His Big Promises

Just what we've been wanting to hear! This will be a very conservative congress!...T

For political junkies of a certain age, it was a given that the House of Representatives would always be controlled by Democrats. They won the chamber in 1954 and held on for 40 years -- more than twice as long as any party in American history had before.

When Sam Rayburn died at 79, more than 20 years after first becoming speaker, he was succeeded by John McCormack, 70, who was followed by Carl Albert, 68, and Tip O'Neill, an energetic 64. Every House elected from 1958 to 1992 had at least 242 Democrats, well above the 218 votes needed for a majority.

Now things are different. The Republicans won a majority in the House in 1994 and held on until 2006, the third longest period of Republican control in history; Democrats won two thumping victories in 2006 and 2008, but lost all their gains and more in the election last week. Alternation in power seems to be the new norm.

When John Boehner is elected speaker early in January, there will be more Republicans -- the exact number is not yet known, so let's say 240-plus -- than in any House since the one elected in 1946, before Boehner and most other members were born.

For a speaker, having a majority in the 240s or (as Nancy Pelosi has in the outgoing Congress) 250s is a sweet spot.

If you have 235 or fewer, as Republican Speakers Newt Gingrich and Denny Hastert did, it's hard to hold everyone in line on partisan roll calls -- some members will have districts or convictions that require them to dissent. And if you have more than 260, then just about everyone assumes he or she can go off the reservation, and without even letting the leadership know.

As Sam Rayburn said to Lyndon Johnson on election night 1958, when his party gained 50 seats: "Too many Democrats. Too many Democrats."

After the initial glow of the Gingrich revolution dimmed, the glue that Gingrich and Hastert used to hold their members together was money. They let Appropriations Committee members channel money to favored projects and members of Transportation and Infrastructure (the largest committee in Congress) earmark projects for their districts.

The bill came due in 2006. Disillusioned conservatives stayed home or voted Democratic. Most of the freshmen this year ran decrying the spending of Republican as well as Democratic Congresses and promising to do better. Boehner, who has never had an earmark, says the same thing.

Boehner has promised to do things differently, and the freshmen -- who make up one-third of Republican members -- will surely hold him to it. The size of his majority will strengthen his hand against the appropriators.

Boehner and incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor also sound grimly determined to cut government spending, and they have an able ally in incoming Budget Chairman Paul Ryan. And they don't seem to be backing off their promise to do whatever they can to repeal and hobble Obamacare.

That won't be easy, with Barack Obama's veto pen poised to strike. But Obamacare is not a self-propelling vehicle. It needs fuel and funding and fiddling from Congress. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Medicare agency head Donald Berwick had better plan on spending a lot of time on the south side of Capitol Hill over the next two years.

Boehner seems likely to prevail, in the lame duck session or as speaker next year, on extension of all the George W. Bush tax cuts, including those for high earners. Pelosi lacked the votes to let the latter expire before the election, and Obama seemed to be conceding the issue in his post-election press conference.

But Boehner will have his headaches when he has to rally votes to raise the national debt ceiling early next year. Freshmen don't want to vote for that, but it's irresponsible to let the government go without funding.

There's a tension as well between Boehner's hard line on issues and his pledge, in a pre-election speech at the American Enterprise Institute, to allow more open votes on amendments and to encourage committees to operate bipartisanly (as Boehner did on the 2001 education bill). We'll see how that goes.

Boehner is not likely to become as prominent a figure as Gingrich or Pelosi. But he'll start off with a larger majority than either of them did.
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Republicans put 99 Democrat-held House seats in danger

“It’s thermonuclear,” ...this is from a democrat congressman in New York...New York! Where republicans may gain up to 9 seats. Dick Morris may be correct after all that republicans could conceivably gain as many as 100 house seats and with them, an veto proof majority. Believe me, everyone, if we gain over 50 seats the Senate WILL fall as well. It always has, when a wave election of such magnitude has occurred historically. HEIL OSAMA!


With two weeks remaining until Election Day, the political map has expanded to put Democrats on the run across the country — with 99 Democratic-held House seats now in play, according to a POLITICO analysis, and Republicans well in reach of retaking the House.

It’s a dramatic departure from the outlook one year ago — and a broader landscape than even just prior to the summer congressional recess. As recently as early September, many Republicans were hesitant to talk about winning a majority for fear of overreaching.

Today, however, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report predicts a GOP net gain of at least 40 House seats, with 90 Democratic seats in total rated as competitive or likely Republican.

"When Chairman [Pete] Sessions and Leader [John] Boehner said that 100 House seats were in play, Democrats scoffed,” said Ken Spain, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s communications director. “Today, they aren't laughing anymore."

The number of Democrats in danger is more than double the 39 seats Republicans need to seize control of the House. It reflects an elastic electoral environment that favors the GOP by every measure: money, momentum and mood of the country — in this case, sour on Democratic incumbents.

For Democrats, a deteriorating political environment — unemployment high, President Barack Obama’s approval ratings low — has been exacerbated by the presence of cash-flush, independent conservative groups that have poured huge sums of money into races.

The groups, including American Crossroads, have combined with the National Republican Congressional Committee to stretch the boundaries of the 2010 map into races where there’s even a scent of Democratic vulnerability.

“This year is shaping up to be something of a repeat of the 52-seat House and eight-seat Senate rout of Democrats in 1994,” handicapper Charlie Cook wrote last week. “Sure, the circumstances and dynamics are different from then, but the outcome seems to be shaping up along the same lines.”

At one time, there was serious doubt the GOP would have the financial resources to compete effectively for the House majority. The thinking was that scores of potential opportunities could go unexplored due to the cash disparity between the NRCC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

While the NRCC still trails in cash on hand, its fundraising has picked up — the September total was the committee’s largest one-month take since 2006 — and independent groups have helped fill the void. And with anti-incumbent, anti-Obama and anti-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sentiment running so high in many districts, even a relative pittance has been enough to push a few Democrats onto thin ice.

The assessment by POLITICO is based on a review of TV media-buy information from those independent groups and the party committees in more than 80 districts; internal and public polling in individual races; Federal Election Commission fundraising data for incumbents and challengers; and reporting on the districts. ( See: More photos from the campaign trail)

While the level of competitiveness among the 99 seats varies widely, they share a common denominator: all of them show some serious sign of vulnerability to takeover by the GOP. Factors included a Democratic incumbent’s unpopular legislative votes, the quality of opposition, the partisan breakdown of the districts or the huge sums of money dedicated to Democratic defeat — or some combination of all those factors — to place them “in play” ahead of Nov. 2. (See: Candidates take the debate stage)

The subjectivity of those factors have led to varying interpretations of just how many seats are actually at risk for Democrats. The Rothenberg Report, another political handicapper, lists 91 Democratic-held seats as in play, and predicts the “extremely large field of competitive races” will produce a “likely Republican gain of 40-50 seats, with 60 seats possible.”

POLITICO’s list of 99 seats — some of which have only recently emerged — places GOP pickup opportunities across the political map, stretching from regions of Republican strength such as the South to Democratic states such as California, where three incumbent Democrats face competitive challengers.

In deep-blue New York, Republicans have a shot at as many as nine Democrats. “It’s thermonuclear,” said two-term Rep. Michael Arcuri, in describing the campaign against him to The New York Times.


The list doesn’t include several Republican-oriented seats that Democrats have all but ceded to Republicans, including districts in southeastern Louisiana, Upstate New York and Middle Tennessee.
Some Democrats are clearly facing more difficult challenges than others. The DCCC, which is charged with protecting the party’s 39-seat majority, has already pulled TV ad reservations in at least six contests — a sign that Democratic hopes of retaining those seats are diminishing.

There are dramatic differences in the competitiveness of races even within states. In California, Reps. Jim Costa and Loretta Sanchez appear to have easier paths to reelection than fellow Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney. In New York, Upstate Rep. Bill Owens has a higher degree of reelection difficulty than Long Island-based Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. In Texas, Rep. Solomon Ortiz — who typically wins by wide margins —- is far likelier to win than Rep. Chet Edwards, who is regularly faces stiff opposition in his solidly Republican district.

What does an endangered Democrat look like? Take your pick.

Freshman Democrats make up a large share — more than a quarter — of those facing competitive races. Of the 38 Democrats serving their first full terms in the House, POLITICO rates 29 as at-risk. Some — such as Reps. Bobby Bright of Alabama, Betsy Markey of Colorado, Alan Grayson of Florida and Frank Kratovil Jr. of Maryland — hail from GOP-friendly districts, where they have been in the cross hairs almost since the moment they were elected.

But legislative vets are under fire too. Nine-term New York Rep. Maurice Hinchey and four-term Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva until recently were considered near-locks to win, before their campaigns hit unexpected turbulence. Hinchey attracted unflattering attention this weekend after a videotaped confrontation with a reporter at the same time American Crossroads and other GOP groups are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into ads in his district.

Grijalva, who called for an economic boycott of his own state amid a housing crisis and record unemployment, has also been hit by outside spending right after an automated poll unexpectedly showed him in a dead heat with his GOP opponent.

The list also includes a handful of veteran Democrats who typically enjoy the benefits of seniority on Capitol Hill and cruise to reelection but this year find themselves locked in competitive races. Among those Democrats are Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri and Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina. (Join Arena debate: Which candidates should Dems try to save using limited resources?)

Getting outhustled in fundraising is another way for candidates to find themselves on the bubble.

In a sign of GOP momentum — and of the breadth of the competitive landscape — at least 40 Democratic incumbents were outraised by their GOP challengers in the most recent quarter, according to FEC filings. Reps. Ron Klein of Florida and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, both stellar fundraisers, were among those outraised in the latest reporting period.

Not all Democratic districts in play are held by incumbents: The party is trying to retain open seats in states including Pennsylvania, Indiana and Washington.

If there is a particular trouble spot for Democrats, it is the Midwest, where 31 seats are at risk. Democrats are trying to defend incumbents including Reps. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, Bill Foster of Illinois and Leonard Boswell of Iowa, as well as several open seats.

In the South, where many Democrats occupy conservative-oriented districts, Republicans are making a play for 24 seats.
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The Outlook Dims for Democrats

"With the midterm election less than two months away, all signs point to a punishing defeat for Democrats in the House of Representatives... With pressure mounting and a potentially epic loss looming, Mr. Obama has gone from a commanding, engaging candidate to an arrogant, self-pitying president. It is not pretty to witness...The first people to pay the political price for Mr. Obama's mistakes will be congressional Democrats, who likely will be swept out of their House majority this November. "

A stunning update from Mr. Rove, who until this week had predicted that the democrats would likely hold onto control of both houses. The left's stunning arrogance has a precedent: Let's see, who was it that was quoted originally as commenting; "Let them eat cake"?...T

With the midterm election less than two months away, all signs point to a punishing defeat for Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Since July 1, there have been 111 polls released on U.S. House races in 79 districts. Some were commissioned by news organizations; others came from the campaigns themselves or political groups (a detailed list is posted at Rove.com). Ninety-seven polls were conducted in seats held by Democrats while 14 were in Republican districts.

They show that Democratic incumbents trail GOP challengers in 30 districts and are behind in seven of nine open Democratic seats. By comparison, GOP incumbents are ahead in seven of the eight contests polled and Republican hopefuls lead in four of the six races for GOP open seats. If Republicans prevailed in these fights, they would net 34 of the 39 seats they need to win the House.

It could get worse. Of the 36 polls in which Democratic incumbents led, Republican challengers were within three points in 12 contests and within five points in 18 others. By contrast, in the 55 polls in which the GOP leads, the Republican is ahead by more than five points in 36. And in all but two instances in which data are available, the Democrat incumbents are significantly better known than their GOP challengers. As these challengers become better known, they're likely to rise in the polls.

Indiana's second district is a good example. Republican State Rep. Jackie Walorski trails Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly by only 44% to 46%, according to an August American Action Forum poll. But Ms. Walorski is known by 78% of voters while Mr. Donnelly's name ID is a near-saturation 97%. This is a very winnable seat for the GOP.

On the money front—and despite the Republican National Committee's considerable fund-raising and spending difficulties—the Republican Governors Association has almost twice as much cash as the Democratic Governors Association. In addition, the GOP's Senate campaign committee has achieved parity with its Democratic counterpart and, as Josh Kraushaar pointed out in a perceptive piece in Politico, the GOP's Congressional Campaign Committee has outraised its Democratic competitor over the last four months and is spending more wisely. This led Speaker Nancy Pelosi to write Democratic congressmen who hadn't contributed to their party's election fund, telling them to call her within 72 hours to discuss their plans to give . . . or else.

The Democratic financial advantage is also offset by outside center-right groups. Some (including American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, organizations I'm helping) are raising impressive sums and, as importantly, are working together to expand the battlefield to the GOP's advantage.

Republicans don't necessarily need to match the Democrats' money. Democrats, after all, were outspent in 2006 when they won control of the House. What matters is sufficiency—whether GOP challengers have adequate funds to get out their message.

Democrats are saddled with two signature initiatives—the stimulus package and health-care reform—that are manifestly unpopular. Opponents of these laws are energized while supporters are lethargic.

No Democratic incumbent has run a single ad this summer heralding health-care reform, while several have run ads emphasizing their opposition to it. Praise for the stimulus is rare even from the lips of Democratic candidates. Democrats have passed a lot of legislation but don't want to claim public credit for it.

No wonder. Consider what voters call the election's three most important issues. Republicans are leading Democrats on the economy by 11 points, jobs by five, and federal spending by 15, according to the Sept. 1 Gallup/USA Today survey.

This week, the president is trying to regain the initiative by championing $50 billion in new stimulus spending, temporary business tax breaks, and an R&D tax credit. It won't matter. After Labor Day, voters tend to be highly suspicious, rightly seeing such new proposals as election eve shenanigans. While the surging party wins most of the toss-up contests in a year like this, some Democratic incumbents will survive by spending every dollar they have to make their Republican challengers appear radioactive.

It's not too early to assess the damage done by America's 44th president. He squandered his mandate and the public's enormous good will. He alienated voters and dropped a heavy yoke on his party with useless spending and a shockingly unpopular health-care bill. With pressure mounting and a potentially epic loss looming, Mr. Obama has gone from a commanding, engaging candidate to an arrogant, self-pitying president. It is not pretty to witness.

The first people to pay the political price for Mr. Obama's mistakes will be congressional Democrats, who likely will be swept out of their House majority this November.
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Milton Friedman - Free To Choose

Idea Channel TV - "Free To Choose" by Milton Friedman

The great Milton Friedman passed away 4 years ago, and he is sorely missed, as basic economic thruths are being stoood on their head evey day by the fascist Obama administration.

Thanks to IdeaChannel.tv, everyone can again view, for free, this classic exposition of free market economics, and what happens when they are ignored, "Free To Choose" which first aired in 1980 and propelled the election of Ronald Reagan, and the enactment of the Kemp-Roth tax cuts...T


In honor of Milton Friedman, we are streaming the ground-breaking Free To Choose series as it originally aired in 1980 as well as an updated 1990 version. If you missed the PBS premiere of "The Power of Choice" it is available here.
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American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper

"The American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed."

Not my words, and no need to wonder how completely the drive-by MSM is covering comrade Obama's tracks anymore. Pravda is now more conservative than the New York Times. Yes, these are the printed words of Pravda. Pravda!

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists...

Pravda summarizes our dire situation nicely in it's final sentences. Please be sure to access the full article in the post article link...T

...The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

...The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
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Obama's recipe for change not my cup of tea

This author is so proud of his fellow countrymen today! At this rate, 2010 is going to make 1994 look like a minor electoral blip. As I was watching O'Reilly tonight he referred to sexual slander words being used on NBC to ridicule the tea parties - he wouldn't name the phrase. Well, I looked it up, and so did the author of this piece.

Watch out Osama, Pelosi and Reid. Watch out NBC. There's a distant thunder rumbling. You'll hear it clearly...soon...T

I had no idea how important this week's nationwide anti-tax tea parties were until hearing liberals denounce them with such ferocity. The New York Times' Paul Krugman wrote a column attacking the tea parties, apologizing for making fun of "crazy people." It's OK, Paul, you're allowed to do that for the same reason Jews can make fun of Jews.

On MSNBC, hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have been tittering over the similarity of the name "tea parties" to an obscure homosexual sexual practice known as "tea bagging." Night after night, they sneer at Republicans for being so stupid as to call their rallies "tea bagging."

Every host on Air America and every unbathed, basement-dwelling loser on the left-wing blogosphere has spent the last week making jokes about tea bagging, a practice they show a surprising degree of familiarity with.

Except no one is calling the tea parties "tea bagging" – except Olbermann and Maddow. Republicans call them "tea parties."

Show the world you're part of the movement to take America back with the "Time for Another Tea Party" magnetic bumper sticker

But if the Republicans were calling them "tea-bagging parties," the MSNBC hosts would have a fantastically hilarious segment for viewers in San Francisco and the West Village and not anyplace else in the rest of the country. On the other hand, they're not called "tea-bagging parties." (That, of course, refers to the cocktail hour at Barney Frank's condo in Georgetown.)

You know what else would be hilarious? It would be hilarious if Hillary Clinton's name were "Ima Douche." Unfortunately, it's not. It was just a dream. Most people would wake up, realize it was just a dream and scrap the joke. Not MSNBC hosts.

The point of the tea parties is to note the fact that the Democrats' modus operandi is to lead voters to believe they are no more likely to raise taxes than Republicans, get elected and immediately raise taxes.

Apparently, the people who actually pay taxes consider this a bad idea.

Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he believes the things believed by all Democrats, which have had devastating consequences every time they are put into effect. Among these is the Democrats' admiration for raising taxes on the productive.

All Democrats for the last 30 years have tried to stimulate the economy by giving "tax cuts" to people who don't pay taxes. Evidently, offering to expand welfare payments isn't a big vote-getter.

Even Bush had a "stimulus" bill that sent government checks to lots of people last year. Guess what happened? It didn't stimulate the economy. Obama's stimulus bill is the mother of all pork bills for friends of O and of Congressional Democrats. ("O" stands for Obama, not Oprah, but there's probably a lot of overlap.)

And all that government spending on the Democrats' constituents will be paid for by raising taxes on the productive.

Raise taxes and the productive will work less, adopt tax shelters, barter instead of sell, turn to an underground economy – and the government will get less money.

The perfect bar bet with a liberal would be to wager that massive government deficits in the '80s were not caused by Reagan's tax cuts. If you casually mentioned that you thought Reagan's tax cuts brought in more revenue to the government – which they did – you could get odds in Hollywood and Manhattan. (This became a less attractive wager in New York this week after Gov. David Paterson announced his new plan to tax bar bets.)

The lie at the heart of liberals' mantra on taxes – "tax increases only for the rich" – is the ineluctable fact that unless taxes are raised across the board, the government won't get its money to fund layers and layers of useless government bureaucrats, none of whom can possibly be laid off.

How much would you have to raise taxes before any of Obama's constituents noticed? They don't pay taxes, they engage in "tax-reduction" strategies, they work for the government, or they're too rich to care. (Or they have offshore tax shelters, like George Soros.)

California tried the Obama soak-the-productive "stimulus" plan years ago and was hailed as the perfect exemplar of Democratic governance.
In June 2002, the liberal American Prospect magazine called California a "laboratory" for Democratic policies, noting that "California is the only one of the nation's 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control."

They said this, mind you, as if it were a good thing. In California, the article proclaimed, "the next new deal is in tryouts." As they say in show biz: "Thanks, we'll call you. Next!"

In just a few years, Democrats had turned California into a state – or as it's now known, a "job-free zone" – with a $41 billion deficit, a credit rating that was slashed to junk-bond status and a middle class now located in Arizona.

Democrats governed California the way Democrats always govern. They bought the votes of government workers with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries and benefits – and then turned around and accused the productive class of "greed" for wanting not to have their taxes raised through the roof.

Having run out of things to tax, now the California Legislature is considering a tax on taxes. Seriously. The only way out now for California is a tax on Botox and steroids. Sure, the governor will protest, but it is the best solution ...
California was, in fact, a laboratory of Democratic policies. The rabbit died, so now Obama is trying it on a national level.

That's what the tea parties are about.
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Team Obama Suggests Climate Engineering

Re posted via our friends at Chlorinated Liberty - an excellent piece on the CO2 driven global warming swindle and a warning shot across our collective (oops, don't say "collective" within earshot of this gang of fanatic socialists!) bow, as team Osama prepares to jettison pollutants into the upper atmosphere to cool the earth. Yes he really IS that ignorant, and that arrogant!

Remember, all communists ARE!...T

The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

Someone might want to share the news with Obama's brain trust that for the second straight year the Earth is, in fact cooling... not warming.

Yet even if the earth was warming, research continues to prove that there is little if anything we can do to control the supposed "anthropomorphic global warming."

As pointed out by the Heritage Foundation, of the entire atmospheric composition, only one to two percent is made up of greenhouse gases with the majority being nitrogen (about 78 percent) and oxygen (about 21 percent). Of that two percent, “planet-killing” carbon dioxide comprises only 3.62 percent while water vapor encompasses 95 percent. And of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, humans cause only 3.4 percent of annual CO2 emissions. What does this all boil down to? As shown by the accompanying graph, not very much:

Let us not forget:

*Global sea ice levels are the same as 1979. In fact the rate of ice increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

*Alaskan Sea Glaciers are advancing for the first time in 250 years.*Tropical Cyclone Activity Lowest in 30 Years.

* Many leading climatologists conclude that climate models aren’t accurate and even have different opinions (for instance whether it is the sun or oceanic changes causing temp fluctuations).

*It is likely that global warming would not exist as an issue without the left’s blind devotion to computer modeling. As such there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.

Despite these realities, the global warming alarmists continue, promoting hysteria over reality. But as we know, this is the way of the Global Warming Cult and the Politics of Fear . They accept no challenges, demonize those who question their science, scoff at contradictory data (such as the fact that temperatures are lowering not rising), and insist on politicizing their science rather than work from facts.

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EU leader condemns US ‘road to hell’

Franklin D. Roosevelt (via last.fm)

Two things here: One, it's not just "right wingers" who believe Obama is giving us worldwide socialism - it's much of the rest of the world, too!

The other, second point is that he is right. Roosevelt DID cause the great depression to last for over a decade! GDP was no larger in 1940 than it was in 1930. Anyone who had money would have been a fool to invest it when FDR was taking %90 of all cash in the system!

Also, no, Financial Times, it's NOT just "a view held by a small handful of right wing economists" that FDR is to blame - unless you include Milton Friedman and thousands of mainstream economists worldwide!...T

European Union hopes for a new era in relations with the US were thrown into chaos on Wednesday when the holder of the EU presidency condemned American remedies for the global recession as “the road to hell”...

“The US Treasury secretary talks about permanent action and we, at our spring council, were quite alarmed at that . . . The US is repeating mistakes from the 1930s, such as wide-ranging stimuluses, protectionist tendencies and appeals, the Buy American campaign, and so on,” he told a European parliament session in Strasbourg. “All these steps, their combination and their permanency, are the road to hell.”

Other leaders of EU member states, including Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, disagree with US calls for big fiscal stimuli to battle the recession. But they have couched their opposition in more diplomatic language than Mr Topolanek’s.

Mr Obama has vigorously opposed the view that the Great Depression was caused by too much spending, rather than too little, a view held by a small handful of rightwing economists.
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For the Record - Who Caused the Economic Meltdown?

Answer = The democrats, entirely. Who tried to fix it before the disaster hit? G. W. Bush - that's who.

The video record above shows, in their own words, that George Bush tried to warn Congress, beginning in 2002 and then ongoing until denouement, that this economic crisis was coming, if something was not done.

But congress refused to listen, siding instead with Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, and Chris Dodd, the latter two leading successful filibusters against reform of Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac, the first leading a public campaign accusing reform minded republicans of "discrimination" and "racism" against low income Americans - when not busy running a male prostitution ring out of his basement...

This video merely states the public record.

No absolution for the Clinton administration either, which promoted and supported these lax lending policies with threats to withhold funding if they they were not implemented, as Freddie and Fannie are federal creations that must conform to their federally appointed boards - Clinton appointees all. Hello, Franklin Raines?!

A warm "F You!" to leftist radical organisations such as Acorn, which lead protests in the streets against these institutions they deemed "not liberal enough" in their lending policies - try standing up to Jesse Jackson when he blackmails your company with the public threat of "racism!"

Community organizers - God help us if one of these fanatic leftist communists ever gets hold of executive power in the United States of America because, well...oh never mind...

A final "stick it where the sun don't shine" to the MSM drive-by press, which knows all of this, and continues to sweep it under the rug in the name of socialism, to the extent that they had Time Warner threaten a lawsuit (proprietary rights) if it was not taken off. This link is of the same video but is routed through Canada.

For the record, everyone...T special thanks to shallow kitty for the link!

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Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget.

He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Raising the marginal tax rate on successful earners, capital, dividends, and all the private funds is a function of Obama’s left-wing social vision, and a repudiation of his economic-recovery statements. Ditto for his sweeping government-planning-and-spending program, which will wind up raising federal outlays as a share of GDP to at least 30 percent, if not more, over the next 10 years.

This is nearly double the government-spending low-point reached during the late 1990s by the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton administration. While not quite as high as spending levels in Western Europe, we regrettably will be gaining on this statist-planning approach.

Study after study over the past several decades has shown how countries that spend more produce less, while nations that tax less produce more. Obama is doing it wrong on both counts.

And as far as middle-class tax cuts are concerned, Obama’s cap-and-trade program will be a huge across-the-board tax increase on blue-collar workers, including unionized workers. Industrial production is plunging, but new carbon taxes will prevent production from ever recovering. While the country wants more fuel and power, cap-and-trade will deliver less.

The tax hikes will generate lower growth and fewer revenues. Yes, the economy will recover. But Obama’s rosy scenario of 4 percent recovery growth in the out years of his budget is not likely to occur. The combination of easy money from the Fed and below-potential economic growth is a prescription for stagflation. That’s one of the messages of the falling stock market.

Essentially, the Obama economic policies represent a major Democratic party relapse into Great Society social spending and taxing. It is a return to the LBJ/Nixon era, and a move away from the Reagan/Clinton period. House Republicans, fortunately, are 90 days sober, as they are putting up a valiant fight to stop the big-government onslaught and move the GOP back to first principles.

Noteworthy up here on Wall Street, a great many Obama supporters — especially hedge-fund types who voted for “change” — are becoming disillusioned with the performances of Obama and Treasury man Geithner.

There is a growing sense of buyer’s remorse.

Well then, do conservatives dare say: We told you so?
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Perverse Thoughts about this Perverse Recession

So our great socialist leader B. Hussein Orwell spends a trillion dollars, then the very next week scolds us all for spending too much money, and that we must balance the budget - with tax increases and military cuts - in a recession...ok...

Then the very next week he spends another 400 billion dollars on a 3 month appropriations bill, laden with over 800 earmarks - but he promised to end earmarks? Well maybe next year (yeah right, and democrats are for the little guy...)

But wait friends, wait! The piece de resistance is yet to come! $800 billion in socialized medicine! Can you say "Canada"?

This is without even mentioning "Cap & Trade" which will shut down the global economy in the name of "climate change" (i.e. "Socialism") and card check (i.e. goose stepping brown shirted union thuggery) or left wing fanatics gerrymandering the electoral system by corrupting the census...

Prognosticators are wondering why, if the country is in dire need of emergency “stimulus,” most of the money appropriated by this law will not even be spent this year or next? No, it's spent in 2010, an election year...

As Dick Morris opines, there is no mystery here, as the answer is simple: These billions in taxpayer funds will fund the Democratic political machine for many years to come.

They have neither the guts nor wits nor disposition to figure out that Barack Orwell is a product of the corrupt political machine in Chicago which has been imported to Washington D.C. with Rahm Emmanuel as Osama's Hermann Goering.

They want a one-party system headed by a strong man.

Can you say "Union of Soviet Socialist America"?...T

I do not understand at all this going into debt for almost another trillion dollars, and then immediately promising to balance the budget soon (like blowing off your foot near an emergency room), or how “stimulate” differs from “borrow”, or why the more noble victim is the one who sought to borrow too much for too much house and then defaulted, rather than he who chose to borrow less for less house and paid his mortgage on time each month and now subsidizes the less responsible. (The former apparently will still have the larger house, the latter the smaller.)
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Obama's Stimulus: A Colossal Waste?

So now even liberal economists think spending a Quadrillion dollars of taxpayer money on pork and democrat party causes is a big waste of money? Now?! Where were they before it was passed into law?!

I have been watching with interest all these cable news shows, doing program after program speculating on a forthcoming depression, on how spending wildly leads to hyper inflation via 70's Argentina, on how tax increases in a steep recession are historically guaranteed to deepen and prolong the downturn...again I ask: "Where were they?" when this communistic clown, with zero public record, was running virtually unopposed for the presidency of the United States of America?!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, our Great Socialist leader is going to balance the budget...balance the budget?! Did you not just spend a trillion dollars sir?! a trillion dollars? Have you no shame? At long last, sir, have you no shame? none at all?! ;)

And doing so by raising taxes on business, on capital gains (goodbye Dow Jones!), on the incomes of those that produce jobs, and by radically cutting the military? Isn't this the same clown that said we needed more troops in Afghanistan? That we should invade Pakistan?!

No dear readers, this revenue will be used to spend, spend, spend even more on pork, on welfare, on Union causes, on recruitment of illegal immigration, on government activism, and on inflating the size of our bloated government bureaucracy, because you see, they do all vote democrat, don't they?

Joseph Goebbels once opined that for a lie to be successful, it must be brazen, bold, and colossal, so as to be immune from rational dismissal, by rational thinking people. The BIG LIE...

We have in office as President a liar, a thief, and a communist of Orwellian proportion. May our nation be strong enough to outlast him. Jimmy Carter was an amateur in his shadow...T

WASHINGTON -- Judged by his own standards, President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. "This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession," he said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It's "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Given these dire warnings, you'd expect the stimulus package to focus almost exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn't, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame.

The case for a huge stimulus -- which I support -- is to prevent a devastating downward economic spiral. Spending is tumbling worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. economy contracted at a nearly 4 percent annual rate. In Japan, the economy fell at a nearly 13 percent rate; in Europe, the rate was about 6 percent. These are gruesome declines. If the economic outlook is as bleak as Obama says, there's no reason to dilute the upfront power of the stimulus. But that's what he's done.....
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New White House Logo Unveiled

Socialism - Power - Quadrillions - Revenue

...after taking heat from the drive-by press during the campaign for misappropriating, arrogantly some say, the new deal era National Recovery Act (NRA) logo, president Osama Bin Hussein unveiled his new logo for the new socialist Utopian America!...T

Gimme that Money Hole, Baby!

;) ...Sorry, couldn't resist! This Stimulus bill is the worst piece of legislation ever to come before the US Congress. Once again, following "Top Conservatives on Twitter - #TCOT - is definitely worth your time!...T

Stimulus: A History of Folly

“The cycle of decay and renewal is as much a part of capitalism as it is of the forest floor.” But, in the 1930’s, “something in the normal regenerative process was missing. There was no decisive recovery from the business-cycle bottom. People had lost their speculative courage, and the more government legislated and taxed, the more that credit sulked.”

Government intervention in the economy not only doesn't work, it never has. We learned this painful lesson last during the stagflation of the 1970's, and in subsequent years, when Reagan followed the advice of Milton Friedman ("Free to Choose") and radically cut tax rates, deregulated the economy, and provided for a stable financial system, it was thought we would never go down this rat hole again. We were wrong. Following is a definitive proof. Be sure to follow the linked full article...T

...In fact, stimulus may be precisely the wrong metaphor. Rather than getting jazzed up, we need to be calmed down and to take the time to learn from the Great Depression, a time when government did too much, not too little. Amity Shlaes makes the argument in The Forgotten Man, her book about the Great Depression, that the constant experimenting and meddling of the New Deal froze investors and business operators in fear: “Businesses decided to wait Roosevelt out, hold on to their cash, and invest in future years.”

Despite the warnings of Keynes, the experience of the past half-century indicates that today’s low interest rates will start having a positive effect, though it still will take many months. Meanwhile, left alone, what Hayek called “spontaneous order” will find its way forward. Using a different metaphor, James Grant, in his history of credit, Money of the Mind, wrote, “The cycle of decay and renewal is as much a part of capitalism as it is of the forest floor.” But, in the 1930’s, “something in the normal regenerative process was missing. There was no decisive recovery from the business-cycle bottom. People had lost their speculative courage, and the more government legislated and taxed, the more that credit sulked.”...
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Nancy Pelosi: Dumber than Soap

Nancy claims that we lose 500 million American jobs each month we don't pass her $1 trillion pork barrel spending boondoggle.

Good Ol' San Fran Nan...does she not realise there are only 300 million Americans en Toto? Well now, let's hold on a minute! Perhaps after this Porkulus monstrosity becomes law and the Governments runs everyone's lives, then the calculation will be that most Americans lose their jobs TWICE! I stand corrected.

- Thanks to The Conservative Post - T

It's time to pray for global warming

"Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?"

We all know why - political correctness, which is a pseudonym for global socialism, which can only be achieved if we implement their massively self destructive climate change plans...T

If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.

The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.

Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.

In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.

Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?

This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?

Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.

Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.

Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.

It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.

To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.
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