Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pelosi. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

China's Threat to Obama: Listen to that Idiot Krugman at Your Own Peril

The message from China's Foreign Exchange Bureau (SAFE) couldn't be any more clear if it was flashed in blinking red letters on the President's teleprompter. China wants him to return to free-market capitalism. To stop the deficit spending. To stop borrowing. Because Papa Mao ain't gonna foot the bills much longer.

[SAFE} acknowledged that financial markets were very concerned at one point that massive U.S. government borrowing would drive the U.S. currency lower...

But it said economic conditions elsewhere were also a factor in determining the dollar's trend. The euro zone, for instance, was struggling with high government debt levels.

"We must recognize that any depreciation of the dollar is relative to other countries, and other countries or regions also have this or that problem," SAFE said.

Translation: you ain't the only dog in the hunt.

One of the prime concerns of Chinese Internet commentators is that a long-term decline in the dollar or euro will erode the value of SAFE's portfolio.

To that end, SAFE called on the United States and other major countries to take "responsible measures" to maintain the value of their currencies...

This meant withdrawing monetary stimulus in a reasonable manner and relying less on deficit spending.

"Responsible measures" == "no more stimulus packages == "stop deficit spending" == "look elsewhere for loans" == "Got that, Mr. Paul 'Douche-Nozzle' Krugman?"

Conclusion: The People's Republic of China is now officially to the right of Barack Obama.


Hat tip: Zero Hedge.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Non-existent U.S. Budget Deficit on Annualized Run Rate of $2.5 Trillion; Dems Will Blow New $14.3 Trillion Debt Ceiling Just Before Midterms

For the first time in modern history, Congress failed to perform its single most important task: it did not pass a budget.

On the first day of July, the House of Representatives passed a "budget enforcement resolution" that "deemed as passed" a $1.12 trillion budget.

Thirty-eight House Democrats voted no, perhaps because they sense in this year of the Tea Party Movement it isn't good politics to engage in such a sham. But pass it did... [but the] trio of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Pelosi is putting the finishing touches on a one-year deficit of $1.6 trillion, while setting in motion an expansion of the standing debt to well north of $14 trillion. This is no mean feat in an era when Democrats themselves denounced George W. Bush's deficit of a mere $160 billion in 2007.

The real reason that Democrats avoided the budget process? Tyler Durden bangs the magic abacus against the desk and comes up with some stunning figures.

In case one is wondering why the House Democrats attached a document to the emergency war supplemental bill that "deemed as passed" a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget, which basically allows the ruling party to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the constraint of an actual budget, here is the answer: ...on June 30, the US closed the books with just over $13.2 trillion in total debt, an increase of $210 billion in one month, or $2.5 trillion annualized. There is just $1.1 trillion left on the ceiling...

As we have long been warning, at the current run rate, the ceiling will be breached in under six months, or just around November 2. More disconcerting is that the monthly debt roll continues to be in the "ridiculous amount" category, hitting a total of $660 billion...

The sheer hatred that the modern Democrat Party has for America is evident in its every action. It despises its employer -- the taxpayer -- and it shows it by hurling massive new spending programs (like socialized medicine) onto a non-existent budget when the country can least afford it.

And what are the Democrats' plans for the next few months? Passing a real budget? Reining in spending? Listening to the American people who are trying to prevent their children from enslavement to trillions in debt? Why, no, of course not.

The loathsome Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) has already hinted at what comes next: even if Democrats are soundly defeated, they will use a lame-duck session of Congress to strap a suicide-belt to the American economy: card-check, cap-and-trade and massive new taxes will be on the agenda.

In other words, Democrats intend to wage fiscal Jihad on America. We must awaken our family, friends and neighbors. The time to stop this madness grows very short indeed.


Monday, July 05, 2010

Who will step up and help me manufacture this breathtaking new product?

Now, if we can only bring it to market by November...



'Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like... Mad Max'

Wayne Allen Root calls Obama "The Great Jobs Killer":

You won't find proof of the damage Obama is doing on Wall Street, but rather on Main Street. My friends are all part of the economic engine of America: Small business. Small business creates 75 percent of new jobs (and a majority of all jobs). I called one friend who was a wealthy restaurant owner. He says business is off by 60 percent. He's drowning in debt. He won't last much longer. His wealth is gone.

I called another friend in the business of home improvement. He says business is off 90 percent from two years ago. My contractor just filed personal bankruptcy. She won't be building any more homes. The hair salon where I've had my hair cut for years closed earlier this year. Bankrupt. But here's the clincher -- ESPN Zone just closed all their restaurants across the country. If they can't make it selling cheap food and overpriced beer with 100 big screens blaring every sporting event on the planet to a sports-crazed society, we are all in deep, deep trouble.

I've polled all my friends who own small businesses -- many of them in the Internet and high-tech fields. They all agree that in this new Obama world of high business taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and workers compensation taxes, the key to success is to avoid employees. The only way to survive as a business owner today is by keeping the payroll very low and by hiring only independent contractors or part-time employees provided by temp agencies.

Over at CNBC, analysts say that Dow is repeating the "Great Depression Pattern":


The Dow Jones Industrial Average is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday... “Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it…there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,” Guppy said.

The Dow retreated 457.33 points, or 4.5 percent last week, to close at 9,686 Friday. Guppy said a Dow fall below 9,800 confirmed the head and shoulders pattern.

The view abroad confirms Guppy's observation: "The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP."

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s...

...The housing market is already crumbling as government props are pulled away. The expiry of homebuyers' tax credit led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers signing contracts in May. "It is cataclysmic," said David Bloom from HSBC.

Root concludes:

It has now become clear that, outside of the burgeoning field of Census takers, there will be no major increase in new jobs for years to come. Outside government, Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like the landscape of Mel Gibson's first movie "Mad Max." Without a printing press in Obama's world, you're just plain out of luck.

What if, as some believe, this is all intentional? In 2009, James Simpson came to just that conclusion:

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact...

...The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize the very real strategies advocated by Cloward and Piven. If you care about this country, you'll do everything you can to organize, raise money, and spread the word about the malevolent cabal that is systematically deconstructing America from within.

It's November or never.


Hat tip: Drudge. Linked by: Michelle Malkin and Gateway Pundit. Thanks!

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Everyone Do Your Jazz Hands: Stripping Out Bureau of Labor Statistics' Fudge-Factors Reveals Real Unemployment Rate is 11.8%, not 9.5%

The invaluable Tyler Durden untangled the usual BLS statistical skulduggery to reveal a labor market on life support.

The only reason for the decline in the unemployment rate to 9.5% was yet another decline in the labor force participation rate, which according to the BLS dropped another 652k people in the month of June. This resulted in a labor force to the civilian non-institutional population ratio of 64.7%: the second lowest number in decades of data... As the chart below shows, the double dip in the labor force participation is now very much pronounced.

What this chart implies is that if there was a mean reversion to the last 10 year labor force participation average rate of 66.2%, there should be another 3.5 million jobless added to the 14.6 million tally. And as this differential is the easiest thing in the world for the BLS to fudge, adding the two and dividing by the labor force of 153,74, we get an unemployment rate of 11.8%, leaving aside all other such fudge factors are government hiring, temporary workers, birth death, etc.

Is it any wonder that the "scariest job chart ever" just got uglier?

The American people are truly feeling the powerful thrusts of The Obama Recovery™.


Saturday, July 03, 2010

The Timeless Beauty of Democrat Governance: Illinois Owes Suppliers $5B, Takes a Mere 250 Business Days to Pay Bills, and the Hole Worsens Every Day

I just love to open the history books and read about Democrat success stories. You know, Social Security, Medicare, "Great Society", Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Amtrak, the FHA... and the list just seems to grow by the day.

Now that the fuse on their EconoPonzi Clusterbomb has burned to a nub, you can't open the newspaper without reading about another example of masterful Democrat governance. Like in Illinois, with emphasis on the "Ill".

Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.

He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.

“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office... Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”

...“Their pension is the most underfunded in the nation,” said Karen S. Krop, a senior director at Fitch Ratings. “They have not made significant cuts or raised revenues. There’s no state out there like this. They can’t grow their way out of this.” ...

...“We are a fiscal poster child for what not to do,” said Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a liberal-leaning policy group in Illinois. “We make California look as if it’s run by penurious accountants who sit in rooms trying to put together an honest budget all day.”

Perhaps someday the liberals who actually like America (a minority to be sure, if their representatives in Congress are any indication) will figure out the simple acronym many of us learned from our parents: TANSTAAFL.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

That concept, for the moment, appears to be too complex for the party of fiscal destruction to understand. Obama, Pelosi and Reid will be long gone by the time the misery they've helped inflict is fully felt. But one can hope that they will, someday, be held to account. They'll look good in orange jumpsuits.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Victor the Contractor: Incompetent Like a Fox

By Victor the Contractor

Lately I have been reflecting on why the Obama Presidency is so long on academic credentials yet so short on accomplishments. It has to do with the difference between doers and thinkers. The president has surrounded himself with stars of academia and political strategists who have an agenda to push in the process of governing but little in the way of management experience. Note that I distinguish between managing and governing. A governor, as described in the mechanical sense, guides a system that is already operational but requires minor adjustments to function optimally. A manager modifies that system to a greater or lesser degree to achieve a goal.

President Obama is barely able to govern, let alone manage when the need arises. A manager would have set up new guidelines for say, a national oil policy, instead of simply badmouthing fossil fuels and browbeating the corporate world into product reformulations that re-labeled existing technologies as new or green. A manager would have immediately set up a consortium of interests who had tangible experience with oil drilling and the attendant problems associated with it and not filled a room with academics and called it 'expert.' And lastly, a competent manager would not have ignored the whole mess for two months and lied about creating a panel that hadn't met nor had the expertise to deal with such a protracted problem a mile under water.

Even a governor who was worth his salt would have caught on, albeit late in the game, that you have to bring together people with real experience to deal with a developing environmental crisis. It may close beaches in four states for years. It may put a hold on a fishing industry whose workers already live hand to mouth. That BP decided to pay out unlimited funds, and we know that that is what it will come to barring bankruptcy, is small comfort to those who labored by the sea they are now barred from even dipping a toe into. Why the president waited two months to take control and even now is barring equipment and manpower from aiding the cleanup effort is secondary to the result of such incompetence: his neglect has resulted in a monumental environmental catastrophe.

You may say that the President needed time to formulate a plan or cull information from experts to engage in such a large scale enterprise, but there is little evidence that he paid any attention to the situation at all. His experts are accomplished authors and may even have received a Nobel Prize (of which he never tires of reminding us), but they live in pristine, oil-free ivory towers. They could no more stop a leak a mile down in the sea than I could convince liberals that budgeting helps you bounce fewer checks. No matter: President Obama can take time out from his various sporting activities to proclaim the spill solved while simultaneously giving a shout out to his intellectual 'soul brothers' in the New Black Panthers or some such nonsense.

I used to think that we were experiencing a sort of Jimmy Carter Redux: an incompetent president who enjoyed cloying press coverage while shaming the country for its superpower status and pontificating on our need to lower expectations. No more. I now feel that the far left splinter group of the Democrat Party is in fleeting control of the levers of power and will die on their collective swords to accomplish a fraction of the socialist agenda they have been advocating for a century. You've got to give them kudos for staying true to an ideology. They truly believe that most people need a government to care for them and protect them from themselves - even though history tells us otherwise. But I digress.

All agendas aside, and that is a big aside because I believe this catastrophe could have been avoided, the White House governs like a blindfolded sufferer of Parkinson's Disease serving high tea. It tramples the spirit of the Constitution while happily proclaiming the benefits of its high-minded efforts to grant the same 'rights' to Americans enjoyed by the Europeans. Those rights include a legal requirement to pay 60%+ taxes, the right to be free of moral restrictions like the rule of law or the maintenance of borders, the right to stay home and be provided for by 'evil rich people' and the right to limit the free speech of anybody who disagrees with them through the implementation of various 'Fairness Doctrines.'

Who can bemoan the loss of a few thousand acres of shore-front property in the effort to save us from Global Warming through legislation that restricts the use of fossil fuels. After all, oil is poisoning the environment, whether in crude form or as an oxidized greenhouse gas. This mentality is exactly the same as banning guns because they kill people. Or banning SUVs because they burn too much fuel. Assuming the human race is unable to control its lusts is key to understanding the Democrats' tendency to over-legislate and -regulate.

But I fear in the case of the oil spill the White House is simply in over its head. Yes, an environmental disaster might make unconstitutional bans on drilling more palatable to a skeptical public. And yes the argument for alternate energy sources is buttressed by our inability to guarantee flawless drilling a mile or ten undersea. And yes, the environmental calamity fits well with that sex-crazed poodle Al Gore's scenario of fossil fuels destroying the planet, if only it were true...

There is no excuse for incompetency in the White House. That's why the press is so adamant about blaming an oil company and not the regulators who are charged with ensuring safe drilling practices. And all the better if you can blame a past president of the 'evil' party. But the claims of the press can no longer shield the Democrats' inattentiveness and often brutal arrogance from public view. The liberal apologists who mouth approval every minute and with every printed word no longer protect its favored party. Perhaps they still believe that incompetence can be ignored by the public so long as it serves their chosen agenda.

I could mention our porous borders hemorrhaging illegals while the scandalously incompetent Janet Napolitano declares them as secure as ever. Or the financial condition of our economy, with Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd insisting the housing market is sound after they effectively bankrupted the entire world through their criminal undersight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Janet Napalitano was incompetent before President Obama came along; he just put her in charge of homeland security, a grave mistake indeed. And as for Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, they have systematically planned for the ruination of the housing industry for decades. Yes, for decades. Under the guise of forcing banks to write mortgages for minorities, Messrs. Frank And Dodd have undermined the financial underpinnings for the entire world. They knew this would happen: they didn't care.

So when you refer to Obama as incompetent, you might want to think of it as, 'incompetent as a fox.' For even thought there is no management experience in the White House, there are many academics and failed revolutionaries who want to see our country burn. And they have until November 2nd to achieve their goals. After that, they will melt back into academia and become consultants and lobbyists. Think Harry Reid is worried about what he'll be doing on November 3rd? He's already got a lobbying gig lined up. Nancy Pelosi will be re-elected by the most liberal district in the union, or simply return to the Republic of California to mismanage her winery and hotel.

Management experience speaks volumes about style, substance and ethics. If President Obama had ever served as a Governor he would not now be President. But, as the press did not cover his wildly socialist stint in academia or his populist votes while in office, I wonder if experience would have mattered in his case. Incompetent like a fox: now there's a phrase.

Victor The Contractor



Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Behold the Crazed Economic Recovery Poodle

Can you tell what the difference is between America's prior major recessions and this one? No, I mean besides a Congress and President bent on the destruction of American capitalism.

Every other recession began to heal after sensible policies -- tax cuts or spending cuts or other mechanisms to enable the private sector to regroup.

Welcome to the Obama recovery!


Hat tip: Zero Hedge.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Paging Jonathan Alter--Joint Chiefs Chairman Slams Obama's Insane Spending: Says Nation’s Debt is Biggest Threat to National Security

Paging Mr. Alter... Mr. Alter... It's time for you to unleash your dogs of demagoguery...

Another member of the military's top brass has roundly criticized the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress; in this case, pointing to their catastrophic levels of deficit spending. Little-publicized were last week's comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, at a breakfast hosted by The Hill newspaper.

Adm. Mike Mullen... renewed his warning that the nation’s debt is the biggest threat to U.S. national security.

“I was shown the figures the other day by the comptroller of the Pentagon that said that the interest on our debt is $571 billion in 2012,” Mullen said at a breakfast hosted by The Hill. “That is, noticeably, about the size of the defense budget. It is not sustainable.”

Even under the rosy projections of the Obama White House, which thus far have proven to be worse than if you'd used a dartboard, the deficit is dangerously high.


The Obama/Democrat budget doesn't contemplate closing the deficit for as far as the eye can see.


Despite the utter failure of every spending program they've tried -- starting with the $860 billion "Stimulus" package -- the Democrats continue to shovel the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars into their cash furnace.


Worse still, they are creating deficits that endanger the ability of the country to survive: not simply from a national security perspective, but from the standpoint of risking a total economic collapse.


What happens when our interest costs become unsustainable? Barack Obama and his left wing sycophants in Congress will be long gone, having left their legacy of misery and destruction to our heirs.

Perhaps the laughingstock of a "journalist" -- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- can co-author another hit piece with David Axelrod similar to the one that took out General McChrystal.

Odds are Alter can get Mullen fired for the same offense -- for telling the truth.


Saturday, June 26, 2010

All you need to know about Democrats' "Comprehensive Financial Reform" bill: the multi-trillion dollar time-bomb called Fannie Mae isn't addressed

All of the reforms forced down the throats of the American people by Democrats in Congress are helpfully termed "comprehensive". Consider the terminology, casually tossed about while ignoring the fundamental failure of every, large-scale federal program in history: "Comprehensive Immigration Reform"... "Comprehensive Health Care Reform"... "Comprehensive Financial Reform"...

Of the latter, 2,000-plus pages are devoted to revamping the entire financial "sector". The result is an orgy of central planning, authoritarian controls, and Democrat skulduggery that Nikita Krushchev would love --- and James Madison would despise.

As for the effectiveness of the reforms: the Democrats have completely ignored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs), which were the lynch-pins of the 2008 economic meltdown. The reasons are many:

• Fannie and Freddie have been described as "job-shops for out-of-work Democrats"; during the Clinton era, they were tasked with subsidizing zero-documentation (no proof of income) loans under HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Janet Reno;

• Fannie and Freddie's executives were all loyal Democrat cronies -- from Jamie Gorelick, to Jim Johnson, to Franklin Raines -- who took a couple of hundred million in compensation while touching off a multi-billion dollar accounting scandal. All the while, they extolled the virtues of the GSEs' economic health, knowing full well that they were teetering on the brink;

• Fannie and Freddie were protected from Republican scrutiny despite numerous inquiries into financial shenanigans, outsized pay for executives, bogus audits and the like. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, in particular, threatened every sort of legislative roadblock if the GOP pursued investigations into the GSEs. The latter even conducted an 8-year sexual affair with a Fannie Mae executive -- a prototypical conflict-of-interest;

In short, the GSEs remain a multi-trillion dollar, ticking time-bomb. They own nearly $6 trillion in residential mortgages, with millions of individual bad loans that are still sitting on their books.

Yet the Democrats' "comprehensive financial reform" package completely ignores the critical, government-sponsored malignancies at the very epicenter of the meltdown.


Oh, goodie: Moody's Says Provisions Of Fin Reg Reform Bill May "Trigger Disruptions" In Credit Market


Related: The Fannie Mae testimony that will make you scream in anger.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

"We are in a Depression now and have been since 2008"

Karl Denninger lays down the law.

Purchases of new homes in the U.S. fell in May to a record low as a tax credit expired, showing the market remains dependent on government support.

The entire economy is dependent on government support.

But the government has no money. It is in fact borrowing nearly as much as it takes in via taxes.

If you made $20,000 a year, and borrowed another $20,000, for how long would your credit card company allow that to continue?

"Quantitative Easing", "Easy Money", "Zero down mortgages" and all the rest - it is all a scam designed to impoverish you by stripping you of every asset you have now and as much of your future earnings as they can get you to sign away... Housing, education, consumer credit, all of it. A scam. Every bit of it. Top to bottom.

The entire intent of these "programs" has been and is an attempt to get you to spend money you don't have and can't acquire. The Government has built it's entire "empire" over the last 20 years on the premise that it can continue to borrow more and more money, without any hope of ever being able to pay any of it back.

This was 3-4% of GDP, and is now 11-12% of GDP. It has been the latter now for more than two and a half years. It was mathematically impossible to continue at the former rate and obviously is impossible to continue at a rate three times the 2003-2007 borrowing pace.

We are in a Depression now and have been since 2008. A Depression is defined as a 10% contraction in GDP. But for the government borrowing 11% of GDP and spending it, GDP would have contract by at least the same amount borrowed and spent.

...Geithner and Obama have continued to insist that we "spend and borrow more", along with idiots like Krugman and Summers. Their entire model is predicated on what amounts to a claim of perpetual motion, which anyone with more than one hour of physics class knows is impossible... At some point it is inevitable that we will run out of the ability to continue to compound debt upon debt... This is not conjecture, it is mathematics... It is not open to debate, it is fact and cannot be avoided.

If you want to save this society for your children and grandchildren, I'd strongly recommend voting for the most fiscally conservative candidates you can in November. In other words: not Democrats.


Nancy Pelosi so confident that Democrats will retain majorities after midterms that she's desperately raising money for legal defense funds

Runner-up headline: The turn of the shrew.

It wasn't but a few months ago that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "laughing off" suggestions that Democrats might lose their Congressional majorities. In an interview with Roll Call, Pelosi stated Democrats would "definitely" retain control with "much more than a simple minority."

"We will not be taken by surprise," she said, "I am not yielding one grain of sand. My responsibility is to protect and preserve my incumbents and that’s what I intend to do... I’m fighting for every seat."

So confident, however, is Pelosi that today's The Hill reports that the Speaker is trying to build a legal war-chest to fend off investigations by a GOP majority.

In a fundraising letter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Pelosi says if Republicans take back the House, they'll initiate "endless investigations against President Obama" and "bring back the days of Ken Starr and the politics of personal destruction."

"Remember a Republican-controlled Congress that devoted more time to subpoenas and investigations than to solving our country's problems?" Pelosi asks. "There is far too much at stake for our country now to allow it to happen again."

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, has shown himself willing and eager to be a thorn in the side of the Obama administration on everything from the BP oil spill to the Joe Sestak job offer. Few doubt that he would use a chairmanship to ramp up those efforts.

I'll alert the media: it turns out that Nancy Pelosi is a two-faced hack, in addition to the most radical Speaker in American history. Her legacy: economic destruction.

And if Americans can take back the House, investigations will be the least of her concerns.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Outstanding: Fed Business Index Dramatically Slows, Hits 10-Month Low. Eh... I mean, 'Unexpectedly' Hits 10-Month Low.

See, I'm practicing to be a pro journalist, so I threw the word "unexpectedly" into the headline.

June's Fed Business Outlook Survey describes a small business picture that is, at best, grim.

The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, decreased notably from a reading of 21.4 in May to 8.0 in June. The index, which had edged higher for four consecutive months, fell back to its lowest reading in 10 months.

...For the first time in seven months, more firms reported a decrease in employment (18 percent) than reported an increase (17 percent)... The workweek index also declined into negative territory, its first negative reading in eight months.

Yes, all of this was unexpected:

The number of Americans seeking jobless benefits last week unexpectedly rose to a one-month high, indicating firings are staying elevated even as the U.S. economy grows.

Some companies are trimming payrolls to boost or maintain profits at the same time overall employment has grown each month this year. The figures show that bigger job gains needed to spur consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, may be slow in developing, keeping the unemployment rate close to 10 percent.

“The labor market is not improving,” said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. in New York. “If you really are going to have a sustainable recovery, you need the labor market to improve.”

Gee, really?

Perhaps someone could carrier-pigeon this report to our beloved President and Democrat Congress. Unless, of course, they're doing it on purpose as part of their grand plan to remake American society.


Thursday, June 17, 2010

Community-Organizer-In-Chief announces comprehensive plan to plug Gulf spill -- involves complex sequence of shakedowns, taxation and union payoffs

Using the vast engineering, logistics and oil spill remediation knowledge assembled by the White House in only 57 days, the President has announced a comprehensive plan to address the massive oil spill in the Gulf. Three projects are operating in parallel:

The President performed a seemingly extra-legal shakedown of BP involving redistributing $20 billion from shareholders and pensioners to a fund managed by an Obama crony: "There is no legal basis for the Obama administration to induce BP to pay $20 billion into a kitty to be controlled by one of its political appointees."

The President will try to ram through a massive new tax on energy in the form of Cap-and-Trade, to be passed even if Americans vote out incumbent Democrats in November;

Finally, the President will stipulate an implicit payoff to unions from the BP slush fund. It will come in the form of "$100 million [to be set aside] in a separate fund to help oil workers". Presumably the funds will be dispatched to only those workers protected by collective bargaining agreements, as virtually all Obama dictates command.

What is the legal authority for these measures?

There is none.

The ecological disaster continues in the Gulf, 57 days in. Just as the President, once upon a time, promised a "laser focus" on "jobs, jobs, jobs"; and just as he once promised to repair the housing market; and just as he once promised to revamp the economy with new, clean energy technologies; and just as he promised to "fix" the health care system -- his effort here also demonstrates a profound lack of managerial experience. And, worse, his complete unwillingness to learn from experts.

Having spent trillions of dollars on Obama's initiatives, we have nothing to show for any of them except an enormous pool of oil washing up on the Gulf Coast, a broken fiscal system, and an utterly failed President.


Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Just when you thought Democrats had hit bottom: they plan on passing Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax during... wait for it... the Lame-Duck Session

Runner-up headline: Democrats show their respect for the people.

Even after the bribes, threats and skulduggery they used to jam socialized medicine down the American people's throats, it's hard to believe the latest news relayed by Jim Geraghty from Politico's Mike Allen:

EXCLUSIVE: Phil Schiliro, the White House congressional liaison, has told the Senate to aim to take up an energy bill the week of July 12, after the July 4 break (and after the scheduled final passage of Wall Street reform). Kagan confirmation will follow, ahead of the summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 9...

The plan is to conference the new Senate bill with the already-passed House bill IN A LAME-DUCK SESSION AFTER THE ELECTION, so House members don’t have to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.

Geraghty offers advice everyone should read and memorize:

Every GOP candidate should demand their Democrat incumbent opponent pledge in writing they will not pass a massive energy tax in a lame-duck session if they are defeated.

Any Democrat who uses a lame-duck session to advance Obama's radical agenda is the lowest of the low. Anyone who does so is metaphorically urinating on the concept of representative government.

If I had a mean streak, I'd suggest that such an individual be roasted on an open spit. But Eric Holder informs me that such an action is against the law, except if performed by the New Black Panther Party. In that case, I recommend you shun them, boo them and scream "you suck" when ever you spot them in public.

It's the very least they deserve.


Hat tip: Ace of Spades.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Anyone know what you call it when heavily armed intruders cross the border into the U.S. unmolested by authorities? Oh, that's right: Arizona.

Say, is it a problem that heavily armed Mexicans are crossing into Arizona? Or that, according to Arizona law enforcement authorities, Mexican drug cartels are "in control" of large parts of the state?

Apparently not, according to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano who says the border is: "as secure now as it has ever been."

Thanks to the patriots at SecureBorderIntel.org and BorderInvasionPics.com, we have a true picture of the situation on the border. SBI has placed a series of hidden videocameras at known chokepoints where illegals, many of them human- and drug-smugglers, are entering the U.S. completely unaccosted by the traditional border niceties of, oh, I don't know -- maybe a freaking fence?

The videos are simply stunning.

In this video, taped several months ago, heavily armed point-men clear a path for drug runners.

Among their firearms: a full-auto AK-47...

...and a full-auto MAC-10.

The guards ensure that the "mules" will proceed deep into Arizona unmolested.

A series of mules follow close behind...

Each carrying as much as 75 lbs. of cocaine, heroin or pot.

But the illicit drugs don't represent the only cargo simply walking into the U.S.

Human-smuggling is rampant, with videos capturing hundreds upon hundreds of individuals -- many violent criminals and gang-members -- making the trip.

Consider that the entire federal government, with agency upon agency, can't seem to detect what a few patriotic individuals did with $500 worth of supplies were able to.

And these are the same dweebs who tell us they can run the health care system.

And another thing (I'm on a roll): remember how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Mexicans were getting their weapons from the U.S.? In March, during a trip to Mexico City, she stated that, "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians."

Of course, this statement had all the integrity of a typical Clinton statement, because the last time I checked, full-auto weapons aren't available anywhere in the U.S. without a Class III license (which is almost impossible to get).

But let's not let the truth get in the way of the Democrats' anti-gun agenda! They've got amnesty to grant and new voters to register: and if they're felons, so much the better. They'll be doubly in the Democrats' camp, as the Party of Treason has been lobbying for the felon vote for years.

The people of Arizona deserve better than the political hacks who seem to violate their oath of office on a daily basis. The one task they're supposed to do -- protecting the citizens of this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, seems to be too much of a bother for them. But nationalizing industries... well, that's job one!


Friedrich A. Hayek's The Road To Serfdom, Illustrated

The classic story in comic book form, courtesy of the Ludwig von Mises Institute:


It's especially timely.