Boker tov, Boulder!

Late night semi-thoughts, as if in a dream

 

 

Peggy Noonan:

.... To me, one of the signal signs of the times is the number of people surfing the Internet looking for . . . something. One friend looks for small farms in distressed rural areas. Another logs on late at night looking for a house to buy in a small town out West, or down South, or in the Deep South. She is moving all around America in her imagination. I asked if she had a picture in her head of what she was looking for, and she joked that she wanted to go where Atticus Finch made his summation to the jury. I don’t think it was really a joke. She’s not looking for a new place, she’s looking for the old days.

I spoke to a Manhattan-based psychiatrist who said there is an uptick in the number of his patients reporting depression and anxiety. He believes part of the reason is that we’re in a new place, that “When people move into a new home they increasingly recognize the importance of their previous environment.” Our new home is postprosperity America; the old one was the abundance; we miss it. But he also detected a political dimension to his patients’ anguish. He felt that many see our leaders as “selfish and dishonest,” that “our institutions have been revealed as incompetent and undependable.” People feel “unled, overwhelmed,” the situation “seemingly unsalvageable.” The net result? He thinks what he is seeing, within and without his practice, is a “psychological pandemic of fear” as to the future of things—of our country, and even of mankind.

  

There's a "political dimension" to all this? Say it ain't so.

 

From my same email inbox, yet another (parallel?) universe:

... Think Bataan.

Bataan [was] the largest single surrender of American Troops in history. 75,000 American and Filipino troops went on the Death March.

We've become so used to fighting countries the size of Texas, That we've forgotten there are players in the world big enough to engage us on multiple fronts and in multiple theaters of operations.

What was China's single greatest success in the Korean War? The march down country from Chosin. They very nearly encircled and bagged an American army there and I doubt the Chicom military has forgotten that.

.... All the Chinese would have to do is hand us an ultimatum over a U.S. intervention in Korea. We'd have one Army bogged down on the Han River. The Navy Fighting them off Taiwan and then Pow! They roll into A-stan and sweep up our forces there.

It looks like a damned long walk from Kabul to Kandahr in winter with no fuel for the vehicles.

Rudyard Kipling once wrote. "When yer wounded and laying on afghan Plains and the women and children come out to cut up what remains, jes role to your rifle and blow out yer brains, an go to your god like a soldier."

This little Afghan surge (Surges don't work unless your willing to kill people with something other than Predator drones.) could very well be America's next Bataan.

 

You have 2 choices: In Obama's Pocket /or/ Under the Bus

The New York Times and ACORN both chose not to be thrown under the bus. 

According to Yid at The Lid:

During the Second half of 2008 a former employee of ACORN was working with the NY Times as an infomant about the fraudulent practices of the organization.  The Times ran a series of stories on ACORN with the help of Ms Moncreif (the informant).  The New York Times articles stopped when Ms. Moncrief, who is a Democrat and a supporter of the President, revealed that the Obama Presidential Campaign was using ACORN as a way to get around campaign laws.

The Campaign had sent its maxed out donor list to Karen Gillette of the Washington, DC ACORN office and asked Gillette and Ms. Moncrief to reach out to the maxed out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN. Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama Campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at the New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, “it was a game changer”:

Congressional Testimony: ‘Game-Changer’ Article Would Have Connected Campaign With ACORN

By Michael P. Tremoglie, The Bulletin

Monday, March 30, 2009 A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer” ....

 

Not to worry, this isn't going to go anywhere.  Not with John Conyers chairing the Committee:

John Conyers - of SubpoenaRove fame - chairs the House Judiciary Committee (and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform). He is one of the co-founders of the Congressional Black Caucus. According to the National Journal, he is considered one of the most liberal members of Congress for many years (re-elected 22 times). 

His wife is Monica Conyers, President of the Detroit City Council and subject of an ongoing FBI investigation into political corruption in that city.

Interesting side bit on Conyers from Wikipedia:

 Conyers proposed House Resolution 288 in 2005, which condemns “religious intolerance” but emphasizes ... Islam as needing special protection from acts of violence and intolerance. It states that “it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form” .... The bill was referred to the House subcommittee on the Constitution in June 2005, but Conyers, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, could revive it.

 

Other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are:

Howard Berman, Zoe Lofgren, Brad Sherman, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez and Maxine Waters of CA;

Rick Boucher and Bobby Scott from VA;

Jerry Nadler, Dan Maffei and Anthony Weiner from NY;

Mel Watt from NC;

Sheila Jackson Lee and Charlie Gonzalez from TX;

Bill Delahunt from MA;

Robert Wexler and Debbie Wasserman Schultz from FL;

Steve Cohen from TN;

Hank Johnson from GA;

Pedro Pierlusi of Puerto Rico;

Luis Gutierrez from Chicago [chairs the "powerful Financial Services Subcommitte"];

and Tammy Baldwin of WI.

 

Another tangent, of possible interest:

On the first day of this 111th Congress, Conyers also introduced H.R. 40 [co-sponsored by Nadler, Scott, Gutierrez and Cohen] to establish a Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans 

and HR 200, which would amend the Bankruptcy Code to allow a judge to modify the terms of a home mortgage in foreclosure [coincidentally also co-sponsored by Nadler, Scott, Gutierrez and Cohen -- plus Linda Sanchez, Delahunt, and Waters].

 

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee include

Lamar Smith, Ted Poe and Louie Gohmert of TX;

Jim Sensenbrenner of WI;

Howard Coble of NC;

Elton Gallegly of CA;

Bob Goodlatte and Randy Forbes of VA;

Dan Lungren and Darrell Issa of CA;

Steve King of IA;

Trent Franks of AZ;

Jim Jordan of OH;

Jason Chaffetz of UT;

Tom Rooney of FL and Gregg Harper of MS.

 

Equal Opportunity? Obasma soaks the rich AND the not so rich

IBD: "President Obama claims that Republicans 'don't offer an alternative budget.' In fact, they do, and it costs far less and does more." (graph from GOPLeader.gov)

Stephen Spruiell writes at the corner: First, They Came for the Executives

Plus Dick Morris and Eileen McGann on how churches, universities, hospitals and soup kitchens will also be "hard hit."

.... In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, four million taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. They comprised 3% of the tax returns, made 31% of the income, but donated 44% of all charitable contributions. Together, they provided charity with $81 billion in that year.

Obama’s plan will cost them $10 billion in extra taxes on the income they allocated to charitable donations. How can the president be so glibly certain that they will not curtail their charitable contributions by a like amount or even more?

Imagine all the harm Obama’s program will cause. Churches will be hit most hard. They account for the largest share of charitable donations, but universities, disease research, hospitals, soup kitchens, and cultural institutions will also be hard hit. So will international relief efforts that funnel aid abroad through churches or directly.

It is totally dishonest for Obama to pretend that his curtailment of these deductions won’t hurt the poor. It will most directly impact them since most of the charities Obama is hurting focus on helping the impoverished.

This proposal is not about saving money. It is about controlling it. By, in effect, transferring at least $11 billion a year from private philanthropy to government spending, Obama empowers the public sector at the expense of the voluntary one.

President Obama’s recommended reduction in the tax deduction for charitable giving reflects his fundamental belief that only the government can or should help the poor. He wants to keep the impoverished directly dependent on the government - and the Democratic Party - for their daily bread.

Bibi: So far, so good

Carl in Jerusalem writes:

The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg got an interview with Binyamin Netanyahu just before the latter was sworn in as Prime Minister on Tuesday, and Bibi shot a message straight as an arrow to US President Barack Obama.

"Stop Iran," said Netanyahu, "or I will"

History teaches Jews that threats against their collective existence should be taken seriously, and, if possible, preempted, he suggested.

 

Sounds good to me... though not so good to the anti-Israel bigots commenting at Huffington Post. I urge you to help them broaden their conceptual and intellectual horizons by gracing their thread with your opinions.

 

And just think, no more Olmert to kick around!

 

WTF?!

I think those simple three letters will constitute my sign at the tea party. It covers a myriad of my questions:  WTF happened to my country? WTF are they doing? WTF have they done? and WTF are they doing NOW?

For instance, I just saw Jim DeMint on twitter: "Boxer amdt passed: 54-43. Thune amdt now being voted on to prevent increases in energy prices"

And Michelle Malkin: "The Boxer c(r)ap-and-t(i)rade massive tax amendment to Sen. budget bill just passed, 54-43."

WTF is the Boxer Amendment?  I searched Google News {boxer amendment cap and trade} and found only two articles, one from The Hill and this one from the Helicopter Association International's Rotor News:

HAI reports Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee leaders have provided details on their strategy on a multifaceted energy plan which begins next week.  The panel Tuesday will take up three bills analyzing the impact of energy development and production on water resources; updating appliance efficiency standards; and increasing energy efficiency for manufacturers. The committee will also mark up a bipartisan draft energy research and development plan.

After the April recess, they will deal with other energy issues including, the siting of an electricity transmission network, a renewable electricity production mandate, cybersecurity related to a "smart grid," nuclear energy and coal efficiency. Later on, the committee will take up energy efficiency, expanding the authority of the Energy Department to issue green energy loan guarantees, making energy markets more transparent and expanding enforcement authority for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

A fourth markup could cover energy development, including oil and natural gas, coal, unconventional oil sources, green energy development on public lands, expanding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to include regional reserves for refined products like gasoline and diesel, and carbon capture and storage.  All of this will lead to the eventual filing of one package that lawmakers hope to keep separate from a climate change strategy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has talked of combining energy and climate change and debating it on the floor before the August recess. Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-California) has not issued details or a timeline for a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a market-based cap-and-trade program, and she might defer to House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman(D-California) to act first. As previously reported on HAI’s RotorNews, Waxman wants his panel to mark up a combined energy and cap-and-trade strategy by Memorial Day.

President Obama and Democratic leaders are pushing for a cap-and-trade plan, while others in both parties have tossed out other ideas, including instituting a direct carbon tax on businesses.  These are issues HAI is closely tracking and analyzing and updates will be posted in RotorNews as developments occur in Washington.
 

And if you think that sounds complicated, try reading today's NY Times: Democrats Unveil Ambitious Global Warming Bill

"The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on Tuesday at two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill to cap heat-treating gases and move the country quickly from dependence on coal and oil.

But the bill leaves crucial questions unanswered and as of now has no Republican support. For those reasons, it marks the beginning, not the end, of debate in the current Congress on how to deal with two of President Obama’s top priorities, climate change and energy....

 

Whoa, stop right there. The debate accelerated alright. It's accelerated to the point where there's no time for them to tell us what's going on before it's over, no time to read bills before they're passed, no time to deliberate. Just confiscate. Our money.

So WTF is the Boxer amendment? Who knows? But I can tell you that it passed already, and they're on to the "Thune Gregg amendment" (defeated). 

The numbers are going up so fast and furiously, no one even knows how far in the debt this little American already is. Or how far in debt he or she will be next week, or next month or next year...

 

 

Same old HAMAS

 

Hamas Rules Out Abiding by Past PLO Commitments

(Maan News-PA) Senior Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardaweel said Saturday that accepting prior agreements with Israel, such as the Oslo Accords or other signed documents, would be impossible, and refused to do so.

 

Meanwhile, in the terror-tories:

If new presidential elections were held today and the two candidates were Ismail Haniyeh [HAMAS] and Mahmud Abbas [PLO/FATAH], the former receives 47% of the vote and the [latter] 45%.

Three months ago, Haniyeh received 38% and Abbas 48%.

 

Already DAZED by CHANGE? Here's yet another JAW-DROPPER

Another Day, Another Scary Nomination 

As usual, President Barack Obama is multi-tasking the dismantling of the American system on so many fronts that not all of the outrages can be properly monitored. So while you should be mortified by his dictatorial power grab with General Motors, please don't miss his recent nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as legal adviser for the State Department.

In his new position, Koh not only would represent the United States before international bodies, such as the U.N. and the International Court of Justice, but also would influence the degree to which laws of other countries should influence American jurisprudence....

... Koh, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."

 

Obama Successful in Deflecting Blame for the Economy

"Did we elect a president or a car salesman?  Problem is, when we let the government become a market participant, there is no difference."

 

 

 

Our national debt is staggering, and "Because foreigners hold more than 40 percent of America’s red ink, it is increasingly becoming a risk to American sovereignty."

• China is the largest holder of America’s debt instruments, and, last week, America’s communist banker warned the Obama administration that the U.S. may not qualify for a 2nd and 3rd mortgage.
• Mirek Topolánek, President of the European Union and the Czech Prime Minister, condemned Obamanomics, saying it has America on “the way to hell.”
• In Germany, Prime Minister Angela Merkel has refused Obama’s advice for more government spending. Her beliefs were recently echoed by Axel Weber, the president of the Bundesbank, who flatly rejected Obama’s fixation for fiscal stimulus.
• These world leaders realize that President Obama is writing a subprime mortgage on America’s future:

• This year, Obama’s government will spend twice as much as it takes in.
• The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl says Obama’s stimulus package [alone] adds $9,400 of debt to every American household.
• Obama's budget over the next ten years will add $9.3 trillion to the national debt -- which currently tops $11 trillion.
• National debt, which Thomas Jefferson called “the greatest of dangers,” is mounting at a faster pace than at any time in history.
• Massive tax increases will be needed to keep up with interest payments ...
• By their own admission, this administration is continuing the practices that created the current mess.Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner cited as one cause of the crisis the fact that “as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk.”

The Heritage Foundation warned just yesterday:

The outlines of the G-20 agreement are becoming clearer by the day... the Europeans will give a modest endorsement of stimulus spending, and in return, the Obama administration will move a long way towards the European position on global governance. Treasury Secretary Geithner said in London Friday that the U.S. now supports “a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight.”

.... This is just about the worst agreement that the summit could possibly have produced. It’s the worst of both worlds: more so-called stimulus spending for everyone, a globalization of Europe’s slow-growth economic model, and a subversion of U.S. sovereignty by a new global super-regulator. This is folly.

Meanwhile, the American people by and large refuse to hold the President accountable or responsible. Seemingly content with massive CHANGE, they care not about its direction. This too is staggering. Is there such a thing as Too Much HOPE?

 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama benefits from a broadly held perception that others bear the bulk of responsibility for state of the U.S. economy, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll published on Tuesday.

Asked who was responsible for the economic meltdown, 80 percent in the poll blamed banks, financial institutions and corporations. Some 70 percent also blamed consumers for taking on too much debt and the former Bush administration for lax regulation.

Only 26 percent said the Obama administration was not doing enough to turn the situation around.

Two-thirds of respondents approve of the way Obama is handling the presidency, and 60 percent approve of the way he is handling the economy.

Sixty-four percent said were confident Obama's policies will improve the economy, down from 72 percent just before he took office in January.

 

 

All Soros' strands have come together

Why am I not surprised?

From his interview with The Australian (full transcript at the link):

George Soros is having a very good crisis. Other investors are wilting, political power structures are being upended and market economists are scrambling to fashion new theories, but the world's most famous speculator is having a belated heyday.

George Soros is now recognised as one of the most effective philanthropists, finding a new sense of purpose by spending billions to promote civil society in new democracies.

"It is, in a way, the culminating point of my life’s work," the 78-year-old says in his heavy Hungarian accent during an interview at his London mansion.

If Soros had retired from the money markets at 48 to become a philosopher – which was his life plan when he set up his own Wall Street hedge fund at the age of 43 – the world is unlikely to have heard of him, as either an ideas man or a money man. Even if he had ended his career 20 years later, he would have been remembered as little more than the big-stakes gambler who "broke the Bank of England" with his 1992 bet against the pound that earned him $US1.1 billion.

At 68 Soros had just predicted a global financial collapse which did not happen, just as he had done a decade earlier; his pet theory of market behaviour, which he calls "reflexivity", had been largely ignored; and his political donations had bought him little sway in Washington. Yet today, he says, all those strands seem to have come together – "the American election, the financial crisis, the theory of reflexivity, so it is actually a very stimulating period".

 

 

New Order Rising

Call me alarmist, but I don't believe the commentary that follows is an exaggeration... not at all. I would even go so far as to suggest that we are a hair's breadth from a declaration of martial law, with consequent suspension of the Constitution and elections. Gd willing, our well-intentioned Tea Parties will not give them the excuse they're looking for.

I pray to Gd that I'm wrong ... about everything.

 

Robert Romano, Senior Editor of ALG (Americans for Limited Government) News Bureau:

.... By perpetuating the economic emergency, President Obama is now ensuring that investors will want no part of troubled firms, or the bailouts—a double-edge sword. The only way the bailout firms will now be able to remain funded for the foreseeable future now will be through government-backing. Meanwhile, Ford is increasing its market share, as ALG News has previously reported.

The President’s actions today and the Treasury Secretary’s move last week to request authority to seize TARP-recipient firms now crystallize the intentions of the Administration to both market and government observers. This is war.

The President is engaged in a chess match against the markets. And he is at present winning. Why?

Because, in one short year, the government has moved so quickly to take over the financial system, and now in extension all investments, pensions, funds, and everything else that presently needs to be back-stopped by the FDIC, Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress.

It overtook Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the summer completely—thus ensuring that the government owns most every mortgage in the country.

It has signed up to buy every single mortgage-backed security out there, creating a limitless line on the budget without much thought as to its final, bottom line, as the bailouts pile up and spiral out of control, and the taxpayer is left on the hook to wither and dry.

All of which is a dramatic departure from constitutional limited government.

There now are no limits, and the Federal Constitution is but mere paper. Even the fiat currency the government prints with abandon now carries more value at the moment to the elected and unelected officials giving it away seemingly for free but in reality at the costly price of leverage upon the bailout’s recipients.

The reason for this rapid succession to tyranny in such a short period is because there now is no effective defense of the Constitution and its limits being waged. There is a weak opposition on Capitol Hill, and a fervent and yet powerless conservative movement on the airwaves and embodied in dedicated organizations in and near the capital and around the nation.

Once these industries—whether they be the mortgage, financial, and now automakers—are subsidized by federal dollars, officials, whether they be Congressmen, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, or the President, arbitrarily apply so-called taxpayer “protections” while simultaneously perpetuating the need for taxpayer assistance.

This new order is decidedly fascist, and it will rapidly proceed to being outright socialist. First, the monster will subsidize, then it will take ownership, and then it will destroy the American economy.

 

And if men who love liberty do not act quickly,

it will be the end of limited government as we know it.