Obama's Big Rush

"The time for talk is over. The time for action is now." Obama left little room for doubt. If Congress did not pass the spending bill immediately, the country would fall apart, and the damage would be "irreversible."

"Rise to the moment," Obama commanded Congress. "Every day, our economy gets sicker," he warned. Upon learning that the national unemployment rate had jumped to 7.6 percent, the highest since 1992, Congress could no longer question Obama's "fierce urgency of now."

Congress acted in accordance with Obama's instructions and produced a bill posthaste. Public negotiations were deemed to be impractical—too time consuming. So fierce was their urgency, they forgot to read the 1,100 page bill, and they broke their 48-hour public posting promise. 

Immediately after the bill was passed on Saturday, Obama signed the bill into law.

...No, wait, that's not what happened.  After pushing Congress to hurry up and pass the trillion dollar stimulus bill, Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway.  Eh, what's the rush?


More

Obama delays signing 'urgent' stimulus for Chicago fun

To a critical eye, the hurry to pass the bill appears to have been a con, a legislative stampede.

What's the rush?  Urgent stimulus on hold for Bam's weekend off.

The push to get the bill through before the holiday weekend was so frantic, members of Congress didn't have a chance to read all 1,071 pages of the document before they could vote.  "In a perfect world it would have been nice to have had more time to process it," said Ilan Kayatsky, a spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

British Women Pay High Price for Multiculturalism
Britain has headed down the same "rape path" as other neighboring  "enhanced" multiculturalized countries, such as Norway, where two out of three rapes are committed by men of "non Western backgrounds". 

Obama levitates, but the train goes off the rails.
One of many highlights of the stimulus bill the Democrats just rammed through Congress is $8 billion for high-speed rail. What makes this appropriation special is that there was no money for high-speed rail in the original House legislation. The Senate bill had $2 billion. The legislation coming out of conference "compromised" on $8 billion.

Remember when Obama promised to give us five days to review every bill that ended up on his desk?



"Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant... No more secrecy... And, when there's a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have 5 days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it."

You've been trumped!

With help from a grand total of three Republicans, Congress has passed Obama's unpopular "economic recovery" plan. No one read the 1,100 page behemoth, and the 48-hour public posting promise was broken. (When Obama says he will trump you, he really means it.)

The spending bill isn't a new New Deal, it's the old New Deal on steroids, and it will be just as worthless as the original. A mere 12% of the stimulus package is stimulative. The rest is expensive partisan pork and political back scratching. But the wasteful spending and the political payoffs aren't the only things about this bill that are worrisome.

The "stimulus package" could just as accurately be described as a social engineering package. Obama's bill has stealth provisions that are designed to undercut parental authority, roll back Clinton's successful welfare reform, and set up a federal infrastructure that could be used as a tool for government rationing of health care.

This thing is ugly.

So it's no surprise that Obama's puppets in congress worked "in the dead of night and behind closed doors." to pass this bill. Of course they had to ram it through. You can't let a crisis go to waste, and this crisis could let up any time now, with or without stimulus. Plus, if they had allowed the public to review the bill for another 48 hours, it might have been just enough time for public support to completely collapse.

This isn't how our democratic republic is supposed to work.

More

Can Israel make it alone?

If the Obama administration walks away from democratic allies, we will see the fastest reshuffling of the alliances we've seen since World War I.

Voting on a Stimulus They Haven't Read

Obama's Approach to Missile Defense Stirs Questions

Homeschooling: America's Hidden Breeding Ground for Conservative Ideology, h/t pen of jen

Stimulus Plan Tightens Reins on Wall St. Pay

A provision buried deep inside the $787 billion economic stimulus bill would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions that are much tougher than those proposed 10 days ago by the Treasury Department.

Missing from Congress' stimulus negotiations: transparency

Could Congress have demanded that all negotiations play out in public? Waxman said that would have been impractical. "There are too many moving parts in this bill," Waxman said. "We would be sitting in an open conference committee meeting for weeks, if not a whole month, to process all the amendments that would have been offered."

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.

This Stimulus Bill is Even Worse Than You Think

Think the the stimulus bill is bad?  Think again.  The Stimulus Bill is Even Worse Than You Think.  Sobering information from NRO:

The health provisions in the House stimulus bill would expand dependence on the already-unsound Medicaid entitlement program, distort health care choices for unemployed workers, and set up a federal infrastructure that could be used as a tool for government rationing of medical treatments, procedures, and services. [snip]

For the first time, the federal government will give significant cash to able-bodied adults without dependent children.  ...Since most of these individuals have little apparent need for assistance, the new credit represents "spreading the wealth" for its own sake.  [snip]

Buried in the economic stimulus legislation is a provision that undercuts parental authority and expands control of taxpayer dollars by family planning clinics.  Because the income of parents or even a spouse may not be counted in determining eligibility, states would have the option to "consider only the income of the applicant or recipient." In other words, a child in a family at any income level may be eligible for free family-planning services. A child would be able to receive benefits through a "presumptive eligibility period" and beyond without parental knowledge that he or she applied for Medicaid.  [snip]

For the first time since 1996, the federal government would begin paying bonuses to states that increase their welfare caseloads. Under the stimulus bills, the federal government will pay 80 percent of cost for each new family that a state enrolls in welfare; this matching rate is far higher than it was under the old AFDC program. 

Obama has repeatedly told us in recent days that he is abandoning the old, failed, tired ideas of the past.  He isn't.

More

House passes stimulus bill with no GOP support

It was clear that the measure was the result of old-fashioned sausage-making. Pet provisions were coming to light that had not been included in the original bills that passed the House or Senate—or that differed markedly from earlier versions. Some appeared to brush up against claims of the bill's supporters that no pet projects known as "earmarks" were included.

Gregg Withdrawal Embarrasses White House

White House sources tell me that another nominee for commerce secretary could be announced quite soon, maybe in the next few days.  But that candidate will be President Obama's fourth choice for commerce secretary.

Why not make the "stimulus bill" a kazillion dollars?

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.

Anti-Islam Dutch Lawmaker Sent Back to Netherlands Amid U.K. Ban

The right-wing lawmaker had been invited by a member of Parliament to show his anti-Islam movie "Fitna," which calls the Koran a "fascist" book and accuses Islam of being a violent religion.

Senators Grill Geithner Again on New Financial Plan: Republican Tells Him, 'You Have No Clue'

Jindal to give high-profile GOP response to Obama.

The only thing that can cure poverty is wealth.

U.S. judges admit to jailing children for money.

Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention centre in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.

Woman's record-length fingernails broken in crash.

According to the Guinness Web site, her nails measured a total of more than 28 feet long in 2008, with the longest nail on her right thumb at 2 feet, 11 inches.

Test your news knowledge.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Tyranny in America

Taxation without representation is tyranny.

Q: The average American worked 113 days to pay their federal, state and local taxes in 2008.  Is that not excessive? 

A: Well, uh, maybe.  But it's not tyranny.  You have elected representation.  Local officials, state officials, a representative and two senators in Washington, and a president in the White House.

Q: Yes...but who do these people really represent?  Do they represent you and me, or do they represent special interest groups?

A: Well, of course special interest groups have some influence, and that is sanctioned by the constitution, but your elected officials represent you, and you have the power to hold them accountable at the polls.

Q: Right now we have a huge spending bill winding its way through Congress.  When we are done paying interest charges, the total cost could easily exceed $1 trillion.  Understandably, this bill is NOT supported by most voters.  Congressional leaders are ignoring the will of the people, are they not?

A: Sometimes our elected officials are forced to take action that is very unpopular.  That's how our system works—this is a democratic republic, not a democracy.  In a democratic republic, the elected officials help to moderate the shifting whims of public opinion.

Q: But what if Congress looses touch with the voters?  What if our elected officials develop a herd mentality and begin making irrational decisions?  What if they begin making unpopular decisions that are, in fact, not in the best interests of their constituents?

A: That's where the Constitution comes into play.  The Constitution (particularly the Tenth Amendment) places limits on what the government can legally do.  The constitution is the supreme law of the land and protects citizens from abuses from the government.

Q: You think the constitution places limits on the government?  

A: Yes, the Tenth Amendment says that the Federal Government does not have powers that are not explicitly delegated by the constitution.

Q: Does the Constitution explicitly grant the Federal Government the power to spend billions of dollars on university building projects?  To spend tens of millions of dollars on the arts?  To spend tens of billions of dollars to feed fat people?  To spend hundreds of millions of dollars on train systems?  To spend hundreds of millions of dollars on hybrid cars?

A: Well, those are all very important things.  If we don't make those investments, it will cost our society much more in the long run.  (By the way, not everyone who receives food stamps is fat.)

Q: You're getting us off track.  Does the Constitution grant the Federal Government the authority to spend money on art, food, cars, trains and university buildings?

A: Well, not exactly.  But this spending is for the greater good.

Q: So the Constitution, the one thing that stands between us and the insidious abuses of a derelict government, isn't working very well for us, is it?

A: Well...

Q: Next question.  When Congress ignores the Constitution and ignores the voters; when you have a President who has lamented the fact that the Supreme Court did not "break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution"; when your Commander In Chief spends an inordinate amount of time voicing the concerns of the nation's critics, rivals and enemies, what kind of government do you have?

A: [blank stare]

This bears repeating: taxation without representation is tyranny.

More

The change you can believe in is the change missing from your pocket.

Why is it that Obama, his economic advisers, and the liberal Congressmen strong-arming the legislature into passing the “stimulus” package, all ignore the lessons of history?  Here is the answer: not one of those individuals, entrusted with the welfare of America, cares about the lessons of history, the economy, or the country. They care about power.

Britain to America: 'What have you done?'

Given Obama's radical roots in the neo-Marxist, nihilist politics of Saul Alinsky, it is the undermining of America's fundamental values that is likely to be this President's most strategically important goal. 

Murphy's Law, the Peter Principle and Barack Obama

The perfect collision of Murphy's Law with the Peter Principle has arrived to explode in our faces.

Sometimes a President Is Just a President

If one wants a hawks-eye view into the minds of Obama voters, all one need do is read this piece published by the New York Times last week, detailing the fantasies, dreams and drooling-envy delusions of his followers.  Their celebrity is now their President. h/t, American Thinker

62% Want Stimulus Plan to Have More Tax Cuts, Less Spending

Audio: Hannity grills Specter on his support for the spendulus package.

The Sordid Story of The Stimulus

Arlen $pecter has written an article for the Washington Post, trying to convince us that he is acting responsibly in supporting the $timulus Package.  Here are some of his asinine points:

• I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action.

• Failure to act would be devastating not just for Wall Street and Main Street but for much of the rest of the world, which is looking to our country for leadership in this crisis.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the proposed cuts "do violence to what we are trying to do for the future," especially on education. 

• This proverbial half a loaf beats no loaf by a mile.
  

My response:

Dearest Arlen,

Your argument for the "stimulus" is incoherent.  Let me help.  This bill is 88% pork and 12% stimulus. If you were being perfectly honest you would tell us that you simply do not know what impact this bill will have—no one does. If you were being perfectly reasonable, you would admit that a trillion dollar spending spree will likely do more harm than good. 

Because of the tremendous impact their decisions have, physicians take the following oath: "...first do no harm." I know that Senators aren't held to the same high standard, but maybe you should think about these words as you go forward.  You say we "cannot afford not to take action."  Fine.  But here's my question...can we afford to make things even worse?

Perhaps your thinking is being shaped by considerations regarding your chances of being re-elected next year. You don't want to be labeled as a "do nothing", do you?  I can sympathize, but please put your concern for the future of this country ahead of your political ambitions.

I think you're digging your own grave.  Conservatives in your state are going to be sorely disappointed with you. Liberals will know that they can get more of what they want from a real Democrat.  Let's frame the discussion this way: why should Pennsylvanians vote for you when they could have someone who is more honest about his political and ideological affiliations?

Audio Update: Hannity interviews Republican Arlen Specter on his support for the spendulus package.  h/t: M

Other Thoughts

• Pork = stimulus?  Obama is having a hard time selling his stimulus package, not for lack of communication skills, but because his stimulus package is a lie.  Sweet little lies are easy to sell.  This lie is neither sweet nor little.  

• Obama espouses all of the worst political ideas of the last 100 years.  How could he not fail?  If he is re-elected in 2012, it will be because he will have been successful in one single thing: shifting the blame.
  

More

We have nothing to hope for but hope itself.

Jesus took a handful of loaves and two fish and fed 5,000 people. Barack wants to take a trillion pieces of pork and feed it to a handful of Democratic Party interest groups. 

The New Great Communicator … Isn't

Somehow this week, unbelievably, Obama and the Democrats seem to be losing the spin war. There are the worrying poll numbers.

50 De-Stimulating Facts

The great French economist Frédéric Bastiat called politics “the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” But who pays for the state bailout? Savers will pay to bail out spenders, and future generations will pay to bail out the undisciplined present.

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

Health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Obama's Remarks at Press Conference

"The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose."  Translation: Sign the bill or I will trump you.

10 questions for Obama

Mark Sanford clearly explains why the stimulus is a very bad idea: 

h/t: American Thinker

Americans Don't Want The Porkulus Plan

Some interesting and encouraging analysis and commentary regarding the stimulus package:

Democrats say the tax cuts in the economic recovery plan are evidence of their outreach to Republicans. The problem with that logic is that President Obama understood the importance of tax cuts during his successful campaign for the White House. That’s one reason the Democratic presidential candidate promised to cut taxes for 95% of all Americans. The latest polling data confirms that tax cuts remain the most popular part of the economic recovery plan. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters nationwide say tax cuts generally help the economy, and only 17% disagree.

Forty-three percent (43%) of Americans would support an economic recovery plan that included only tax cuts and no new government spending. Just 15% would support a plan with only new government spending and no tax cuts.

So the inclusion of tax cuts are both a way for the president to honor his campaign pledge and a bipartisan solution that Americans naturally view as part of an economic recovery plan.

Many pundits have tried to make the case that Obama has a mandate to ignore the right.  I don't believe this is true.  After the primaries, Obama moved to the center. But the stimulus package, in its current form, is not a centrist piece of legislation.  Centrist America wants to see a stimulus strategy that includes tax cuts and restrained spending.  If Obama really is the political genius that his worhipers say he is, he will insist on legislation that reflects America's commonsense values.

More

Obama administration co-opting media analysts

Politico warns TV news viewers to take political analysis in the Age of Obama with a five-pound bag of Morton’s Salt.  Barack Obama’s right-hand man, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, holds daily conference calls with three prominent analysts who appear regularly as independent voices in the media’s political coverage.  

Bush hatred and Obama euphoria 

In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion.

Big Government Stimulus

In the Western world, countries that were once the crucible of freedom are slipping remorselessly into a thinly disguised serfdom in which an ever higher proportion of your assets are annexed by the state as superlandlord. Big government is where nations go to die – not in Keynes' "long run," but sooner than you think.

Obama's Global Interest Imperialism

On Nov. 4, 2008, Americans elected their first international president. They elected a man who does not seek to preserve American values. Leftists perceived George W. Bush as an imperialist for American interests; by the same token, Obama is an imperialist for "global interests." In a war to save America from implacable foes, Obama's Global Interest Imperialism dooms American exceptionalism to the ash heap of history. With it may go the last, best hope of Earth.

Netanyahu says Iran will not get hands on nukes

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's leading candidate for prime minister, said Saturday that Iran "will not be armed with a nuclear weapon."  In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV, Netanyahu said if elected prime minister his first mission will be to thwart the Iranian nuclear threat. 

New Obama tax-evasion scandal: Tom Daschle

Daschle’s team claims that the former Senator deserves the credit for revealing the problem himself.  Daschle did report this — but only after getting picked as HHS Secretary.  If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s when Geithner suddenly discovered that he owed Uncle Sam money too, only Daschle paid back a lot more: over $100,000.

Hackers Crack Into Texas Road Sign, Warn of Zombies Ahead

Hitler Taken Into Custody

Remember 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell?

He’s the little boy whose name was the center of an international firestorm in December after a Greenwich, N.J., supermarket refused to write his name on a birthday cake. The store said it was inappropriate and refused to give an apology after the parents demanded one.

Sgt. John Harris of the Holland Township Police Department has confirned that Adolf Hitler Campbell and his sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, were taken from their Holland Township, N.J., home on Friday by the state's Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS).

Their father, Heath Campbell, is expected in court Thursday in Flemington, N.J., in connection with the case. Kate Bernyk, a spokeswoman for the DYFS, said confidentiality laws barred her from commenting on the case or even confirming that the Campbell children were involved.

"DYFS has their reasons and they normally don’t release any information, so we kind of have to go on faith with them," Harris said. Police were not told what the agency was investigating. "I’ve dealt with the family for years and as far as the children are concerned, I have never had any reports of any abuse with the children," Harris said. "As far as I know, he’s always been very good with the children."

"Just from knowing Mr. Campbell from the past ten or so years, I've never known him to abuse his children and when he has talked about his children he has been very much into his kids. Very loving,” Harris said.

Speaking generally, Bernyk said the state's "decision to remove a child is based on the safety and well being of the child and the risk to that child, and that decision is made in conjunction with the courts and the county family court judge."

Forensic psychologist N.G. Berrill said naming a boy Hitler could be considered child abuse. "Part of it is the infantile nature of the parents’ behavior," Berrill said. "You can name your dog something weird, but they think they’re making some kind of bold statement with the children, not appreciating that the children will have separate lives and will be looked at in a negative light until they’re able to change their name. It is abuse."

If it turns out that the Campbell children were taken from their parents because of their names, it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened. Last year, a New Zealand court removed a 9-year-old girl from her parents in order to change her birth name: Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. In that country, officials do not deem a name abusive unless it causes serious bullying.

I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they've been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past," Heath Campbell said Tuesday in an interview. "There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change," he continued. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."

[Compiled from several news sources.]

I can certainly imagine situations in which action should be taken against parents who make very poor choices in naming a child (for example, if a parent were to give a child a name that included obscene words). But if government is going to get in the business of regulating names, action should be taken at the time when the parents choose the name, i.e., when the child is a newborn. Waiting until a child is 3 years old to address the problem is stupid. Taking the child away is irresponsible and subjects the child to psychological trauma that amounts to child abuse.

Another point: regulating baby names puts us on a very slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? What if someone names their child Stalin Campbell? How about Pol Pot Campbell or Kim Jong-il Campbell? Would Ahmadinejad Campbell be okay?

Update:

Adolf Hitler Campbell custody hearing postponed

More

Tim Geithner! How does a guy on the fast track to be Treasury secretary fail to pay $34,000 worth of federal taxes? Americans expect the man who’s in charge of the I.R.S. to pay his own taxes. Maureen Dowd has managed to make a legitmate point! Don't get excited, the rest of the article is disappointing.

Parents get serious about baby names in tough year.

CU's College Democrats oppose hiring of right-wing prof.

Obama inauguration to air in theaters

Man sells 14-year-old daughter into marriage for beer.

Skeptical of Obama's Stimulus Plan.

Our media (along with academia and the popular culture) have constructed an all-encompassing faux reality that cannot truly be understood unless you step outside of it.