Give Obama Credit

The following list* of Obama's accomplishments was sent to me in a recent email:

1. First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

2. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

3. First President to violate the War Powers Act.

4. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

5. First President to defy a Federal Judge’s court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.

6. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

7. First President to spend a trillion dollars on ‘shovel-ready’ jobs when there was no such thing as ‘shovel-ready’ jobs.

8. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

9. First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

10. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

11. First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

12. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

13. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

14. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

15. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

16. First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which State they are allowed to locate a factory.

17. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

18. First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

19. First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

21. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

22. First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office.

23.First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.

24. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

25. First President to go on multiple global ‘apology tours’.

26. First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends; paid for by the taxpayer.

27. First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

28. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

29. First President to repeat the Holy Qur'and tells us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

30. First President to take a 17 day vacation.

*I will gladly give credit to the person who compiled this list as soon as they come forward.

The world has gone mad today And good's bad today, And black's white today, And day's night today.

As I said last May, Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" is more relevant today than when he wrote it. In The American Spectator, Mark Hyman lists a few of the anomolies that drive us crazy such as:

The Internal Revenue Service -- placed in the hands of a Treasury Secretary who is a bona fide tax cheat -- implements tax policy written by a House Ways and Means Chairman who is also a tax cheat.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent purchasing foreign oil while domestic oil fields lie fallow.

Government employees are among the most handsomely compensated in America even though the public sector is the most dysfunctional and inefficient component of our economy.

Please read the whole article, then send it to all of your friends and family.

Defeat the Debt

Defeat the Debt is a website all Americans should bookmark. Among other things, there one learns:
* one million seconds will pass in 12 days
* one billion seconds will pass in 32 years
* one trillion seconds will pass in 31,688 years

No wonder Obama quietly, almost secretively, signed the bill that raised the US debt limit to $14,300,000,000. He did it late on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. At one dollar per second, it will take us 453,138.4 years to pay off just the principal. Then there's the interest to factor in.

The Most Scurrilous Clowns

This is a list of the fifteen most corrupt Congressional Clowns according to a left leaning watchdog group. I am not privy to the criteria they employed in forming the list, but I can think of several they ignored. At any rate, the frightening thing is the depth of corruption and the lack of shame or censure either by their colleagues or by the mass media.
One on the list plans to run for governor of Georgia and I can personally testify to his ethical challenges.

Banksters?

Most Americans have opposed the TARP program under Bush and the subsequent big spending bills that were passed under Obama. Somehow, without knowing the details, we've had this gut feeling that we were being hoodwinked. At first we only worried about the secrecy surrounding the problem, the bills, and about the distribution of the money.

Later we began to read investment newsletters and financial blogs that spoke of the perpetrators (primarily Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner) as participants in a massive fraud program that paid off their buddies at the big banks, especially Goldman Sachs, while bleeding the taxpayers.

I didn't know any real details until I saw this article last week at Bloomberg.com, New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for Swaps Hits Taxpayers. I suggest you read it to at least discover Stephen Friedman's conflicts of interest as board member of Goldman Sachs and former chairman of the board of the NY Federal Reserve and his personal profit of $5,400,000 on the Goldman Sachs stocks he bought in a, ahem, timely manner.

On a similar note, but easier to digest, is this video from MSNBC: "Banks Have Taken Over The Government And Made Taxpayers Slaves To Bank-Run Gambling Casinos"

Everybody Is Cheering

After all the Dow topped $10,000 yesterday. But what does it mean? With Treasury printing presses running at top speed, it doesn’t carry the same financial euphoria it used to.

For example, ten years ago the Dow was $11,497 and it would have taken 40.6 ounces of gold to equal that value. But yesterday’s Dow would only require 9.44 ounces of gold to “buy” that amount.

Inflation has plagued the US all through the 20th Century and threatens to become worse in the 21st because our Federal government insists on spending more money than we can reasonably pay back. Like the Banana Republics we recently disdained, we keep printing more fiat money to avoid raising taxes and to hide the growing reluctance of other countries to buy our treasuries.

"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose."
- John Maynard Keynes, 1920

Shock! We ALREADY Spend More on Healthcare Than Other Countries!

According to Americans for Tax Reform, the US government already spends more money per capita on health care than countries with socialized medicine. Italy, Japan, Australia, Ireland, UK, Sweden, Germany, Canada, and France all spend less than the over $3,000 the US pays out for various government programs. When you think about it, it becomes painfully obvious that the answer to health care costs in the USA is NOT to add more government programs, but to reduce them. Only free market competition can improve products while reducing costs.

If the government had been in control of personal computer market back in the late seventies, the cost of the average home computer would be several thousand dollars by now, and we probably would not be too far advanced beyond the 48kb of memory that the first Apples had. We purchased an Apple II in 1978 for $2,638 (that would be $8,726.97 in today's dollars) plus shipping costs. The few programs that were available at the time were on black disks that really were floppy. We had to insert a different disk each time we wanted to use a different program.

Just 21 years later, the cheapest Apple costs $999 (or $301.98 in 1978 dollars) and comes with 2gb of memory, plus audio, video, color, Internet, and wireless capabilities. And it's portable. That represents an increase in memory of 6 degrees of magnitude - from thousands to billions, not to mention all the ancillary improvements.

We can all thank heaven for the competition between Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak. And pray that more free market competition will be allowed in health care, not a one payer system that only cuts costs by eliminating services.

Fabulous New Visual on Deficit

Watch this short video to REALLY see how fast our debt is adding up, then share it with your friends. According to it, Obama is driving 174 miles per hour compared to Truman's negative 20 miles per hour.

Government of, by, and for The Czars

Obama has named at least 21 czars that greatly increase the power of the Executive Branch of our government. None of these people face hearings or confirmations; their sole allegience is to the president. It is such a massive power grab that even Robert Byrd left his sick-bed long enough to pronounce the moves, which are outside of congressional oversight, violate the Constitution.

A president may have as many advisors as he wishes, however the Constitution does not provide for executive “czars” who directly dictate policy, such as Feinberg who will approve of executive pay for any business that receives government money.

After a two-hour search of the Internet I found the names and positions of 21, but I am not certain my list is complete. They are:

Af-Pak: Richard Holbrooke
Border: Alan Bersin
Cars: was Steve Rattner
Climate: Todd Stern
Cybersecurity: Rod A. Beckstrom
Drug: Gil Kerlikowske
Energy: Carol Browner
Executive Pay Rate: Kenneth Feinberg
Faith Based: Joshua DuBois
Guantamano Closure: Daniel Fried
Health Reform: Nancy Ann DeParle
Info Tech: Vivek Kundra
Mideast Peace: George Mitchell
Non proliferation: Gary Samore
Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia: Dennis Ross
Regulatory: Cass Sunstein
Science: John Holdren
Stimulus Accountability: Earl Devaney
Sudan: J. Scott Gration
TARP: Herb Allison
Terrorism: John Brennan
Urban: Adolfo Carrion, Jr.

Little is known about their backgrounds, about their direction from the President, or about the exact scope of their power. For example, few people know that John Holdren has co-authored a book praising forced abortions and mass sterilization, that his Cyber Security Czar claims to know nothing about IT, or that his energy czar is a member of the Socialist International who believes in one world government.

Next time, let's test the candidates for President on their understanding of basic civics and the Constitution. And maybe we need to re-read the Tenth Amendment ourselves.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

While Obama remains unapologetic about serving $100 per pound steak at weekly White House parties, sending Air Force One to buzz the Statue of Liberty in order to create publicity photos, and flying to New York City for a date night, he believes that business executives should restrict their use of private jets, fore go refurbishing their offices, and quit sponsoring corporate functions to woo clients.

And after running up the debt to frightening heights in his first four months of office, he had decided to come out in favor of “pay as you go” in relation to future spending bills. By publicly adopting a “conservative” stance, he hopes to defuse the rising fears about his spending policies.

“Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for. They are not free. . . . The reckless fiscal policies of the past* have left us in a very deep hole. Digging our way out will take time and patience and tough choices."

The easy translation of his new mantra is that taxes will definitely increase despite his oft repeated campaign promise that 95% of Americans would pay no new taxes. Front Page Magazine has an article about his new found penury as does Reuters.

*Almost certainly a reference to his favorite whipping boy, George Bush, not to his own decisions.

Everyone Understands Except The Politicians

It’s just common sense to understand the danger of continuing unbridled spending by Washington. Last week Ben Bernanke testified to the House about the grave hazard of our burgeoning debt.

His bottom line was our level of borrowing and spending cannot continue at the current rate. When asked about the possibility of the United States losing its AAA credit rating just as England did recently, Bernanke could offer no desirable outcome.

“At -- at some point, you have to have a path of spending and taxes that will give you a stabilization of the debt-to- GDP ratio. If you don't, then fear that the debt will continue to rise will make it very difficult to finance it.

And at some point, you'll hit a point where you'll have to have both very draconian cuts and very large tax increases, which is not something we want. So in order to avoid that outcome down the road, we need to begin now to plan how we're going to get the fiscal situation into a better balance in the medium term. ...”

And he refused to comment on the possibility of rampant inflation, although his questioner brought it up. Read more at Powerline.

Have you told your Congressional Clowns to STOP THE SPENDING? If so, remind them again.

Sacrifice for Thee, But Not for Me – Again

Yesterday, Obama solemnly told the people involved in the GM bankruptcy that they would have to sacrifice the good life for the sake of their children and grandchildren, even though it was not a sacrifice of their choosing. He compassionately sounded all the right notes while he basically admitted that things would not get better in their lifetimes.

It provided a big contrast to his Saturday night date in NYC. No one in Washington is willing to admit to the costs of the jets, helicopters, limousine transportation, etc., but a British paper estimated that over $1,000,000,000 was spent so he and Michelle could have dinner, take in a Broadway play, and go to a club afterward.

That’s a fairly expensive date for someone whose annual salary is $400,000 with a $50,000 expense account, $19,000 entertainment account, and a $100,000 travel allowance.

I have never minded anyone else’s extravagance or lifestyle, no matter how much better it is than mine. That should merely serve as inspiration, if any notice is given at all. But I do have trouble when a leader repeatedly tells the people that they must sacrifice, while he lives in extravagance that would make Nero envious. And when he takes money out of my pocket to support his whims, I get really upset.

Pravda Assesses The US

Read yesterday’s Pravda article (yes, that Pravda) to find some truths about “the American descent into Marxism.” Conservative Americans are routinely excoriated as alarmists for saying what Pravda journalists accept as plain truth. The article traces our descent in three levels:
1. The dumbing down of our educational system where pop culture is substituted for true education.
2. Removal of faith in God until church services have become “Sunday circuses.”
3. The election of Barack Obama created the final collapse with spending that has been record setting in the history of the world.

Pravda predicts that we’ll end up somewhere between the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe. And explains that the proposed taxes (however disguised) of the current administration to fund “thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars” make Russian oligarchs look like petty thieves.

Call Your Congressional Clowns!

Tell them to vote 'NO' on HR 2454, the so called Cap and Trade bill. It pretends to "clean the environment," but actually does nothing except clean out your bank account. Americans need to revolt against the unending growth of poorly conceived regulations, laws, and taxes to "solve" environmental issues.

California has led the rest of the nation in environmental regulations, yet in the latest American Lung Association report, 5 of the 10 most polluted cities in America are in California. Most of the thrust of the Cap and Trade crowd is eliminating gases, like the CO2 we all exhale with every breath, to fight climate change. Instead of global warming (Al Gore's fast track to increasing his bank account), we need to spend our time and energies working on particulate matter in the air. And it wouldn't hurt to pay more attention to the details of "scientific" reports. The most hyped ones are short on science, long on bombast and merely extend the reach of government into private lives.

If you've already called them, call again.

Do You Want to Give More Power to These People?

The news leaked out yesterday that the Federal Government has probably sent out at least 10,000 "stimulus" checks to dead people. One of the recipients was a woman who has been dead since 1967. This admission came from the crack accountants at Social Security who were responsible for sending $250 checks to retirees. That's $625,000,000 down the drain, if, indeed, they were honest about how many mistakes they made.

If they are that far behind in clearing out their records, can you imagine just how long it's going to take to get the economy "stimulated?" Don't hold your breath.