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

Monday, December 06, 2010

The Second Annual PUK Awards, First Installment

iOwnTheWorld has announced its second annual PUK awards, for which the first installment of my entries may be found below.

The devastating part of the contest -- at least for me -- is that the inscrutable and evil genius Dr. William Z. Jacobson is judging the contest. Ever since he launched that infamous denial-of-service (DoS) attack on this website in 1954, the two of us have waged a cold war of sorts.

So it's par for the course that those nimrods at iOTW would name him the judge. Of course we're not going to win. Jacobson hates my guts, especially since I briefly hacked his website. It was back in 1963. I renamed it to Beatle Resurrection and made the whole site a fictional story about how the popular, groovy Beatles rock band had perished in an untimely mining incident... but then they'd come back to life in an elegantly staged hoax to make them more popular than, well, you know. But I digress...


December 4, 2010 - The Obama After-School Special

Now that the government is regulating vending machines and bake sales, stay tuned for the ABC After-School Special entitled: "The Twinkie Dealer".

This moving story features a cameo appearance by Scott Baio, who plays the skinny kid tempted by an illicit snack dealer who offers him sweets that contain... trans-fats.

November 26, 2010 - Exclusive Photo Taken Moments Before President Obama Suffered Major Gash on Lip While Playing Basketball



November 22, 2010 - White House Unveils Sweet New TSA Poster



October 11, 2010 - Krugpression, featuring the world's dumbest economist.



November 12, 2010 - Meanwhile, Back At One of Charlie Rangel's Rent-Controlled Penthouses...



November 9, 2010: Krugman is running California, too?



November 3, 2010 - Exclusive Photo: Military Plans Final Flight for Ex-Speaker Pelosi



October 29, 2010 - Lean Forward



October 20, 2010 - Reason #708 to Vote Republican In November



More to come as time permits.


Update: Click here for Part Deux.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Delightful: White House Seeks to Shred More of the Constitution by Eradicating House of Representatives' Power of the Purse

Ed Morrissey finds the buried gem inside a staid Politico report on the U.S. budget.

The action came as the administration sent to the Capitol more than 50 funding adjustments it wants considered as part of what would be a stripped-down appropriations package for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Many agencies would be left frozen at their current spending levels, but the documents indicate the White House is seeking more than $11.4 billion in new spending above 2010, chiefly for foreign aid and defense accounts as well as education initiatives and housing assistance for low-income tenants. The administration also wants to a remarkably open-ended authority to transfer funds between accounts — a power that is sure to be resisted by the Appropriations Committee leadership.

This is what’s known as “burying the lead” in journalism. A Republican House will have the “power of the purse” to put an end to executive branch overreach — for instance, the efforts at the EPA to create carbon caps outside of Congressional authorization, the FCC’s attempts to regulate the Internet, and so on. That power is a key part of the checks and balances in federal government...

...[Obama knows] that Republicans plan on using the power of the purse to keep the Obama administration from abusing its power and making end-runs around the legislature. It all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power.

Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it.

Can you imagine the reaction of the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) if George W. Bush had attempted such an extra-Constitutional maneuver?

Morrissey is absolutely right to state that "every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims."

The nation's highest law -- the Constitution -- is a mere inconvenience for the great Barack Obama and the the most radical Congress in American history.

Constitutional attorney Mark Levin once called the Obama White House "as close to a dictatorship as this country has ever seen". Every day and in every way, Alinsky's most celebrated acolyte seems determined to prove his detractors right.


Hat tip: Dan Riehl.

Curiously juxtaposed headlines o' the day

Both of these headlines appeared on the same page of USA Today (hard copy edition):

Deficit commission calls for big spending cuts


and:

$4.5B Nutrition bill would limit bake sales


Genius: the biggest spending administration in world history -- $1 trillion in "stimulus"; $500 billion in Omnibus spending; cash-for-clunkers, HAMP, Obamacare, regulating bake sales, doubling the size of the EPA so it can lock up our energy resources tighter and tighter -- needs to cut spending?

Gee, what gave it away?

And try as I might, whenever I contemplate the bumbling authoritarians running the modern Democrat Party, I keep picturing Hogan's Heroes. With Barney Frank as Sergeant Schultz. And Harry Reid as Colonel Klink.


Friday, December 03, 2010

"Hey kid, you got a license to run dis bake sale?"

The bankrupt federal government has decided to spend $4.5 billion regulating bake sales and high school football concession stands. Because, it would appear, there's nothing more urgent than issuing licenses to sell chocolate chip cookies.

[The bill] adds another 115,000 children to subsidized school food programs, and adds a whole new class of entitled student, the school “dinner” student. This means the government in some schools will be serving low-income kids breakfast, lunch and dinner (take this a few years down the road and who needs parents? Just leave your kids at the warehouse.)

--“the legislation would apply to all foods sold in schools during regular class hours, including in the cafeteria line, vending machines and at fundraisers. It wouldn't apply to after-hours events or concession stands at sports events. Public health groups pushed for the language on fundraisers, which encourages the secretary of Agriculture to allow them only if they are infrequent.”

To be a member of the modern Democrat Party, you have to be exceedingly stupid. The voters just kicked the crap out of Democrats at every level of government for precisely this unconstitutional insanity.

And while they're regulating bake sales, the economy is trembling as taxes on every American are poised to increase. But the lame duck Democrats can't trifle with those minor concerns: vending machines are killing kids. Killing kids, I say!


The Five Graphs of Doom

Runner-up Headline: The Genius of Obamanomics: If You Incent People to Stay Unemployed, They Stay Unemployed


Gee, these are such stellar results, how about we extend unemployment benefits to, say, 200 weeks? Or maybe... 20 years to life?

Unemployment Rises to 9.8%


"Private payrolls +50K on expectations of +160K! Retail Manufacturing payrolls plunge 13K on expectations of +5K. Previous revised down to -7K. As Zero Hedge expected the ADP was totally and completely off. And so the myth of the recovery can suck it"

Record Foodstamp Usage


"For those seeking a perfect explanation of what is happening in United Banana States of America right now, then look no further: the just released September Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program data is out and we are happy to report that the number of poor Americans has never been higher - SNAP recipients just hit a fresh all time high of 42.9 million. Naturally, the market celebrates the record number of poor Americans by closing at 2010 highs."

Biggest Non-Farm Payroll Miss In Over Two Years


"Today's actual [Non-Farm Payroll] NFP result, which was at 111,000 jobs below the economist estimate of 150,000, was the worst miss in over two and a half years."

Money-Printing 101, 202, and 303


"So now that two years of QE (in their 1, Lite and 2 iterations) are in the history [books], we finally can run some correlation analyses to see just what asset class the Fed had been targeting all along. The attached chart presents the very simple result... The [accompanying] chart ... shows total Fed holdings of USTs and of the [S&P 500]... Now here's a thought: the Fed has another $800 billion in UST purchasing dry powder left under QE2 alone... ...Of course the chart above excludes the price of gold in US currency, which confirms that on a real basis, the value of the black line has declined over the same period as it has gotten progressively more diluted with pieces of linen courtesy of the red line."

And the Winner Is... Gold


As Ben Bernanke's magic printing press continues to churn out paper buckos backed by nothing less than the full faith and credit of hope'n'change, gold (and silver, for that matter) continues to ratchet ever higher.


Update: "We've never had a longer stretch of 9%-plus unemployment since... World... War... II." -- Gerri Willis, describing 19 straight months of devastating unemployment thanks to Obamanomics.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Does this deficit make my butt look big?

This is weird.

Been driving for 25 miles and this big ol' truck's been following me the whole way.

Creepy.

Whoa. He's been getting closer and closer...

Damn! What the...

S***! He's gettin' right up on my bumper!

Alright, that's it. I'm pulling over. What the heck is going on here?

A frickin' Brinks truck?

What the hell? He's getting out of the armored car... walking up here...

Officer - is there some sort of a problem?

Sir, I couldn't help but notice the Obama sticker on the back of your car.

Yeah? So what? Did I do something wrong?

No, sir. But could you look in your rear-view mirror once more?

What the hell? What are those two eyeballs doing on your armored car?

Those, sir? That's the $480,000 your family could have saved by voting Republican over the last eighty years.

'Can somebody give me one compromise that Obama has offered?'

The liberal punditry is up in arms, pillorying the Democrats for proposed accommodations to the incoming class of Republicans. Obama himself is under fire, as he is reportedly ready to compromise and negotiate. Well, last night Mark Levin addressed this fallacy in stark terms (transcript courtesy Biff Spackle).

We just had a massive election landslide, where the American people said, "We don't want any of this." Does it sound to you like the Democrats got the message? Does it sound to you like Obama got the message?

I was sitting here today making a list of all the compromises that Obama has made. He wants to compromise, he wants to negotiate. I'm sitting here and thinking: well, there is nothing on my list. I can't think of one!

Can somebody give me one compromise that Obama has offered? Just one? Exactly what is it?

Is he prepared to compromise on Obamacare? No! They're moving forward.

Is he prepared to compromise on the regulation of CO2 by the EPA? No! They're plowing ahead.

We're told he's going to rule by fiat, using Executive Orders and regulations to get around the new Congress and the voters.

So where's his compromise? What are we to negotiate with? See, he's an ideologue. He's not your garden-variety political hack. He's an ideologue. Which means he's not going to compromise on big issues. And that's the reality of having a guy like this in office.

If I were in charge of the Republican Party, I would put it bluntly. To paraphrase Harry Truman on August 6, 1945:

Thirty days ago an American juggernaut dropped a bomb on Democrats in Congress and destroyed their usefulness to the Marxist Left. That bomb had the power to swing 63 House seats and 680 state legislative seats and left in its wake what the National Journal called "devastation".

The Democrats began this war in 2007 when they promised to run the "most ethical Congress ever" with "no new deficit spending." Instead they permitted and encouraged rampant criminality and an all-time record of $5 trillion in new deficit spending.

But the end of their reign of fiscal terror is near. The electorate dropped the political equivalent of an atomic bomb on the Democrats last month. The force which gave birth to this country -- an insatiable desire for freedom -- has been loosed against those who brought fiscal ruin to the nation.

The greatest marvel is not the size of the Democrats' defeat, nor its cost, but the achievement of the people -- a true, grass-roots effort to repudiate Marxism and Statism -- into a workable plan. People of all races, religions, economic backgrounds and interests worked to advance freedom in an amazingly short time. It is doubtful if another such combination could have been assembled anywhere in the world. What has been done is among the greatest achievements of a people fighting incipient tyranny in history. It was done under pressure and without failure.

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every destructive endeavor the Democrat Statists have created. We shall destroy their agencies, their bureaucracies, their unconstitutional czars, their ideologues who have burrowed into regulatory bodies unknown to most Americans. Let there be no mistake: we shall completely destroy the Democrats' political power.

It was to spare the Democrats from utter destruction that the ultimatum was yesterday issued. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum, raising taxes on small business owners, entrepreneurs and hard-working couples around the country.

If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of political ruin, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this 2010 offensive will follow subsequent forces in such number that and power as they have not yet seen and with the political skills of which they are already well aware.

The power of the people will continue to grow as more citizens educate themselves regarding the unholy alliance of Democrats and the fourth branch of government -- the public sector unions. Both align themselves against the citizen, against the taxpayer, and threaten the destruction of our country, our currency and our way of life.

We pledge to politically eradicate the Marxist left that inhabits the body of the Democrat Party like some sort of horror film zombie.

And in 2012, 2014, 2016 and in every subsequent election, we will return this great Republic to the Constitutional basis that our Framers intended. Our contract with America is this: it is the Constitution.

No political quarter asked, and none given.

This is a war for the country's future. We can have a failed Marxist welfare state of the sort melting down in Europe. Or we can begin to right the ship by returning to the principles of Constitutional government, the wisdom of which becomes more and more obvious by the day.


Bags Fly Free

Someone's got some mad Photoshop skillz.

Photoshop has a website that conducts weekly contests on a theme that they select. This week the theme was to build a picture that says "Goodbye to Nancy Pelosi". The winning entry follows for you to share with friends:

Since Nancy Pelosi is no longer Speaker of the House, she must give up her private jet. She'll be flying Southwest from now on because "Bags fly free"!

Won't you please help Nancy buy a Gulfstream 6?


Hat tip: Papa B.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Tres Awesome: Did GM Pull Off Its IPO By Stuffing the Dealer Channel With Inventory -- at Taxpayer Expense?

If you were a scam artist, can you think of anything better than pulling off a multi-billion dollar con using the imprimatur of the federal government? Let's not mince words: the folks running GM may be a unique breed of crony capitalist -- perhaps more crooked than capitalist.

Hidden deep in today's disappointing GM November sales release is a number that all GM longs may want to quickly forget... [check out] the linear rise in GM's auto inventory safely stashed away at dealers, i.e., unsold. The chart below demonstrates what some may argue is nothing less than a blatant case of channel stuffing. Is it really surprising that GM will resort to such pathetic schemes to boost its top line numbers?

...Of course not: the government's GDP report demonstrates that this is occurring everywhere in the US economy, courtesy of near record inventory accumulation which two years after the start of the depression refuses to let up...

It is obvious that beginning in July, GM has started an aggressive channel stuffing program whereby it offload[ed] tens of thousands of cars (over 110,000 since July) on dealer lots, hoping these will get sold somehow, at some price, all the while dealers enjoy taxpayer subsidized floorplan leases which allows them to hold nearly infinite inventory. If and when the liquidation event takes place who cares? After all the company is now public and has managed to massage it artificial sales numbers sufficiently to fool investors that there is actual end demand for its cars.

So what would have happened if in October GM had held its dealer inventory flat (not declining, just flat): well, the top line number would have been 21,000 cars less sold. Which also means that total sales would have been not 169k but 148k, and instead of a 11.4% increase, GM would have reported a drop of 2.4% in November sales YoY [year-over-year], which would have made the life of GM DMM GETCO that more unbearable as the High Frequency Trader would soon end up with 100% of the stock float at $33.

...Bottom line - if indeed GM is right, and manages to sell hundreds of thousands of cars in December, we will take back everything we said above. On the other hand if the number remains flat, or, heaven forbid, increases, it will be more than obvious that GM is now involved in nothing less than the most transparent channel stuffing scheme we have seen in years.

Gee, I wonder which it is?

You know, these union payoffs by the Democrats keep getting better and better with age, kinda like a fine wine.


Tuesday, November 30, 2010

"We have to pass the kidney stone to see what's in it"

Doesn't this headline say it all?

Perhaps you have to be familiar with New York politics to understand how truly bizarre this story is: 1199 is dropping its health care coverage for children.  1199 is the extraordinarily powerful local health care workers' union which has pushed New York State's Medicaid reimbursements into the stratosphere.  The state not only has much higher than average Medicaid enrollment, but also spends more per-enrollee than any state but Alaska.  Every time a governor tries to cut into, say, the funds for home health care workers, the union runs tear jerking ads which imply that the governor is trying to end health care for everyone in the state.

Nturally, 1199--and its national parent--were a powerful force advocating for a national health care program.  An article on their website from June speaks approvingly of PPACA as a "first step", though also complains that it didn't go far enough in creating a public option.

That article also says that "1199ers in the major health funds such as the 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund (NBF) should see little or no change in their coverage."  Just a few months later, the Journal is reporting that the SEIU is dropping its coverage for children, citing, among other things, the impact of the new healthcare law...

Ironical, no?

O/T: If it weren't for Megan McArdle, I'm not sure most Americans would even know The Atlantic was still in business.


I don't know this Joe Barton fellow, but I like the cut of his jib

The Washington Post headline reads, "In slideshow, Rep. Joe Barton declares war on the Obama administration."

If the Obama administration was hoping to see hints of bipartisanship from the Hill, it might want to skip over the House Energy and Commerce Committee... The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Joe L. Barton (Tex.), has a slide presentation that he's e-mailing to colleagues:










Patton? What's not to like?


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

What do you get when you put a former ACORN community agitator, who never held a job, in charge of the world's largest economy?

Pretend it's a hypothetical question, so you won't grow even more depressed.

Nothing too fancy or hard to understand here... from the Just-released Case-Shiller index, it's clear that the housing double dip is here.

The chart (below) depicts the annual returns of the U.S. National, the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Home Price Indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 1.5% decline in the third quarter of 2010 over the third quarter of 2009...

One question remains: how will Pelosi, Reid and Obama blame Bush for the continued destruction of the private sector?

Or, in the case of the whack-job lefty bloggers, how will they blame Dick Cheney?


Hat tip: Dennis.

Monday, November 29, 2010

O-conomy: Sounding the Inflation Alarm

It's the debt, stupid.

...QE2 looks like "Fed speak" for monetizing the nation's growing debt — printing new money to finance deficit spending... [But] Chairman Bernanke... downplays evidence that 12 months of a 1% Federal funds rate in 2003-2004 contributed to the housing bubble and subsequent collapse. Now, after maintaining a 0% Federal funds rate for nearly two years, he shows no inclination to raise short-term interest rates...

...Mr. Bernanke speaks of the threat of deflation, but gives little heed to signals from commodity and currency prices, which are reliable indicators of inflation... It is not just oil prices approaching $90 a barrel and new highs in precious metals that are clear warning signs of a new inflating bubble... It is also a broad basket of commodities that includes copper, rubber, wheat, oats, pork, coffee, sugar and cotton — all of which are up over 50% in the past 12 months — that is sounding the inflation alarm...

But the more serious consequences from the Fed's pursuit of debt monetization and currency printing, the essence of QE2, is moving the country ever closer to an insolvency crisis — one that could destroy the dollar and bring global financial chaos.

...When investors conclude that inflation and devaluation make holding U.S. Treasury debt unattractive, they will demand higher offsetting coupon rates... At the present time, the blended cost of the publicly held U.S. debt (some $9.14 trillion) is less than 2.5% annually, the lowest in over 50 years.

...[But] a crisis in confidence — triggered by either a failed U.S. Treasury auction or the weight of the Fed balance sheet having grown too large for orderly liquidation except at fire sale prices — would cause an immediate spike up in bond yields and interest rates.

The cost of servicing the U.S. Government's debt service would increase many fold, setting in motion a downward spiraling liquidity crisis ending with the U.S Government unable to finance its obligations.

And when it all unfolds, the likes of Obama, Pelosi and Reid -- the architects of "progressive" change -- will be long gone, leaving our children to pick up the pieces.


Original Images: Library of Congress Flickr Feed: 1930s Color Photographs.