Tuesday, December 29, 2009

unhealthy arrogance.

"In short, this is not about improving the health of the American people. It is about passing something-- anything-- to keep the Obama administration from ending up with egg on its face by being unable to pass a bill, after so much hype and hoopla. Politically, looking impotent is a formula for disaster at election time. Far better to pass even bad legislation that will not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election, so that the public will not know whether it makes medical care better or worse until it is too late for the voters to hold the administration accountable."

ralph peters: we're lying to ourselves about islam

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/lying_to_ourselves_sjQTP9OuIQIrjE0oaYch2K

yemen official: we have 300 al-qaeda militants planning attacks



Saturday, December 26, 2009

cross the river, burn the bridge.

mark steyn is a genius:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjU5OTJmODE4MGM5YmNiZDEyZDU5ZWU3NThhYjdmNGY=

what drives obama'a agenda?

"I do not think it will be easy to delay Obamism. It is not just that both houses of Congress are under liberal leadership with ample majorities, with a White House and captive media egging them on. The problem is that now the entire engine of the federal government is harnessed in the most unapologetic way to pushing through a far left agenda. There is no shame, no hesitancy in using the full powers of the state.

How does that work out? Without qualification (remember we are in a new age of transparency and ethical reform) votes are bought with hundred-million-dollar earmarks; the attorney general predicates judicial action on the political ramifications of indicting or not indicting; federal bureaucracies (watch the EPA if cap and trade stalls) are devoted to the new Caesar rather than the letter of the law.

Such a strange scenario we have found ourselves in—a clear majority of Americans is opposed to almost everything Obama has to offer; congressional representatives know they are acting against the will of the people, but know too that they are offered all sorts of borrowed money for their districts to compensate for their unpopular actions. And a charismatic commander in chief believes that he can charm even the angriest of critics, and that anything he promises (Iran’s deadlines, closing of Guantanamo, new transparency, no more lobbyists, etc) means zilch and can be contextualized by another “let me be perfectly clear” speech spiced with a couple of the usual “it would have been impossible for someone as unlikely as me to have become President just (fill in the blanks) years ago”

No, I would not count Obama out. So what drives his agenda? What are its origins?

Here are the three most prominent catalysts:"


http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/where-did-these-guys-come-from/

arrogance, stupidity, and corruption

"Our health care system needs to be reformed not because government's role has been too small but because it has been too big. Since the 1940's, government's role in health care has been expanded to the point that it controls 60 percent of our health care economy, according the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. If more government were the answer, health care would have been reformed long ago."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/24/voting_against_government-run_health_care_99671.html

what would real healthcare reform look like?

great article. amazing what logic and common sense can discover.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

goldberg: obama has failed his words.

"So, does anyone feel like Americans are coming together?

Obama the outsider hasn’t changed the way Washington works; he’s worked Washington in a way that only an outsider with no respect for the place would dare.

Consider his signature domestic priority: health-care reform. After a year of working on it, his progressive base is either profoundly disappointed with him or seethingly angry. His Republican and conservative opponents are not only furious, they are emboldened. And independents — who’ve been deserting the Democrats in polls and off-year elections — are simply disgusted with the whole spectacle. Most important, an administration that once preened over its people-power roots can’t even claim that Americans like what he’s doing."

war against the wannabe rich..so true.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmViZTdjMjgxM2JjZmU1NmUzODc4OGY2N2NiM2ZmZDc=

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

the world is finally starting to catch on.

"He lies all the time, deceives with demagogic words, with profound cynicism," Rodriguez told reporters.

"In this summit (Copenhagen) there was only an imperial, arrogant Obama who doesn't listen, who imposes positions that even threaten developing countries," he said."

obama ending year on low: 56% dissaproval



dem congressman switches to republican party.

“Unfortunately there are those in the Democratic Leadership that continue to push an agenda focused on massive new spending, tax increases, bailouts and a health care bill that is bad for our healthcare system,” Griffith said in a statement. “I have always considered myself to be an independent voice and I have tried to be that voice in Congress – but after watching this agenda firsthand I now believe that the differences in the two parties could not be more clear and that for me to be true to my core beliefs and values I must align myself with the Republican party and speak out clearly on these issues."

small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in california

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-smallbiz-bankruptcy22-2009dec22,0,3305684.story

Friday, December 18, 2009

read this.

"The Petersen-Pew Commission on Budget Reform has produced a new report warning that "[o]ver the past year alone, the public debt of the United States rose sharply from 41 to 53 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Under reasonable assumptions, the debt is projected to grow steadily, reaching 85 percent of GDP by 2018, 100 percent by 2022, and 200 percent in 2038."

Long before the debt reaches such stratospheric levels, the commission warns, "Fears of inflation and a prospective decline in the value of the dollar would cause investors to demand higher interest rates and shift out of U.S. Treasury securities. The excessive debt would also affect citizens in their everyday lives by harming the American standard of living through slower economic growth and dampening wages, and shrinking the government's ability to reduce taxes, invest, or provide a safety net."

In other words, within the lifetimes of the vast majority of living Americans, government as we have known it since the New Deal will become paralyzed, unable to deliver even basic services, let alone the myriad of entitlements that politicians had promised would last forever. Liberalism will owe its undoing to its blind faith that government could forever be the inexhaustible provider of ever more spending, more benefits and more prosperity, with nary a day of reckoning."

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

watching social security eat the young alive.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/12/07/watching_social_security_eat_the_young_alive_97536.html

ron paul, the gop's unlikely savior.



where did all the warming go?

"Don't tell that to Al Gore. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," he warned a few years back. In a typically understated claim, he warned "we have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced." He forgot the frogs, the locusts and the boils, but point made."


jobs?

"President Obama keeps talking about the jobs his administration is "creating" but there are more people unemployed now than before he took office. How can there be more unemployment after so many jobs have been "created"?"