Friday, March 06, 2009

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: The accounting joke is on us

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

Reid's brazen lies to constituents: Corner
Madoff paid Schumer, Hillary, Rangel: Fox5
Pentagon targeted by Hezbollah: WUSA9

I'm Tired: Old Jarhead
5 more states invoke 10th: Human Events
Sophomoric attempts at demonization: Exam

Obama the cheapskate: Morrissey
Stealth Reparations: American Digest
Jewtherism: Ace

Post-mortem on the Brown visit: Fausta
No, Really?: Cartago Delenda Est
Beware Obamas bearing gifts: Ace

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis: AT (Simpson - 9/28/08)
Because the economy hasn't tanked enough: Crittenden
Georgia Dem hasn't paid taxes in two years: JWF

Dem War on Small Business May Cause 14% to Fail In Next Year: Gateway
The only plausible explanation is that it's intentional: GraniteGrok
DNC website hosts anti-Rush slogan contest: no other pressing problems for Democrats to worry about: NiceDeb

Obama's accounting joke is on us: Kesler
Wherein your old pal tries on a tin foil hat: Amused Cynic
Obama tries to destroy dissenters: Scoffery

Introducing new Tramp Stamp Barbie: Jawa
What exactly is one trillion dollars?: PageTutor
Cramer: my response to the White House: Main Street

It is tragic-comic that both the President and Robert Gibbs have both stated that they will not comment on the day-to-day "fluctuations" of the stock market (despite that often they themselves cause those fluctuations - invariably downward. And "fluctuations" implies that the markets sometimes rise - rarely under this President), but if a radio or TV talking head like Rick Santelli or Rush Limbaugh says something that opposes Obama, both the president and Gibbs immediately, and often repeatedly, rise to the challenge.

So commenting on situations that adversely affect the jobs, investments, or retirements of millions of Americans is beneath them. Challenging dissent, however, is job one for this White House. -- Chris Bennett

Thursday, March 05, 2009

David Frum's feeble war against Rush Limbaugh


A March 2nd column at today's hub of conservative thought -- some website I've never heard of called New Majority -- pilloried Rush Limbaugh with inflammatory descriptions and tawdry allusions. The column's author, David Frum (yes, the David Frum... heh), asserts that Limbaugh's cigar-smoking, golfing visage is precisely the image that Republicans should spurn.

Frum describes Limbaugh as the ostensible leader of the GOP burdened with unappealing and stereotypical characteristics:

A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

We get it -- Rush is rich. Filthy rich. He's a swaggering, cocky, overweight, cigar-smoking rich guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He has his own jet. Tens of millions of listeners. Best-selling books. His website gets more hits in a day than Frum gets in a month.

As for Barack Obama?

On the [other] side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

Discipline? Obama's admitted use of marijuana, cocaine and perhaps other illegal drugs must have slipped Frum's mind. Or, more likely, Frum pegged the needle on the intellectual dishonesty meter. Care for a Nicorette?

Obama has indeed invoked the recession: his unceasing song of crisis, catastrophe and despair have turned a run-of-the-mill recession into an economic debacle of the first order. His ideological policy prescriptions have scorched the world's greatest prediction engine -- the stock market -- and melted trillions in value.

Victims? Obama has, in many respects, created the victims from whole cloth.

Rush, in Frum's view, is a relic, a useless fossil of the Reagan-urassic Era.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

How will conservatives succeed? Surely not through division; whether by appearance, by wealth, by race, by any segmentation strategy imaginable -- as Frum and most Democrats are wont to do.

Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s... ...he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise – and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.

And Frum is to conservatism what Pee Wee Herman is to the Academy Awards. A pathetic, peripheral figure more concerned with Letterman's opinion and The Daily Show's seven full-time writers than principles or ideals.

And what of principles? Of core values? On that topic, Frum does not confront Limbaugh. Is Obama's New Deal 2.0 constitutional? Who cares? Limbaugh is a filthy rich golfer who looks like -- in Letterman's words -- an eastern European gangster.

To that point, Frum ignores the elephant in the room.

Consider that a more honest version of the mainstream media -- or what passes for the media these days -- could have blown Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign to bits over a single long weekend. A series of network exposes featuring Rashid Khalidi, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Edward Said, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Obama's subprime lawsuits and his lost years at Columbia, for starters, would have de-lubed Obama's well-oiled campaign, resulting in a thrown Axelrod.

Put simply, any of the big media outlets could've put a stake in the heart of Obama's campaign with a single 20-minute segment of John Stossel presents: Barack Obama's Communist Upbringing.

As for who really represents the Republican Party?

Could it be Ann Coulter? Or Mitt Romney? Or Bobby Jindal? Or Michael Steele? Or Sarah Palin?

Appearance, race and gender should matter not; for the principle is the heart of the thing.

The stock market is the ultimate tracking poll of economic confidence. Conservatives can rest comfortably knowing that Ronald Reagan -- put in the same position as Obama -- would have encouraged investors, entrepeneurship and steadied the market.

Because the principles are timeless. The appearances are meaningless. Which is why Frum chooses to focus on the latter.

And by focusing on appearances, Frum simply emphasizes his irrelevance to the fight between conservatism and socialism.



Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Mumbles takes the gloves off

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

Limbaugh challenges Unicorn-riding, Teleprompter-reading Lightworker to Debate: Gateway
President linked to anti-Limbaugh ad: Riehl
My message to Obama: Anchoress

Obama appoints new leader of opposition party: AT (Lewis)
The worst Senator in a generation: HillBuzz
Which side are you on?: Scipio

Indispensible: Wednesday 3/4: American Digest
Al Franken's latest strategy: Stop Military from voting: Morris
Terra Incognita: PJM (Fernandez)

Olbermann's plastic ivy: Ann
John Edwards told wife about love child: Gawker
Analysis of IU Study on GOP Media Bias: Copious

"The President is running out of people to blame": Sandra Rose
President Barack Mugabe: 4BW
Industry under attack fights back: Prairie

Why they fear Rush: Surber
Today's Toon: TMQ
It's so obvious: BMW

The subprime country crisis: PJM (Fernandez)
Voter Pressure Mounts To Stop Aiding US Automakers: Autospies
Bubble-Boy Blodget Blogs 'Bama's Bubble Bursting: LegalIns

Unit Roots: Maguire
Finally: Obama Makes Good on Promise to Go "Line by Line" Through Budget, Eliminating Wasteful Spending: Ace
Mumbles takes the gloves off: Fox

Microsoft Vista voted tech world's top "Fiasco": SciAm
11 "Modern" Technologies that are Way Older Than You Think: Cracked
Thoroughly confused: Charlie Foxtrot

Take a moment now and please join me in telling the White House there is a better way with the FairTax!

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Presidential Jeopardy



Welcome back to Jeopardy, ex-President's Edition!


I'm your host Alex Trebek. Our current score... ex-President Carter is stuck at zero dollars, ex-President George Herbert Walker Bush is leading with $3900, and ex-President Bill Clinton is in second place with $200.

President Bush, you control the board...


I'll take Ghastly Gaffes for $600, Alex...


This person admitted to the theft and destruction of top secret documents that were about to be subpoenaed by the 9/11 Commission.


Who is George W. Bush?


Uhm, I'm sorry, President Carter, but that's incorrect. In fact, you've answered "George W. Bush" on every single answer and so far you've been wrong each time, sir...


Who is Sandy Berger?


That's correct. You still control...


Ghastly Gaffes for $800, please, Alex...


The answer is: this president's administration sustained a series of eight major terrorist attacks on U.S. interests without fighting back, including the first attack on the World Trade Center.


Who is George W. Bush?


***sigh***


Who is the war-mongering, imperialist, running dog lackey of the oil companies, George W. Bush?


Uhm, no, President Clinton, adding some titles to the same wrong answer doesn't help. You're back to zero.


Who is President Clinton?


Correct again. Still your board.


I'll take Ghastly Gaffes for $1,000, please.


This president facilitated the coming to power of Marxists in Nicaragua, religious despots in Iran, signaled the Soviets that he wouldn't lift a finger if they invaded Afghanistan, thereby facilitating the rise of the extremist militancy that ended up spawning 9/11... and presided over an economic catastrophe culminating in 18% inflation and 11% unemployment.


Who is George W. Bush?


It still amazes and frightens me that you were somehow elected President. No, that's incorrect. Again.


Who is John Quincy Fillmore?


For the love of...


***sigh***


Who is Jimmy Carter?


That is correct! Oh, thank goodness, the music is telling us it's time for Final Jeopardy... and the Final Jeopardy answer is "He was, hands down, America's worst President of all time"...


$#!@!!!


$#!@!!!


Hehe... this oughta be entertaining...


While you write your responses down, we'll recap scores. President Bush is in the lead with $5900, while Presidents Carter and Clinton are tied with zero...


And now it's time to unveil your responses...


Hmmm... I'm sorry, Presidents Carter and Clinton, but arrows don't qualify as valid responses, not that it would matter with your scores of zero...


President Bush, I'm pleased to say that you're our winner! And, since you wagered the entire $5900, you've ended up with $11,800 for your favorite charity...


Thanks, Alex, and I appreciate the opportunity to put some of our recent history in perspective.

Although, if we spend a few more months on the current course, we could easily have a different answer.

I mean question.



Audi S5 Cabrio at the Geneva Auto Show


Autospies has the gallery.



The Audi S5 Cabrio adds unnecessary panache to the model with the baddest headlights on Earth.

Daddy like.



Mission Accomplished! Did Obama intentionally nuke the economy?


Is President Obama intentionally attempting to bring the stock market to its knees? Some argue that, indeed, he is. "The free market has failed," he could say, "just as it failed the housing market!"


Consider that, in the teeth of a devastating recession, Obama has:

• Raised taxes on small businesses, the engines of entrepreneurship and job growth

• Raised the capital gains tax

• Lied about "tax cuts for 95% of Americans", offering instead $13 a week, achieved not through tax cuts, but by changing the federal withholding tables!

• Destroyed charitable giving by axing the tax breaks for 26% of all giving (or $81 billion in 2006)

• Proposed a carbon cap-and-trading scheme designed to punish oil companies and further tax consumers

Why would Obama inflict these destructive policies while the economy is collapsing? Simple. Each step strengthens the role of government in people's lives.

• Squelching the stock market kills its attractiveness as a parking lot for private capital. Combined with an increase in the capital gains tax, investors will swarm to bonds -- tax-free vehicles like municipal bonds, which benefit the growth of state and local government. And unions, of course.

• Carbon cap-and-tax will raise taxes on all Americans as the cost of goods and services will increase to address a non-existent threat.

• True tax cuts would grow the economy, which is why, of course, Obama shuns them. The last major recession was Jimmy Carter's malaise. It consisted of of double-digit inflation and unemployment. It was finally licked by across-the-board tax cuts for everyone (even the despised rich), which touched off a twenty-plus year run of prosperity.

• Charities reduce the role of government assistance for those in need. That, in Obama's world, can not be tolerated. That is why charities must be choked off and allowed to die. Especially faith-based institutions.

The only plausible explanation is that Obama's destruction of the economy is intentional.

It is based on a failed ideology that has a track record of Mugabe-esque disaster.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Jim Cramer is a long-time investor who's been around the block a few times. He thinks the Obama agenda is crystal clear, stating "...their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans... we've elected a Leninist."

Cramer went on to say that President Obama has caused "the greatest wealth destruction I have seen by a president."

So he's got that going for him.

Cramer calls it an "assault on the economy" by the President and his cohorts.

If all of this comes as a surprise to you, I'm guessing you never saw The secret scrapbook of Barry Soetero.

Because if you had, you would've known.

Update: Commenter Chris Bennett writes:

It is tragic-comic that both the President and Robert Gibbs have both stated that they will not comment on the day-to-day "fluctuations" of the stock market (despite that often they themselves cause those fluctuations - invariably downward. And "fluctuations" implies that the markets sometimes rise - rarely under this President), but if a radio or TV talking head like Rick Santelli or Rush Limbaugh says something that opposes Obama, both the president and Gibbs immediately, and often repeatedly, rise to the challenge.

So commenting on situations that adversely affect the jobs, investments, or retirements of millions of Americans is beneath them. Challenging dissent, however, is job one for this White House.


Hat tips: Mark Levin (MP3), S, C & A and Larwyn. Linked by: Instapundit, Power Line, The Anchoress, Jules Crittenden, Protein Wisdom, Fausta, JoshuaPundit and Memeorandum. Thanks!


Video: Stimulus Explained


The Stimulus Package explained in a simple-to-understand video .

Even some Democrats -- at least the ones who can see the writing on the wall -- are balking at the latest discretionary spending bill.


Linked by: Parkway Rest Stop. Thanks!


Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Bingo!

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

The Obama Economy: WSJ
The Obama Report Card: Wizbang
Is the worst yet to come?: Daily Beast

More hope and change: $16M in personal earmarks: Gateway
Double-dipping at the trough of taxpayer dough: Surber
Enlarge your economy in days with Stimulus Package: Red Square

The Cure for Poverty: AT (Lifson)
The Cure for Poverty
Newsweek "disappears" Israel: Snapped Shot

More on earmarks: Obama's chief of staff has some in bill: McClatchy DC
Some perspective on the Stimulus: Patriot Room
Waging war on prosperity: Morris

Shock: Those Making Less Than $250K Will Face Tax Increases: Ace
CNN Host: Republicans Are “Literally” Like Nazis: RobPort
Tennessee school censors "In God We Trust": STACLU

Is Starbucks taking its last breath?: Cassy
Global warming: on hold?: Discovery
Cramer on Obama: "It's amateur hour at our darkest moment": Breitbart

Don't say a word: U.N. resolution seeks to criminalize opinions: Slate (Hitchens)
Mr. Television: Surber
A travesty inside Detroit's City Council chambers: Gateway

Obama's version of the Hammer & Sickle?: Flopping Aces
Brooks: "Barack Obama Is Not Who We Thought He Was" - Oh Yes He Is: LegalIns
Power to the people: the cars and houses stimulus plan: TIJS

Scully's Save: "We're gonna be in the Hudson: Military
Captain Kirk: Canada's next PM: Punky Kitten
Mall wants Manilow music to drive out unruly teens: AP

“We need earmark reform and when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure we’re not spending money unwisely,” McCain said, reading back Obama’s words at a debate last fall. “That’s the quote, the promise of the president of the United States made to the American people in a debate with me in Oxford, Miss. So what is brought to the floor today — 9,000 earmarks.…So much for change.”

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Hilarious, yet somehow unfunny, headline o' the day


Gee, President Kreskin says it's time to buy stocks. Eh, with what? IOUs?

President Cramer went on to explain the market to us equity n00bs.

During a brief press conference in the Oval Office... President Obama suggested that it may be time to buy stocks.

“What you’re now seeing is, profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long term perspective on it,” he said... [arguing] that it is a mistake to pay too much attention to the market’s “fits and starts.”

...Mr, Obama said he judges the success of his policies not on the “gyrations” of the market but on indicators such as unemployment, business investment and the flow of credit.

And since all of those indicators are sucking wind?

The market meltdown signals a crisis in confidence, instigated and encouraged by the Rookie-in-Chief:

...it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.

...what has happened in the last two months? ...What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital -- financial and political -- to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest...

...The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.

Well, all of his policies are pro-growth... for the corpulent government bureaucracies, that is. And Hamas.