Friday, February 13, 2009

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Transparency Abandoned!

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Dems halted recovery, derailed economy last summer: PJM (Blumer)
Lobbyists get Stimulus bill before Congress: USN&WR
Who has read the 1,434-page bill?: Fausta

Gitmo oversights risk disclosure of classified info: Times
Dishonest Reporting Awards 2008: Honest Reporting
Obama: we must live within our means: Gateway

Where's Hillary?: ELL
Lexicon check: First 100 days: TAB
Scammed!: Ace

Tax cheat Rangel complains stimulus is too small: Corner (Franc)
Bacon Hunt in the Stimulus Bill: Fox
Caterpillar debunks Obama: ABC

Obama's BlackBerry brings personal safety risks: CNet
$76: all the difference in the world: Snapped Shot
Transparency abandoned! Obama and Dems Break Promise to Put Stimulus Online: Flopping Aces

Yowza! Danica Patrick in SI's swimsuit issue: Jalopnik
Jump the Hump Day Navy SEAL Post-Don't Get Cheated Out of Hell?: Inches away from sanity
The cost of life: Cryptic Subterranean

Goodbye, America! It was fun while it lasted: Coulter:

For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics -- subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it -- the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed.

The 1996 Welfare Reform bill marked the first time any government entitlement had ever been rolled back. Despite liberal howling and foot-stomping, not subsidizing illegitimacy led, like night into day, to less illegitimacy... Welfare recipients got jobs, as the hard-core unemployables were coaxed away from their TV sets and into the workforce. For the first time in decades, the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate stopped spiraling upward.

As proof that that welfare reform was a smashing success, a few years later, Bill Clinton started claiming full credit for the bill.

Well, that's over. The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

What the Stimulus Bill means to me


$6,500 in additional debt -- plus interest -- that my kids and their kids will have to pay.

Nearly $2 a day in reduced taxes: part of President Obama's promise to cut taxes for 95% of Americans.

A $1 trillion government expansion, which doubles the size of the federal government's discretionary budget.

Billions for condoms, ACORN and sex education and zillions of other earmarks (like Nancy Pelosi's backyard boondoggle).

A reversal of welfare reform, which succeeded in reducing the percentage of kids raised in single-parent households and, in turn, violent crime.

Socialized medicine: government control of more than 50% of the health care system. According to the CBO, the stimulus will draw an additional $8.2 million Americans into government-run health care.

A bailout of irresponsible state governments, like California. With all of its brutal regulations, its open-borders policies, safe-harbor cities, gun control, high crime, out-of-control taxes, green initiatives and government bureaucracies, shouldn't California be a liberal utopia?

Smoot-Hawley II and a global trade war, acts reminiscent of the Great Depression. The stimulus includes expansions of "Buy American" provisions that discriminate against foreign goods and services.

Up to 300,000 jobs for illegal immigrants; the Senate version of the bill removes the requirement for electronic verification of immigration status, despite the fact that 15% or more of construction jobs are filled by illegal aliens.

* * *

The Democratic trillion-dollar spending bill provides $1.10 per day in tax relief to working families while saddling each family with $6,500 in added debt.

Change!

Based upon: Boehner Blog.

Yowza! Danica Patrick graces SI's swimsuit edition


Pretty tame photos, even by SI's standards.


Jalopnik.

Now Bill Clinton is lobbying for the Fairness Doctrine


Chuck Schumer. Debbie Stabenow. Tom Harkin. Anna Eshoo. Dick Durbin. Diane Feinstein.

The list of prominent Democrats calling for The Censorship Doctrine seems to grow daily.

Now, impeached, disbarred ex-President Bill Clinton has weighed in.

Today, radio host Mario Solis Marich asked former President Bill Clinton if it was time for "some type of enforced media accountability."

"Well, you either ought to have the Fairness Doctrine or we ought to have more balance on the other side," Clinton said, "because essentially there's always been a lot of big money to support the right wing talk shows and let face it, you know, Rush Limbaugh is fairly entertaining even when he is saying things that I think are ridiculous...."

Clinton said that there needs to be either "more balance in the programs or have some opportunity for people to offer countervailing opinions." Clinton added that he didn't support repealing the Fairness Doctrine, an act done under Reagan's FCC.

Unable to compete in the marketplace of ideas, liberals are reduced to censoring free speech.

Chavez- and Mugabe-style.

It represents utter disregard of the Constitutions's First Amendment.

It is flatly repugnant.

Such an effort to suppress political speech is criminal and must be stopped.


Openness. Transparency. Collaboration.


"My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." -- The Obama White House

Less than 48 hours after his election, the Obama transition team rolled out the new Change.gov website.

Yet more than three weeks after announcing a forthcoming revamp of his Ethics website, it remains under construction.


For a group that's tried to push through the most massive spending package in world history -- without giving citizens a chance to review it -- I have a one word reaction to the missing ethics page.

Fitting.

Update: Democrats Break Promise To Post Stimulus Bill Online For 48-Hour Public Airing


Two Wolves Philosophy


Contrairimairi sent this one in.


Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

The world just doesn't understand the genius of Obama




Barack Obama and the Wisdom of Crowds


Splash page


Norm Coleman's new splash page:


Hat tip: Patrick Ruffini.

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Stimulus unravels welfare reform


Obamaspeak: Surber
The 3:10 to Serfdom: AT (Gabor)
Money by the barrelful, by the truckload: Salon (Paglia)

Ray Fair on the Stimulus: Greg Mankiw
Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics: WSJ
Turns out that No, He Can't: Cato

Benedict Arnolds of the GOP: Morris
Stressing out the stress test: JOM
Talk with Iran not cheap: Times

Stimulus unravels '96 Welfare Reform Act: Slate (Kaus)
Are we capable of defiance?: Kesler
White House coordinating 527 attack ads on GOP?: Hot Air

Murphy's Law, the Peter Principle and Barack Obama: AT (Shiver)
When should the training wheels be taken off Obama's tricycle?: AD
Gallup Survey: Reagan Greatest President Ever: JWF

"Who keeps voting this schmuck back into office?": JWF
In Front of Pelosi's Office: 'More Shady Deals Going on Behind Closed Doors' : BMI
Mandatory Binding Arbitration: The Worst Choose Your Own Adventure Ever: Consumerist

Surprise! GOP Cut out of Stimulus Conference Negotiations: Ace

"I think the American people deserve to know that legislation that would comprise an amount equal to the entire discretionary budget of the United States of America is being crafted without a single House Republican in the room."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Curious: the media forgot to cover the 10-year anniversary of Andrew Cuomo's policy change


Hard to believe they missed this one.

US Newswire: Cuomo Announces Action to Provide $2.4 Trillion in Mortgages for Affordable Housing for 28.1 Million Families, 1999:

[Clinton administration] Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Andrew Cuomo today announced a policy to require the nation's two largest housing finance companies [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages over the next 10 years to provide affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families.


Cuomo said the historic action by HUD raises the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must buy from the current 42 percent of their total purchases to a new high of 50 percent -- a 19 percent increase -- in the year 2001.

Los Angeles Times: Fannie Mae Moves to Loosen Home Loan Credit Rules; Finance: The agency will encourage lenders to give mortgages to people with blemished records., October 1, 1999:

The nation's largest provider of mortgage funds, moving to increase homeownership among minorities and low-income citizens, unveiled a program Thursday to loosen lending standards for people with "slightly impaired" credit...


It is designed to provide homeownership opportunities for "many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below" qualifying for a loan, said Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive.

The Kansas City Star: Behind the boom in minority homeownership, June 12, 1999:

It's one of the hidden success stories of the Clinton era. In the great housing boom of the 1990s, black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded. The number of blacks owning their own home is now increasing nearly three times as fast as the number of whites; the number of Latino homeowners is growing nearly five times as fast as that of whites. These numbers are dramatic enough to deserve more detail...

PressWire: CUOMO issues higher FHA home mortgage loan limits for communities to increase homeownership, October 20 1998:

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today announced higher Federal Housing Administration home mortgage loan limits for communities around the nation, implementing a Clinton Administration initiative that will enable thousands more American families to become homeowners each year.


"These higher loan limits will unlock the door to homeownership for hard-working families, transforming homeownership from an impossible dream into a sweet reality," Cuomo said...

New York Times: Homebuyers Who Need Help , January 23, 1998:

The Clinton Administration wants to raise the limit on home mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration from roughly $170,000 to $220,000. By insuring mortgages made by private lenders, the F.H.A. makes the loans risk-free, a bountiful gift to mortgage lenders and real estate agents throughout the country...

Damn if this didn't get me thinking: what happens if Debbie "Fairless Doctrine" Stabenow demands that Google purge its archives?

President Training Wheels could not be reached for comment.


The 3:10 to Serfdom


I figure this is a fitting illustration for Michael Gabor's latest.



The 3:10 to Serfdom: American Thinker (Gabor)



It ain't over if the Demarxists have anything to say about it


Paul Kedrosky provides the chart of the day: predictions from Credit Suisse concerning the next wave of mortgage defaults.


A few of the choice comments:

I look on the bright side. If the "Mensa"s in Congress and their stimulus package bring about a nasty bout of inflation, I'll at least be able to pay off my mortgage just be selling my telescope.

The wave of mortgage defaults which is going to completely transform America is not captured by this graph - I was talking with an older friend of mine, an 85-year-old widow, and she was saying that most of the people who live at the 55+ development where she owns a townhouse have mortgages, because their financial advisors thought that was the right thing to do - and it would have been if the previous 10 years had represented normalcy in America. She also said that 20% of the units are empty or rented at a loss, because seniors who would normally move in can't sell their existing houses. She also said that many of her friends had heard from their brokers that their investments will run out in about 3 years unless things change quickly. Either deflation or extreme inflation is going to hammer this demographic, many of whom are active and in excellent health.

In previous severe downturns, most older citizens were not highly leveraged with mortgages, they lived in houses that typically were paid off or had moved to rental-type facilities where costs were more likely to track general economic conditions. People may be willing to let younger, employable people get tossed out and start over, but there is bound to be a visceral reaction to the prospect of grandma living under a bridge and eating whatever critters she can whack on the head with her walker. There will almost certainly be a large increase in redistributive social programs if this scenario plays out, and I can't see any way it will happen differently. Whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing, I suspect that we haven't begun to see the rollback of the Reagan legacy which will be driven by the abuses of unfettered greed masquerading as the free market.



"Reagan legacy" was a result of many, many years of bankrupting Keynesian policies culminating with the unmistakable "Carter legacy".

The current "rollback" will be very short lived. In order to be able to redistribute money, you need to have them first. America doesn't. Even worse, it has little to sell to the rest of the world nowadays. The last important export product, financially engineered derivatives, has just become roadkill...

Writing at New York's paper of record, Michelle Malkin observes:

Yes, many responsible borrowers are having trouble negotiating loan modifications. But this $50 billion giveaway to the banks - on top of the upward of $2 trillion more from the Treasury department, on top of the $700 billion in original "TARP" funding - is throwing more bad money after bad.

This massive expansion of government meddling in the housing market will just delay the inevitable. A report released by the Comptroller of the Currency in December showed that more than half of loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 fell 30 days delinquent within six months. And after six months, 35 percent of people were 60 or more days behind on their payments.

Where's the fairness in forcing prudent homeowners and renters to subsidize people who bought overpriced houses and to rescue the banks that lent to them?

It's sacrilegious to say it in the Age of Obama, but it needs to be said: Home ownership is not an entitlement. Credit is not a civil right. Your property-value preservation is not my problem...

From the actions of the Demarxists, however, it apparently is our problem.

Hat tips: TigerHawk and Larwyn.

Back-back-back-back-back-back... Grand Slam!


Ramirez rips the cover off the ball. Twice.






Rejected: Public Votes Thumbs Down On Obama Stimulus Scam


Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: "Please don't hurt us!"


Brother, can you spare a house?: Malkin
EXCLUSIVE: Bailout recipients keep donating: Times
Fear is the mind killer; Obama sows fear: LawHawk

On wings of clay: Crittenden
The Transcript: Surber
Nancy Pelosi: graphically challenged: Hot Air

Surprise! Dems nix offshore drilling, too!: Gateway
16 illegals sue Arizona rancher: Times
Of ants, elephants and FDR: Sowell

Cap and Trade: a California success story: Denny
Even the AP reporting on Obama's double-speak: AP
Mixed reviews for Obama: Prairie

Why Obama wants control of the census: Fund
The shrine of FDR: why the left worships there: NRO
U.S. develops ground-based anti-aircraft laser: Prairie

Health care rationing for elderly slipped into stimulus: Ace
I couldn't say it better: Tiger's Eye
Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words: Corner

Porkucare: Stimulus bill welcomes socialized medicine: Bloomberg
"Please don't hurt us" ads air in Pakistan: Gateway
Just ask me: Surber

You cannot create wealth by looting taxpayers to pay people to pound nails: Ms. Underestimated
The “Stimulus” Will Put The Unemployed Back To Work By Making It Easier To Be Unemployed: Say Anything
Will Henrietta Hughes Get the Joe the Plumber Treatment? (Video): Gateway

An interview with Robert Barro: Atlantic

"This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don't know what to say. I mean it's wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don't think will work, so I don't think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don't think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn't really geared toward incentives. It's not really geared to lowering tax rates; it's more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it's garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn't really matter that much."

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Thank goodness the cavalry arrived!



Related: DOWn and Barack Obama and The Wisdom of Crowds.

UK Researchers: Windmills are a "carbon-saving" scam


Gee, I wonder if this will affect any "green collar" jobs?

Small wind turbines attached to individual homes work fine unless you have lousy wind.

That's the upshot of a multi-site study called the Warwick Microwind Trial project, a year-long survey on the performance of roof-mounted turbines done in the U.K. done by Encraft, a low-carbon technology consulting firm.

The researchers picked 26 sites in the U.K where microturbines tied to the power grid were attached to people's homes to offset their electricity use. Many of the consumers clearly purchased the turbines to lower their fossil fuel energy use as some already had solar panels and ground-source heat pumps...

...the Encraft study, which came out last month, found that many of the turbines didn't meet manufacturers claims for power generation. Some turbines needed to go offline at times because of technical problems or complaints over noise.

"The gap between average performance (or expectation) and reality is much larger than people could reasonably expect," Encraft managing director Matthew Rhodes said in a summary...

You say the energy production of windmills is vastly overblown (heh)?

And you say the cultivation and production of biofuel requires more fuel than it produces?

And our exhaled Carbon Dioxide really isn't toxic?

And that President Obama just banned all offshore drilling, which could -- by itself -- be a $1.7 trillion stimulus package?

These Democrats are geniuses!


The Politics of Fear... Itself


Click the image or here for the back-story.



I can only speak for myself, but I certainly feel both uplifted and inspired.


Hundreds attend global warming protest


Related: Al Gore's Testimony before Congress and Columnist converts from 'believer to being a global-warming agnostic' (Orlando Sentinel)

Hat tip: Dave W.

There go my plans for the weekend




Title and photo via: Dave W.

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Orgy of Fraud, Waste and Abuse


The Clairvoyant Palin: Treacher
FBI raids lobbying firm tied to Murtha: ABC
Repeat after me: "Carter-era policies": Hewitt

Visual display of quantitative information: Corner
Leahy "Truth Commission" to pursue Bush: CQ
Environmentalists, in name only: NRO (Miller)

Eighteen days of hope and change?: Hanson
German economist: stimulus doomed to fail: ECO
Barack Obama is a novice - and it shows: Telegraph (UK)

Obama takes his case to the people: Power Line
Savior holds first fear-mongering press conference: Malkin
More on that unhelpful 'catastrophe' talk: Dinocrat

Former Obama Campaign Organizer: 'We didn't know who he was. We knew who we wanted him to be.': PuffHo
Specter tries to explain his betrayal, fails: Ace
Obama Predicts Doom If Trillion Dollar Spendulus Is Not Passed to Counter 1.9% Dip In GDP: Gateway

Specter's flawed rationale: Riehl
McCain Slams Obama's Mocking Rant: Newsmax
Gerald R. Obama (Better put some ice on that): Surber

Obama's injustice for terror victims: Prairie Pundit
Screaming into the whirlwind: an Army officer's thesis on Jihad: Solomonia
Tony Snow's remarks one year ago at CPAC still rung true today: Flopping Aces

Studies confirm: Unionization hurts employment and wages: Flashback
"Thank You Sucker" Motivational Currency Replaces Dollar: Cube
The case against the bailout (September, 2008): EconLib (Kling)

Stimulus wasteful spending list: Corner:

* $2 billion earmark for FutureGen near zero emissions powerplant in Mattoon, IL
* $39 billion slush fund for "state fiscal stabilization" bailout
* $5.5 billion for making federal buildings "green" (including $448 million for DHS HQ)
* $200 million for workplace safety in USDA facilities
* $275 million for flood prevention
* $65 million for watershed rehabilitation
* $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
* $650 million for the DTV transition coupon program
* $307 million for constructing NIST office buildings
* $1 billion for administrative costs and construction of NOAA office buildings
* $100 million for constructing U.S. Marshalls office buildings
* $300 million for constructing FBI office buildings
* $800 million for constructing Federal Prison System buildings and facilities
* $10 million to fight Mexican gunrunners
* $1.3 billion for NASA (including $450 million for "science" at NASA)
* $100 million to clean up sites used in early U.S. atomic energy program
* $10 million for urban canals
* $2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars
* $1.5 billion for carbon capture projects under sec. 703 of P.L. 110-140
* $300 million for hybrid and electric cars for federal employees
* $198 million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters
* $255 million for "priority procurements" at Coast Guard (polar ice breaker)
* $500 million for State and local fire stations
* $180 million for construction of Bureau of Land Management facilities
* $500 million for wildland fire management
* $110 million for construction for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
* $522 million for construction for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
* $650 million for abandoned mine sites
* $75 million for the Smithsonian Institution
* $1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth
* $412 million for CDC headquarters
* $500 million earmark for NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
* $160 million for "volunteers" at the Corp. for National and Community Service
* $750 earmark for the National Computer Center in MD
* $224 million for International Boundary and Water Commission – U.S. and Mexico
* $850 million for Amtrak
* $100 million for lead paint hazard reduction

Mark my words: this bill will bankrupt America and the money will disappear in a Democratic orgy of fraud, waste and abuse.

And our children and their children will be left holding the bag.