GOP Better Pay Attention To NY23

In the NY Congressional race that will occur on November 3rd, there were three candidates. The Democrats chose Bill Owens and the Republicans chose Dede Scozzafava, a liberal-leaning politician who was backed by GOP leaders. The third candidate was a Republican running for the Conservative party, and is the most conservative member in the race... his name is Doug Hoffman.

Today, the GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava resigned from the race because her poll numbers had dropped so low.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28970.html

"In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I've come to accept is that in today's political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I've been outspent on both sides, I've been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record,” she said in a statement.

“It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. I am and have always been a proud Republican.”

So, one of the liberals is out of the race. The other one holds a slim lead over the conservative candidate.

The Siena poll conducted Oct. 27-29, in line with other recent polls, showed Democrat Bill Owens holding a razor-thin lead over Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, 36 percent to 35 percent.

The GOP has now endorsed Hoffman... even though they've been attacking him during the entire race.

I hope the GOP is listening. When Obama won election last year, and the GOP lost seats in Congress, GOP leaders were publicly opining that they had to shift the party to the left in order to survive. That is one of the many contributing factors to the tea Party movement during the summer. And even now they continue to support liberal politicians for office, even when faced with more conservative candidates.

If Hoffman wins, it will be the Tea Party crowd and the mentality they inspired that made it possible. The GOP better wake up. They cannot "convert" the Tea Party movement to support Republicans. If they want these people to help the GOP, they're going to have to offer candidates who believe in and will pursue smaller government and fiscally responsible policies. In other words, they'll have to move closer to the Tea Partier's message.

Let's see if they understand this.

And for those of you who have insulted and belittled the Tea Party movement, maybe you need to think again. Whether you agree with us or not, we can be effective.

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White House Claims 1 Million Jobs Created Or Saved

The White House released a report yesterday that counted the jobs "created or saved" at 640,329. They then extrapolated those numbers into areas that weren't required to report (and did not report) numbers, and claimed that 1 million jobs were created or saved.

CBS did a report on this, which you can watch here:
http://control.newsinc.com/Home/VideoPlayer?VCID=61460





And here's the thing. The White house admits they can't tell if a job was saved or if it was created. They also admit they can't tell if a job is government or private sector. Despite that, they feel comfortable asserting that 90% were private sector... though how they can determine that beyond - pure guesswork - I have no idea.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28956.html

White House officials announced Friday that they had counted exactly how many jobs were created or saved by recent stimulus spending: 640,329.

So how many were saved and how many created? They don’t know.

In a briefing with reporters, officials acknowledged they can’t tell the difference between jobs “saved,” and jobs “created” by the $787 billion stimulus package.

They said they also can’t tell the difference between private sector jobs and government jobs.

Personally, I doubt the numbers. Those reporting have incentive to overstate the numbers, and the White House has incentive to over-report as well. The last such report was found to be riddled with errors overstating the job impact, and it remains to be seen if this one will be likewise.

One indicator is a contradiction that I noticed. In the politico report, Jared Bernstein, the chief economist and senior economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, said that he was confident that 90% of the job creation would be in the private sector. The problem is that, according to the data released by the White House, half of the jobs counted were in education, which would be predominantly public sector. How do they reconcile "90% private sector" with "50% public sector?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31stimulus.html?_r=2&hp

On Friday, the Obama administration released the most detailed information yet on the jobs created by the stimulus. Of the 640,239 jobs recipients claimed to have created or saved so far, officials said, more than half — 325,000 — were in education. Most were teachers’ jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.

Although the stimulus was initially sold in large part as a public works program, only about 80,000 of the jobs that were claimed Friday were in construction.

And here's another thing... do the White House numbers add up?

As of September 30, the White House said, $340 billion in funds and tax cuts had been obligated. Recipients of $159 billion of that were required to report jobs figures. And it was that $159 billion that generated the 640,329 “saved or created” jobs, officials said.

That boils down to a cost per job of $92,000, Bernstein said.

I performed a simple experiment. I took my trusty calculator and divided 159,000,000,000 by 640,329... just as described in the above excerpt. The result was NOT the $92,000 figure quoted above, but rather $284,309... more than TWICE the reported figure. Now you KNOW that teachers and construction workers, which the White House says accounts for 63% of those jobs, don't earn $284,000 a year. Heck, they don't even earn $92,000 per year!

I don't claim to be perfect, so feel free to check my math and correct any misconceptions I may be displaying, here. But on the surface it looks... fishy. Is it that the White House can't perform simple math? If so, why believe any number they provide us? Or did they perform some "massaging" operations on the data at some point? I mean, it's hard enough to justify $92k per low-medium income job created... how do you justify $284k?

Let me boil down what the White House just said. They counted the jobs created at 640k, increased that number to 1 million on guesswork, and have no idea what jobs were created... but this is accurate information. The report is riddled with "we don't know"... so take it with a LARGE grain of salt.

Now we wait for the AP to investigate the new report.

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ObamaCare Mandate: My Thoughts

One of the fundamental portions of the ObamaCare proposals is the mandate… everybody will be required to purchase insurance or be punished for not having it. In some bills, businesses must offer insurance to employees, and subsidies are offered to those who cannot afford it. Most lawmakers admit that ObamaCare won’t work without that essential element… otherwise, why would young, healthy people choose to buy health insurance and thereby pay for those who use their insurance a lot, i.e. the elderly? Lacking the mandate, ObamaCare bleeds enough red ink to explode our national debt virtually overnight.

I have serious reservations about such a provision… has the federal government ever before required Americans to purchase a good or service? The answer to that question is no… as the CBO observed back during the Clinton attempts to pass HillaryCare.

The government claims that they have the authority to do so because of the “interstate commerce” clause in the US constitution… that’s the overused peg on which Congress always hangs their hat when they want to do something the Constitution never envisioned them doing. In most such cases, the relationship to interstate commerce is tentative. In THIS case, it’s nonexistent.

How can the interstate commerce clause allow the federal government to force us to buy insurance when each state regulates its own insurance and prohibits the purchasing of insurance across state lines? If we don’t engage in interstate commerce when we buy insurance within the state, and we don’t… how can that clause be used to justify this?

The interstate commerce clause simply doesn’t apply in this situation, and Congress therefore has no power to require participation in their ObamaCare scheme. But they’ll do their best to pass it anyway and force us to challenge it in court.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs recently said that there is no "veracity" to the argument that the U.S. Constitution does not authorize the federal government to force individuals to buy health insurance. If that is the case, then the Federal government has an equal power to force us to participate in other programs and purchase other goods… there will be no limit to what we can be forced to do. How would you like the government to have the power to FORCE you to buy a car in their Cash 4 Clunkers program? Or maybe force you to have an abortion, receive medical treatment you do not want, or even participate in a 401K program… all by government fiat. If gas prices get too low, they could require that we all MUST buy five gallons of gasoline a week in order to stabilize prices.

Somehow that just doesn’t sound right to me.

It should be easy to see that the idea of our government requiring us to purchase a good or service, especially one so heavily regulated or outright operated by the government, runs contrary to the concepts of individual freedom and liberty… the principles this country was founded on.

I don’t understand why the liberals currently in charge are so dead-set on ignoring the Constitution… I just can’t get my mind around the kind of person who would abandon the very foundation of our entire country and system of law and order.

The Constitution of the United States is primarily a document that limits government and seeks to protect the rights of citizens… so how can our government claim that it doesn’t forbid their plans?

Our government now claims the power to control what we buy and when we buy it… if we don’t need protection from that, then what else is there?

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Obama's Fiscal Sanity

This image illustrates the Obama-reality on fiscal sanity.



http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114436

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Breaking: Stocks Take A Big Slide

The stock market took a slide today, with the DOW losing almost 250 points (2.5%), the S&P500 fell 30 points (2.8%), and the Nasdaq lost 52 points (2.5%). Some experts believe this is the start of a 5% - 15% correction.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/30/markets/markets_newyork/?postversion=2009103014

The selloff was broad based, with all 30 Dow components declining and most stock sectors sliding. Energy prices and stocks were hit hard as the dollar turned mixed and the financial sector erased most of the 4% gain it accrued Thursday.

For the month, the Dow ended virtually unchanged, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both posted slim declines.

Analysts say the move happened because of reports showing consumer confidence is weaker than expected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/31markets.html?_r=1

The drops were led by stocks in banks and financial firms, which investors abandoned in light of a Commerce Department report that showed consumers were still in distress. Consumer spending in September dropped by the largest amount in nine months, the report said, a dreary data point that met Wall Street expectations but reinforced the slow, halting recovery of the United States economy.

The fall in spending was tied to the end of the government’s cash-for-clunkers program, which gave car buyers thousands of dollars in vouchers for the purchase of new vehicles. Overall spending fell 0.5 percent in September, and personal income levels remained flat in light of higher unemployment rates and decreases in wages.

A report released by the University of Michigan on Friday showed consumers had a slightly less optimistic view of the economy in October than they did in September. The survey, based on interviews with 500 households on topics like unemployment and income, predicts consumer spending habits.

The revival of the consumer sector is considered paramount in turning the United States economy around, since purchases by consumers make up about two-thirds of the nation’s spending.

As I've said numerous times, this isn't over yet. If the analysts prediction of a 5-15% correction is accurate, next week we could see the Dow fall another 250 - 1200 points... not good. And as bad as it could be, I believe a downward correction is inevitable... whether it happens next week or months from now, it will happen eventually.

But also keep in mind that this was only a single day's trading, even though it did wipe out the gains from the entire preceding month. And the losses seem tied to consumer confidence, which has been ebbing a bit recently.

We'll see next week if the slide continues, or if the weekend break is enough to reverse the trend. I personally think the market will continue downwards on Monday, but that's just me. Stock market analysts are split... which is understandable, because volatile situations are impossible to predict.

I will tell you one thing... I'm glad this happened on a Friday. Because if it IS something that can be stopped by a little time, the weekend break offers two days of no stock market activity for people to think. We'll see on Monday, though.

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GDP Expanded 3.5% in Third Quarter

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard the news that the GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.5% during the third quarter. Some economists are now saying that this shows the recession is over, and many politicians are holding the numbers up, as well.

The problem is that the GDP growth is deceptive unless you understand WHY the economy “grew” during the 3rd quarter of this year. In short, spending was artificially elevated by programs like Cash 4 Clunkers (no sustainable increase), unemployment remains high (higher than expected jobless numbers for last week, for example), and the dollar is weakening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/business/economy/30econ.html?_r=1&hp

The nation’s gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the quarter that ended in September, matching its average growth rate of the last 80 years, according to the Commerce Department. But government programs to encourage consumer spending on things like cars and houses are expiring, and employers remain reluctant to hire more workers, suggesting the recovery may not last, economists say.

A lot of the GDP increase was due to growth in government sectors, not the private sector…. and that’s not a recipe for sustained growth, either.
http://briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/10/29/5-reasons-the-gdp-jump-isnt-all-it-seems/

As FTN Financial economist Chris Low states in a note to clients this morning, "the economy is entirely dependent on federal deficit spending at the moment." Government consumption rose 2.3% with non-defense spending increasing 6.8%. Non-defense spending has risen on average about 3.5% per year over the past decade, so this near doubling of the 10 year average shows that spending from the stimulus plan is a big part of the increase. Financing growth today at the expense of greater debt tomorrow is a slippery slope. If one borrows $100 dollars today at 4% interest and has (like most government bonds) a 10 year loan, we may have 'gained' $100 today for immediate needs but will end up paying $140 over the length of the loan.

The November 9th edition of Business Week magazine will have a cover entitled “GDP: Trick or Treat.” An interesting fact brought out here is that the GDP numbers don’t include losses in non-tangibles such as research & development or employee training.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_45/b4154034724383.htm

The trouble is that those GDP and productivity growth figures could be significantly overestimated—perhaps by one percentage point or even more.

That's because the official statistics are not designed to pick up cutbacks in "intangible investments" such as business spending on research and development, product design, and worker training. There's ample evidence to suggest that companies, to reduce costs and boost short-term profits, are slashing this kind of spending, which is essential for innovation. Without investment in intangibles, the U.S. can't compete in a knowledge-based global economy. Yet you won't see that plunge reflected in the GDP and productivity statistics, which are still too focused on more traditional sectors, such as motor vehicles and construction.

In effect, government statisticians are trying to track a 21st century bust with 20th century tools. Not only is that distorting the critical data that investors, policymakers, and corporate executives use to evaluate the economy, but it might also be creating a false sense of relief as Americans battle a brutal recession.

And economist David Malpass says that the economy will slow and enter a “gloomy period” after this third quarter rebound.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSAZljzzFz44

"Economic growth in the U.S. will slow after the rebound in the third quarter and enter “a very gloomy period” of high unemployment, said economist David Malpass, president of Encima Global in New York.

We are moving into this very gloomy new normal” of 2 percent growth and a “very high unemployment rate,” Malpass said today in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. As a result, “Washington will reach around and thrust around desperately” for new programs to boost growth.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 3.5 percent pace from July through September after contracting during the previous four quarters, Commerce Department reported today.

In the fourth quarter, “you’re not going to have the consumption bump” fueled by the cash-for-clunkers auto-rebate program and other government stimulus efforts, Malpass said. “We’re getting a very weak recovery off the bottom,” he said.

I would love to be able to report to you that PresBo and the Democrats are right in proclaiming the recession over, but that just wouldn’t be true. We’re going to be fighting this for quite a while to come, and it doesn’t help when people falsely represent our economic picture in the hopes of reaping political benefit from the lie. Obama KNOWS his party will be held responsible if the economy doesn't improve as promised before the 2010 elections, and they are doing their best to make us believe it IS doing better.
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/10/29/obamas-bad-economic-bet-may-ruin-democrats/
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Stimulus “Jobs Created” Overstated

You’ve heard Obama and Democrats lay claim to all the jobs “created or saved” by the so-called stimulus package, right? I believe the number they trumpet is 30,000 jobs created by the stimulus. But according to an AP investigation, it turns out that many of those jobs were phantoms… jobs that were counted multiple times or even counted where no job creation occurred.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/STIMULUS-WATCH-Stimulus-jobs-apf-3446575539.html?x=0

The AP reviewed a sample of federal contracts, not all 9,000 reported to date, and discovered errors in one in six jobs credited to the $787 billion stimulus program -- or 5,000 of the 30,000 jobs claimed so far.

Even in its limited review, the AP found job counts that were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of paid positions; jobs credited to the stimulus program that were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs that were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

The White House has promised to release a revised report today with more accurate figures. It is my sincere hope that the AP fact-checks these revised figures as well… just in case.

But you are aware, aren’t you, that even if we take the figures at face value and assume all good economic news came because of the stimulus, it would only be returning 65 cents for every dollar spent? That doesn't sound like a wise investment to me.
http://briansullivan.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/10/29/5-reasons-the-gdp-jump-isnt-all-it-seems/

Instead of thinking in percentage terms, think of GDP in dollar terms. The 3.5% growth is from a jump in total seasonally-adjusted output from $12.901 trillion dollars in 2Q to $13,014 trillion last quarter. In other words, the economy added approximately $112 billion dollars in output quarter-over-quarter. Yet we have spent $173 billion worth of the $787 billion dollar stimulus plan so far.

In other words, the stimulus plan is 'returning' just 65-cents for every dollar spent.

The so-called “stimulus” was anything but, and it would be an extremely good idea to repeal the thing and cancel future spending… especially in light of the White House admission that the stimulus has already improved the economy as much as it is likely to.
http://politicsalabama.blogspot.com/2009/10/wh-advisor-stimulus-effect-is-mostly.html

Given all this, is it any wonder most people believe the stimulus was a mistake? The only wonder here is that so many Democrats still continue to defend a bad policy.

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Stocks Almost At End Of Rally

I’ve been telling you for a while that our problems aren’t over, and that our government’s handling of the economy has created a stock market bubble that will burst at some point. This isn’t over yet, no matter what the politicians tell you.

Let me introduce you to Graham Summers. Mr. Summers is Senior Market Strategist at OmniSans Research, and he is co-editor of Gain, Pains, and Capital, OmniSans Research’s free daily e-letter covering the equity, commodity, currency, and real estate markets.

Mr. Summers is now saying that the stock market is showing signs of nearing the end of the rally period, which will probably be followed by a sharp decline in the stock market.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14555.html

I’ve been forewarning of a potential Crash for months now. And the market’s current action is PRECISELY what you would expect for a MAJOR top (increased volatility).

It also gives us a great potential target for when things might get ugly: whenever stocks finally break below this expanding pattern (currently the lower end of the range is 1,045 on the S&P 500).

The issue now is whether this rally gives up this week, rolls over and breaks below the trend line… or if there will be some greater push to the upside.

On the other hand, given the recent jump in the dollar we may be about to see a very serious fall in stocks sooner rather than later. Keep your eye on the lower end of the S&P 500’s trendline. When it breaks, bad times are coming fast.

As with anybody who makes predictions about the future of the stock market or the economy, take it with a grain of salt. For me, this isn’t the only warning sign I’ve seen, nor is Mr. Summers the only person talking about this. In my personal opinion, it is coming, guys. And according to this guy… shortly.

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Poll Shows Changing Attitudes About Obama

We all remember how PresBo painted himself during last year’s election. He was a common man who would bridge the partisan divide, run an open administration, and reduce spending in government. A poll was taken last October that gauged how Americans viewed PresBo on a wide variety of issues. That same poll was just taken again this year, and now we can compare how perceptions of PresBo have changed in the past year.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-10-27-obama-year_N.htm

Will the country be better off or worse off in three years?
Then: 65% better and 25% worse
Now: 58% better and 37% worse

The policies Obama will pursue/has pursued are:
Then: 24% very liberal, 19% liberal, and 45% moderate
Now: 34% very liberal, 20% liberal, and 34% moderate

Will the Obama administration be able to increase respect for the US abroad?
Then: 76%
Now: 60%

Will the Obama administration be able to improve the healthcare system?
Then: 64%
Now: 46%

Will the Obama administration be able to control federal spending?
Then: 52%
Now: 31%

Will the Obama administration be able to heal political divisions?
Then: 54%
Now: 28%

As you can see, PresBo is running quite a different administration than he led people to believe he would. It’s more liberal, more partisan, and not as fiscally responsible as people thought it would be a year ago.

Personally, if I were to answer these questions, I would answer them as follows:

Will the country be better off or worse off in three years? Worse.

The policies Obama will pursue/has pursued are: very liberal.

Will the Obama administration be able to increase respect for the US abroad? No.

Will the Obama administration be able to improve the healthcare system? No.

Will the Obama administration be able to control federal spending? No… he’s not even trying.

Will the Obama administration be able to heal political divisions? No… he’s actively working to make things worse.

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Poll: Public Angry At Washington

According to results from a new NBC/WSJ poll, people aren't very happy with Washington right now. Only 23% say they trust government most of the time... a 12-year low. An astounding 46% favor the formation of a third party to oppose the Democrats and Republicans.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/27/2109956.aspx

Both parties are responsible for the mess that has been made in DC, and we don't trust them to fix it alone. Now, isn't that what the Tea Parties were saying this summer?


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Breaking News: Langford Convicted On All Counts

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford was found guilty today on 60 counts of bribery, money laundering, and more.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/10/larry_langford_found_guilty.html

Larry Langford, Birmingham's mayor and a former Jefferson County commissioner, has been found guilty in his federal bribery trial.

Langford, who is 61 or 63, was found guilty of taking about $236,000 in cash and gifts from Montgomery investment banker Bill Blount and lobbyist Al LaPierre.

Judge Scott Coogler decided Langford would forfeit $241,843. The lawyers agreed.

Coogler ordered a sentencing report within 90 to 120 days and said Langford would remain free until then on the existing $50,000 unsecured bond.

Birmingham City Council President Carole Smitherman is now mayor of Alabama's largest city. (Corrected: A swearing in is not required)

I do not know all the facts in the case, nor have I ever met Mr. Langford. However, it seems as if he is, in fact, guilty of various forms of corruption while in office, and therefore I am glad that he was caught and will be punished. Corruption in public officials is something that cannot be tolerated if we want our system to work.

That said, and keeping in mind the problems the Birmingham City Council has been experiencing lately... I'm not sure the temporary replacement will be much better. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but...


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October Consumer Confidence Drops

Consumer confidence was 53.1 in September and was forecast to increase slightly to 53.5 in October. Instead, consumer confidence fell unexpectedly to 47.7.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_xPp7Pzgs5E

Mounting unemployment threatens to restrain consumer spending entering the Christmas-holiday shopping season. Without a sustained rebound in the biggest part of the economy, the emerging recovery may fall short of expectations.

“There really isn’t any scope for us to see sustained gains in consumer spending for quite some time,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York forecasting firm. “The labor market remains very weak.”

Stocks dropped after the report, erasing earlier gains, on concern consumers will cut back. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 0.2 percent to 1,065.05 at 10:21 a.m. in New York. Treasury securities rallied, pushing the yield on the 10-year note down to 3.52 percent from 3.56 percent late yesterday.

Our economic difficulties are not over, regardless what politicians may tell you. We still have a high jobless rate, consumer confidence is low, we still haven't fixed the mortgage crisis, and the treasury printed trillions of new dollars which will cause inflation and HAS caused a stock market bubble. There is far more going on out here than the politicians want you to think about.

So please, do think about it.

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Opt-Out A Complicated Issue

It looks like the new darling of the liberal extremists pushing government-run health care is the "optional public option." That is, states would have the choice to participate or not. This isn't as simple as it looks.

First, how do the states opt out? Does the Governor tell them, or does it take the Legislature to do it? And though voter I&R isn't an issue in Alabama right now, can voters in I&R states speak at a referendum to opt their state out?

And keep in mind that "opting out" simply means no government-run health insurance plan for the state in question... the residents of that state would still have to pay all the taxes intended to fund the program.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28791.html

On the surface, the public insurance opt-out appears to solve a number of political and philosophical problems. By being acceptable to progressive representatives and palatable to moderate legislators, the idea offers the obvious advantage of legislative coalition building. It is easier to sell the idea of a public option if people know their state does not have to participate. This compromise allows areas that are philosophically or otherwise opposed to the government offering a public insurance option to decline to participate in that system.

But there are serious logistical questions in terms of implementation. How do states opt out? Must state legislatures decide or can they use public referenda to allow voters to make the decision? Regardless of whether the venue turns out to be a legislative decision or a public referendum, we should expect intense lobbying and spending from those who feel strongly about the issue. States with conservative voters or strong private health insurance companies will face strong pressure to exit the public option.

And, of course, another problem raises it's head. Once the precedent for "opting out" of federal programs has been set, how far will it be taken? Can we then allow states to op-out of Medicare? What about Federal gun-control laws... can states opt-out of them, too? It's a Pandora's box.

From a governance standpoint, the public option creates a worrisome precedent for other policy areas. If states don’t like congressional decisions on gun control, climate change or immigration, will state legislators demand an opt-out? If this were 1965 and there were a Medicare opt-out, it is conceivable we would have ended up with two-thirds of the country having Medicare, while one-third did not.

With any comprehensive reform, there always are unanticipated consequences. By using a pragmatic mechanism to solve the political problem of overcoming a Senate filibuster, opt-out proponents have created a precedent they later will regret. Opponents most likely will employ that idea in other policy areas when people are unhappy with legislative decisions. The marble cake will expand in scope throughout American federalism.

I don't believe this new idea has been thought through all that well. Of course, the Democrat leadership is just looking at ANYTHING they can put together that will garner the 60 votes it needs... and right now they don't much care what goes in it. As long as it can be called "health care reform"... preferably with something they can call a "public option."

But Reid may want to go back to the drawing board with this one.

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ObamaCare Mandate Would Hurt Many

Not a lot of attention has been directed at the mandate to purchase insurance and what it would mean to consumers. You see, many now make the choice not to purchase insurance... the young and healthy, mostly. The mandate would force them to buy insurance or pay a fine, thus reducing their income.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/health/policy/25view.html?_r=1

The proposals now before Congress would require just about everyone to buy health insurance or to get it through their employers — which would generally result in lower wages. In other words, millions of people would be compelled to spend lots of money on something they previously did not want, at least not at prevailing prices.

Estimates of this burden vary, but for a family of four it could range up to $14,000 a year over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Right now, many Americans take the gamble of going without insurance, just as many of us take our chances with how much we drive or how little we exercise.

The paradox is this: Reform advocates start with anecdotes about the underprivileged who are uninsured, then turn around and propose something that would hurt at least some members of that group.

And the graduated subsidies actually act as a disincentive for poorer people to climbing out of the poverty basement.

The fiscal reality is that not all income groups can receive equal subsidies; as a family earns more, its subsidy would probably decrease, eventually falling to zero. But then we are taking money away from the poor as they climb into higher income categories. This is a disincentive to earn more, and the strength of the disincentive increases with our initial generosity. For many people, the health insurance aid would phase out when food stamps, housing vouchers and the earned income tax credit also end and the personal income tax kicks in.

This structure of incentives would likely discourage many parents from earning a better life for their children. Congress could tweak the subsidies so they don’t phase out so quickly, but then we’re back to very high fiscal costs and subsidies for many families in the higher income classes.

Forcing people to purchase health insurance is, in all likelihood, unconstitutional... but for sure it's a bad idea and will have bad side-effects.

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ObamaCare Lacks 60 Senate Votes

The ObamaCare bill in the Senate right now lacks the 60 votes needed to pass it. Keep in mind that this may change as the details in the bill change, but that’s the way things are right now. In a surprise move, Senator Lieberman… who is an independent who votes with the Democrats on most things… has said he cannot support any ObamaCare bill that contains a public option.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28788.html

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid’s has said the Senate bill will.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."

Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."

His comments confirmed that Reid is short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate, even after Reid included the opt-out provision. Several other moderate Democrats expressed skepticism at the proposal as well, but most of the wavering Democratic senators did not go as far as Lieberman Tuesday, saying they were waiting to see the details.

And it doesn’t look like Reid will get the only Republican to so far indicate any willingness to vote in favor of this monstrosity, Senator Olympia Snowe. She just said that she will not support the “optional public option”… only a trigger.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/64981-senator-lieberman-not-backing-public-option

Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), the only Republican to vote for the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill, said Tueday that she would vote against bringing up a bill that included a government-run insurance program unless the implementation of such a program were set to a trigger.

As things stand now, passage is unlikely without getting some Republican votes… which is also unlikely.

This means that as things now stand, Democrats will not have enough votes to pass healthcare reform with a so-called public option unless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) can pick up unexpected GOP votes.

Don’t get too excited, but right now it doesn’t look good for government-run health care… and that is an incredibly good thing.

Look for a lot more wrangling and deal-making to try and convince Senators to support it… and look for the threats to be levied against the moderate Democrats who are right now opposed to it.

Don’t give up, people… keep letting your Congressmen know what you think about this abysmal ObamaCare proposal.

Read the rest...

S&P500 Overvalued By 40%

Today there are two more indicators that our economic picture may not be all beer and skittles. Economists are now saying that the S&P500 index is overvalued by 40%, and the dollar continues to fall against foreign currencies... reaching a 14-month low against the Euro.

Dollar Falls In Value
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aeJULGcO6S18

The dollar reached a 14-month low versus the euro as stocks advanced around the world on confidence that the global economy is recovering, increasing demand for higher-yielding assets.

Brazil’s real and Mexico’s peso were the biggest gainers versus the dollar among the 16 most-traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The South Korean won was the best performer among 10 emerging Asian currencies as the nation’s economy grew at the fastest pace in seven years.

S&P500 Overvalued
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXTcHEJFiNQk

The U.S. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is about 40 percent overvalued and headed for a drop as central banks pull back on securities purchases that pushed up asset prices, according to economist Andrew Smithers.

Declines are likely because banks will need to sell more shares to raise capital, the economist and president of research firm Smithers & Co. said in an Oct. 23 interview at Bloomberg’s Tokyo office. The closing price on Oct. 23 of 1,079.6 was 40 percent above 771.14, a level last seen in March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Markets are very vulnerable to an end of quantitative easing,” said Smithers, 72, who recommended avoiding stocks in 2000 just as the U.S. benchmark entered a two-year bear market. “Central banks, they’ve got to stop some time and if that happens everything will come down.”

Central banks from the Federal Reserve to the Bank of England last year embarked on unprecedented measures to flood credit markets with cash in order to rescue the global financial system from the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

Those purchases may be nearing an end, said Smithers, who worked for 27 years at S.G. Warburg & Co. where he ran the investment management business.

The upshot of all this is that things haven’t turned around yet. We’re still experiencing increases in unemployment, the dollar is weakening, and the stock market is overvalued and will correct downwards sometime in the future.

Accurate information is worth a lot, and I’m doing my best to make sure you have the facts instead of the politically-motivated pablum that PresBo and Congressional Dems want you to believe.

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Tuesday ObamaCare Roundup

Here are a few interesting stories about ObamaCare that you should read.

Reid: Public Option Will Pass Senate
Basically, Reid is saying a public option WILL be in the Senate bill… though he doesn’t yet have 60 votes. Nor does he have any single proposal that will definitely garner 60 votes. He caters to the liberal wing of his party to his own future detriment.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/1009/Reid_to_announce_push_for_optout_option.html

Reid: States Allowed To “Opt-Out”
The current plan in the Senate offers a government-run health insurance program, euphemistically called a “public option,” but will also allow States to opt out of the program. I call right now for Governor Riley to announce that Alabama will opt out of the program if it passes Congress.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul

Optional “Public Option” Risky Strategy
This author finds Reid’s new strategy to be risky. This is a good look at the math that is driving the creation of this bill. The quality of the bill doesn’t count, the bottom line is that something be proposed that can get at least 60 votes. Good or bad doesn’t matter… good enough to pass is good enough for Democrats.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/26/john.king.monday.memo/

Liberal Wing Is Driving Health Care Debate
Basically, a “public option” of some kind will be in the final bill, because the liberal extremists demand that it be there. This article covers some more of the infighting going on and details how the only Republican to support ObamaCare in the Senate, Olympia Snowe, has been rebuffed because following her plan will lose liberal votes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/26/durbin-progressives-force_n_334438.html

The Inevitability Myth
This article discusses the myth spread by ObamaCare advocates that ObamaCare is preordained, that passage in some form is inevitable. That’s a useful idea to promote, as the majority of the country disapproves of the bills being put forth. But keep in mind that it’s all an illusion. Nothing is inevitable, and labeling it that way won’t change reality.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/115exlzg.asp

I hope you enjoy reading these articles… I thought they were important enough to bring to your attention.

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Another ObamaCare Falsehood

We’ve all heard the Democrats trash-talking health insurance companies, claiming that they let people die so they can make obscene profits. Here are some examples:

- "I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers' "obscene profits."

- "Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants. Their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed." Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

- "Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." A MoveOn.org ad

The problem with these claims is that they simply are not true.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FACT_CHECK_HEALTH_INSURANCE?SITE=WFAA&TEMPLATE=TOPHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME

Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th of 53 industries on the Fortune 500 list. As is typical, other health sectors did much better - drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.

HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That's a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.

The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.

The truth is that health insurance is a low-profit margin business… meaning that only a small percentage of the money earned is profit.

So the claims that health insurance companies reap “immoral profits” is simply false. It makes a great talking point if the aim is to demonize insurance companie, but if accuracy matters at all to Pelosi and Democrats then maybe they’ll stop lying about the facts.

Read the rest...

WH Advisor: Stimulus Effect Is Mostly Over

This one is too rich for words. For months now, the Obama Administration has weathered criticism that his so-called “stimulus package” had little effect on the economy. The administration response has been to say that most of the spending hasn’t occurred yet, and it will give us a big economic boost in the future.

Not so! According to Christina Romer, PresBo’s chief economic advisor, the “stimulus package” has had all the positive effect on the economy it is going to. Future spending will help keep the economy where it is, but won’t stimulate it to new growth.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55943

The government's economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won't contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday.

Christina Romer, the chair of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said the initial jolt of the $787 billion stimulus expanded the economy in the second and third quarters of this year. But she said the remaining spending will simply keep the economy from slipping. "By mid-2010," she said, "fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth."

You know, I really wish that PresBo and company would stop changing stories every ten or fifteen minutes. They need to pick one assertion that they’re going to claim as truth and stick to it. But by changing stories so often, he gives the strong impression that he has no idea what he’s doing.

Now we find out that what little economic benefits we may or may not have seen (signs are minimal and debatable) is about all we’re going to see. In the future, the “stimulus” will just keep our heads above water.

Some stimulus. And to think we got all this at the bargain-basement price of… wait, $787 billion? Somebody call that waiter back here, I think he made a mistake on our bill…

Read the rest...

Obama’s Approval Plummets

It seems that PresBo’s approval ratings in the first and second quarters of his Presidency were among the best of Presidents in recent history. However, during the third-quarter his approval ratings plummeted, leaving the numbers near the bottom when compared to other presidents at the same point in their terms.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Devastating-numbers-in-new-Gallup-survey-65380327.html

President Obama's push for health care reform during the third quarter of 2009 has seriously damaged his public standing, according to new data from the Gallup Daily tracking poll. His job approval rating dropped nine points from the second to the third quarter, from 62 percent to 53 percent.

The nine-point second-to-third quarter drop is the highest Gallup has ever measured for an incumbent president during his first year in office, and among the highest quarter-to-quarter drops measured for any president at any point.

"In Obama's first quarter and second quarter, his job approval average compared favorably with those of prior presidents. But after the drop in his support during the last quarter, his average now ranks near the bottom for presidents at similar points in their presidencies. Only Clinton had a lower third-quarter average among elected presidents," Gallup said.

It seems that the harder he pushes to pass unpopular ObamaCare proposals, the lower his popularity gets. Maybe he’d better pay attention to that, as it IS indicative of how far from the American people his agenda strays.

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Planned Economy?

Here's an old cartoon from 1934. Does the plan of action at the bottom look familiar?

(click picture to enlarge)

UPDATE: I've received an email saying they had troubles enlarging the picture. I'll check it out, but will also post the plan of action from the bottom of the picture.

Plan of Action for U.S.

SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!

Under the guise of recovery
- Bust the government
- Blame capitalists for the failure
- Junk the Constitution and declare a dictatorship.

Read the rest...

Poll: Democrats And Opportunism

Here's your chance to weigh in and let us know if YOU think the Democrats are making the economy worse in order to pass their agenda.




Read the rest...

Pols Say Bad Economy Good For Dems

I see a bad economy, and I start thinking about what can be done to turn it around into economic growth. Apparently, when congressional Democrats see a bad economy, they see an opportunity to get their liberal agenda enacted. In other words, what is bad for the country is good for the Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/politics/25assess.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The bad economy is good for President Obama and Democrats as they try to reinvent the health care system with scant Republican support.

That is the conclusion of many Congressional Democrats, who say that economic insecurity and high unemployment stoke public support for their proposals to guarantee insurance for millions of Americans.

Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said this was one of the biggest differences between the health care wars of 1993-94 and the battle today. When Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for universal coverage, Mr. McDermott said, the economy was on an upswing, in the early stages of a 10-year economic expansion, which proved to be the longest in American history.

Today, by contrast, the economy is weak. Americans have struggled through the worst recession in decades. The unemployment rate is at a 26-year high.

“The mentality in the country is different,” said Mr. McDermott, a psychiatrist who has served in Congress for two decades. “In 1993, we were talking about the uninsured as ‘them.’ Now it turns out this is for us. When a bank like Washington Mutual in Seattle lays off 3,000 people, they lose health insurance. Millions of people with insurance are asking, ‘What if I lose my job?’ ”

Mr. Obama is doing everything he can to highlight this sense of insecurity as he tries to persuade people with insurance that his proposals would help them. Worries about insurance are “keeping more and more Americans awake at night,” he said last month.

The fate of health legislation may hinge on whether those anxieties trump concerns about the effects of the Democratic proposals. Republicans say “Obamacare” would kill jobs by imposing new taxes and destabilize the employer-based system of insurance on which 170 million Americans depend.

I don’t know if it is wise to trust an idea that needs people to feel frightened and insecure in order to get it passed. The fact that Democrat politicians are trying to make us feel MORE insecure in order to pass their agenda is repulsive enough, but it does raise a thought. Are those same people also taking actions to intentionally make our economy worse in order to get their agenda passed?It’s a question worth asking. What do you think?

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Weekend News Roundup

Here are a few news articles that you might find interesting.

US Drowning In Debt
This article analyzes our national debt, the growth in our indebtedness over the next ten years, and Obama's role in it all.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/columnists/zuckerman/index.html

ObamaCare On Shaky Ground
This article is actually defending the "mandatory insurance" provision in ObamaCare, but in doing so admits that forcing healthy youngsters to buy insurance isn't to make THEM more healthy, but instead to pay for the extra care required by seniors. It's not a good idea to force somebody to buy a product to benefit a third party.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20091024_4642.php


The "Optional" Public Option
This article discusses the new alternative to the goverment-run "public option"... allowing states to opt out of participation. Really... if they have to specify that THIS version of the thing is truly optional, then that tells us the original wasn't. It's not a public "option," it's a public mandate.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/23/health.care/index.html

Enjoy these articles, and have a good weekend.

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US To Lose AAA Credit Rating?

On Thursday, Moody’s warned the world that the United States, the world’s largest debtor nation, would lose its AAA credit rating if it did not reduce deficits to “manageable levels” within the next three to four years.

This is a big deal.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33426521

"The Aaa rating of the U.S. is not guaranteed," said Steven Hess, Moody's lead analyst for the United States said in an interview with Reuters Television. "So if they don't get the deficit down in the next 3-4 years to a sustainable level, then the rating will be in jeopardy."

Last year’s deficit was about $400 billion, but in September our deficit hit $1.4 trillion for FY 2009. And Obama’s deficit projections are not promising, and certainly don’t even BEGIN to reduce the deficit over time.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/23/us-maxes-out-on-credit/

"Under the Obama budget plan, U.S. debt is headed into uncharted territory. Why? Because President Obama's budget promises deficits averaging $1 trillion per year for the next decade. As a result, debt held by the public will double by 2013 and triple by 2019, when it will represent more than 80 percent of our economy.

And so, Congress will soon be asked to raise the debt ceiling so that PresBo and his Congressional drunken sailors can spend our way into total insolvency.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/22/raising_the_debt_ceiling_98825.html

Within the next few weeks, probably as soon as the votes on health care reform have been taken, the Senate faces the painful duty of once again raising the statutory limit on the national debt, as the House already has done.

It is never fun for the party in power, but this year will be harder on the Democrats than ever. The final accounting on the just-ended fiscal year, delivered last week, showed a record deficit of $1.4 trillion, a gap that is the largest since the end of World War II when measured against the size of the overall economy.

The Republicans are poised to pounce. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell accused the Democrats of "acting like a teenager on a spending spree with his parent's credit card with no regard to who pays the bill."

The Democrats, in turn, blamed the George W. Bush administration for starting the deficit spending and say that they themselves had no choice but to spread the red ink in order to deal with the potential economic collapse they inherited.

The one barely possible benefit from this predictably futile partisan bloodbath is the opportunity it could offer to leverage support for a long-standing bipartisan effort to force Congress to confront the hard steps needed to put the nation on a safer fiscal course.

This cannot continue, guys. Our debt is increasing exponentially, and Congress STILL sees no problem in massively increasing spending with new entitlement programs, raising taxes, and continuing the unbridled idiocy of trying to SPEND our way into economic growth.

We must not only reduce the deficits to “manageable levels,” we must turn those deficits into surpluses and begin to pay down the national debt. We cannot do this by following Obama’s lead, because he is leading us over the financial and economic cliff. Rather like lemmings.

It’s simple, guys. Listen up, Congress! STOP SPENDING SO MUCH MONEY!!!!

There… that wasn’t so hard, was it?

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Obama's Czar's Won't Testify To Congress

A "Czar" is an unofficial person appointed directly by the President, usually to coordinate efforts between multiple agencies. Unlike cabinet members, Czars do not face Congressional scrutiny and Senate confirmation hearings. They hold and exercise an undefined and unlimited amount of power.

Now Presbo is trying to shield his Czars from being forced to testify before Congress about decisions they have made and official actions they have taken. PresBo told Congress that his Czars will not appear before Congress.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/23/czar-war-escalates-between-congress-white-house/

The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of President Obama's policy czars to testify before Congress - a decision senators said goes against the president's promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress' constitutional mandate to investigate the administration's actions.

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said White House counsel Greg Craig told her in a meeting Wednesday that they will not make available any of the czars who work in the White House and don't have to go through Senate confirmation. She said he was "murky" on whether other czars outside of the White House would be allowed to come before Congress.

Miss Collins said that doesn't make sense when some of those czars are actually making policy or negotiating on behalf of Mr. Obama.

"I think Congress should be able to call the president's climate czar, Carol Browner, the energy and environment czar, to ask her about the negotiations she conducted with the automobile industry that led to very significant policy changes with regard to emissions standards," Miss Collins said at a hearing Thursday that examined the proliferation of czars.

Do I need to say that this is a bad thing? The REASON that cabinet appointees face Congressional scrutiny is because of the amount of power that each appointed member holds. By requiring Congressional approval, some control of the types of people occupying the highest echelon of our Government is exercised by the representatives of the States... the Senate.

But PresBo wants these unelected, unconfirmed appointees to continue to exercise power without ever being questioned about it or held accountable for their actions.

And this is bad...

Read the rest...

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Do NOT assume that the people we have elected to represent us in Washington DC are mature adults. From what I can see, many act like eight-year-old spoiled brats!

Would you believe that Democrats in a House committee locked the Republican members of that committee out of the meeting room? No, I am NOT kidding...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204442.html

Last Thursday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was set to hold a routine business meeting. Before the session, its ranking Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), made clear that he planned to call for the panel to subpoena Bank of America for documents related to Countrywide Financial Corp.'s infamous "Friends of Angelo" VIP mortgage program.

When Thursday's committee meeting began, however, the Democrats were absent, and Republican members said they waited for more than half an hour before being told the session had been canceled because of scheduling conflicts. Democrats, meanwhile, were meeting in a private room behind the hearing room.

A Republican aide videotaped Democratic lawmakers leaving that gathering through a back door. The GOP interspersed that tape with footage of empty chairs from the main hearing room, and posted the video on the committee's minority Web site (and YouTube), set to the tune, "Hit the Road, Jack."

The majority was not pleased.

On Monday, panel Democrats had the lock changed on the door leading from the GOP's office space into the main hearing room. They did so, Towns' office said, because Republicans "don't know how to behave."

So, Democrats want to ignore promises of bipartisanship and meet without any Republican members present... that's unethical and only borderline legal. The GOP retaliation was immature and childish. But locking the minority party out of a meeting room? If that behavior isn't illegal, it should be! Otherwise, all the Dems have to do is lock the GOP members out of Congress, pass all the bills they want, and completely ignore the way this country is supposed to work.

Are you STILL glad the party that engages in these underhanded tactics holds a majority in both houses of Congress?

Read the rest...

No Full Public Option In House

Good news: Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes to pass a full public option out of the House. Since that public option would the absolute WORST thing they could pass, this is incredibly good news.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28651.html

But Pelosi’s vote-counting didn’t go as well in the House. There has been a flurry of rumors that a robust government option remains viable. But top House Democrats privately concede that is wishful thinking that ignores the power of moderate Democrats in this debate.

The vote count is a disappointment to liberal members in the House, after two days in which Pelosi seemed increasingly confident she could secure the votes needed for the most liberal option. She had her top lieutenants polling members and even enlisted progressive leaders in trying to corral more support.

“Votes aren’t there,” a top official said. “The progressives are always more optimistic than reality.”

So the danger of some sort of public option hasn't passed, but it looks like the "immediate government takeover" option doesn't have the votes to pass.


The two alternatives are a public option with performance triggers (or "delayed government takeover") and a national plan that states can opt out of (or "useless waste of time").

Don't take your eye off the ball, though... we're still in danger of being forced into a very bad, government-controlled health care system. But this is good news for the moment.

Read the rest...

Three Million New Jobs, Eh? How's THAT Working?

In February, the White House released a list of how many jobs their stimulus would create through the end of 2010. It's reasonable to expect SOME progress, right? But although they predicted the creation of 3.46 million jobs, since then our economy has actually LOST 2.7 million jobs.

Alabama was projected to see an additional 52,000 jobs, but in reality so far we have lost 33,600 jobs through September.

You can read the original White House document here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Recovery_Act_state-by-state_jobs_2-131.pdf

And you can read the chart comparing those state-by-state predictions with the reality here:
http://www.republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=150826

So, when you hear a White House projection of how much something will cost or how good it will be for the economy, keep in mind that their track record for accuracy isn't so good.


Read the rest...

Sen Reid’s “Doc Fix” Fails

This is interesting. Apparently Reid tried to move forward on what is considered a “critical part” of healthcare reform… freezing medicare payments to doctors at current levels for the next decade. The measure was defeated on a procedural votes by Republicans and a group of more fiscally conservative Democrats.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/64117-reid-tells-colleagues-he-was-led-astray-by-the-ama

Twelve Democrats and one independent joined all 40 Senate Republicans in defeating a motion by Reid to begin debate on the doctors fix bill on Wednesday. Reid brought the $247 billion bill to the Senate floor this week as part of a deal to secure the support of doctors groups such as the AMA for passage of a separate, broader healthcare reform bill later this year. But the strategy has backfired. Reid knew that he needed Republican votes because several centrist Democrats made it clear to him before this week that they would not vote for the measure if its cost was not offset. Reid though he could count on a few Republican crossover votes.

Now, why did the bill fail? Did it fail because it was a bad idea? No. According to Reid, it failed because the AMA lied to him.

Reid told colleagues that the AMA said it could deliver 27 Republican votes for the legislation, according to two Senate Democratic lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Reid needs the GOP votes because at least five members of his party have vowed to vote against the doctors' fix.

Here’s the question. Was this vote a mere procedural hiccup, a miscommunication between party officials, or was the vote representative of what the larger ObamaCare bill can expect in the Senate?

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US To Cut Bailout CEO's Pay By 90%

Well, I guess last week when the outgoing Chairman of BoA had his salary reduced to $0 by our Federal Government... that wasn't an accident. Nor is it isolated. Now PresBo has said that the pay of bailout bank CEOs will be cut by an average of 90%!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33417281

Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in the government’s financial rescue, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.

Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. Their total compensation — including bonuses and retirement contributions — will drop, on average, by about 50 percent.

This isn't even anything CLOSE to acceptable. How would you feel if your salary was cut by 90%, or if you suddently lost half your income in one blow? And it wasn't done by your boss, but by a government bureaucrat who really shouldn't have been involved in the first place!

For those of you who think that our government will honestly take over health care and then leave us alone... I ask how can you think that after seeing something like this? They will meddle and interfere because they CAN...

If you're not outraged by this, you should be.
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Justice Concludes Black Voters Need Democratic Party

Remember the case against the Black Panthers who stood outside a polling place last November intimidating voters? Charges were brought by the Justice Department, but were later dropped. Keep that in mind...

Here in Alabama, elections in most cities and counties is non-partisan... no party affiliations involved. We view this as normal, but not all states run local elections this way.

Enter Kinston, North Carolina. This is a small town that wanted to elect its city council without party affiliation being involved. They held a referendum and the entire populace voted on the subject... and decided to do it. That public vote, the will of the people in that town, was recently overturned by the Justice Department... specifically, by the same official responsible for dropping the charges against the Black Panthers.

Why?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/20/justice-dept-blocks-ncs-nonpartisan-vote/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_photo_feature

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

Did you catch that? The Justice Department of the United States of America officially said that blacks can’t get elected, and black voters can’t elect their candidate of choice, without the Democrat party being involved.

What???

I’m glad to say that critics include the local chapter of the NAACP and the US Commission on Civil Rights.

Critics on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are not so sure. "The Voting Rights Act is supposed to protect against situations when black voters are locked out because of racism," said Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "There is no entitlement to elect a candidate they prefer on the assumption that all black voters prefer Democratic candidates."

But think about it... do any of us have a RIGHT to see our “candidate-of-choice” elected? No, we don’t. We have the right to VOTE for him, and to campaign for him, and to try and see he does get elected... but we have no right for him to win. Thankfully, I am not the only person saying this.

Mrs. Thernstrom of the civil rights commission blasted the department's interpretation of the law.

"The Voting Rights Act is not supposed to be compensating for failure of voters to show up on Election Day," she said. "The Voting Rights Act doesn't guarantee an opportunity to elect a 'candidate of choice.' ... My 'candidate of choice' loses all the time in an election."

So does mine.

This is a terrible decision, and the city should fight and not let it stand. Basically, the message is that blacks can’t get “their” candidates elected without the Democrat party.

Are you insulted? I would be.

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“We know that the free market is nonsense.”

There have been quite a few revelations recently about the character of some the Czars that Obama has appointed… and keep in mind that these people hold a large amount of power, but have never gone through the process to obtain Congressional confirmation.

The man of the hour today is Ron Bloom, PresBo’s Manufacturing Czar. Apparently a year ago, in a speech to some union members in New York, he said.

"Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system ... we know that this is largely about power. That this is an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog."

Don’t believe it? Well, listen to this:





For all those who think that PresBo and his crew are their best friends, you might want to pay attention to the words of Mr. Bloom… “If you want a friend you should get a dog.”

Mr. Bloom, at least, intends to “game the system” to increase his own personal power. There have been so many of these guys revealed recently, people appointed by PresBo to positions of authority, that it certainly does imply that PresBo agrees with them.

And that’s probably the most frightening thought I could have today.

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Reuters, CNBC Falls For Climate Hoax

As you may know by now, the US Chamber of Commerce opposes climate legislation such as the Cap & Tax bill proposed by Obama and which is languishing in the Senate. Apparently some global warming activist groups decided to send out a fake press release from the Chamber of Commerce that claimed they had completely reversed their opinion and now supported Cap & Tax.

Reuters got the press release, failed to fact-check it, and posted it. Once they were informed the press release was bogus (the President’s name was misspelled) they took it down and informed their customers of the “mistake.” But the news had already been repeated by CNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28456.html

In a dramatic shift, the Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that it is throwing its support behind climate change legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate.

Only it didn’t.

An email press release announcing the change is a hoax, say Chamber officials.

Several media organizations fell for it.

This is a bit interesting for me… news outlets sit on stories such as the Acorn scandal for quite a while before finally covering the story, but rush this one out the door without fact-checking it at all? Skeptics might say that this displays their own bias and willingness to cover stories they agree with… and their hesitation to cover stories that contradict their own biases.

If you’d like to read the press release, try this link:
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM138_091019_chamber.html

Maybe reporters will learn a lesson from this, and not report a story merely because they like it. I doubt it, but one can always hope. Note that though CNBC gleefully reported the Reuters story, interrupting their own news broadcast to do so, no other network (INCLUDING the much-maligned Fox News) fell for the hoax.

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White House: We Control News Media

A White House spokesman, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, revealed recently that the Obama election campaign controlled the news media for their own benefit.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=113347

President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.

"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

Continued Dunn: "Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. … Making the press cover what we were saying."

Maybe that is why PresBo’s administration has declared war on Fox News... the only news network being critical of his Presidency. This is from White House senior advisor David Axelrod.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28417.html

"It’s really not news — it’s pushing a point of view. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate but understanding that they represent a point of view.”

And, of course, even when FoxNews breaks an important story like the Acorn scandal, the White House doesn’t want other news media following along.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28497.html

But most of all, get other journalists to think twice before following the network’s stories in their own coverage.

"We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

“And then you had a couple days of breast-beating from The Washington Post and The New York Times about whether or not they were fast enough on the ACORN story,” the official said. “And it's like: Wait a second, guys. Let's make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories, and what's being driven by a network that has a perspective. Being able to make that point has been important.”

Make sure you read that last segment carefully… doesn’t it sound like the Obama administration is trying to do what they boasted they did during the campaign? Doesn’t it sound like an attempt to control the news media? No President likes critical news coverage, but most have the good sense, grace, and class not to attack and attempt to discredit the news outlet. Nixon tried that with the Washington Post, calling them biased and partisan to discredit the true stories they were running. We’re seeing the same behavior now… but that strategy didn’t work out so well for Nixon, did it?

This little episode bespeaks of a breathtaking amount of arrogance on behalf of the Obama administration. It also shows little acceptance of a (to them) little-regarded section of our Constitution known as the First Amendment… which protects the freedom of the press. Whether the government legislates away that freedom or attempts to use the power of the President to destroy dissenting press outlets, it is still a violation of the Constitution.

I’m fairly certain that THIS isn’t the change that people hoped Obama would bring…

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Dems Try To Hide Debt Increase Caused By ObamaCare

As we all know, PresBo has declared ad nauseum that his ObamaCare bill will not increase the deficit, “not even by one penny.” But the Democrats in the Senate have a problem… they’re having difficulties actually paying for an aspect of the plan. Their solution is nothing more than budgetary slight of hand… they plan to split the difficult portion out of the ObamaCare bill, pass it separately, and let it increase the deficit without “paying for it.” Since it’s no longer in the ObamaCare bill, they reason, Obama’s promise is intact. Bull.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28470.html

When President Barack Obama promised that health care reform would be fully paid for, many wondered how Democrats would fund a key provision whose cost is almost a third of the reform’s $900 billion price tag: protecting doctors from annual cuts to their Medicare reimbursement rates.

The Senate’s answer? Leave it out of the health care bill, rename it a “budgetary problem” and fix it separately — but without paying for it — by lumping it into the national debt. Voilà, promise kept.

That’s how Senate Democrats are dealing with their $245 billion Medicare reimbursement dilemma. The so-called doc fix was long expected to be part of comprehensive health care reform, but House and Senate Democrats now are signaling that they plan separate bills to deal with the expensive problem.

This is dishonest at best… but I’m not truly surprised. I’ve said for a while that the liberal Dems will do ANYTHING necessary to pass something they can call a success… and this seems to indicate that I’m right.

If deficits are too high and need to be reduced, as PresBo has indicated on more than one occasion, then splitting off that measure from ObamaCare doesn’t do anything useful. All it really does is show the Democrat leadership in a VERY unflattering light.

Are they really so out of touch with fiscal reality and with the mood of the American people that they think this is actually acceptable behavior? Unfortunately, I’m afraid that they are.

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Obama Decriminalizes Marijuana

Sort of. Presbo issued new guidelines saying that "it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law." So, if a state says medical marijuana is okay, the Feds will no longer prosecute those who do so under that state's law.
http://www.newsmax.com/us/us_medical_marijuana/2009/10/19/273730.html?s=al&promo_code=8D61-1

Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes, the officials said.

This is a good decision. The so-called "war on drugs" has been a failure for years, and it's about time that our government stepped back from a "zero-tolerance" policy on drug usage. This is a good first step, but needs to be followed up by changes to the law... so WAKE UP, Congress!

I have said numerous times in the past that I will oppose PresBo when I think he's wrong, and I have done so on numerous ocasions. I have also said I will support him when he's right... and this is one instance where I have done that, as well.

Good call, PresBo... you finally got one right.

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National Debt “Unsustainable”

I have made no secret of the fact that I think the greatest danger we face is the constantly increasing national debt. It is my opinion that we need to start doing something VERY soon to not just “reduce the deficit,” but also to start paying down the debt. We are currently the world’s largest debtor, and we cannot continue indefinitely to prosper on borrowed money.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted a study at the request of several Congressmen, and has concluded that our national debt is too high and must be paid down.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55629

"GAO's simulations continue to show escalating levels of debt that illustrate that the long-term fiscal outlook remains unsustainable," the August-October 2009 assessment said.

The GAO says the nation’s fiscal challenges are driven by the growth in health care costs as well as demographic trends. It also notes that without reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will account for a growing share of the economy in coming years. "The longer action to deal with the nation's long-term fiscal outlook is delayed, the larger the changes will need to be, increasing the likelihood that they will be disruptive and destabilizing," GAO concludes.

Action must be taken, and it must be taken soon. We do not have the realistic option to massively increase our spending at this time… the results could be disastrous. We as a nation are currently headed for bankruptcy, and that’s the worst possible outcome of this situation.

UPDATE: Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has said that the US must reduce the yearly budget deficits. Good as far as it goes, but what about the national debt?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bernanke


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No 2nd Stimulus... Except There Really Is

Nobody likes the stimulus package. It's unpopular because the economy is worse now than it was before the stimulus was passed... and it's worse than the "this-is-what-you'll-get-without-the-stimulus" predictions that were made.

Recently, there's been a bit of speculation on a second stimulus. This is an unpopular idea, and the White House and most of Congress have all said no second stimulus is coming. But it really is, you know... they're just doing it a bit at a time and not calling it stimulus.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599193093200;_ylt=AvNxnnHs68z5aBJiWcA0CtKMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTJqZjJoY2xxBGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAwOTEwMTkvMDg1OTkxOTMwOTMyMDAEY3BvcwM1BHBvcwM1BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDaXN0aGV3aGl0ZWhv

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett was adamant on Sunday, when asked if President Obama was considering a so-called second stimulus to deal with the rising unemployment rate. "I think it's too soon. It's premature to say, 'Is a second stimulus needed?' " she told David Gregory, the host of NBC's Meet the Press.

But a moment later she said the White House was already looking at tax credits and other measures to further stimulate the economy. "There are a range of suggestions that are being considered right now by his economic team, and we'll see what we come forward with," she added.

On its face, the two comments sounded like a contradiction. But at the White House, there is no confusion. More stimulus is coming, but it just won't be called stimulus.

It doesn't matter what you call it, or if it comes all at once or in little bits and pieces, this administration's idea of economic stimulus doesn't work. These efforts need to be resisted.


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Harry Reid Hypocrisy

By now, I'm sure we've all heard Senator Harry Reid talking about using reconciliation to pass ObamaCare if they can't get 60 votes in the Senate. He calls Republicans obstructionists and insists that filibuster by the minority is a bad thing.

The problem is that four and a half years ago, when he was the minority leader, Harry Reid was very eloquent in precisely the opposite direction.
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/reid-champion-of-the-filibuster-might-nuke-it-64690187.html

"It encourages moderation and consensus," Reid said in a 2005 floor speech in defense of the filibuster. "It gives voice to the minority, so that cooler heads may prevail.

"It also separates us from the House of Representatives -- where the majority rules. And it is very much in keeping with the spirit of the government established by the framers of our Constitution: limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances. ..."

"The filibuster is a critical tool in keeping the majority in check," Reid continued. "This central fact has been acknowledged and even praised by senators from both parties. ..."

"The right to extended debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House. ..."

"Some in this Chamber want to throw out 217 years of Senate history in the quest for absolute power. They want to do away with Mr. Smith coming to Washington. They want to do away with the filibuster. They think they are wiser than our Founding Fathers. I doubt that's true."

Reid said then that preserving the filibuster was the "most important issue I've dealt with in my 40 years of public service."

So, when a filibuster serves his interest, it is "a critical tool in keeping the majority in check" and "very much in keeping with the spirit of the government established by the framers of our Constitution: limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances." But when a filibuster would BLOCK his partisan interests, a filibuster becomes merely an obstructionist tactic used to thwart the will of the minority party?

Can a politician GET any more hypocritical than that? This is a good indicator that all Reid cares about is advantage for his own political party and ideology. In his mind, what he wants is right and good, and everybody else can go hang.

Nice people we have in charge right now... honorable and ethical. Right?

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