Monthly Archives: March 2009
Frank Salvato:The ‘Give Obama a Chance’ Trial Period is Over
Link New Media Journal
Like many conservatives, traditionalists and Republicans who didn’t want to ape the caustic rhetoric of the neo-Marxist Progressive-Left used during the entirety of the Bush Administration, I promised myself to refrain from immediately assuming that Barack Obama was going to bring with him to the White House the backroom politics of Chicago’s Democrat Machine. I employed the Reagan doctrine of “trust but verify.” Well, the verdict is in and the political tactics and policies that Barack Obama has brought to the Executive Branch are not only of the old school “Chicago Way,” they are literally neo-Marxist and naïve.
Let me explain the “Chicago Way.”
Chicago and Cook County, Illinois, have been under Democrat control for as long as I have been alive and before. Most of us grew up watching newsmen like Fahey Flynn, listening to radio journalists like Wally Phillips and reading print journalists like Mike Royko, we were provided a daily examination of the Richard J. Daley Administration; we were afforded an advanced degree in Chicago-style political politics. It is the politics of smoky backrooms and “old boy networks,” patronage, pay-to-play contracting, and governmental protection and appointment of campaign contributors and their families. In Chicago, if it’s about power or money for the elected class and/or the enrichment and advancement of their political allies it most likely becomes governmental policy and viewed as necessary for “saving grace” of society.
From Mr. Obama’s campaign staff and tactics to his initial executive actions, from his White House cabinet appointments to the administration’s protection of AIG, each and every action has been textbook Chicago politics, and why not. Barack Obama cut his teeth and “rolled his bones” within the caldron of Chicago’s political arena.
In a previous article titled, This Is What a Vote for Obama Gets You, I tried to convey, if even in the most rudimentary of ways, what we could expect if Barack Obama were to be elected President of the United States. Well, that has come to pass and we are now faced with the prospect of having to – of needing to – abandon our apathy for governmental oversight while becoming learned in political and governmental current events.
Two disturbing examples of why we have to return to the frontlines of governmental and political oversight present in the issues of the AIG bailout and newly passed legislation to recoup bailout monies used to satisfy retention incentive bonuses set in place before any bailout monies were issued.
The feigned outrage by some of the very people who manufactured the subprime mortgage crisis (specifically US Rep. Barney Frank and US Sen. Chris Dodd) over the $165 million dollars in contractually obligated retention bonuses is, in fact, a traditional Chicago political tactic to redirect attention and deflect.
Consider this question: Which would cause you to be more outraged, $165 million in retention bonuses paid to Americans so that they would stay beyond their contracts to finish the projects they were hired to do, or billions of dollars being funneled, not only to corporations that have already benefited from the taxpayer bailout, but to foreign banks?
While the Washingtonian elected class – especially the Democrats – are howling about $165 million dollars in retention bonuses, the same corporation responsible for satisfying these contractual obligations, AIG, has paid out billions of dollars – billions – to corporations like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, whom have already received taxpayer bailout monies. Additionally, because AIG is an international corporation, they have issued billions of dollars – billions – to foreign financial institutions: $13 billion to British banks, $17 billion to German banks, $19 billion for French banks and $5 billion to the Swiss. In all $62 billion in taxpayer monies have been sent to foreign financial institutions. Glenn Beck did a fabulous job of breaking down the math.
So, while the Obama Administration and the neo-Marxists in Congress (specifically US Rep. Barney Frank and US Sen. Chris Dodd) focus the media’s attention – and public outrage – on $165 million in contractually mandated retention bonuses that are, admittedly, repugnant to accept at this economically troublesome time (not to mention unpatriotic) there is little attention being paid to corporate double-dipping and the outsourcing of American taxpayer dollars to private foreign financial institutions.
To add insult to outrage, the US House of Representatives – led by one of the most inept and ideologically motivated Speakers in the history of the United States, Nancy Pelosi – has passed legislation, by a 328 to 93 margin, that would levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at companies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money.
While this legislative move sounds good at first reading and certainly panders to the public’s outrage, it flies in the face of contract law and threatens the Capitalist system of the West to its core. It spotlights the incredible danger of ruling by emotion; of hastily ramming legislation through the congressional process. It also spotlights the reason why the Founders and Framers crafted a system by which legislation was debated first in committee and then on the floors of the House and the Senate. Congress, under the agenda-driven stewardship of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have usurped that process to craft legislation since the beginning of the 111th Congress, instead crafting legislation behind closed doors employing only their crony fellowship. Their legislation has enacted laws that void contracts and outsource taxpayer money to foreign financial institutions.
It would all make for an interesting movie script if we weren’t talking about the future of our country and the state of nation we want to bestow upon our children and our children’s children.
This is classic Chicago politics. When you are doing something detrimental to your political well-being, something that would, without question, motivate the electorate to remove you from office, when you are enacting policy that you know the public would overwhelmingly oppose; distract, deflect and re-direct. Pander to the electorate’s sitcom attention span by tantalizing them with a “bright, shiny thing.” It works every time in Chicago, that’s why Illinois is cobalt blue.
So, pay no attention to the ongoing raid of the US Treasury by the neo-Marxists hell-bent on making the American people conform to the one-world order. I mean really, global warming is afoot!
Nancy Salvato: A Constitutionally Illiterate Congressional Leadership
The definition of a citizen is one who is ruled and can rule in turn. We must have the capacity for both under the law. All citizens must be able to take the following oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”
Sadly, in today’s day and age, those elected to our legislature do not have to understand the law to represent their electors. Consequently, this Congress has proven to be the most constitutionally illiterate group of people ever elected to office.
To begin, one of the most difficult things to do is to enact a bill into law. The system of checks and balances was designed by the Founders and Framers to slow things down. They wanted creating and debating legislation to be a cumbersome process. Hamilton appealed to the people of New York,
“The legislature will not be infallible; …the love of power may sometimes betray it into a disposition to encroach upon the rights of other members of the government; that a spirit of faction may sometimes pervert its deliberations; that impressions of the moment may sometimes hurry it into measures which itself, on maturer reflexion, would condemn. The primary inducement to conferring the [veto] power in question upon the Executive is, to enable him to defend himself; the secondary one is to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws, through haste, inadvertence, or design. The oftener the measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or interest. It is far less probable, that culpable views of any kind should infect all the parts of the government at the same moment and in relation to the same object, than that they should by turns govern and mislead every one of them.
“It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments. They will consider every institution calculated to restrain the excess of law-making, and to keep things in the same state in which they happen to be at any given period, as much more likely to do good than harm; because it is favorable to greater stability in the system of legislation. The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.” – Federalist Paper #73
Yet, despite such an admonition -which holds as true today as it did when the U.S. Constitution was written- President Obama advised our country that if we do not act immediately to pass the stimulus bill, “Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis, that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.” Rep Nancy Pelosi, a progressive leftist from CA, is quoted on Jan 8, 2009 as saying, “We must have a bill signed into law by the middle of February. Our economy requires it. The American people need it desperately.”
The $787 billion Stimulus Bill, passed quickly, before members of Congress had time to even read the entire text of the legislation, allowed some of the beneficiaries to hand out bonuses to their top executives. In reaction to the fury of the constituents, Congress set about enacting more hastily drawn up legislation to punish the beneficiaries of such bonuses.
“The Senate plans to vote next week on steep levies on employee bonuses after the House overwhelmingly approved a 90 percent tax on bonuses at American International Group Inc. and other companies receiving bailout funds.” – Bloomberg.com
Herein lays the problem. Congress, in acting with haste, is passing poorly written law without thinking through the consequences of their actions. In The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. Hayek writes that if individuals know the law, they can base their actions upon established rules and that true law provides the general rules. Legislative enactments which do not satisfy these criteria are objectionable. The law must be general, known and certain, and apply equally to all. A necessary condition for the law to be known and certain is a prohibition on ex post facto laws. The Cato Journal The U.S. Constitution forbids Congress from passing an ex post facto law, i.e. a law passed after the occurrence of an event or action which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of the event or action.
Worse, this particular law singles out a specific group of people. A legislative act (Bill of Pains and Penalties) that singles out one or more persons and imposes punishment on them without benefit of trial was regarded as “odious” by the framers of the Constitution. It was the role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment.
Now, the House, the Senate and the Treasury Department are blaming each other for allowing this loophole. As “We the People” witness the unfolding saga of the bonuses, stimulus money is being put to use in programs long championed by the liberal elements of Congress and which have nothing to do with directly stimulating the economy. Congress is confiscating and redistributing our hard earned money as we watch stunned and amazed at what has transpired in President Obama’s first 59 days of office. It is our civic responsibility to put an end to this nonsense. We have 592 days until the 2010 midterm elections.
When will you add your elected officials’ telephone numbers to your speed dial list?
JB Williams: Obama Seeks Alliance with Enemies of Freedom
In an amazing gesture of gross ignorance, Resident Barack Hussein Obama sent a video message to Iran effectively begging for an ill-fated friendship with one of the most brutal regimes on earth, known for their sponsorship of international terrorism.
Unlike the 66 million useful American idiots who voted for this fool, the Iranian government immediately rebuffed Obama’s ill-advised overture, identifying the outreach as nothing more than another carefully crafted, but overtly empty, campaign “slogan.”
Obama’s overtures ‘just a slogan’, says Iran’s spiritual head – Too bad 66 million Americans were not as wise. Less than 48 hours later, Reuters announces “Iran sets terms for US ties.”
Just as Obama is the puppet of international secular socialists running Washington DC via the Democratic Socialists of America’s Congressional Progressive Caucus, headed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mahmoud Ahmadinijead is the powerless mouthpiece of the Ayatollah who along with his Islamic theocrats, is actually running things in Iran.
The High Price of Populism
Though the notion of making peace with old enemies is indeed popular among many childishly gun-shy Americans today, that very popular misstep will come at a very high price.
You see, the theocratic leaders of Iran do not share anything in common with the American people, any other freedom loving people on the planet, or even many of their own people. They do not play by the same set of rules that your average peacenik subscribes to. Their idea of peace is only possible once the world has agreed to live under the laws of Allah, a view shared by Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, to name only a few.
For the eight years following the events of 9/11/01, the Bush administration kept the nation safe from further attacks on US soil by keeping evil-doers on the run abroad.
The appeasement policies of the 70’s and 90’s, which allowed evil regimes to work together by way of Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, gathering strength, capability and opportunity to strike America at it’s very foundation, were replaced by a pro-active engagement in a war that had been waged against free people around the globe for decades.
The Obama administration is rushing to return America to the same policies of appeasement that allowed the events of 9/11/01, and in doing so, they are reducing America to little more than an international beggar, stuck in a reactionary position, leaving the Ayatollah and Imam’s of Iran in a position to dictate American policy.
Populism – any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies.
The problem with populism is it isn’t based upon anything real. All related facts are ignored in favor of a false and unfounded message more popular than the truth. The simple truth is this; – you cannot make peace with a rattle snake, no matter how frightened of the rattle snake you might be… But some have to be bitten, before they will draw this inescapable conclusion.
Enemies of Freedom Unite
Is Red China a friend of Freedom? How about Yugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il, Osama Bin Laden or the Ayatollahs of Iran? Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, – are any of them friends of freedom?
Yet the Obama administration is seeking friendship, as if the most brutal enemies of freedom on earth can somehow become friends of the United States…
Meanwhile, all of them are coming together to work in concert against the great beacon of freedom and liberty, which is currently under attack from within and weakened to a position where all the world’s evil regimes are gaining an upper hand as the new administration welcomes them with open arms.
And team Obama is walking straight into the trap…
Civil Rights for Terrorists
As of today, only 35% strongly approve of the Obama administration while 31% strongly disapprove. I guess the other 34% aren’t sure either way. Civil rights for terrorists currently detained at club Gitmo is only part of the problem
Read the rest here
Bandemonium! California targets evil plasma TVs!
Good freaking grief! Do the nanny-staters ever get tired of trying to micro-manage everyone else’s lives? Apparently not! Take a gander at a list of some ofbthe things the Left has tried to ban at one time or another.
Tag, cops and robbers, keeping score at school sporting events, BB guns, playground equipment, students praying at all sorts of school events and in class, graduations, etc. Christmas trees, decorations, even red and green plates and napkins have been banned at some school Christmas er, holiday parties, Christmas parties at school, Halloween parties at school, Conservatives speaking at commencement ceremonies, ANYTHING to do with the Confederacy, including the Confederate Air Force in Texas, which has nothing at all to do with the actual Confederacy, the word niggardly, because it sounds too much like that other word which we can only refer to by it’s first letter these days, schools named for George Washington, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, memorials and holidays for Confederate soldiers, students in school mentioning, or drawing pictures of, or pointing a finger as if it were a gun, smoking pretty much anywhere, BBQ grills, students wearing crosses, books that are deemed racist, even if they are actually against racism, and on and on and………………………………………….
Horror in DC as Speaker Pelosi’s face freezes!
Help, I cannot feel my face!
Remember when your mother warned you about making faces? Apparently it WILL freeze like that!
DOHbama!
Hot Air is keeping tracks of how gaffetastical the Obamasiah can be! Check out today’s Obamateurism
In his first few months, President Barack Obama has proven an ardent booster of the U.S. auto industry’s future — but he keeps screwing up its history.
Last month, Obama mistakenly called the automobile an American invention, surprising the Germans who claim that mantle. And in a speech in California today, Obama revived an inaccurate jab against the industry that Ford Motor Co.’s original Model T burned less fuel than modern sport utility vehicles.
Hope and Change anyone? Obama HOPES no one notices when he CHANGES history!
To be clear to those wjo might say that this particular mistake is no big deal, allow me to point out why it does matter.
To make the errors Obama made he is either A) ignorant of the history, or B) Knows the history but is lying to try to push his agenda.
Always my friends, ALWAYS be wary of those who have to mislead to convince you they are correct.
UPDATE!
Looks like the folks at Hot Air will have days and days of of Obamateurisms over the president’s handling of filling positions at Treasury and that is only the beginnings of problems there! Much more at the links!
A look at Iran BEFORE Jimmy Carter
Wow, I admit I never really understood how much more open and progressive, TRULY progressive, not what the Leftists call progressive, Iran was BEFORE the worst president ever helped to create the Iran we know today! An Iran that treats women as third-class citizens, and the squashes liberty, and supports terrorism.
Your moronic idea of the day!
Hey, how about furher hamstringing our economy by declaring global warming a danger to public health
The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposal to the White House on Friday finding that global warming is endangering the public’s health and welfare, according to several sources, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the nation’s economy and environment.
The proposal — which comes in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision ordering EPA to consider whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act — could lay the groundwork for nationwide measures to limit such emissions. It reverses one of the Bush administration’s landmark environmental decisions: In July 2008 then-EPA administrator Stephen Johnson rejected his scientific and technical staff’s recommendation and announced the agency would seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming pollution.
Just what we need right now, more massive buraeucracy slowing down the economy.
“By moving forward with the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, EPA is putting in motion a set of decisions that may have far-reaching unintended consequences,” said Bill Kovacs, vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Specifically, once the finding is made, no matter how limited, some environmental groups will sue to make sure it is applied to all aspects of the Clean Air Act.
“This will mean that all infrastructure projects, including those under the president’s stimulus initiative, will be subject to environmental review for greenhouse gases. Since not one of the projects has been subjected to that review, it is possible that the projects under the stimulus initiative will cease. This will be devastating to the economy.”
Obama bombs on “60 Minutes”
How do I know he bombed? Well, when your interviwer asks you if you are punch drunk because you keep laughing about our economic problems, well….
His remarks came in a “60 Minutes” interview in which he was pressed by an incredulous Steve Kroft for laughing and chuckling several times while discussing the perilous state of the world’s economy.
“You’re sitting here. And you’re— you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about money—’ How do you deal with— I mean: explain. . .” Kroft asks at one point.
“Are you punch-drunk?” Kroft says.
“No, no. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day,” Obama says, with a laugh.
Well now, that is certainly what Americans who are hurting want to see isn’t it? Their president laughing at their problems. Sorry, I thought the dust-up over Obama’s Special Olympics gaffe was stupid, but this? Very bad form Mr. President!
It is getting a little easier, seemingly by the hour, to see how over his head Obama is. Blue Crab Boulevard makes the same observation that I do on the Obama meltdown
There are two possibilities here. Either Obama is intentionally, malignantly causing a meltdown in the economy or he is completely – and I mean completely – clueless about how his words and actions impact the economy.
These are not the words or affect of a leader with the skills to stem the economic crisis.
Either way, we have a problem
Yep! WE do, and we are stuck with it until ast least 2001, when hopefully America boots enough clueless, power-grabbing Dems out of Congress to make a difference! And then, we stil have two years of Captain Clueless left!
Video- Sen. Gregg rips Obama’s economic plans
Ouch! Can y’all imagine the fun it would have been if Gregg had accepted Obama’s invitation to join Team Hope and Change? Oh well, head over to HotAir for the obligatory RED MEAT of the day!
Gregg is great in this clip. He bashes punitive taxation in regards to the proposed AIG bonus taxation, calling it what it is, an abuse of power. He also raises, as have many, the point that the government OKd the AIG bonuses.
The real meat comes in he middle of the clip when Gregg says that the nation will go bankrupt under Obamas plan. Gregg lays it out for all to understand, too much spending does not work and will be a disaster.
Video- Anti-war protesters are still nuts
Well, electing Obama did not change these goons did it?
H/T Black Five
NCAA picks
After a sparkling 8-0 day yesterday, I will likely tank today, BUT, here goes anyway!
Syracuse over Ariz. State Syr 78 ASU 67
Xavier over Wisconsin Xavier 60 Wis 49
Kansas over Dayton KU 60 Dayton 43
Cleveland St. over Zona Zona 71 CSU 57
Pitt over OK State Pitt 84 OSU 76
Mizzou over Marquette Mizzou 83 Marq 79
Mich. State over USC Mich St. 74 USC 69
Louisville over Siena Louis 79 Siena 72
How about following 8-0 up with 7-1? 15-1 in the second round Yahoo!!
John Conyers wants to investigate ACORN
Stunning to say the least. Encouraging? Yes, but color me skeptical until something actually gets done about ACORN and their consistent patters of bad behavior. Frankly, I do not trust Conyers to actually do anything except perhaps putting on a dog and pony show. He has too long a history of being bitterly partisan for me to invest any real faith in his willingness to do the right thing. ACORN is deep in the pockets of the Democratic Party, and anyone who is awake knows it. So, we shall see what happens, and we can hope that this actually amounts to something.
In an startling partisan shift, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. on Thursday proposed holding hearings on claims the liberal activist group ACORN engaged in a pattern of crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style “protection” racket.
Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat and fierce partisan, suggested a congressional probe after scathing testimony about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) during a hearing on various voting issues related to the 2008 presidential election.
Mr. Conyers called the accusations “a pretty serious matter.”
Like I said, sounds promising, but recall how Conyers defended ACORN late last year. And rememember, again, how many Democrats are ACORN friendly.
Mr. Conyers, who is known for his drive to continue investigating the Bush administration, previously defended ACORN. In October, he condemned an FBI voter fraud investigation targeting the group. He questioned whether it was politically motivated to hamper a voter-registration drive targeting groups likely to support Mr. Obama’s candidacy.
But Mr. Conyers’ shift was met by resistance from fellow Democrats on the committee, and it was unclear whether a hearing would be scheduled.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties that hosted Thursday’s hearing, suggested there was not enough “credible evidence” to warrant a hearing focused exclusively on ACORN.
Rep. Melvin Watt said he would concede that ACORN and some of its members engaged in voter fraud. But he said voter fraud was already covered by existing law and Congress has not further role in the matter.
“I’m not coming to a hearing to have a trial on ACORN. That’s not my job,” the North Carolina Democrat said.
Now why would I be a skeptic?
As I predicted Obama seeks more control over wages
I wish I had been wrong about this, but, as usual I was right!
As you read, please remember this. IF the government can cap CEO pay for large companies that take TARP money, they can soon cap salaries for large companies that don’t. Then, why not cap salaries for smaller companies. Hell, why not for any American? This is creeping Marxism, make no mistake!
To be fair others predicted it as well, really it was not that hard to see this coming down the tracks was it?
The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said.
The outlines of the plan are expected to be unveiled this week in preparation for President Obama’s first foreign summit meeting in early April.
Officials said the proposal would seek a broad new role for the Federal Reserve to oversee large companies, including major hedge funds, whose problems could pose risks to the entire financial system
And, as I have also said, it will not stop there either! Obama is using the economic “crisis” to fundamentally change our economy.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
